I think it seems like only yesterday that we were really using messaging clients that were simplistic and didn’t offer much functionality other than to send hastily created internet shorthand and smilies about the latest stuff. Back then, I was really only using messaging as a real-time way to keep up with friends, chat with them between classes or during boring work days, and otherwise treat it as a trivial tool.
These days, if I didn’t have my messaging client, I’d be unable to keep up with game development contacts, talk to the staff who work under me to get things done, and find out the latest news from automatic news feeds. I wouldn’t be able to update my Twitter status and check on Facebook nor would I be able to keep my eye out for people miles away who I hardly talk to. In short, I’m attached at the hip to it. Welcome to the new millennium, right?
Fortunately, developers who put together messaging clients are aware of this. They build new features that allow for collaboration in more effective and convenient ways. They keep up with the trends in new technology and find ways to put widgets in that integrate well with them. Some people would say this is a bit too much, that messaging clients are getting to be more top-heavy when they don’t need to be. I feel that, but I also think that there’s a certain kind of evolution currently happening with real-time collaboration that started with the rise of Myspace and Facebook, continues with Twitter, and which might move even further with future-thinking tools like Google Wave and Basecamp.
But while I get excited about the latest collaborative messaging tools and technology, I know that I’m not everyone. If you have a comment about how much you personally use messaging or if you grok a certain messaging client, I’d love to hear about it and how you personally use messaging in your daily lives. Leave a comment and let me know what you do!
Poor Glass Joe. He sometimes deserves better than to be the defacto Easy mode for Punch-Out players everywhere.
Anyway, those of you who might not be aware, should probably pay attention to recent cellphone commercials from Verizon. The cellular provider has shifted from cute little commercials asking if you can hear them now to a bit of a new ad campaign aimed squarely at AT&T and its geekery tech phone flagship, the iPhone. You can find “There’s a Map for That” and the viral teaser for the new Motorola Droid (to be provided by Verizon and powered by Google’s Android OS) for just a couple examples.
I use Punch-Out as an example here to typify these new ads as a bit of a jab at the competition – not as mean-spirited as a political ad, but not as nice as someone addressing the competition without speaking to it. There’s no doubt that Verizon, Google, and Motorola have their tongues firmly in their cheeks when they make ads like the above, but they’re also poking the hornet’s nest a little as well.
I can’t really complain about this even though some people think the ads are pretentious and smarmy. First is the fact that advertising in general needs a little bit more of an attention-grabber or difference to capture people’s attention these days. Traditional advertising, especially for technology, has really taken a hit as the normal methods are doomed to be fast-forwarded through a DVR recording. Taking a different approach to advertising, whether it is viral or through little jukes, jives and punches, is probably key to folks watching a commercial the whole way through. Say what you will about the expense of Super Bowl commercials – they always bring out non-traditional methods in PR folks.
The other argument I’d like to make as to why I’m happy about the presence of these new ads, is one I’ve used before with MMOs – competition drives innovation, and evolution. I’d argue that even the MMO genre’s 500-pound gorilla, WoW, has benefited from a bit of the jabby things that other MMOs have taken at it with their mechanics. WoW has had to change and adjust (and sometimes integrate) with the things other titles were doing to poke at its weaknesses.
I don’t think Apple is a stranger to this. After all, the same awfully negative things being said about the Verizon ad campaign could also be said of Apple’s little jabs at Microsoft with their “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads. It’s interesting that as Windows 7 hits stores this month, the experience that will be delivered is a more user-friendly, sleek look. Could this be the result of Apple’s little ad jabs? Maybe, right? It appears that turnabout is fair play, and we can only hope the iPhone can respond to Verizon’s jabs from the Motorola Droid in due time. Until then, bring on the light boxing match.
A little while back an old friend of mine from my anime convention planning days managed to get her hands on a bunch of invites for Google Wave, the new hotness that Google folks are touting as the next generation in communication and collaboration. I have to admit (and those of you who follow me on Twitter know this) that Wave wasn’t really on my radar of must-have geekery. This is mostly because I’ve been battle-hardened by years of testing MMO betas, and while Google tools are not necessarily like watching the same two people argue about a class that is totally OP and “needs nerf nao”, it still made me cautious about buying into the sales pitch Google was throwing at me. But just like with anything geek, my curiosity got the best of me, and with the additional pressure of folks close to me excited about the tool, I requested a Google Wave invite. This arrived last night in my inbox and I’ve had a few hours to play around with features.
For those of you who don’t know what Google Wave is and stumbled onto this odd blog that is 100% optimism, I’ll review in a few short sentences. Google Wave gives you an interface where you can drag other Wave users into collaborative conversations that are kept as records in an Inbox. Once you’ve started a Wave with others, you can talk in real time (complete with typing), share resources such as maps and links, take polls, and otherwise converse. The app thus combines features from email, chat, and forums to create a tool that Google recently released into an invite-only closed beta preview.
Now, there are a lot of people out there who basically think that Google Wave is a great tool, but is ultimately not so useful right now due to the A) closed status of its testing and B)the fact that it does a lot of things we’ve seen before but makes them complex. I understand the opinion – I mean, we’ve all been exposed to things that are essentially “jack of all trades, master of none” and how they don’t seem to measure up to something as useful as the tools out there. But I think the charm in Google Wave is not so much what it can offer now, but rather what Wave can offer people in the future. Google Wave is a tool that I think is an attempt at being forward-thinking, because it takes online communication in another direction – not necessarily the next level, not necessarily the best or worst thing ever, but in another way that blends features together not unlike a Locutus of Borg – a sort of “Best of Both (or in this case, “All”) Worlds”. Picard-with-an-annoying-penlight-attachment almost changed the game, and Wave seeks to do the same.
The reason I say this is because email, chat, and forums all provide an appealing means for online communication and collaboration. Email is the defacto standard for online communication and allows people to shoot off their latest updates on a project, a re-re-request for a quote, what plans you want to make for dinner, and attached documents and pictures. Chat is real-time and quick, allowing for tidbits not really suitable for email to be shot out to people you know. Forums provide a public means of discussion where complex thoughts and lol-worthy linkage is shared, with a persistent presence anyone can participate in.
What Wave does is combine those into a single interface. You have an Inbox of waves that you’ve started or are invited to participate in, with folders for organization and archiving, like email. You have the ability to collaborate in real-time with other participants currently online, typing to each other quick thoughts and blurbs, like chat. Last but not least, you have the permanence and threading of forums, with every conversation and sub-thread able to be seen, read, and even played back as it happened over chat. Combine this with Google’s Ajax-powered drag and drop like interface and the potential for tools to be created for greater collaboration (a maps and poll interface are the first two widgets) and you have not what Wave is, but what Wave is trying to become – a new way to communicate with others online in interesting if not meaningful ways.
On a personal level, I’ve had a few small collaborations with others in my contacts on things such as the latest happenings in current MMOs, what to shop for on a shared grocery trip, and what places to go to for birthday plans. Beyond that, putting in the “with:public” tag when you are searching for Waves has revealed a metric ton of public Waves, which you can easily do with your own by simply adding the address group public@a.gwave.com to your Contacts (even when it says it doesn’t have an account). I’ve seen public discussion on everything from geekery to aviation to cooking recipes, all accomplished with folks around the world and in real-time. As a forum moderator, I have my concerns but for now, am intrigued by the potential of site-agnostic forum-like discussion across the Internet, with all sorts of possibilities within.
In short, I think that is what Google Wave is making an attempt to offer us – not something that is a diamond now, but perhaps a piece of coal that will be a diamond one day. Coal isn’t very appealing on its own and is a visual turn-off, which might reflect some of the public opinion about Wave. But the potential to be a gem is there, and that’s basically what I’m thinking Wave might have to offer us. Will it succeed? Maybe, maybe not. But like many things Google is doing, the attempt is not a useless endeavor.
For all you Wave users, I’ve made a public Wave of my own called “GG: The Great Gaming Wave”, where gamers can talk about everything PC, console, and online in the world of games. Be sure to search for it and participate if you want! As for Google Wave invites, getting a Google Wave invite privilege appears to be periodic, which means I don’t have the ability to invite people. When I do, I’ll let you all know so you can get in on the Google Wave invite frenzy.
Oh – and I almost forgot – the “lol-worthy links” part of online communication is alive and well in Google Wave:
If there’s one thing that us geeks are accused of, it’s of having rather expensive tastes. More than any other hobby, it seems that being into the geek arts means your wallet and your bank account are typically emptier than a dry canteen in the middle of the desert. Computers, video games, technology, and what are essentially the latest toys for adults have a consequence of totalling in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
There’s no point in denying this when it comes to me. Frankly, I was doomed from the start of my professional career – as an IT professional, the fact that I would be exposed to geek tech sexiness was a foregone conclusion. Gaming has been a way for me to get some entertainment for years, ever since an Atari made its way into my household via a birthday present. As a result, I’ve received my fair share of comments from my non-geek, non-gaming friends, who’ve wondered about the point of waiting in a midnight line for Metal Gear Solid 4 and a PS3, or for pricing potential computer upgrades ($1,879 for me to get a new machine right now).
If you’ve gotten a bit of flack for being into expensive things that might not have too much apparent meaning, don’t feel so bad. For one thing, being a geek and spending money is no different than being a sports fan and shelling out cash for a trip to the Superbowl, or being into being on a boat and having to keep up on the latest in nautical nonsense. Geekery just happens to be more obvious in the idea that it’s an expensive venture. Trust me – we know what we’re getting into. Besides, being into these sorts of things does have a bit of practical value. Technology is an ever-growing field and being on the bleeding edge of that and adopting it means greater convenience. Knowing a bit about computers and how to deal with them actually has you spending less on repair costs and strange recommendations from techs speaking a language you don’t understand.
So let the normal people have their wine connoisseur cards and their autographed life-sized posters of Brett Favre. I’ll take the new shinyof geekery any day.
Leaves are falling off of trees, the weather’s getting cooler, but here at Overly Positive we just soldier on. It’s always 82 degrees and sunny in our minds, so let’s see what we can show you from around the Net today to help you cheer up on another dreary Monday:
Super Street Fighter IV on the way? (via Destructoid): Topher Cantler points us towards a teaser site that Capcom apparently has set up that, of course, doesn’t tell us much of anything, but fuels speculation about Super Street Fighter IV title. Street Fighter IV came out earlier this year to quite a bit of fanfare and good feeling, so why not try to capitalize on that a bit more?
ESA Awards Scholarships to Student Game Developers (via GamePolitics): Wanted to make the move from armchair developer to putting your money where your mouth is? If so, there’s hope as far as the Entertainment Software Association is concerned. 30 students received scholarships to help them become the person who developers the next big hit, so even if that hit is a Hello Kitty game, there’s at least organizations willing to contribute to the furthering of gaming dev. Nice!
Intel Develops Fiber-Optic Chip, Geekgasm Incoming (via Fark): The processor arms race has always been a fun one, with new bits of technology coming out literally every few months in an effort to make your current NASA computer not the new hotness. This time around, Intel takes a leap forward by developing a fiber optic processor, which should provide transfer speeds of 10 gigabits per second. That’s a lot of internet porn!
DARPA Can Haz Cyborg Beetles (via The Escapist): So the only knowledge you may have about DARPA is the fact that there is a chief of the organization and he might be subject to being a seemingly dispensible character in a game series like Metal Gear, but they do other things too. The agency recently revealed that they funded research at UC Berkeley for remote controlling beetles by stimulating their wings with electrodes. Sounds like the formula for some advanced tech, or a really bad horror movie. Either way, still pretty cool.
Like most English major-leaning folks, I have a clear preference for being bookish. Good literature and good stories are enticing and appealing to me, and reading a decently good book is always something that I enjoy very much. But time is short these days in my little busy and hectic life, so good books are hard to come by for reading. But that’s where webcomics come in.
I’ve never been much of a comic book person – most of the stuff that I’ve collected over the years has been very mainstream and easy to read. As an IT professional, I’m also drawn more to the computer, mostly because of the fact that I’m chained to it day and night for work, but also because if I want to give myself a little boost during the day. Alternatively, I want to turn my brain off for a second so that I can get back to my task with some form of focus. This is what the short-term reading, quick gags of webcomics do for me.
Webcomics have invaded the internet space with a bit of a snail’s pace these past few years, but there’s always a few that have achieved status that’s well-known, with Gabe and Tycho’s Penny Arcade being the most prominent. Like with my musical taste, I have eclectic taste in the world of webcomics, so here are a few that I use during breaks in the day to provide me with short-term entertainment.
Megatokyo is one of the first webcomics I followed and I still take a peek at it today. It started out as more of a gaming and story comic, but the departure of one of its co-creators has made it wholly into a story-based online manga. The comic follows the (mis)adventures of American gamers Piro and Largo, who become stranded in Japan and get embedded into its culture in an effort to find their way home.
Applegeeks is a comic that, like the name, is a nice one for all you Mac readers out there. Hawk draws a style that is very comic but also very computer-ish in its creation. The comic follows a few story arcs but is mostly the hijinks of Hawk, an Apple-obsessed fan, and his crew of friends, one of which is Eve, a robot female Hawk created.
8-bit Theater is, from the name, a bit low in the graphics department but high on the hilarity. If you like Final Fantasy – the original one, not the ones these days with the oddly feminine-looking male leads, you’ll like 8-bit Theater. Following the story of the original Final Fantasy with hilarious embellishment and a ton of sidetracks, the adventures of the vacant but strong Fighter, the numbers-obsessed Red Mage, the conniving and morally grey Thief, and the psychotic and stabbity-focused Black Mage will give you a chuckle.
VG Cats has been a guilty pleasure of mine for a few years, mostly because the NC-17 humor and “totally wrong” twisted sense of entertainment has always made the dark part of my soul – and therefore myself – laugh out loud. The gaming comic does have two main character cats in it, but they really are a sidebar to the commentary on video games the comic seems to take. When you draw out the fact that Ms. Pac-man might have actually been Pac-man needing to become a cross-dressing prostitute to pay the bills, you know you’re a little off – and I can’t get enough of it.
These are just a few of the webcomics I use to extract a bit of entertainment throughout the day, and I know there are many more. The point is – webcomics are a great blend of old school and new-school geek, combining comicry with technology, and you should definitely look to checking some of them out during your daily grind.
Lots of people know about social networking’s rising star Twitter. It’s become somewhat of a phenomenon since it got around to getting more prevalent in the last year or so. Twitter’s rise to fame has been so sudden that in one year, the company behind it has been thought to have been worth at least a billion. And it doesn’t seem to be going down anytime soon.
But Twitter isn’t without its share of detractors and haters. I know plenty of people who look at bits of Twitter news and immediately come to the conclusion, somewhat fearfully, that were they to try Twitter they would be bombarded by all means of mindless minutiae, from someone’s bowel movements to a boring 140-character treatise on cleaning dirt from under fingernails. Others simply don’t see the point of a service that further increases the gap between actually talking to a person and using technology to achieve the same thing, at the price of a loss of personal contact. All in all, though there are perhaps millions using Twitter these days, there are plenty of people that just aren’t sold – or worse yet, might even hate those of us who use it.
I get how some of these people feel about Twitter. I mean, I’ve followed people who have met every Twitter stereotype under the sun. When I hear about someone having a hangover in great and disgusting detail, I wonder where some people’s priorities lie when it comes to themselves. There are people like Perez Hilton, for example, who would rather tweet about something terrible that happened to them rather than actually get help for themselves right away. These are the people I immediately unfollow. It’s safe to say that if you want to tweet about the fact that you poked your own eye out with a pen and that you are desperately trying to see, that I’ll probably not be interested.
But Twitter haters should see that Twitter isn’t all about whoring the details of your life. Twitter’s appeal in more practical matters lies in the fact that it’s a real-time marketing tool, able to send coverage of an event instantly, such as breaking news bits. It’s a great way to find others with the same interests by examining trending topics and trading quick messages. It’s an immediate way to get individuals together for outreach causes, such as those who are currently using Twitter for raising funds for charity. Twitter isn’t worth what it is because of the fact that your friends can tell you about how they failed to hit on their 5th person for the night. It’s worth what it is because of the real-time nature of its technology and its practical Swiss Army knife of uses to employ it.
Really, like with any piece of technology, it’s all about how you use it. Trust me on this one – I used to dislike the idea of Twitter, too, until I took a pass at it and used it strictly for keeping up with a few close friends, networking with other websites and people I know in the gaming industry, and working with it to drive traffic, to here and other places. It’s become an invaluable tool in my daily online life, so just like with anything – don’t hate on it til you try it. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Do you really think I could keep doing these weekly pick-me-ups without posting a picture of a sad panda at some point? Come on now, it’s just way too easy to pass up.
The daily grind may be getting to you, the classes and homework might be torching your productivity, but not to worry – there’s still plenty to be happy about around the Internet. Check out these articles for some feel-good action:
Twitter to Put Smackdown on Fakers (via The Escapist): Twitter’s probably the fastest rising star in the social networking crew of applications, but with no real way to verify identity, it’s been plagued with a variety of fake accounts that in some cases have resulted in unpleasant legal action. So now, Twitter’s got to act, and they’re working on a way to verify identity to prevent people that like to impersonate Kim Kardashian from cluttering up the service.
Global Cooldown on Global Warming (via Fark): That crazy stuff you might be hearing about global warming might not be in the spotlight for a while. Scientists have pulled a 180, saying that the world is instead in a global cooldown that will last a little while. Good news for anyone annoyed by terribly obsessed environment folks everywhere – at least until 2020, when warming should pick up yet again.
Video Games to be Taught as Part of Curriculum in NYC School (via Gamepolitics): Ever get caught playing your PSP or Nintendo DS in class, students? Well, things are looking up for you, because at least one New York school is trying to put games into its education. The class will integrate games such as Spore and Little Big Planet while also employing traditional board games in order to teach children about the digital experience and get them into technology early. Oh, the lure of tech is a siren’s call, so anything anyone can do to put the needle in early is fine by me.
And finally…
Blade Runner Sound to be Added to Electric Vehicles (via The Escapist): Remember that cool futuristic sound that the flying Spinner cars made in Blade Runner (and if you haven’t seen the movie, I’m now aghast)? Well, to alleviate safety concerns that hybrid vehicles make less noise due to engine turn-offs, Nissan is integrating the sweet-sounding Spinner call into its design. I drive a Prius, and while I do delight in its ninja-like capacity for silence, I definitely wouldn’t mind having sound as long as it’s cool. Blade Runner counts as cool.
So there you go, folks – have fun with your Monday!
Today we’ve got Syp from Bio Break and Pete from Dragonchasers facing off about the whole idea of ordering pizza from the Playstation 3 browser. Seems that Syp finds the cross-promo amusing while Pete takes a playful jab back talking about the fact that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Now before I start on my bright note regarding this little feature, I do have to say, if either of you fine gentlemen have not tried Papa John’s, I would. Sure, the pizza has more calories than eating pure sugar and the put something in the garlic sauce that I swear makes you crave it at unusual times of the morning, but it’s damn good. PS3 pizza order or not, you better be getting yourself some of that Papa John’s unhealthy goodness, I say.
As for that whole idea of /pizza now existing in the PS3 browser, I can’t really complain about it. To be honest, since the rather silly notion of /pizza in game that EQ made famous, there has been a slow, incremental drive towards that kind of convenience whether it is over the browser during a particularly spirited round of TF2 or during a game of Madden. Back when /pizza was introduced, it seemed silly and ridiculous because there just didn’t seem to be merit in presenting that kind of convenience in a world that hadn’t fully embraced technology and the Internet as a means to an end. These days, it’s just a logical concluson to a process that has been brewing for quite some time.
Think about it, guys and gals – we can do our Christmas shopping online, we call our friends online, we let our friends know what we were doing 2 seconds ago online, and we write letters and missives to audiences online. The fact that we can order pizza online (a capability the chains like Domino’s have had for years now) is just another way we can use technology to our benefit, and making it possible on a PS3 browser just makes it even better. Sure, the cross-promotion is a little bit cheesy (PUN INTENDED) and perhaps a bit crazy, but when you really think about it, in our Twitter-obsessed, internet-loving generation of users, it’s simply a foregone conclusion.
Frankly, I welcome our new pizza overlords, and look forward to the day when pizza is streamed to me over the internet. It could happen!
Ok, so MAYBE I need to make up for that sugary-sweet Korean pop video I posted last week that made people want to rip their eyes out and stuff them into their ears from cuteness overload.
So without further ado, here’s a song that old school game players will appreciate, because it was made entirely with the software available at the time to make such music. Ah 8-bit – how I miss you sometimes:
Can you guys forgive me now for this stuff? I mean, it could be worse. I could have linked you this instead:
Crap…I just did. Um..errr…well, have a great and wonderfully positive day! ^_^
I think it seems like only yesterday that we were really using messaging clients that were simplistic and didn’t offer much functionality other than to send hastily created internet shorthand and smilies about the latest stuff. Back then, I was really only using messaging as a real-time way to keep up with friends, chat with them between classes or during boring work days, and otherwise treat it as a trivial tool.
Poor Glass Joe. He sometimes deserves better than to be the defacto Easy mode for Punch-Out players everywhere.
A little while back an old friend of mine from my anime convention planning days managed to get her hands on a bunch of invites for 
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