Links of the Day 3/27/2009

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics
China's going big with Subway construction which they'd probably need with or without an economic downturn. I suspect these will be kept or even increased as a form of stimulus as well as modernization. Will this get the attention of politicians over in other countries that need more public transport (say, the US?). Stay tuned pro-geeks (especially if you're in engineering, transport IT, or project management like yours truly).

How can we improve jobs for service workers - links to several sources. Worth keeping up on as economic stability and growth is an issue people are suddenly a lot more aware of. It may also give you some ideas in the future if you work in government, teaching, or training technologies.

Anime
Anime Insider closes it's doors - In no way am I surprised. Anime fandom is heavily wired, so any opportunities to write, contribute, publish on the subject will be online.

Publishing
Open Source Textbook company Flat World Knowledge raises $8 million in VC - Quite a nice chunk of money invested in open source college textbooks - someone sees financial potential in this. Prices of college textbooks can get outrageous so I see this being a definite market to say the least, but want to see if they're financially viable. Myself, I wonder if this represents some possibilities for more publishers (newspapers as well?), though they're targeted to a specific market. Side note - just what could happen if these folks provided books for the various e-book readers (another income stream?).

Social Media
Facebook seeks to raise $100 million more - Not all is well at Facebook obviously, and I don't think their growth strategy can last forever - they've got to make money (and as one poster noted, non-ad accounts would probably sell). My concern here is that if Facebook takes a big hit or makes some bad choices, the social media race could turn into panic at the drop of a hat and be highly disruptive - and have an effect on everyone providing aps to ads for Facebook. More something to keep an eye on - Facebook won't fail, but what happens to it will affect your use of social media and how others approach it.

How one town is leveraging social media - Extremely interesting look at how one small community is leveraging the technology. Read this, now extend it. Now imagine what you can do for your company, or clients, or consider that social media is already something people are consulting on and you get some great career ideas or career-enhancing ideas.

Video
Disney is joining up with Hulu - How seems to be in question, but it looks like they'd get a stake in the company in return for content. I'm sure something will come of this - Disney can see what's coming. Of course this could give a lot more power and influence to Hulu, which shifts things in the video wars - Hulu seems to be becoming the default video provider online for many people at this rate (and will want to maintain that). I'm not ready to say Hulu is a good bet for the long-term or the best place to work - right now in the video wars nothing is certain. Disney's involvement however shows yet another company realizing the importance of what's going on, so I'd say career-wise a good bet to work with online video may be working inside a content provider . . .

Virtual Goods
Online reward system - rewarded participants prefer virtual goods - About an interesting online reward system for educational games, letting parents reward children for educational participation. So far the rewarded children prefer virtual goods by an extremely high margin. Still experimental, the results are not unexpected, but I find it interesting to watch. My take? If more reward systems like this are created and the existing ones expand, there will be a gradual shift to physical goods as people get more used to it and see it as less virtual. I'm actually excited about what resume-worthy SmartyCard is up to in general, but do feel this will likely shift in time. As a side note, if SmartyCard and others do well, the whole virtual school-rewards thing could baloon - imagine what deals could be made with schools to create virtual incentives?

Video Games
A look at what you can learn from Social Games from the CEO of Playfish. Basic summary: big franchises challenged, games as services, marketing more like web marketing, design changes, and more player feedback. Worth reading for the insights, and mostly fitting what I've been seeing - more specifically, the player-centric approach. The feedback of social media models is, in my mind, a way to adapt much quicker to player needs and should be explored. Some good insights for those of you in gaming, social media, or thinking of going into them.

And now signing out and recovering from GDC . . .

- Steve