Everyone's getting ready for the iPad, but a lot of companies – CNN, 4Kids, Real Networks, Borders, the manufacturer of BlackBerry phones - are in serious trouble. Here's the news, and we promise you, no pranks!
Economics/Geeknomics
Journal of Commerce Commodity Index Reaches 18-Month High: This measues sales of components used in manufacturing, such as metals, rubber and plywood. The bottom line is factories are making more stuff because they anticipate selling more stuff – another sign we may have turned the corner with this recession.
Computers/Web Tech
Mitsubishi Electric Focuses on Sales Growth in China: A Japanese company looks to the booming tech market in China for sales salvation. If you're going to do business in high-tech products on an international level, China is definitely a market to consider, especially considering its exploding gaming industry (but despite its Web censorship problems).
Video Games
Five Companies Account For Three-Quarters of GameStop Revenue: And they're Nintendo, EA, Sony, Activision/Blizzard and Microsoft. Three of the five are, of course, the console makers – which came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I thought people tended to buy their hardware at somewhere like Best Buy and their software from GameStop. (Nintendo, though, does produce a good deal of its own software). And this shows just how dominant in the marketplace EA and Activision/Blizzard are. Overall, a good guideline to buying patterns for anyone in the gaming industry.
Google Partnering With Nintendo For Japanese Wii Game?: It was on Nintendo's own site, but let's watch this one to see if it pans out or if it's the House of Mario's April Fools prank.
Smartphones
Profits Slipping At BlackBerry Phone Manufacturer: Research in Motion's figures fell four percent after it shipped 10.5 million phones last quarter, which missed the company's original estimate of 11.3 million phones. A definite sign that BlackBerry is fading from the phone scene, especially with increased competition from Android phones.
AT&T May Be Underestimating Impact of iPad on Its Network: They're counting on most people connecting via WiFi, which may not be the case. Given the complaints about the AT&T network as it is, this could have bad consequences for them – especially if reports of a Verizon-ready iPhone in a number of months pan out.
Streaming Media
Hulu Has Been Profitable For Two Quarters: Like anyone's surprised. Hulu has been one of the biggest tech success stories out there for some time now, and they're just going to continue to grow, making them a very safe bet for employment right now.
Real Networks Cuts 60 Jobs: The company says its "adapting to market conditions" and preparing for the spinoff of its Rhapsody music service. They've been struggling for awhile now, so they're as much of a "no" jobwise right now as Hulu is a "yes."
YouTube Unveils Redesign: The idea is to make it more streamlined so users will stay longer and watch more videos (and, we imagine, click on more links from their "buy this video" partners, resulting in profits for both YouTube and the site on the other end of the click). The transition didn't go entirely smoothly, though, as there were reports of outages during the upgrade.
Television
CNN Ratings Down 40% In One Year: Ironically, its own, very well-done Web site may be one of the culprits as online news eats away at the broadcast variety as much as it is affecting traditional print newspapers (for instance, the BBC reports its news site traffic is up 25% in four months). Meanwhile, at least one analyst is theorizing that the future of news may be nonprofit news organizations - which may not be entirely the case, but it'll be a factor.
Publishing
Borders Sales Down 13%: The company has managed to cut its losses and obtain new financing, but it doesn't look good for the bookseller chain that mainstreamed manga. I'm going to predict a merger with Barnes and Noble down the line, and if that happens, I hope they contribute the Borders chain's advantages (the aforementioned manga, which tends to get in faster and be a broader selection than Barnes and Noble; a bigger selection of non-mainstream-bestseller books) to Barnes and Noble's business model.
Tablets/Netbooks
Wall Street Journal Tech Critic Says iPad Could Get Used More Than Laptops: Walt Mossberg's review is just some of the positive press the device has been receiving, with The New York Times and USA Today also weighing in. The general consensus is the iPad is definitely the spearhead of the latest tech revolution. And, while we're on the subject, we have confirmation of a Marvel Comics iPad app that will let users "flip" through the pages – expect it to be duplicated throughout the manga and comics industries. Also, publishers are said to be negotiating new E-book deals with Amazon in anticipation of Apple's device and its Kindle app, and ABC and CBS are said to be creating special stream formats for the device. This thig is going to impact the entire geekonomy, folks.
Anime/Manga
4Kids May Be Delisted From New York Stock Exchange: And Blockbuster is also included in the threat, a definite case of "how the mighty hath fallen" in both cases. (I crosschecked this one on Google to make sure it's not an April Fool's prank, given that I originally saw it on an anime site).
Crunchyroll to Stream Stan Lee's Heroman One Hour After it Airs in Japan: And if we needed any more proof that Crunchyroll is a major industry player now, this is it.
Film
Have Video Games and Computer Graphics Killed Puppets?: A valid question in light of the new Clash of the Titans, which substitutes computer imagery from the stop-motion animation of the original. Why some old-school skills may not be worth learning anymore. (And I STILL expect to see the EA logo at the end of those COTT movie trailers.)
Geek News of the Weird
TechCrunch Tracks April Fool's Pranks and Hoaxes: Some real creativity on display here. My favorite is the Android app that translates animal speech.
Dark Side of the Moon Redone As NES Soundtrack: One very clever musician reworks the Pink Floyd classic into . . . well, it sounds like the soundtrack of some twisted old-school Mario game. A brilliant example of fan inventiveness – this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking tech companies want and need. (No, this is NOT an April Fool's prank, you can go to YouTube and see it yourself. And no, I don't know if it synchs up perfectly with any old-school Wizard of Oz video games).
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Given the dramatic drop in CNN ratings, is traditional television news a dinosaur? Or is it going to survive intact after a period of transformation (like publishing)?
- Bonnie