Facebook is the new AOL
ValleyWag today runs an interesting insider piece from a startup developing Facebook applications. Until recently FB members could invite all their friends to an app. creating massive viral adoption. Hence why some apps like Top Friends by Slide ended up with millions of users. Now Facebook is limiting app invitations to just 10 per day. That mean anyone creating a new app and trying to go viral has a mountain to climb. This is basically Facebook shooting themselves in the foot. Previously there seemed to be a great ecosystem developing where startups would be able to hook into revenue share deals based on the adoption of their app. Now, the ‘head’ of the apps ‘long tail’ will win because FB has artificially rigged the system in favour of those apps that came out before the “invite all” gate closed. Given that there are even a few UK developers who were banking on the Facebook app platform to create some success, this news makes for some depressing reading. Why is Facebook the new AOL? It’s just another a walled garden baby…
Games: the real next generation
Doesn’t this clip say volumes about the future of games? Mice, keyboards and console controllers may soon be obsolete in a world where there is much more bodily interaction with computers. The transparency of the wii interface is never more obvious than in a clip like this. Imagine a world where kids have grown up […]
New transmedia explorer: Chris Dahlen
Chris Dahlen, a contributing writer to publications such as Pitchfork Media, Paste Magazine, The Onion AV Club and The Wire N.H., has started a blog. His blog, Save the Robot, discusses among other things ‘transmedia’. Chris says that ‘Jenkins and others have defined this concept really well’ and wonders what is left for him as […]
Halo ARGs & Parodies
Most of you would be aware that the Halo 3 ARG has begun. It has received quite negative reviews from many gammer-community-ARG-crossovers. It seems that the ARG is breaking design techniques such as: progressive disclosure, choreography of the rollout, audience tiering and player-production facilitation. Conversely, alot of the posts seem to be by people who […]
The Hole in the Wall: How Humans Connect No Matter What
In 1980, on a November evening in Los Angeles, pedestrians who walked past the glass windows of the Broadway Department Store noticed something strange they did not see their reflection. There were other people walking by, just not them. They ended up talking with the alien reflections and realized that they were in two different locations, […]
Cross-Media Story: Staying Single
For the past few months I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring a best-selling UK author through the fabulous De Montfort University Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media program (a course I’ve been a guest lecturer for). Alison Norrington has written many novels that could be described as ‘chick-lit’ (is it still OK to use such a […]
Jericho Fans are Nuts – Update
As an update to my earlier Jericho blog post, CNN Entertainment is now reporting that Jericho fans have shipped a total of 25 tons of nuts to CBS executives in hopes of getting their favorite show back on the air. …