I'm in college and am currently taking a business course. My project which is due monday is a 3+ page paper about a business. I chose to write about Funimation. Currently, this company is the leader in anime production in America and so I wanted to present that to my peers. However, there simply isn't enough information available to me even on this vast internet. I'm hoping that someone could help me by giving me more information about the company, its policies, ethics, job opportunities, as well as history and predictions of the future. It seems not even wikipedia has enough for my presentation. I believe that I could really make my presentation interesting with some aid from the company that I'm presenting (or very knowledgable fans). Thank you for any help I can get. 
November 8, 2012 - 3:47pm
#1
For Funimation: History
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If it were me, I would probably begin with an intro about the anime industry in R1, and move into how Funimation is the leader in this field. I would follow this with a history paragraph, their about us page has a couple of paragraphs about their history...I'd flesh these out with some information I found elsewhere on the Internet, and then move on to how they have moved into the online streaming business, give some specifics about that, when they began doing it, the ad based vs Elite subscription differences, and their latest move, the addition of apps (Roku, iPad, Samsung TVs, etc...) Just some suggestions of where I'd take it.
Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.- Steven Wright
As for job opportunities, check out their careers page, as well as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.
I have years of college under my belt and as such, have picked more than my share of difficult topics, little information topics, etc. (Seems like those are the only kind I picked.) So I do feel I can give you a little direction on this.
First, have a backup topic and if you can't get a sufficient amount of information on FUNimation for your paper by midday Saturday, then start work on that backup. Trust me, your blood pressure numbers will thank you.
Secondly, as far as information on FUNimation is concerned, your best bet there is going to be Sophie. She's FUNimation staff and is the admin of the forums and as such, she's on the boards frequently so I would recommend sending her a message directly with a request for any information she could be allowed to provide.
Also, from a researcher's perspective, be very careful about any internet sources, especially wikipedia. Wikipedia is user editable, and even though there are "sources" cited at the bottom of the page, they aren't reliable, or are ridiculously biased (most people don't pay attention to Wikipedia's sources, just that they are sourced).
Actually interestingly enough, research has now shown that the size of Wikipedia's contributor base and the user generated content policing practices (in a sense a law of averages thing) makes it at least as reliable on most subjects as traditional sources such as the Encyclopedia Britannica. Where it suffers is where there is a large amount of controversy on a subject like a moral view, or a popular person. In such cases there will be large followings of proponents and opponents in each direction, and their edits are not weeded out by the typical policing practices.
Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.- Steven Wright
This here is very correct - there is a lot of bias on Wikipedia and the information is so slanted I would be almost inclined to consider it a form of mild propaganda and though persuation - especially with my current course and my recent research; it's actually amazing how biased the information there is - seriously. I will say it's good though for just some simple and basic information, in your case the overall stucture of Funimation, some history, where it is etc. But for other topics, more serious ones, avoid that site like the plague.
In terms of being on topic, I've used Funimation in a report for college once - there is a lot of information, one could write a complete thesis on Funimation's marketing component alone - everything from how technology and the internet is used (social media marketing baby!), to other means of reaching the target audience through anime and game magazine ads to the trailers that are included with your recent purchases.
I lent a guy at work my Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood set, he saw the trailers for the Evengelion movies and now he's curious and wants to see them - he didn't even know there was a TV series first - so I'll be lending him that next.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge
Alrighty, I was able to scrounge up what I needed for this presentation. It's not long -thankfully- so what I've gotten works. My problem is probably that I don't know how to research from a business perspective, only casual. Once I started looking at what I was typing into the search engine more carefully then I was able to gather enough of what I needed. Thank you for the help.