Marketers and other folks will go anywhere do anything within the social networking space. Boundaries do not exist, and in general folks that market on the Internet are as busy using web 2.0 tools to send their message as you are talking back and forth with your friends.
Download Squad has a great article on twitter spam, and the problems that ensues when people randomly start following people because they decided to follow them.
Twitter users are increasingly starting to question whether the frequent number of Twitter accounts that are following them are actually people, or simply a form of Twitter spamming. The rule of thumb with that sort of question is usually that if you think something nefarious might be going on, unfortunately, you’re probably right. Source: Download Squad
The cool part is that there is also an introduction here to twitter twerp scan as a way to identify those folks who are spamming, although the thought that we are having is that this is only going to be as good as the collective community that starts adding things to the twerp scan process.
Askimet and other spam tools, even stopbadware.org are only as good as their scanners, and only as good as the people who report sites. There also has to be a mechanism to challenge the entry in twitter twerp, some nasty marketing folks think it is just fine to lodge complaints against all their competitors in systems like this.
Business is a nasty thing to be involved with, and if you don’t believe us, check out the Chilling Effects Clearing house to learn all about businesses that try to claim copyright against their competitors, and use the DMCA and other rules to get their competitors right off the Internet.
In all, it is a good idea, but as spammers get more creative, and marketers seem to be willing to take up any way to get their message across, all web 2.0 social systems need to take precautions. This should be a standard part of the business model for anyone that is hoping to make money off of user contributed content. Spammers are good, quick to hop on any new technology, and if they are allowed free reign on a system, will quickly figure out ways to saturate said system until it is no longer usable by anyone.
Keywords: twitter, twerp, scan, chilling effects, friends, idiots, web 2.0, users, sad
Amazon has a toy from Playmobile called the “security checkpoint”, and while it is out of stock, the consumer comments on this product are phenomenally funny.
There is a sense of irony here that if you pull up the page, customers who bought this product also seem to want to buy scientology texts. Check here for humor.
The best comment in the lot
I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger’s shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger’s scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said “that’s the worst security ever!”. But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.
The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillence society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas. I’ve heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I’ll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush). Source: Amazon.com
The rest of the comments are just as funny. You have to ask yourself what was Playmobile thinking, although it is an even better question to ask, what are parents thinking if they bought this for their kids.
Casual Games meets social networking, in what has to be one of the more interesting ideas out there, and if anyone has ever played cooperative casual games you know what we are talking about, the idea of social networking and casual games could mean a lot of fun for participants.
Outspark relies on social networking, casual games, and ops that are deep in the game dropping Easter eggs and treasure as people progress through their casual game.
The startup is creating what it calls a “virtual playground,” accessible through its web site. Users interact with one another while playing casual video games and develop online personalities that remain with their characters. Outspark staffers actively participate in games, inserting a monster here or treasure there depending on the circumstances. A few days before Christmas, players were treated to an online party that included a costume contest and a juice bar. Source: Red Herring
What is interesting is that their round of financing was lead by a Chinese investment firm. China as well as Japan, Korea and others has huge markets for on line games. This could be a huge market and audience for Outspark as well as prove to be a valuable testing ground for scaling, and social interaction on a massive player base.
Players will also have the ability to purchase virtual items, which has proven to be a somewhat lucrative market for gold miners and other groups that collect then sell virtual goods. What will be interesting to see is how they manage the competition from people who try to sell virtual goods for their games outside of the gaming environment and off the Outspark site.
This is going to be one gaming group to watch and see what happens.
The Nintendo Wii has been hacked, and can now run homebrew code, meaning there are going to be a lot of interesting homebrew games, and unfortunately ripping of commercial games for the P2P/Bittorrent consumer.
The register reports from the 24th Chaos Communication Congress that Michael Steil and Felix Domke were able to demonstrate how their own code runs, and how the hack works.
During a presentation at the 24th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin last week, hackers Michael Steil and Felix Domke demonstrated their own code running on the console and making use of its system resources. The duo were able to pull off the hack after they extracted the keys for signing Wii code, a feat that would not have been possible if Nintendo had used an encrypted drive. Source: Register
Nintendo will more likely do a patch to the system to ensure that the keys are better protected in the future. Avoiding the patch will be interesting for folks who want to play games that are not officially sanctioned for the console.
This also opens the door to people playing backups of their games, or downloading games from the P2P and Bittorrent networks. It will be interesting to see what that does to game sales, and the popularity of the Wii.
This time Jack Thompson, general jack of all weirdness when it comes to what we think are outrageous claims against video games, has hit the trail again. This time it is all about the evil collusion between the DoD (Department of Defense) and Game Makers to train the warriors of the next century.
Sure, we will give Jack the idea that the military uses games for scenario planning, and the flip side of that is games for therapeutic uses for wounded soldiers.
Not buying the tin hat bit, someone please tell us what Viva Piñata has to do with training kids to be warriors, or PG4, Grand Tourismo, and other non-violence oriented games. Tell us the difference between any entertainment form that promises the gangsta life style, from movies to music to bits of popular culture, and you can pretty much so make the argument that popular culture world wide trains folks to be warriors.
We are not going to even go near militia movements, government sponsored mercenaries, fundamentalism Christian, Muslim or anything else. However, if someone is looking for scapegoats, this might be a good place to start.
It is not video games that are responsible for the deplorable state of the world today.
Ahh, but then that defeats the tin foil hat conspiracy theory bit that Jack seems to thrive on, even when he has the very real potential of loosing his bar accreditation.
In a press release sent out yesterday, controversial attorney Jack Thompson claims he has found a correlation between the gaming industry and the US Department of Defense, who, he adds, are using videogames to teach “an entire generation of kids that war is glamorous, cool, desirable, and consequence-free.” Source: Wired
While there is a working relationship between folks to develop better video games specifically suited to military purposes, we seriously doubt that they will be found in wal-mart any time soon. If they show up there at all. Moreover, yes, game companies push the envelope, but to date, there has still been no scientific correlation between video game violence and real life violence.
Forbes is reporting November’s NPD numbers for game consoles sold, including black Friday and Cyber Monday, the bottom line; it is good to be Nintendo.
On Friday, the NPD Group, a research firm, released its November sales report for game consoles. At the top of the pack was Nintendo with 981,000 Wii consoles sold. Behind Nintendo, was the Microsoft XBox 360, with 770,000 consoles sold, and the Sony Playstation 3, with 460,000 units sold, less-than half of Nintendo’s figure. Source: Forbes
Not a bad showing for Nintendo, and not a bad showing for Microsoft either, although Halo 3 sales probably bumped that up a bit. Sony still stuck in last place, even with the price drop and the 40Gig model on the streets. There is little wonder that they did not want to talk about anything until the NPD numbers came out.
It will be interesting to see how Sony responds, if they do, as the PS2 sold 496,000 units in November, more than they sold PS3’s. December’s numbers should be equally interesting, and could cement Sony in a solid 3rd place.
With just about every game forum and other network connected system talking about Jeff Gerstmann’s firing from gamespot on Friday, you have to wonder what the final digest is going to be. Reading both sides of the story, he was both loved and loathed. The issues that surround the termination though relate to many businesses, and many people who fail to make the right friends, in the right place, at the right time.
It also points out the idea that no matter how golden, anyone at any time for any reason can be let go.
This should act as evidence that gaming journalism is in a sensitive state. The profession is growing as exponentially as the industry, but it seems that the growth comes mostly on the part of “professional” sites such as GameSpot, IGN, and 1UP, while hundreds of “community” sites bicker and battle over the scraps left behind. But when any publication gets to a certain size and generates a certain amount of money in advertising revenue, the question of journalistic integrity becomes an issue. And let me be the first to come out and say that what happened to Jeff Gerstmann happens all the time. Source: Gamer20.com
The controversy will not end any time soon because the meme’s of journalistic professionalism and the issues surrounding independent or dependent web and print sites that rely on people talking up stuff, so that they can continue to get sponsorships from the companies that make games or materials.
Earlier this year PC World faced the same kind of issues, when the Editor Harry McCraken was ousted, then re-instated when a boil over with the manager resulted in the firing of a person who was all about ethics, rather than all about money and circulation.
Gamespot might find itself in the similar situation where the manager has to go, because the writer is generally popular. There is a certain amount of “deer in the headlights” look to all this. The fall out could and probably has gutted the moral at Game Spot, meaning that there will be a longer line of exodus from the web site.
While this might be good for business, if Game Spot becomes known as a shill for the highest dollar, then they will loose stature, and eventually become another dead domain on the internet. The sad part is that Game Spot usually had a good reputation, and while this boils over, it will be interesting to see what the board of directors and senior management makes of all this and what changes they will insist on.
Marketers and other folks will go anywhere do anything within the social networking space. Boundaries do not exist, and in general folks that market on the Internet are as busy using web 2.0 tools to send their message as you are talking back and forth with your friends. 
