Avatar photoSteven Savage

News of the Day 12/10/2010

by

The death of the Soap Opera continues, Twitter demographics surprise, and Those Birds are Angry and Profitable! It's your must-know geek news!

Media:
Proctor And Gamble fairly invented the Soap Opera: and they're pretty much given up and move to Social Media. Now Social Media spawns many real-life soap operas, but I confess to some nostalgia at the continued passing of the genre.

Social Media:
The Demographics of Twitter. Some real surprises here.

Technology:
Quick estimate: in 2011 mobile traffic will equal internet traffic in 2002

Venture Capitalist putting their money where their meme is in gameification. Thats a trend I want to follow as game metaphors are really useful having been time-tested, but finding what works versus what is just game would take effort I imagine. End result – software interfaces will change . . . but right now people are throwing money at gameification, so you may want to read up on it.

Fan To Pro crush object Asus working on even more systems. I am curious as to what 'Transformer' is, as I do feel a transformable computer that goes slate or netback smoothly would be a big deal. And being Asus, I would buy it.

A look at the Chrome OS for those that can't wait . . . like us.

Video:
Let the questioning of Netflix begin, in this case by an analyst who feels it's overvalued. Netflix also got added to the S&P 500, so that is A) noteworthy, and B) probably going to subject them to more criticism. I can't say for sure how stable Netflix is (they seem to know what they're doing), but they're now in people's crosshairs, so I expect critique and concern legitimate or not.

Video Games:
Changes in staff on Final Fantasy XIV. It seems the FF titles keep running into roadblocks and changes (if they don't involve cute chibi characters). I think part of the problem may be not being sure what to do with the brand.

DeNA considering buying European Studio – I'd guess they'll do it. They probably want to try a surround strategy to their rivals . . . er Rival, Zynga.

Grand Turismo sells a ton of copies. Just so you know in case you didn't expect this – though this is good performance after the delays.

Angry Birds creater Rovio has ambitions for payment platform – along with a lot of other ambitions. This single ambition could shake up payment options (though I also sense a chance it ends badly as its too specialized and tied to their brand), but I'm also interested in how ONE game may be poised to launch a media empire.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: With Rovio's amazing success, what kind of imitators do you expect?

– Steven Savage

Frustration Friday: Fear For The Forgotten

by

As I'm writing this, there are battles in congress over unemployment benefits – and people who have maxed our their use of unemployment benefits.  There are people whose job prospects are dimming or stagnant.

There are people in short, who are hurting, more people who will be hurting, and at some point someone's going to have to do something.  Or in short, we're going to need some kind of society-wide solution to the horrible problems people are facing economically.

In fact, I think we probably will (if only to forestall unrest, or because the media finally does its job, or something).  But what I am frustrated about is that I think any solution won't be so much "enough" but one that will fix as many problems as possible while also sweeping others under the rug – or forgetting about them.

I'm concerned any future solutions will leave a new underclass/underemployed class that many of us won't notice or see because, well . . . so much else got solved.  So many of us will see an economic recovery, or an unemployment extenuation, or a kind of training bill, or some combination that helps us – but we won't notice how many people won't get helped.  We'll probably be to thrilled that we're OK.

That's a serious concern of mine, that future solutions to the economic mess will miss a lot of people – and a lot of us will miss those people because our own situations get solved.

Let's try to remember.  They're our fellows.  They're the people we know.  Also, if there are a variety of people who are not helped out of their economic issues, that may yet drag us down further.

Yeah I know, another not very ranty Frustration Friday.

– Steven Savage

The Production Revolution Isn’t For All: Time

by

Self-publishing.  Webcomics.  Game design tools.  Art programs.

Give yourself an hour and you can find the tools to let most anyone with some skill be a media creator.  You can make books, games, etc. that you could never dream of years ago, and get them to a waiting audience.

Now of course you know I've been a bit cynical that this explosion of tools will also mean a creative renaissance, a kind of "Production Revolution" of media.  My own research, my own experience, has been very informative, so let me put it straight:

All these tools may mean that there's a chance for more people to get out their dream comic/video/game/book/movie and so on.  But there are still many barriers to their chances to do this.  These are not barriers of distribution or technology (which are changing).  These are personal barriers.

Read more