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I wonder how far up the executive ladder of Southland Corporation Mike Damone managed to climb before the buyout?

http://www.7-eleven.com/Locator.aspx I count about 15 in manhattan. That's pretty rare considering the city's density. I've seen exactly one in 10 years here. But I suppose it depends how you define rare, so whatev.

... the company's worth has passed that of EA (Electronic Arts).

Sort of nitpicking but if you click through to the businessweek source article, you'll notice that Zynga Game Network's value is an estimated worth while EA's value is a stock-market value. You should note that the former is estimated by SharesPost Inc. while the latter is determined by the Nasdaq Stock Exchange (in the past year EA has slumped almost 20%).

That's not to say Zynga isn't worth this much, I had a very shocking realization one day as I went to 7 Eleven to pick up some milk. Zynga has partnered with 7 Eleven in selling and marketing FarmVille, Mafia Wars and YoVille items and 'currency.' That's right, like a phone card you can get a prepaid Farmville card at any 7 Eleven (at least in my area) and they were putting free items on Slurpees, Big Gulps, coffee, candy and fast food they sold in the store. So you'd get this little peel off thing giving you a bulletproof vest in Mafia Wars and then it'd tell you how to log in to use it. I bet that alone got a lot more people hooked on Facebook -- just to get to their free item in Zynga's game (and this is why I feel borderline justified to call it a stratagem instead of strategy)!

For sometime now you've been able to buy WoW prepaid cards at 7 Eleven and there's been a handful of Xbox/PS/Wii games behind the counter but when I saw the shelf space and signs devoted to this stuff I knew it was going to dwarf all other forms of gaming very quickly. I know there are plenty of other reasons but when you see something completely outside the realm of where you think you should see a social game (I was going to 7 Eleven to pick up some skim milk), it really hits you right in the face how big this is going to get. Put yourself even spread out across the entire United States with ~10,000 locations of advertising and insertion and you're going to beat anything EA can put out with its billion of dollars. In order to compete with this, EA would have to put a demo disc of four different games targeting different ages for free on the counter of 7 Elevens (like a separate AOL disc for three different consoles and CPU). Despite how relatively inexpensive that would be for them, they aren't going to do that. And that's how Zynga wins out, the illusion that it's 'free' paired with efficient mass distribution of the free concept.

The big innovation in gaming is figuring out new ways to extract money from players. The concept that you can buy your way up in a game has become mainstream. Too mainstream; YoVille brownies in 7-11.

This idea originated in Japan, where you've been able to buy stuff for your virtual girlfriend with your mobile phone for years. But that was a niche product. Farmville peaked at 82 million users.

Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.

A few web sites that use .NET technology:

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe you should tell all those sites that .NET is a miserable failure? Or if you were just (successfully) karmawhoring, I am sorry to interrupt the circle jerk on here.

I personally run/have run many huge enterprise apps on .NET. It's actually a pretty good platform if you know what you're doing.

Don't take my word for it, though.

When I googled for what you asked to google, I found this list of sites running ASP.NET.

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
The White House - http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

Maybe you should tell those sites that .NET is a unproven technology? Or will you try to argue that these are not huge enterprise apps? Just because you want something to be true(or maybe you were just karma whoring) doesn't make it true. C# is a better language than Java, though each one has it's strengths. And even conceding your point(I don't) that Java is faster, speed is not everything. Or we would all be coding in assembly or machine code.

1198 Landsdowne St, Coquitlam, BC according to 7-eleven.com

Thank you, come again

7-11

...There are more 7-Eleven stores in Japan than in the US (view this link).

I Am Extreme
Yesterday at work I drank an Extreme Gulp while doing some Extreme Programming, and then I went home and ate Extreme Duritos while watching Extreme Sports on cable.

Today every muscle in my body aches.

Posted on May 01, 2002
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/000192.html

On that note, what is stopping a young teen from going to 7-11, and paying the $10 fee for one of their prepaid credit cards?

July 11th.. Evidence

My in-laws are approaching 70, and have the same aversion to cell phones. 7-11's prepaid plans, while not the cheapest, are good for a whole year.

Asteroids in the original arcade table-top version with pizza greased glass and Big-Gulp rings.

BTW: Most previous posts are NOT classic games! Quake 3, Chrono Trigger, anything-64!?!? COME ON PEOPLE! Sure, "classic" is a subjective term, but can't we at least agree that classic games refer to pre-90's games!?!

Some good examples would be Megaman, Tetris, or Metroid (not Super-Metroid). If these other titles start showing up as so-called "classics" then that means I'm getting old and that just can't be! Who cares about fancy-schmancy 64-bit graphics and sound!? My 8-bit NES still kicks ass with all the latest titles. That 3-D crap is a fad and it will never look smooth!

Every 802.11b wireless device I've ever heard of sucks batteries like a fat kid with a slurpy.

You mean Slurpee .

A while back? Right above _this_ thread the microsoft ad it shows me says that microsoft has a lower TCO and that 7/11 is evaluating it.

I really don't care where that 7/11 CIO 'Keith Morrow' with an "MBA in e-Commerce from Dallas Baptist University" gets his TCO estimates (did he count things like the virus/worm/spyware of the day?), and/or I don't care how much if any MS threw in the bargain bin for the marketing opportunity, but:

Windows still sucks big time, and I don't care about the ads.

Surprisingly missing from the everything2 reference was the fact 7-eleven is a Japanese owned company "IYG Holding Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ito-Yokado Co., Ltd. and Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd., has owned a majority interest in 7-Eleven since 1991" from here

But everything2 sucks for facts, purely rumour and urban gossip.

This stuff vs. the Super Big Gulp...

You can purchase pre-paid american express cards at 7-11 with cash. You can add more money to them also. I think this is what he was talking about, not visa buxx, which is just a credit card for kids where the parent gets to limit its use.

Here's some more info: http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/latestnews/7 -11.asp

addendum: I checked another link (http://www.7-eleven.com/internetcard/) and it looks like these are no longer available... so nevermind.

7-11 sells 2 prepaid American Express cards. One is only good for internet use and the other is good with any merchant. There is a $1K max limit, 4% up front commission, and the card can only be used in the USA.

7-11 sells 2 prepaid American Express cards. One is only good for internet use and the other is good with any merchant. There is a $1K max limit, 4% up front commission, and the card can only be used in the USA.