End of Outsourcing and Start of YouTube Profit

This probably sounds really juvenile, but oh well: I felt really grown up at work this morning when I scheduled a design review for my newest project and we actually had to call in other engineers who know the skinny on my tool that I'm working on. A three person meeting expanded to six! Anyway, all these first at work are just a little cool for me, sorry. The inspiration for my post title today actually comes from one of the Smashing Pumpkins' first songs: "The End is the Beginning is the End," though neither part of my topic has actually happened yet. Consulting firm DiamondCluster International has discovered that outsourcing is on a steep decline with premature termination of projects diverted offshore on the rise (47% of all outsourced projects in the past year). It still definitely exists, but buyers are seeing less value from these projects and are re-evaluating their strategies. You'll probably see more as expansion into areas like Canada and Eastern Europe instead, which probably aren't nearly as cheap as India or China while still retaining quality, which is good because it ups the ante for IT folks domestically. Also, YouTube really isn't on a profitable trend quite yet, but they've discovered how they can pay the bills: appealing to the big boys. Advertisers are finding that some YouTube content is getting more views than television shows, which means that you'll probably see more trailers and viral marketing by way of normal videos on YouTube (likely featured on the front page) rather than ads tacked onto videos or obtrusive pop-ups. I'm sure they'd probably even devote more bandwidth to these clients and varying picture quality even. Could this make the company that won't allow itself to be bought profitable?

TG Daily had a chat with Austinite Michael Dell about his purchase of AlienWare, and he claims that he intends to keep that product line separate from their existent XPS series, but I don't see that in practice nor did he actually reveal how their appeals are different. It's clear that AlienWare is affecting the design of XPS products, so why don't they just merge the two? Or, how about changing how they market them? Rocketboom has been Congdon-less for a couple of weeks now, and they promised to be back this week. Guess what? Still no new episodes with a replacement host! Maybe now Andy will regret having pressured her into leaving. Microsoft has discovered 5 security flaws in Windows and Office that you'll want to patch up if you're using either (which is probably almost all of you). If only my Windows would let me update it. Motorola demoed some fancy finger-writing recognition technology in China through which their users can write things, well, with their fingers! This could make their phones even more popular since people won't have to fiddle around with those tiny stylus pens or tiny alphabet kepads. Lastly, hackers from around that area are actually targeting the State Department computers for highly sensitive information. You'd think that they'd hire some better staff to protect their data. Maybe if the government pumped more money into science we'd have more brilliant computer scientists in security.

There is extremely little movie news today. AICN's Capone has seen a pretty early screening of Beowolf and Grendel, which is based on the epic poem about Beowolf, who took on the monster Grendel for his king, and liked it. I actually remember it being a pretty good story, and I can see so many angles on it so I'm curious to see what they went with on it. The other piece of news I have is of a real trailer for A Night at the Museum, which I'm having problems watching right now, but I'll try checking it out at work tomorrow at some point.

It's not often that I find PostSecret postcards that I can actually relate to, so I have to post them when I find them:



Now for the Wednesday Mind Hump:

1. What is the most simple pleasure of your life? Or one of them, if you can't think of THE one.
Definitely eating. You don't realize how much you enjoy eating until you have to fast.

2. Name one thing you've done to simplify your life.
I've been using Launchy to startup my programs so that I don't have to mess around with my start menu.