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May 23, 2012

Category: Internet

January 13, 2011

Why The Positive Geek Bloggery Continues

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Site Related, Social Geekery — Tags: , — 2 Comments

I’m stealing a post topic that’s stealing another post topic by referring you folks to Ysharros and her post a few days ago about why she blogs for the internets. In the face of the rise of blogging and how it has helped geeks and non-geeks alike with putting forth popular opinion, I thought it would be nice to talk about.

The fact that there are many folks like Ysharros and HZero that do blog, and blog not for a grander community or loftier goals, but for themselves and their opinion, is a heartening thing for communications on the Internet. Why do I say this? I think that the beauty of the Internet itself when it comes to people and what they think is in the dissonance of its collective voice. While sometimes the disagreements on the internet lead to inevitable pages and pages of flames that would cause the best of us to facepalm, it is in that disagreement and variety of opinion that I think we find some insight. Not every discussion over the internet is a world-shaking piece of dialog (“ur mom” never really taught me much of anything except that I have a mom, which I knew) but if you know where to look to engage in talk that you enjoy, you won’t be disappointed.

Blogs are just dedicated places that add to the voice. It’s part of why I do mine, really – there’s a lot of the negative nancy and the snark out there. While that usually makes for higher traffic and more comments, I think I’d rather write in a way that comes naturally to me. I’m an optimist, and usually see the good or silver lining in the worst thunderclouds. I’d dare to say that my kind of tolerance for the bumps and bruises of geek media is a rarity today, where people can get upset over something as small as a coloring or a single powerpoint slide. As a result, I command a significantly smaller reader base (at times, I’m not even sure if many people are paying attention at all), but I think that’s a small price to pay for adding what I think is a small, yet necessary voice to that of the internet.

There’s also the therapeutic nature of blogging that I think that people forget about, and which even Ysharros and HZero might not have touched upon. Regardless on whether you write about sunshine and puppies rolling over for the first time like me, or you rant about the stupidity of people who have no concept of the word “respect”, afterwards, most bloggers who continue to blog feel fulfilled and satisfied in some way. I don’t really tend to write about my personal life, but I can say that like any human being, I’m not always a positive person, which is, by the way, a big difference from having a positive outlook. During the more difficult times in my life, the blog, such as it is these past three years or so, has been a way to excise bad feeling. Today is no different than then.

Ultimately, the really great thing about the marriage of discourse to internet media is the fact that it’s pretty much an inexhaustible resource, and always ripe for innovation. Blogging has obviously proven its value far beyond its initial mockery of being a glorified diary – it’s an exchange of opinions, a flashpoint-in-time archive of sometimes emotional reaction to the topics of the world, and to most of us blogger folks, good clean fun. I look forward to much more positive posting in the future, even though I’ve had my lulls – and I look forward to reading all of you out there who write, as well.

January 10, 2011

Everyone’s An (Online) Critic

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: , , — 1 Comment

I’m not sure if I want to know where they got a movie where a cat was in a bride’s outfit…

Anyway, today’s little missive to start the week involves something I was thinking about the other day as people were reacting to some seriously awful news regarding the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona of a politician and a few other folks. I know my first reaction was to hope for the recovery of the injured and feel sympathy towards those that had lost someone, especially the family of the 9 year old girl. It’s never a good thing to see such violence perpetrated, and I think we can all learn and take to heart the value of life despite the tragedy.

My second reaction, however, was to go to the internet, which is really the subject of today’s post. I would have to say that even as recent as a few years ago, there weren’t this many people writing about this many subjects online. Through social media I got the quick, couple of second updates and thoughts from people – 140 characters and short sentences provided me with the up to the minute opinions of people who were reacting to the news. When I got home, blogs, news sites, and shared internet links provided a plethora of thoughts, ideas, craziness, and, well, let’s just say “passionate” viewpoints about the whole issue. It was definitely enough to keep me enthralled for an hour or so.

In today’s modern geek media age, the events of the world and how everyone reacts to them is like a giant, persistent episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, whose premise was critical (and comedic) commentary on bad films. While not every event and every happening plays out like movies that have cat brides in them, there is a certain level of screwball as well as the serious that makes it play out eerily like MST3k. But in general, there are a lot of normal Joes and Janes, mixed in with all the professional and career folks, that sit in the theater of the Internet and toss out their level of commentary at what is happening on the real-life screen, and that’s an amazing, instant, and wonderful thing.

Some people would say that the saturation of online opinion and commentary on the world’s events is a bad thing – that there is a giant signal-to-noise ratio that needs to be maintained, that people who generally provide poorly formed, or even poorly inappropriate, opinions are a reason for limiting the amount of attention and people that can be considered credible online. But I think that the collective voice of everyone’s MST3k-ish criticism is more important, accurate, and credible than anything else out there. It’s important because people are talking and conversing about things, no matter how poorly written it might seem, it’s accurate because it’s a collective opinion reflected in a larger amount of people, and it’s credible because it’s real. Not everyone can and should react to something as a journalist or a professionally trained writer should. There’s a certain level of credibility in the person who is indignant, or emotional, or perhaps even inappropriate in their commentary on what is happening. It’s a humanistic element that I think is part of why blogs like mine can find a niche and continue to exist in it.

Given the choice between having only a few critics to read that I know will write detailed and thoughtful comments and having everyone be a critic where I can choose the kind of commentary I want to read, I’ll take the latter – especially if the Internet is going to provide me with more entertaining thoughts on cat brides.

January 8, 2011

The Incredible Credible Expansion Of Online Community

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: , , , — Leave a comment

I was reflecting the other day about how my work in the communities of the internet has sort of morphed, changed and honestly, gotten larger in the last few years or so. The things that I’ve seen during my time on the web have shown me that frankly, we’ve come a long way since peoples’ idea of being online together was primitive Java-based chatrooms or modem-powered bulletin board systems.

One thing to note about online community is that it’s been, honestly, incredible. Thinking about the fact that communities now exist for everything under the sun, from games, to makeup, to costuming, to fencing, and everything in between, it’s amazing to note how people have created and maintained community over the internet. Where before it was just a passing fancy to get people together once in while to chat about common interests, these days there are whole websites, books, and philosophies about dealing with online communities.

Those of us fortunate enough to actually have a job related to the community will certainly tell you that the position is nuanced, complex, and requires an intimate understanding of people online. It’s like an onion – one that you’d be literally crying over while trying to peel away all the layers. Awesome stuff, right?

But as if it wasn’t enough that there is a huge quantity of online communities out there, it’s worthy to note that online communities are also becoming credible, too. Even as recently as a few years back, you could easily dismiss communities online the way one might dismiss the token alien or robot-like character on a sci-fi series – anomalies, different, and sometimes not meant to be taken all that seriously.

But with things like this week’s Homeless Man with the Golden Voice, the support of long-time celebrity Betty White to host Saturday Night Live, and more, people are taking the opinion of online communities into account and acting on it. And why not? Unlike a traditional community initiative, limited to those local, online communities have the potential to include anyone and everyone that has a connection to the web. It’s an almost limitless resource of people, able to come together and make things happen through their various skills and knowledge, and they’re (mostly) intelligent about what they want. Businesses and companies that know how to use it, thrive in part on online communities and contributions. Some, like Threadless, even create a viable business model off of it.

One thing is certain about the incredible credible online community, given all that’s happened – it’s not getting any smaller. Between duplicates of communities for particular interests, the companies willing to support it, and the ever evolving occupation of online community management, it’s here to stay. Sure, I’m biased, but I’d like to think that in the future, online community is recognized even more than it is now for being a force to be reckoned with. Incredible credible online communities aren’t just mobs of people who are able to mobilize causes through sheer numbers – they’re also an assembly of minds and ideas and expertise that can be used to accomplish all sorts of things. They require massaging, management, guidance, and most of all, a little bit of that crazy love that makes us do more beyond just the status quo.

It’s getting there, though. And I’m definitely happy for that.

January 7, 2011

It’s Not Just About Toilet Tweets Anymore

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: , , , — Leave a comment

Today’s post is about not just the meteoric rise of social media and its association applications, but about a curious, and particularly awesome thing that I noticed while reading over my friends’ feeds this morning.

There’s so much less toilet tweeting.

Now I’m not trying to be crass or disgusting by using this sort of terminology. If you wanted that, you’d know me through Facebook or through MSN and I could give you plenty of that, since I’m a 12-year old on those services. No, when I say “toilet tweets” I mean to say that there’s much less of the obsessive personal minutiae that people tend to tweet about on Twitter. I use the term “toilet tweets” because, well, anyone who’s used Twitter for any extended amount of time probably has encountered at least one person on their followed list that’s thought it  appropriate to share with the world that they’re visiting the porcelain goddess. It doesn’t get much more personally detailed than that, to be honest.

The fact is, social media these days has in my estimation began a process of growing up and maturing into the kind of thing that a lot of the internet apps tend to do – they have fun, personal uses but they also have practical business and in some respects, money-making applications as well. Heck, I just talked about how social media stuff managed to take a homeless guy with a talent and get him job offers. That’s some powerful and amazing stuff – well beyond the use that Twitter first got when people were more concerned with posting about what side their toast was buttered on than about sharing a really neat link.

Even the personal use of social media and things like Twitter has changed for the better. When I first got into Twitter after resisting the initial fad, many more people were using it more as a way to tell people about the details of their day, in the context of how they felt at that very moment. While this use still persists today, most of the people on my list that I follow (and who follow me) use Twitter as a way to share links, get causes going, raise money, or increase awareness of issues and ideas that they might have or get behind. Tweets have moved from “I’m doing my makeup” to “I’m buying this makeup in support of breast cancer research”. People have moved from posting about how mexican food gives them the runs to how Mexican immigration to America is a serious issue to be looked at (with an accompanying research link). Twitter still sees the personal stuff, but the noise of it has become more in tune with not just how people feel at the moment, but how they feel in general and strikes their fancy.

Sure, some of us might miss the days when all Twitter was, was a feed of personal thoughts and randomness – but that can still be found, if you look hard enough or know which of your friends is the type to tweet while throwing their game controller through the TV. I’m just glad it’s becoming something so much more than that, and that it’s practicality will ensure its longevity moreso than its fun purposes.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to tweet about how delicious and wrong having Pepsi for breakfast is.

January 6, 2011

Not-The-WoW Marches Forward

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: , , — Leave a comment

Ah Babylon 5 – I still pay homage to you today with badly formed post titles.

Anyway, over at Broken Toys, the ever-prolific Scott Jennings has chimed in with a few thoughts on MMOs for 2011, with a ton of titles set to ship to eager customers everywhere, including a detailed analysis on a title near and dear to my heart, for blatantly obvious reasons (similarly in the same vein as Scott, yes I work for BioWare, no, I can’t tell you anything about Star Wars: The Old Republic, and no, cheesecake and brownies are not acceptable bribes even if I was accepting them). It sure seems that these days it seems like doing so is more like releasing rabid hounds on a fox, but such as it is with the world of games.

The one part I’d like to cherry pick from Scott’s rather insightful post is the fact that this is a year of “NotWoW”, and that we’re poised to see a realization that imitating the giant in the industry is not the way to create a long-lasting game. I know I wrote about this only a couple days ago, but part of all that Cataclysm hate stems from the fact that people are afraid that the game of their choice will simply be stomped into so much pancake by the DeathKnight-booted foot of Blizzard’s current titan (yes, I saw you saw what I did there).

There’s a bit of burgeoning optimism in what Scott is saying about the MMO market and I not surprisingly have to agree with it, for a number of reasons. One is the fact that despite perceived failures in the MMO industry, from the now-defunct Tabula Rasa to first-impressions-rushed Warhammer Online, the industry and its sleep-deprived developers have learned from every bump in the road that every title before it has driven over. And even games that haven’t done as well as folks hoped they would still contribute in some way to making the age-old formula better. Age of Conan gave us a story-driven and immersive introduction zone. Warhammer Online introduced us to public quests and achievements. Aion toyed with the z-axis for players. Stargate Worlds told us developers kind of  require salaries to work. Yes, most if not all of the titles out there showed players and developers lessons and thoughts and ideas that have, for better or worse, added puzzle pieces to the MMO mystery formula for success.

2011, I think, will be the realization of a couple years of refining the frontier of “innovative” features that paved the way for new and fresh titles. Sure, it might seem a little morbid, stepping over the battlefield of mangled and chewed up MMOs to do better against ravenous, picky fandom, but if it ends up being a better game overall, that means competition, and competition is good for the industry as a whole. Despite what some people perceive to be cynicism about the success potential of the upcoming crop of games, even the worst of them that bother to post about it have at least a little hope that something that comes out is going to be an amazing success. I think there will be, especially since people have cycled once again from a “love WoW but nothing else” mentality to a “want to play something different from WoW but still just as polished and fun”. 2011 is poised to bring us just that with MMOs, so I wish everyone out there, from the players that are eager to devour the content to the friends I know in the industry that are developing it all the luck and well wishes in the world.

January 5, 2011

The Internet And The Golden Voice

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Tags: , , , , — 5 Comments

UPDATE, 1:00pm CST: Looks like Ted Williams, he of the golden voice, is entertaining all sorts of offers, including one from the Cleveland Cavaliers that offers a mortgage and a home. Wow. Full story below!

Sounds kind of like some sort of modern-day 21st century fairy tale, doesn’t it? Well, in some respects, it actually is.

Some of you may have heard about this yesterday, but it seems that a homeless guy with a great voice for radio is going to have a happy ending to his bumpy life. Someone on YouTube posted a video (which you can see below after my post) about a homeless man from Columbus, Ohio who has a “God-given” gift to be on the radio. The video, despite only being a minute and a half, went viral almost immediately and was picked up from Facebook and Twitter by media outlets and news stations. He’s now being interviewed on a local radio show and has begun to receive offers of representation and work.

I’d say that this is your normal case of what could potentially be called a nice, heartwarming story, but I think it’s made even more so (and thus even more fuzzy) by the fact that the internet and technology helped make it happen. Think about it – YouTube contributed that user-generated content freedom, Facebook and Twitter notified others of a shared link that had to be checked out, Reddit built up a following for the guy to have – all in one or two day’s time. That’s amazing stuff.

If you really think about it, the power of the internet and online “fame” is immense – either to make you famous overnight or show the world that you’ve got an embarrassing habit that went public for all to see (don’t worry, I’m we all mess up flipping our pancakes into our face and causing third-degree burns, too). It’s a force that can’t really be reckoned with and that’s mostly because it’s unpredictable as hell – one minute you could be the Internet’s darling and the next you could be “old news”. But all that being said, if it doesn’t at least give you a smile on your face that one YouTube video and a few thousand Shares and Tweets might change someone’s life forever, then you’ve got to be one cynical bear.

The video is below. Enjoy!

January 4, 2011

MMO Free Agency

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet — Tags: — Leave a comment

Ah, LeBron. How you make today’s post ever so slightly better with your presence, even though much of the geek world has no idea who you are unless they played NBA2k11.

In my travels around the Interwebz I came across an article from Maeve of Multiplaying about the apathy she feels about MMOs after being unsubbed from, well, everything for the first time in a little while. She’s even feeling a little down about the fact that none of the current crop appear to be doing it for her. We can’t have that now, can we?

I too am not currently subscribed to any MMOs, and unless you count the fact that I play Guild Wars on a semi-regular basis, I’m not playing any at all. You’d think after the churn and burn I’ve had over the years with a few of the more popular titles out there that I, too, would not be feeling my oats. After all, it’s so very easy to feel disillusioned after trying and failing to find long term appeal in the games you want to play.

But not having an MMO to play at the moment isn’t so much a bad thing. Take, for example, the freedom that you have. There are reasons why an NBA star like LeBron James decided to have a one hour special talking about where he was going to play – putting aside perceptions of an ego the size of a blimp, it’s the simple delight of knowing and expressing that you’ve got the free will to go wherever you fancy. This is better than you might think, because just like sports teams schmooze the hottest free agents on the market in the offseason, MMO companies are always on the lookout to capture your interest if you’re not feeling the MMO scene at the time. Whether it’s through cinematic awesomeness or interesting gameplay mechanics or social media outlets and giveaways, people want your business and your subscription, and not having one currently makes you as hot a commodity as someone who can jump vertical a foot or more in the air.

Aside from the freedom, there’s the objectivity to formulate an opinion. Sure, this may be colored by (sometimes bad) experiences with MMOs you’ve since left to the wayside, but without emptying your wallet of some of your cash every month, you aren’t inherently biased towards a particular title. When you’re shelling out the dough, it’s a little easier to deal with the fact that you can’t log in for hours, your dungeon run ended up in you winning the armor that makes you look like a monkey clown on crack, or that you got rolled back a few hours grind. When not having to do this, reading the articles or the news on the latest success or blowup on MMOs is approached with a better, more global view.

And what about the simple fact that you now have more of your time back during the week to do other things? Yes, I know it’s hard for us geeks to tear ourselves away from the computer or a good game, but to be able to spend that 5-16 (or more, if you’re really hardcore) hours a week doing something else with your time like watching TV, going out, or reading perpetually optimistic blogs. We all know life’s about more than just the next piece of raid or PvP gear, so if you’re not attached to an MMO, get to it. Trust me – the MMOs will be waiting for you with open arms when you get back.

January 2, 2011

The Silly Cataclysmic Schadenfreude

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Internet — Tags: , , — 3 Comments

One thing that I totally missed during my time away from blogging was the latest expansion of Blizzard’s online drug of choice, World of Warcraft. This little number is titled Cataclysm, and for the two of you who have been living under a rock or trapped in inconvenient cryo-stasis the last couple years, the expansion re-works the original WoW content, creating new challenges and opportunities for players old and new looking to capture the nostalgia of early WoW.

As those who read me know, I too am a former WoW-er. But I left the game shortly before Burning Crusade after realizing that it might be better for me to spend my 20 hours a week raiding doing something else and perhaps getting paid for it, preferably not in the currency of headaches and drama. Since then, I’ve heard the game has gotten much more casual-friendly and easily able to be enjoyed among those who don’t have much time. It hasn’t been enough to entice me back, but I still have to give the proverbial “what’s up” head nod for Blizzard having such a successful and long-lived game.

But my sordid history of WoW-play isn’t the subject of today’s post. Today I’m talking about how there’s a tendency in the online gaming community to trash WoW and Cataclysm (or whatever latest expansion is out there) as short-lived, guaranteed failures that will bore people to death after a month. Comprised of the disgruntled or shafted from a mailbox dance in epics, this group of folks can’t wait for WoW to take its inevitable dive. Seeking to point out every flaw in the system, they take great pleasure in the inevitable mistakes that have been made with Cataclysm and cling to every bug and bad balancing decision as if it were the beginning of the end.

This kind of schadenfreude, the taking pleasure in the suffering of others (or in this case, other games) is present in many places where current and former WoW players congregate. To be honest, I don’t really know why people get happiness out of this stuff. You all know that I’m an optimist, and I like it when people are happy – but being happy about things that go wrong for others sort of has a limit. I’ve talked before about how the hate on WoW seems to be a bit pointless, but it gets worse with every expansion, and Cataclysm is no different.

The reason I do find it silly is mostly because it’s ultimately tiring. There’s a reason why they tell you it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. To translate it into online terms, it probably takes more finger-stress from typing to post a hateful rant than it does a nice, positive post (I blame it on the all-caps words and the need to reach over to bold and underline and re-size key points like “WoW sucks!!!111″). To maintain that level of hate or dislike for something over time is something only Darth Vader could do, and we all know what eventually happened to him, yes?

The fact is, the energy spent worrying about something you dislike enough to post about how you want it fail could be better spent talking about what you really like out of a game. There are people out there who shun the WoW game but are exceptionally happy to play things like, say, old school Ultima Online, Minecraft, and Left 4 Dead. Some play WAR or Aion, or Guild Wars, and are perfectly content with that experience without having to Halo-style teabag on others’ with WoW. They’re much happier than the haters, trust me.

For my part, I know that WoW isn’t really my kind of game, despite the temptations of a more casual pace and grind. But you won’t catch me saying a bad thing about it here, or anywhere else. It has its place in the MMO world, just like every other current and upcoming release, and like I said – the more that people play and accept it, the better it will be for us overall. Like the old saying goes, “haters gonna hate”, but you don’t have to be among them, right?

October 14, 2010

Why Cats (And Other Animals) Achieved Internet Fame

by Frank — Categories: Internet — Tags: — Leave a comment

Today someone passed a wildly appropriate lolcat my way. Of course, it being what it is, I had to laugh and share it with other people, who also laughed and….well, you get the idea. All that being said, it got me to thinking what kind of positive impact the internet has had on cats and other animals when it comes to unabashed, hilarious Internet humor. Why is it that the inclusion of funny cats always makes things more humorous, anyway?

Part of the reason I think this is the case is because sometimes humans (especially humans who are pet owners) forget that animals aren’t really like us. They have some form of intelligence that varies from knowing when feeding time is and (mostly) knowing where and when to poop. But for the most part, they operate on instinct, selfish behavior, and a general “do what I feel like” attitude. Maybe this is why when you put human traits and attach them to a picture with familiar Photoshopped text, it makes it a lot more hilarious. Sure, more than likely the animal pictured is feeling something else brought on by other circumstances, but visuals are everything. Seeing a kitty freaked out is one thing. Seeing a kitty freaked out with a caption saying “YOU MAKE KITTY SCARED” is entirely enough.

We’re visual people, too, and since visuals are everything, somebody posting a picture is louder than any wall of text we could post. The internet allows for such things to be created, edited, uploaded, and posted within a matter of seconds, making the practice of lolcats and other such images viral and pervasive. You’d think with so many images that most of them would end up being unfunny, but actually, for the amount of images involving animals presenting very human-like commentaries, very few are really “meh”. Maybe it’s because I’m too much of an idealist, but any animal doing anything remotely mischievous is hilarious as long as it isn’t one of my own. Yes, maybe you all might think that a picture of a kitty overturning a trash can onto themselves is good material, but I have to clean that stuff up!

At any rate, our household pets probably don’t even know how internet famous they really are or how they contribute to the overall scene. But if animal behavior is any indication, they’ll be providing plenty of material for many years to come. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get a “do not want” lolcat to put up in response to someone trying to push off more work on me.

October 7, 2010

Geek Communities Without Borders

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Social Geekery — Leave a comment

xkcd actually put up a really neato and fun post with a “Map of Online Communities”. You should definitely check out the full sized post and link, and not just because it just happened to inspire the subject of today’s post, either!

Seeing the world map parody with all the different online communities listed and bordered off is funny, but it really is a bit of a misnomer in a good way. I say that it’s a misnomer because any decent geek will tell you that the true power of online communities is that they really don’t have borders, and that many folks have investment and membership in more than just one. I know I’ve got at least multiple citizenship in more than a few countries on that map.

It’s awesome to think about how far being in online communities has gone, too. I mean, if you really think about it, a decade ago something like this was in its infancy, and a decade before that, it wasn’t even really possible. Before the age of the Internet, community was really relegated or limited to your neighborhood, local area, or, at the most your state and any other state or country you visited for one reason or another. The thought of groups of people connecting with one another in a persistent manner from all over the place didn’t really exist. In short, we really were separated by the physical borders that we frankly took to be, for the most part, insurmountable.

These days, the borders simply don’t exist anymore. People who would normally have never met in their entire lives now can connect with the click of a mouse or a call over the internet. Friendship, love, companionship, and even work can all be done over the internet, wiping away borders and restrictions that would normally hold people back from accomplishing shared goals – whether that is as serious business as running a website or as crazy as killing that one raid boss on hard mode when no one has ever done it before. Blogs like this one have gone from glorified computerized journals to OP-ED soapboxes where people can share idealism, pessimism, and everything else under the sun that they want with others. The most intriguing part is not even the fact that this has happened but that different ways of establishing online community are being crafted every day. The thing people forget is that Facebook and Twitter are recent in their rise to power. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years.

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