Nettle’s MovieGoer app makes you the critic I want to listen to.

Nettle’s new MovieGoer app is only one example of the dominating trend. The Google Ventures-backed startup created MovieGoer with the goal of making going to the movies a more social experience. With Facebook and Twitter integrated into the app, MovieGoer lets you comment on movies you see and follow the movies your friends are seeing too.

This is not a totally novel idea. Popular movie sites like Rotten Tomatoes have already gone social, allowing you to comment on and like content on their site through your Facebook account. Perhaps MovieGoer’s virtue is in its Google+ like organization. With the feature MovieGoer Circle you can cultivate a close network of friends and family whose tastes you appreciate. Also, MovieGoer adds the option to record 15-second videos reviewing the movies you see. So whether you’re a textual or visual critic—don’t worry—your snarky opinions will be heard.

Nettle is capitalizing on something that’s increasingly more true with digital everything. We care less and less about the voice of the professional. A New York Times “Four Stars” means nothing to anyone anymore, and we stopped listening to Roger Ebert long before he made that awful comment about the late Jackass hero Ryan Dunn.

The voices we trust, and will continue trusting, are the ones that appear eloquently and efficiently through all our social networks. Like everybody, I aimlessly scroll through my Facebook newsfeed all the time. I also scroll aimlessly through news sites all the time. I only stop to read something or click on a link when a person has worked hard enough to intrigue me and engage me. And if the person’s opinions live up to their delivery, I’ll keep coming back and trust what they’re pushing. That’s what MovieGoer is for. In the same vein, that’s exactly what Spotify Social is for. The “Critic” in the turtleneck is dead, or at least his authority is. The new influential voice, the future’s proprietor of good taste, is hanging out somewhere on your friend list.

Follow Kyle @KyleKouri

Breaking Bad, for all intents and purpose, is hands down the best show on television. No drama series has quite as smart writing, masterful acting or understated characters as Breaking Bad does.

In fact, in four seasons, there is only one major issue I’ve had with the show, which says a lot given that the episodes are in forty five minute chunks. Unlike most media, Breaking Bad actually deserves the hype it gets and is not overrated in the slightest.

The following video is College Humor’s take on the last four seasons of Breaking Bad, 16-bit RPG style. While it covers all the major plot points of the series, there are also many more obscure references thrown in there just for fun. In short, if you’re a fan of Breaking Bad and have a penchant for 16-bit RPGS, you’ll really enjoy how College Humor was able to integrate the two.

WARNING: Do Not Watch Unless You Are Completely Caught Up on Breaking Bad.

Sony and Capcom are perhaps two of the most well-known video game publishers in Japan. But in keeping with a recent trend of Japanese companies taking huge financial hits, Sony and Capcom have been and will continue to go on a downward spiral if things don’t shape up soon.

This is likely why Sony announced a switchover in leadership, which will hopefully facilitate the idea in promoting an updated business model that will hopefully allow Sony to head upwards from what is expected to be a $2.9 billion annual loss.

Speaking to Reuters, Kim Young-Chan, an analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp in Seoul seems inclined to agree:

“It won’t be easy for Sony to regain its lost ground under new leadership, as its overall competitiveness has sharply weakened. It’s got structural problems that will take years to fix. “It’s not just Sony but Japanese IT firms have similar problems. They are failing to innovate and produce industry-leading products in almost every major area from TVs to displays, tablets and smartphones.”

Young-Chan’s comments on the Japanese tech industry at large can also be applied to video game publisher Capcom, who have just reported that sales for the 2011 fiscal year have decreased dramatically by 29% and that their operating income is down 47.2%.

Financially, things do not seem to be looking up for either company, in fact it may seem that both companies have the business sense of Spongebob with his ‘Pretty Patties.’

Evidently, Spongebob first tried burying his money, then shredding it, and burning it, but he eventually decided to just give it away to his costumers.

Hopefully, both Sony and Capcom prove to not be quite as ridiculous with their business antics, otherwise, like ‘Pretty Patties’ they may just go under.

That or be sold to Mr. Krabs in an insider trading deal.

After what they consider to be careful consideration, Sony has announced in the New York Times that they have replaced CEO Howard Stringer with Kazuo Hirai. Stringer, a Welsh-born American, has been CEO of the company since 2005, but has had difficulty in turning a profit in the last four years, particularly with Sony’s Playstation console and online gaming ventures through Son Online Entertainment.

Kazuo Hirai served as the former president of Sony’s consumer electronics group. In this role, he oversaw production and development of the Sony Vita and other Sony electronic products and was in charge of Sony Online Entertainment, online distribution of music and videos as well as other key features of the company. Upon his promotion with a unanimous vote from board executives, Hirai had the following to say:

“As challenging as times are for Sony now, were it not for the strong leadership of Sir Howard Stringer these past seven years, we would have been in a much more difficult position. The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses.”

Hirai will effectively become CEO on April 1st, and Stringer will continue in his role as chairman until June when he’ll become chairman of he board. Hirai has spent most of his career with Sony, and has worked for the company since 1984 and has been involved in the video game division since 1995.

Perhaps Hirai’s experience is exactly what Sony needs to better integrate the Playstation Network into the rest of its products, and hopefully Hirai’s experience working with the Playstation division will be fruitful to the company. It will certainty be interesting, to say the least, to see what direction Hirai will take the next generation of Sony hardware to compete with Microsoft’s ever-expanding home entertainment empire.

What would a NYC protest be without a Seinfeld pun?

The police’s main occupation was helping confused people who worked in the senators’ building find their way back in. A few were very indignant that they had to walk an extra 20 feet around the barricade.

There were dozens of copies of this sign scattered amongst the crowd. Senators Schumer and Gillibrand both took their phones off the hook because they’re receiving so many calls, but let’s hope that they at least peaked out the window.

Similar protests are taking place in San Fransico and Washington D.C, and the protest itself is meant to coincide with the SOPA Internet blackout, which will also take place on January 18th. Leading tech companies such as Wikipedia, MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic, IcanHasCheezBurger, and hundreds of others will be taking their sites offline to protest SOPA and PIPA. If you’re in the area, please come down and join Internet leaders such as co-founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian and CEO of Meetup.com and Founder of NY Tech Meetup Scott Heiferman, as well as some of your favorite TFT writers and editors to protest what is one of the most draconian and misguided pieces of legislation in recent memory.

UPDATE: SOPA is not actually off the table, this is a product of misinformation being thrown around to disillusion and confuse the public. It has merely been postponed until February.

When Obama announced that his administration would not support SOPA, support for the bill naturally waned, but in a surprise move, SOPA was suspended indefinitely earlier today by Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA).

Now take a minute, relax, and pat those in opposition on the back.

But celebration should only be momentary, as the legislative ‘war on piracy’ is far from over. While SOPA is officially gone, PIPA (Protect IP Act), its awkward red-headed stepsister of a bill is still alive and kicking, with legislation on the bill kicking up substantially. This is an old tactic, and is what is known as a door in the face technique, meaning that while people are celebrating the door slammed on SOPA, Congress will attempt to subtly legislate PIPA, as perception in the midst of celebration will be dulled.

Luckily, Congress has been called out by Reddit, Wikipedia and other tech companies, who will still go ahead as planned with tomorrow’s SOPA Blackout protest to recognize PIPA still being on the legislative table. While SOPA passing is now a recent memory, PIPA is still a very real and dangerous bill that will still irrevocably alter the way the Internet works, and can have terrible economic consequences on sites with great content, such as The Faster Times. At the very least, it will cause all of us here to have to consider a new line of work.

A number of tech industry folk put together a video on SOPA and PIPA including internet celebrities and entrepreneurs such as Jim Sterling, Chad Vadar, Ben Huh, Rick Calvert, Andy Hayes, Jerry Lawson, Chris Ducker, Andrea Vahl as Grandma Mary, Courtney and Adam Baker and Jessica Gottlieb. It would definitely be to your benefit to check out the video to just be more educated and aware from industry experts about this legislation

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zCNa1XSwdw

In a blog post released recently by the White House, the Obama administration has come out against SOPA, the controversial Internet censorship anti-piracy bill that, if passed, would have had the potential to break the internet as we know it. Three of Obama’s advisers, Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra and Howard Schmidt have expressed the viewpoint that the bill would harm legal business and hurt free speech.

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.

This is similar to sentiments shown by the tech community, lead by Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, as the bill could easily lead to legal use. While this effectively ends the life of SOPA, we should not forget about PIPA (Protect IP Act), its sister bill, which is still up for hearing and legislation.

Obama supporting the tech community on this issue not only makes sense logically, but will also likely bolster his chances for reelection, which seem high given the mish-mash of opposition he currently faces. If the support of the Obama administration continues throughout the rest of the legislative process, then this could easily turn into a platform which he can reinvigorate the young voter to his campaign.

While Reddit has been leading the charge in the January 18th SOPA Blackout, to protest the Washington sponsored bill that if passed, may very well break the internet, Wikipedia has been deliberating on whether or not to join up in the protest. However, Wikipedia Co-founder Jimmy Wales has now decided to take part in the protest and has confirmed so via his Twitter feed:

Wikipedia is by far the single biggest site to join the protest, with an average of 25 million unique users per day on its English site alone. It would be great if Facebook and Google were to join the protest, but as for now, we should assume that they will not and act accordingly. As Mr. Wales suggests, it would be great if everyone could finish their homework before the 18th, because otherwise, you might have to actually read the assigned text.

And we wouldn’t want that, would we?

While Wikipedia has one foot in the water about joining Reddit in their SOPA protest, Red 5 Studios, developer of the upcoming MMO Firefall, has no such reservations. Support for the protest, or even just general animosity toward SOPA, has been minimal from video game developers and publishers, but Red 5 Studios intends to break that notion and stand out from the crowd. Speaking on behalf of Red 5 Studios, CEO Mark Kern had the following to say:

Red 5 Studios is joining Reddit in protest of SOPA by going dark on January 18. We will be taking down our website, community site and Firefall beta for 24 hours on the 18th.

We are extremely disappointed in this misguided legislation. We are also ashamed of the ESA for supporting a bill which is clearly not in the best interests of gamers or the game industry.

This bill, and it’s sister bill, Protect IP, will shut down live streaming, shout casting, user generated content and have a chilling effect on game innovation and social media.

Most of all, it hurts the smaller game companies, who will not have the legal resources or lobbying presence to protect themselves from unwarranted shutdown.

We issue a call to all our industry peers, including developers, publishers and game press, to join us in letting the ESA know they do not represent our views on this issue, and strongly oppose SOPA and PIPA.

In addition to shutting down their website, Red 5 Studios also plans on shutting down the beta for Firefall during the protest. To further show their disgust for the ESA, Red 5 Studios has cancelled their appearance at E3 2012, and while it will be disappointing to not see Firefall demo, it’s great to a company stick to its convictions. Not to mention, this is quite the PR opportunity for Red 5 Studios to build ideological support for both its products and brand.