Media consumer, tech enthusiast, and gamer
The Yahoo Suggestion Board, Dell IdeaStorm, and MSN Reporter were all released last week and were all at least, shall we say, “Digg Inspired.” But should we call them Digg clones? How similar are they? Let’s take a closer look and compare things like purpose, voting/bury style, uniqueness, algorithm, login, default view, etc. See the chart below.
Read More “Just How Digg-Like Are They? Chart Comparing New Sites by Yahoo, Microsoft & Dell” »
So Yahoo today released a Digg-like voting system as the backbone of the Yahoo Suggestion Board. Even though the Yahoo announcement credited Digg, the Digg crowd is not pleased. The new suggestion system was first implemented for Yahoo Autos and of the top 5 “suggestions,” 3 have nothing to do with autos (see screenshot below).
My initial thoughts echoed what Michael Arrington said, “It’s an excellent way for Yahoo to gauge the popularity of suggestions, and is in no way competitive with Digg.” But then, what stops Yahoo from easily implementing this new Digg-like system elsewhere on the site? Answer: nothing.
Even then, if Yahoo competes with Digg down the road, what would that mean? Should I be upset for some reason? Digg has a good thing going, to be sure, I’m a huge fan. But I just can’t think of a good reason for Yahoo’s move to bother me.
Read More “Yahoo vs. Digg: Is Yahoo’s Move As Innocent As It Looks?” »
Mike Vorhaus is the managing director of the consulting and research firm Frank N. Magid Associates and is in charge of a fairly in-depth study of consumer trends in gaming. His latest work is that of profiling “lapsed” console gamers. Here’s what he found:
Guys, of course, are the core of the console-games market and are the basis of his study. Vorhaus refers to declining gamer activity as “cliffs” in the gamers life. The first group, 12-to-17-year-old boys, has 78% playing console games at least once a week. But when boys become men and enter the 18-to-34-year-old bracket, they fall off the first cliff. Those still playing console games weekly: 42%.
Read More “Game Industry Worried: Gamers Giving It Up As They Grow Up” »
So our friends at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) are running multiple stories on Google today with reference to online video. At the heart of the story is the classic clash between Google’s mantra “Do No Evil” and, well, the evil Google is apparently doing.
Perhaps as a result of this alleged evil, talks are back on among media companies to create a YouTube rival, according to unnamed executives involved in the situation. Another form of pseudo-pressure is coming from MySpace, which is likely to announce today a video-filtering system so as to be on the good side of those copyright protectors.
But back to the Google scandal…
When Google bought YouTube back in October for $1.65 billion, we didn’t know exactly what this meant for the founders financially. But now we know. Google today filed a registration statement with the SEC, which explains how many Google shares the founders of YouTube received as part of the deal.
Read More “Google Discloses Payout to YouTube Founders: Hurley $345M & Chen $326M” »
The results are here of the eight-annual Harris Interactive/The Wall Street Journal ranking of the world’s best and worst corporate reputations. Helped immensely by Bill Gates philanthropy, Microsoft dethroned cutesy Johnson & Johnson known for its emotionally appealing baby products. Interesting that around the same time a report comes out saying Microsoft has the best reputation, another article explains that “Few Rush Out to Buy New Windows Vista” citing consumers waiting for the bugs to be worked out.
Read More “World’s Best Corporate Reputations: Apple #22, Google #4, & Microsoft #1” »
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has some unidentified sources claiming that Dell will begin selling personal computers with Vista tonight just before midnight eastern standard time. These first movers will get their new Vista-loaded computers on Tuesday, the official launch day of Vista for home users. My question:
Will there be a spike or drop in Dell orders tonight?
Microsoft is getting some bad press for offering to pay a blogger to change a supposedly inaccurate article on Wikipedia. The blogger let it out in the open, and it wasn’t long before it hit the mainstream press. Even the Wall Street Journal decided to run an article based around the situation.
I suppose the principle of payment for Wikipedia coverage is the key issue here (some argue it’s about Microsoft’s clumsiness), though I’m curious to know why Microsoft (or whichever Microsoft employee pulling the strings, more to the point) really felt the need to correct a technical Wikipedia article on Office Open XML.
Read More “Scandal 2.0: Is Microsoft the only company paying for Wikipedia edits?” »