We've had quite a week this week – lots of news, lots of action, and a few future battles heating up in the technology sector for the Geekosphere.  I will also, if possible, attempt to throw in a Watchmen reference if not more.

We know video is a growing area of interest, but a lot of events came into play this week.  Dailymotion added Hulu content to it's service,  ,there's an attempt between YouTube and Universal to create a premium music video site, and   Boxee sort of got Hulu content back. Meanwhile no one is sure what's going on with Blockbuster.  Among all of the existing battles,  Zillion TV came onto the scene strong with it's broadband ideas, but is facing a lot of challenges – which doesn't seem to faze the young company.  Right now I'd expect that video services and technology is going to be big because people want it, the new services can provide what people want cheaper, and it has been evolving for some time – but be careful if this impacts your career.  We know what people want, but aren't sure how they'll watch, man.

(OK, lame, but see at least ONE reference!)

Next up, more mobile tech news.  Research is pointing towards the iPhone being the big mobile web winner, with Google as the winner on search – a picture I expect is more complicated because the iPhone's penetration is only a small percentage of the phone that are owned by sixty percent of the world population.  One Palm investor seems to think the new Pre will crush the iPhone – which is smack talk, but who knows these days – after all there's a huge market there. AT&T even wants to get in on mobile gaming.    Between netbooks and increased interest in laptops, and successful mobile and portable devices, this is pretty much an inevitble market.

(I could commen't we can't be 100% sure of this and it's like a Rorsach blot at times, but that'd be lame – and also untrue considering we can be all but certain of a lot of smackdown and a big interest in this.  So no direct Watchmen reference.)

Finally in technology, we also saw some increasing interest in mobile reading and publishing.  We got to see a Kindle for iPhone, bringing the power of Amazon and Apple together.  Barnes and Noble also purchased e-book publisher Fictionwise.  Kindle has a lot of presence, but as noted here they're limited to the US, leaving a large world market available.  This is going to be a ower-level battle than the other three (video and handheld) I'd expect, but it can easily shape up into one – especially with an increasing move of content to online.  I'd say career-wise, people in the area of technology and publishing may want to stay on top of this because its so tame – it has the chance to alter quickly and surprise people – and to plan on national versus international ambitions.

(And will we see a Watchmen online?  OK look I'll stop the references.)

Videogame wise, Amazon got into the used game market (along with everyone else apparently).  The CEO of GameStop says this will fail, but he's not exactly going to say it'll work and destroy his company either.  As I expect DLC is going to slowly replace content, I figure GameStop has a lot more to loose anyway.  This issue will not be very relevant a decade from now unless things change radically in current trends.  No physical games, no game reselling.  Note that Blockbuster is more dependent on game rentals, and DLC will change that too . . , not that they don't have enough trouble as it is.

Also big in game news, the Midway story: it's burning through cash at an alarming rate, not helped by the fact that now insider trader claims are flying resulting in court actions.  Supposedly they wish to avoid a sale of Mortal Kombat, but I think that's unavoidable.  I consider us on death watch for the company still – that kind of scandal, that cash burn rate, it's just a matter of time until they're gone.  However I expect little impact on the market as many companies are hurting – in fact, if they keep selling off properties we might get a nice burst of games in a year or two – and there may be room as the market is scaling back.

Anime-wise we return to video, but not my lame jokes, where Funimation is putting more online and anime-themed online community Gaia is showing anime as well.  The latter is a perfect match – and could herald some competition with Crunchyroll.  As I've noted probably more times than I should, established communities are fantastic places for video companies to make distribution deals with, and this sounds like a good case of synergy.

Now, Watchmen jokes aside, movie attendance is up in this economy, something that surprised me until I read the deeper analysis.  Movies are a bargain compared to many other entertainments, and it's gotten people's attention.  If this trend continues I think is a matter of the economy – if it keeps getting worse, movies will seem to be less of a bargain.

And that's it for the week – we've got three "bubbles" heating up in mobile, video, and text, which I suspect will be very big as time progresses.

- Steve