Career Advice:
Jason Alba gives some good advice on turning virtual contacts into real-world ones.
Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
The unusual political blog The Moderate Voice takes a look at an interesting phenomena: homes being razed after foreclosure. Might be useful if you're moving to keep up on this.
A useful animated map of job losses and gains over time – Pretty stunning in some cases. It also helps one understand that unemployment statistics may be skewed by one major region (such as a city) experiencing losses that impact the surrounding area, OR several areas suffering at once. A good reminder, again, if you're relocating
Publishing:
The Equivalent of Netflix for Books? – An interesting idea, and another note in the Book Wars. No idea if this will actually work OUT, but intriguing nonetheless.
Social Media:
Stealth Startup LOLApps launches – and they've done a lot of work for Facebook with apps – and apparently make app development easier. SOunds like they're well positioned, and worth watching for both jobs and what they do. I can't say they're overly stealthy as they've been recruiting for months.
Facebook may find a way to piggyback an ad network onto Facebook Connect – Also worth watching (and gives them some financial advantages). They certainly could use all the cash they can get. Now I wonder if the announcement of LOLapps hints that this is going to happen.
Unavoidable useful site Mashable gives its monthly report of the fastest growing social sites. Fan-to-pro crush object Linkedin is in there, but I'm also curious as to Bebo, whose overseas presence gives it a solid foundation to grow in North America – I'd watch them as I could see them become more and more indespensible.. Twitter of course is growing like Kudzu (And Opra gave it a boost).
Technology:
Texas instruments profits down 99%. Despite this dismal news the CEO is claiming that demand has stabilized – which I somewhat credit, but he's also in an embarassing situation. I'm thinking that a lot of chipmakers may be stable (look at Intel), but I don't believe it passionately.
-Steve "Stealth Startup"