Comparison of video size, iPad and iPod Touch

As far as tech toys go, I’m a late adopter.  I like playing with free betas, but when it comes down to handing over money, I become very conservative.  I like at least one Service Pack on my new OS, a critical mass of my friends on social apps, a solid couple of months post-release on a massively multiplayer online game, and a stalwart recommendation from my IT friends for new hardware.  I delayed my purchase of my Xbox 360 for almost two years; then shortly after I bought it, they announced the big price drop with the addition of the Elite model (shoulda waited longer!)

But this time, I threw the dice and pre-ordered a 32 GB Wifi-only iPad.  I even threw in a Mac Bluetooth keyboard, the dock, and a case.  There’s no super feature that made this the penultimate gadget for me; my desires were based around a great experience with my iPod Touch, a slowly growing interest in e-books (much to the dismay of my library card) and the ability to have a “one-stop-shop lite” computing device.  I game some, I email a fair amount, I watch videos while I travel or work out (no more tiny iPod on the treadmill – huzzah!) and I’ve been using the iPod Kindle app when I fly. Read more…

Photo courtesy of Casual Games Association

Recently members of the casual games industry convened in Kyiv, Ukraine, for the 4th annual Casual Connect Kyiv conference.  The Casual Connect conference series is sponsored by the Casual Games Association and brings developers, publishers and distributors of casual games together for three days of presentations and meetings.  Other Casual Connect meetings occur throughout the year in Seattle and Western Europe (historically Amsterdam or Hamburg). Read more…

Proving that our digital young have entered the UGC pool, here’s the result of a 9-year-old writing a bit of fan fiction around the popular PC game “HalfLife”, and some folks from Fark.com enacting it with a HalfLife 2 level-design mod tool.

Edit: The embedded video above seems to not be cooperating.  Here’s the direct link to it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxyZaZlaOs.

I remember writing my first stories as a young lad, scribbling away about haunted houses and spaceships on my wide-ruled paper, maybe acting them out later with my Star Wars action figures.  Fast forward 25 years and we see over a million people sharing in this kid’s private universe.

Granted, he’s no Fred, but give him 10 years…

posted by Jeremy Snook

Michael Arrington posted news on TechCrunch that Gannett Co., mega newspaper corp, invested a rumored $8 million in family social networking site Cozi.  Cozi’s feature set orients around family units, allowing shared calendars, reminders, and photo albums; they have tagged their tools as “the cure for famnesia” (catchy!).

Gannett will be syndicating their content to Cozi’s 600,000 registered users, with a focus on local content.  This sounds a lot like the targeted ads of Gmail – “here are news items that make affect your plans this weekend.”

In light of Hanson’s report from his sit-down with the Seattle Times publishers, this sounds like a smart move on Gannett’s part.  $8 million is pocket change for Web 2.0 acquisitions, and growing your readership by 2,000 users per day (Cozi’s claim) is a dream for a newspaper these days.  Hopefully other traditional media outlets take note of this and factor it into their survival plans.

Posted by Jeremy Snook:

File this under “Yet Another Old Industry Fears the Internet”. The National Association of Realtors settled its anti-trust lawsuit with the Justice Department, allowing online-only real estate brokers full access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

According to seattlepi.com, the ruling “assures that the real estate information is shared equally amongst all brokers.” This full access comes at a price, however. Participating websites must comply with removing any comments from their sites that a home-owner requests. This ability to filter is ridiculous and insulting to Internet users, completely contrary to the open-discussion nature (for good and bad) of the Web today.

Read more…

File this one under the “slightly stale news” category, but the Virginia Dept of Education is focused on educating students about online safety. In a WashingtonPost.com article, the reporter writes that “[t]he state’s goal is to integrate safety skills into the curriculum, not simply teach them in one lesson.” I think this is a great idea; let’s get the next generation aware of the consequences of too freely sharing private information and help educated both kids and their parents about the risks of being online.

~Jeremy

Game industry website next-gen.biz posted an interesting (and oh so timely & relevant) article last week examining the effect of social media on the industry. We’re seeing the beginnings of big name game developers like Bungie (Halo) or Lionhead (Fable) tap into the social networks in “an industrial application of fanboy fervor”.

Read more…

The Telegraph reported yesterday that researchers at the University of Colorado published results of a study that posits social media tools as more effective than traditional sources.  Read more…