Career:
A look at delusions students of game design have

Publishing:
Even the Onion is having print problems: it's San Francisco and LA publications are closing. Advertising appears to have been the issue.

Social Media:
Where MySpace and Facebook get traffic – From similar sources. And each other. Note ever-growing company Zynga.com is in there as well.

Social Media creation tool company Ning launches applications for their networks. Note a lot of apps involve other companies providing services as well – and that Ning is used for specialist communities. I'm curious to see how this works, but as part of the bigger picture it seems Ning is well established (and with their last investment round, well capitalized). They're definitely getting my attention, and the ability to support specialist communities makes me think they've got a future.

Technology:
Amazon may be asking for 70% of revenue from newspaper companies using them – I'm sure the deal varies among papers, but this doesn't bode well for the Kindle saving papers. I also wonder if Amazon does feel the indle is something that'll go away eventually and wants to milk it for all its worth now. Not going to be endearing Amazon to some people, that's for sure – and a good place for others interested in text delivery to come in.

Video Games:
From the department of not-sure: despite it's cuts in gaming, Microsoft has bought video game firm Big Park. It sounds like there's some past association, but this really makes me wonder what Microsoft's strategies are in the game area.

Virtual goods and unusual billing models in MMO's again: this time at THQ, who looks to be making deals in Asia for Heroes Online, the MMO, and bringing it to the US and elsewhere.

Finally, it appears that Duke Nukem developer 3D Realms is shutting down which may mean that Duke Nukem Forever may A) never come out, B) stop being a joke about vaporware, so another product can take its place.

- Steve Savage