Month: August 2010

Weekend reading

Secret of Googlenomics: Data-Fueled Recipe Brews Profitability

“Selling ads doesn’t generate only profits; it also generates torrents of data about users’ tastes and habits, data that Google then sifts and processes in order to predict future consumer behavior, find ways to improve its products, and sell more ads. This is the heart and soul of Googlenomics.” 

Students finally wake up to Facebook privacy issues

“young people are very engaged with the privacy settings on Facebook, contrary to the popular belief that their age group is reckless with what they post publicly.”

The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut

“I need my umlaut,” Blomkvist said. “What if I want to go to Svavelsjö? Or Strängnäs? Or Södertälje? What if I want to write to Wadensjö? Or Ekström or Nyström?”

Related to this, Stieg Larsson recently became the first member of Amazon’s ‘Kindle Million Club.

The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets

“We can segment it all the way down to one person,” says Eric Porres, Lotame’s chief marketing officer.

I think Mr. Porres may have lost the meaning of market segment (which implies groups sharing certain characteristics) in his excitement about his company’s technology. A question I’d be interested in is whether the law of repetition in advertising holds true for online ads that “follow people around the Internet”? A host of ads for Evony have followed me around the Internet for well over a year now and I have so far clicked on none of them. Context is also relevant here – will users be more prepared to click on ads on certain sites?

 

 

It's a Pretty Good Headline Alright

 

Monkeys hate flying squirrels, report monkey-annoyance experts

Japanese macaques will completely flip out when presented with flying squirrels, a new study in monkey-antagonism has found. The research could pave the way for advanced methods of enraging monkeys.

There is video here.

This is a great response to the current movement towards making headlines search-engine friendly but rather homogenous. 

Newspapers still have headlines, of course, but they don’t seem to strive for greatness or to risk flopping anymore, because editors know that when the stories arrive on the Web, even the best headlines will be changed to something dull but utilitarian.

One of my personal favourites below, from the New York Post 

More of this kind of thing please!

(story via Metafilter, image from weheartit.com)

Flipboard – but is it legal?

I only caught the last part of last night’s TWiT (#259, Next Stop, Gilbert Arizona) but did come across an interesting snippet of information about iPad darling app du jour, Flipboard.

According to Baratunde Thurston of the Onion, the app goes beyond aggregating RSS feeds and “de-uglifying” them and seems to be using machine and/or human based scraping to pull in third party content from publishers. In doing this, ads placed on the third-party sites are removed. Flipboard has stated that it will enter into revenue sharing arrangements with the content publishers as it will be including it’s own ads, which will allegedly deliver ten times the amount of advertising revenue that publishers currently receive. Further details of these arrangements have yet to be revealed.

Whilst the app itself looks pretty and their team have done a masterful job of seeding it through the early adopter community, this (if true) is a step backwards into an issue that seemed to already been resolved. It also means that publisher’s shaky online advertising revenues may be squeezed even more.

Audio via twit.tv (1:51:28, iPad and Flipboard segment starts at around 1:23)

http://er7radio.net/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf

Jesse Schell: Visions of the Gamepocalypse


This talk is long (90 minutes, with another 20ish minutes for questions and answers with Kevin Kelly) but very worthwhile, and in no way solely related to games. Anyone interested in a particular vision of the future based on technology should give it a listen. Put your feet up, although as the player is a Flash player you won’t be able to listen to it on your iPad whilst lounging on your couch …

Message 1: people like shiny things such as filling progress bars and unlocking achievements.

Message 2: the prediction threshold is creeping in so much that many people are abandoning the idea of crystal-ball gazing.

Message 3: the explosion in Facebook gaming is in large part because people can now play games at work. No arguments from me there. 

Message 4: every technology will experience a trough of disillusionment followed by a slope of enlightenment.

Message 5: virtual economies are powerful, and advertisers will be more than happy to trade virtual currency for attention and association.

Message 6: stereoscopy was invented in 1849. 3D is a novelty best reserved for certain places.

Message 7: you could be eating your face right now.

Message 8: incurious people may be left behind, as curiosity will deliver significant advantages due to the massive availability of information to the curious people.

Message 9: things are really going to change when games can listen to people.

 

Audio via the Longnow Foundation

http://er7radio.net/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf


Slides

 

 

"Topnotch Stuff as a General Rule"

I missed this news at the time. Iceland’s Best Party won six of the fifteen available council seats on Reykjavik’s City Council. Party leader Jón Gnarr is now the mayor of Reykjavik. 

“We stand for an honest approach and participation when it comes to governing the city. [Our support] is a reaction to politics and politicians who have been unwilling to stand up and admit they are responsible. [The elections] were a democratic protest against negligence.”

Some aspects of their platform are explained in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/v/xxBW4mPzv6E&hl=en_US&fs=1

 

A profile of Jón Gnarr, from the New York Times.