L.A. has long had a second-city complex when it comes to tech slightly resentful of Silicon Valley for keeping all the thunder. According to a recent industry study, L.A. is still the second city, but not by much.
The city’s 165,700 tech jobs pay an average of $75,600 per year. That’s the second highest number of jobs, and sixth best for pay. Not bad, but not great. San Jose, predictably, came in first with tech jobs paying an average of $127,000.
Los Angeles has the most high tech companies, at 7,800 but Silicon Valley still has more jobs overall about 215,000 jobs, according to AeA, the tech industry trade association. The June study, called California Cybercities 2006, compares the 17 largest metropolitan areas in the state. The study was based upon data from 2004, the most recent available.
L.A. is the leader in some sectors. It’s first in defense technology jobs (28,700), telecom services jobs (26,400) and engineering services jobs (18,000).
California has shifted into recovery mode following its tech bust. Jobs are still being lost, but at a much slower rate. In 2004, the state lost 10,600 tech jobs, or one percent, compared to the nearly 68,000 jobs lost the year before.
Between Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California has 418,000 tech workers, compared to 439,000 in Northern California.
Napster Upgrade
Napster Inc. is swinging for the fences again. The subscription-based digital music firm has upgraded its service to an engine developed by its in-house engineers, called PowerSync. The company is breaking away from Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media Player. “Windows Media is much more general purpose, and we wanted to build the sync engine directly into Napster,” said Bill Pence, chief technology officer. The engine is designed for faster transferring and downloading of music from a user’s computer to his portable MP3 player. “The goal is to allow you to grab as much content as you want and get it on the device as quick as you can,” he added.
Napster is also unveiling its latest branded MP3 player, a one-gigabyte device designed by South Korean manufacturer DnC Tech Inc. The new player will cost $50 with a 12-month subscription to Napster.
Napster also offers a free MP3 player with a 12-month subscription. At just 256 megabytes, however, the player is dwarfed by Apple Computer Inc.’s small iPod Shuffle with 512 megabytes of memory. The leader in the digital music space, iPod models are also available with 20 and 40 gigabytes of memory.
“This is not necessarily designed to be our response to an iPod,” Pence insisted. He sees the Napster MP3 players as introductory devices. “It’s for someone who wants to get into a service and have a player provided to them at once. For a lot of those people, one gigabyte is plenty.”
Happy Insomniacs
For the second year in a row, the Society of Human Resource Management has ranked L.A.-based Insomniac Games among the 50 best small and mid-sized companies to work for in America.
The Burbank-based developer is the only video game company ever to make the list. Its 155 employees enjoy yoga, massage therapy, free catered meals and discounted gym membership, among other perks. It earned a No. 4 ranking on the list, a slight slip from its third-place rank last year.
“It’s a real honor to be included once again among the five best small companies to work for,” said Ted Price, founder and president of Insomniac. Rankings are based on employee attitudes in surveys. In a highly competitive video game environment, Insomniac has remained an independent development studio and aims to stay that way, according to Price. The studio develops games exclusively for Sony Corp..
Postage Contest
Personalized postage company Stamps.com Inc. and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum launched a “PhotoStamp of the Year” contest in June. The Santa Monica-based company pioneered the custom stamps program, which allows consumers to use their own photos to create valid U.S. postage.
The yearlong contest will give three winners the chance to have their PhotoStamps displayed at the Smithsonian museum. The grand-prize winner will also get an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to see the exhibit. The first runner up will receive a Canon digital camera, and the second runner up will receive a gift certificate for $250-worth of PhotoStamps. Each month, a panel of judges from Stamps.com will select three winners based on aesthetic value, originality, creativity and “the story behind the image.” Those winners will be entered into the grand-prize selection process.
The PhotoStamps program launched last year as a trial program and recently gained government approval to offer businesses advertising and logo opportunities on stamps. The U.S. Postal Service has embraced personalized postage as a way to freshen interest in snail-mail. Stamps.com is one of three companies authorized to provide custom photo-stamps. The others are Zazzle Inc. and Endicia Internet Postage, both of Palo Alto.
Staff reporter Hilary Potkewitz can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 226, or by e-mail at [email protected].
