Globalization
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Zuckerberg's vague new mission for Facebook
Facebook had already run into rocky territory over the past year, stumbling over censoring historically-significant content and wrestling with its own role in the election, before Trump came to office. Amid an 'America First' administration raising uncertainty about how the US fits in with the rest of the world, the social network's CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote an extensive letter to the public outlining his company's next direction -- which isn't to say it's a new direction. In a sprawling 5,700-word essay, he rallies for globalization and using Facebook to build a massive, integrated community beyond the US. In other words: To keep growing the network and making it more essential for users.
ABC's Nightline goes inside Foxconn's Apple factory (video)
Nightline's Bill Weir managed to get his feet inside manufacturing behemoth Foxconn: the infamous plant where iPads, Xboxes and Kindles are constructed. Following multiple explosions and employee suicides, the factory is being inspected by the Fair Labor Association to examine working conditions exposed by the efforts of journalists like Liu Zhiyi. In the show, we learn that on a quiet day, 3,000 prospective employees will linger outside the factory in the hope of earning just $1.78 an hour. Weir himself manages to coax the concession from company advisor Louis Woo that the multiple tragedies were a belated catalyst for change in the company's working conditions. The full special will air on ABC tomorrow but we've got a sneak peek for you after the break.
The iPod's effect on the global economy
Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, wrote a piece last week in which she cited a paper -- Innovation and Job Creation in a Global Economy: The Case of Apple's iPod -- by three scholars who studied how the iPod has impacted the world economy. Freeland's assertion in "Winners and Losers in the Apple Economy" is that "the key to understanding the U.S. economy" is any device created by Steven P. Jobs. The paper by scholars Gren Linden, Jason Decrick, and Kenneth L. Kraemer that Freeland takes her talking points from was published last month, but uses somewhat stale data. The study results are based on data from five years ago, which is like trying to describe the current U.S. military with a discussion of equipment and tactics from the Civil War. In 2006, iPod design and manufacturing employed 27,250 people overseas, and about 13,920 in the U.S. That's a year before the iPhone hit the market, and four years prior to the introduction of the iPad, so the numbers are miniscule compared to the employment in the Apple economy in 2011. Freeland's conclusion is that American innovation creates a lot more jobs outside of the country than it does inside. That's not surprising in the least. The interesting part of the post is that the predominant beneficiary of Apple's innovation were the American engineers and professional workers who created the iPod. They made up only 6,101 of the almost 14,000 U.S. Apple employees associated with iPod design and production, but made about US$525 million -- more than twice what all of the foreign non-skilled employees took home. Freeland notes that although globalization does create more jobs overseas, the professional employees and shareholders of Apple clearly keep much of the financial value inside the United States. The non-skilled American Apple employees who participated in iPod production and development -- such as office support and retail staff, or freight and distribution workers -- accounted for 7,789 jobs, but brought in only $220 million. I'm not sure exactly what Freeland is trying to do with her article other than throw fuel on the tired "haves, have-nots" fire. Sure, non-skilled workers both here and abroad are making less money than their professionally trained counterparts. However, the engineers and developers who are pulling in the big bucks spend years of their lives not only getting advanced degrees, but also continuing their education to stay current with the latest technological leaps. It would be eye-opening to see the results of a similar study of the Apple economy that takes advantage of more recent data, particularly now that Apple's success has been skyrocketing thanks to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
The Lawbringer: The lessons of globalization and gold farming
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? Back in 2008, I wrote an article for The Escapist titled Crossing Boundaries, a piece all about globalization as the greatest issue facing video game developers and producers at the time. Guess what, ladies and gentlemen? It's 2011, and globalization still takes the top spot as the prime issue challenging video game development and production. Rather than rewrite an article on the effects of globalization and the problems the phenomenon causes for the video game industry at large, I thought it might be fun to use globalization as a rubric for discussing the very global industry of gold farming, especially when it comes to the legal nature of things, whatever things may be. We will talk about the lack of predictability in the global market, gold farming as globalization, and the problems with fighting the good fight against the grey market. Won't you join me?
ION 08: State of online games keynote
Globalization is one of the session tracks here at ION 08, as befitting an industry seeking the holy grail of a truly global marketplace for online games. Tuesday's keynote was delivered by Won II Suh of Neowiz, a Korean online games company with 20 titles currently supported or in development by 1000 employees across 8 regions around the world. Mr. Suh described the current landscape of online gaming in Asia and the state of East-West partnerships happening at an increasing rate around the world (Activision and Blizzard, Neowiz and EA, THQ and Shanda to name a few). Crossover from West to East already has some success stories (NBA Street, e.g.) while the East to West crossover is still fairly nascent. Suh spoke to a fundamental paradigm shift in the way games are made and played in both markets as part of the reason so much of this crossover is happening now. He stressed the importance of prioritizing human and cultural connections as predicates to success for Western companies hoping to break into Eastern markets, indicating that even if the business and financial plans make sense, companies are still prone to fail if they misunderstand or gloss over the critical steps of establishing real human relations and corporate culture due diligence when aspiring to do business in Asia. All of the slides from the keynote are available in our gallery.%Gallery-22795%
