What? Am I crazy? Am I schizophrenic? Did I not said, that DRM is the problem? Yes, it is, because in case of music DRM does not satisfy the needs of the customer but of the producer. It brings no benefit to the consumer. The opposite is true: the buyers are limited in the usage of their purchases.
In the case of virtual goods, where most goods are produced by the consumer (the prosumer), DRM is a must-have! Users revolt if DRM does not work! Take for example Second Life. The residents demonstrated, because their business was threaten by a simple programm called CopyBot.
So now imagine a world where people can buy music and are allowed to resale it (e.g. in different compilations). In such a (virtual) world people call for DRM! Brave new world ;) Have a good time!
My monthly column (in German):
Die Social Networks sind auf Talfahrt. MySpace, Facebook & Co. verlieren Zeit: die Zeit, die ihre Nutzer durchschnittlich auf ihren Seiten verbringen. Immerhin, die Nutzerzahlen steigen noch, aber auch längst nicht mehr so steil wie zu den Hochzeiten. Die sind endgültig vorbei. Das Neue ist verblasst, die Trendsetter ziehen weiter zum nächsten Hype und hinterlassen in manchen Social Networks eine gähnende Leere.
Read the full article.
If you know Will Wright, you probably know he is one of the most successful game designers, e.g. of SimCity, The Sims and – coming soon – Spore. At GDC in San Francisco he showed the audience his recipe for success:
(picture is from Golem)
This model does not only apply to games, but also to movies or any other media, e.g. websites. It’s a model of participation: first, you have a story, a concept, a world etc. , e.g. Star Wars. People deconstruct it into its components, e.g. Darth Vader, Death Star etc., and play with these components, e.g. use it in ads or products. From these components new stories arise, e.g. Star Wars Lego. The cycle is complete.
Have a good time!
 An analysis of why Blu-ray has a shorter lifespan than the DVD:
With the fall of HD DVD, Blu-ray has assumed the throne as the next format of choice, but its reign will be short-lived.
Blu-ray won’t enjoy the same decade-long dominance DVD did after it succeeded VHS. But that’s not because there will be other challenger physical disc formats. Rather, instead of buying discs from Amazon, Best Buy or Wal-Mart, people will begin getting their entertainment in the form of digital downloads in larger volumes.
Read the full article: Digital downloads will be Blu-ray’s downfall | Tech news blog – CNET News.com
Yes, the hype over Second Life is over. However, there are a few things we (as web-developers and entrepreneurs) can learn from Second Life and other virtual worlds. Second Life showed us, why people pay for content, why they spend not only money online, but also an huge amount of spare time and what customers really seek for on the Internet.
If you are interested, attend the webinale 08 and join my presentation (in German because most attendees are German):
Was wir von Second Life & Co. lernen können
Interested in what paid content and the social web have in common? Then contact me: szugat@paidcontentisback.com. I love to talk about these topics on your public or internal conference, workshops etc.
Have a good time!
Andi and Sebastian had a long work day (12 hours or so) to finish our business plan. Tomorrow, Sebastian will send it to Dortmund where it hopefully arrives at Monday. This is the dead line for the start2grow competition. Wish us luck and have a good time!
PS: Thanks to Katja and Mark (from the UnternehmerTUM) for supporting us!
Surprise, surprise! Yes, women and men are different! At least, when watching online videos. According to a Nielsen rating young women (18 – 34) prefer Network TV websites (22 %) over user-generated content (11 %). Men are the other way round: user-generated content (27 %) and Network TV websites (12 %).
Have a good time!
Via digital:next
Someone heard me! DoubleTwist is the name of the company and the name of the product. Their slogan is “liberate the media!” and this is what their software does: it frees your music from DRM. Ok, there are other solutions to do that. What fascinates me is the option to send my pictures, music etc. to my friends via the Facebook application Twist me! (click on the picture on the right side to view a preview).
The desktop application (right side) also integrates my Facebook friends and their photo albums. Via DoubleTwist I can share and sync my pictures, my videos and even my iTunes songs (if I would have one) with my devices and even more important with my friends! Media is social, again!
Enjoy this application and have a good time!
I’m looking forward to see our software running on the Wii (in the future ;) ):
Today, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Nintendo announced that a new online service for its Wii video game console called WiiWare will be available on May 12. This service will allow independent developers to create their own games for the popular system that any user can download directly to the console.
Via Nintendo’s WiiWare platform to let independent developers get their game on » VentureBeat
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This question comes from my favorite movie WarGames. It’s about an artificial intelligence called WOPR, which is hacked by Matthew Broderick. The computer is trained to fight the World War III and loves to play Tic Tac Toe (btw: my first computer program, written in Pascal, was Tic Tac Toe; not so easy as you might think). However, the computer can not distinguish between game and reality and so it is beginning to launch the nuclear weapons …
There are four insights I’ve learned from this movie:
- Arthur Rubinstein makes remarkable movie soundtracks.
- The most used password of this time was “Joshua”, because everybody watched the movie and thought, this a cool password to remember (btw: there have been several famous hacks, where hackers used this password, so don’t use it!)
- With the right strategy on both sides no one can win Tic Tac Toe, or a nuclear war!
- Playing games makes you smart!
You don’t believe #4? This insight isn’t new – or take for example this famous book:
Johnson, Steven [2005]. Everything Bad is Good for You. Riverhead. ISBN 978-1594481949.
However, the debate is still actual as more and more people spend their time playing games. The good news: computer games becoming more and more social games. In the old times of video games people play alone against the computer. Thanks to multiplayer consoles like the Wii (a lot of friends of mine arrange regular Wii parties) and multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft people play together and not only learn strategic thinking or train their reactions, but also gain social intelligence while playing together.
The next step will be to use online gaming for dating. Think about how you made your first friends in live! Probably by asking: “Do you want to play?”
So play games and have a good time!
