You ran a brothel? VERY interesting. You don't by any chance have a blog talking about what it was like do you? Perhaps you could answer a couple immediate questions that popped into my mind...
Did you "try out" the girls before you hired them?
Did you get freebies on a regular basis?
Did the girls honestly like the sex? Or was it just for the money?
What would you say to someone who has considered paying for fun in the past, but is still a bit uneasy about it even though logically its cheaper than having a girlfriend in the longrun.
I'm interested in how many NEW players are currently signing up for the game. Not players who are leaving accounts open, since I realize that yes, plenty of players just keep their accounts sitting around. That is why it is important to measure the influx of new customers otherwise its like when AOL counted all their old customers in their total subscriber base number.
Yeah, we all know WoW is a huge hit, but I'm curious...now that there is a very significant portion of their player base who is level 60...and many players have become disallusioned with the grind that is on par with EQ, does anybody have any numbers regarding their current new subscriber rate?
The reason I ask is that when WoW first took off, they had a large number of new players constantly joining the game...but I have a hunch that they are starting to approach their plateau as the game matures and new games come out. Yes, the expansion will help, but its primary customers will be existing players, not new ones.
Anybody have any figures as to what games new players are flocking towards these days?
"Damn right. Next thing they'll talk about puting in prison people who shoot each other in the game. Hey, murder is illegal isn't? Then why would a virtual scam be any different?"
While I certainly appreciate the humor of the parent comment, he raises an interesting point. Not necessarily with murder, but with other "crimes".
Example: Lets say a brothel in Second Life sprung up where the "employees" had characters that resembled underage girls and the players pretended to act underage. Would this be considered child pornography? Would they be able to arrest them for creating child porn? Who exactly would be liable? I know there have been cases against virtual child porn (and I apologize for my lack of researching that for this post...I'm not quite sure what the outcomes were) but what about an instance where its not just an image of virtual child porn, but 18+ people actually acting it out in the game?
Ok...we all know how creative and inventive spammers have gotten, and yes, I realize it only takes a couple of idiots to make it profitable...but come on...you REALLY have to wonder WHO IN THE HELL IS BUYING INTO THIS?!
Honestly, not only is a lot of the spam completely unintelligible, but it just looks so phony its hard not to laugh. Does anybody on/. personally know anybody who's actually purchased something from spam? What about the really bad retarded spam like this?
I know I should never underestimate the stupidity of humanity...but I really have no idea how someone could literally be stupid enough to buy something from one of these, yet smart enough to be able to fill in the credit card form required to give the spammer money. Please, explain that last one to me.
I see the retargeting banner ads all over my traffic analysis site and was wondering if anybody here had actually tried it and what, if any, their results were.
"That argument smells like complete BS. EA is extraordinarily profitable"
I don't disagree with that statement. Unfortunately, shareholders don't exactly tolerate LESS profit than the previous quarter. This means that they need to come up with ways to constantly make more money. In reality, its a giant balancing act. Please reread my post. My point is that they need to get additional revenue to satisfy shareholders, but they know that they can only charge so much for games so they supplment it with in-game advertising to prevent themselves from being forced to raise core game prices to meet those rising revenue expectations.
While it is easy for us, the knowledgeable techies, to see right through this, unfortunately the masses won't.
Honestly, I think there might be some false advertising in this, but my honest opinion is that we need to fight fire with fire and get the tech companies to start advertising as well. The ads need to be factual, straight to the point, and needs to explain in layman's terms EXACTLY what is happening and why the providers have a vested interest in spreading misinformation.
Yeah, the rules of this game suck, but if we want to win we either have to play by them, or rewrite them.
Keep well in mind that with rising development costs, inflation, and a shit economy, probably the ONLY reason you have been paying $50 for the past several years is because of things like this.
Everybody harps on companies for not lowering their price when they have another revenue stream such as this. What those people don't realize is that the additional revenue may not be enough to lower the price of the product, but it will certainly help prevent them from being forced to RAISE the price due to outside influences.
"I certainly hope it is only a matter of time before some clean politicians get voted in."
Hi, welcome to America, you must be new here. What our political system needs is nothing short of the kind of crusade Eliot Spitzer has led against corporations. I mean...corporations and politicians are tied hand in hand on this.
Unfortunately, politics is a game built by corrupt people for corrupt people.
"In Belgium, ad supported textbooks are illegal. Any publicity/sponsoring in education is illegal, in all three language communities, which is where the responsibility for education lies.
This is part of the very broad consensus in our country that education is a public good. Messing with that is guaranteed to get all kinds of people really angry."
I'm really hoping this guy gets in the press as much as possible about the sorts of questions he was asked. He is ABSOLUTELY correct that he is entitled to dislike big government, think Iraq was wrong, think we should not go into Iran etc. And it is quite disturbing to see the goverment try to turn that against him. And if he had answered incorrectly to those questions and been shipped off somewhere secret, what recourse would he have? None. Well, maybe his guild would organize a raid to free him, but still...we need to let government officials know that it is NOT acceptable for them to dish out their own interpretation of the law, or suddenly anything we can can and will be used against us in the court of law.
Relax, its the weekend, I know you were sarcastically hinting how um...fluffy this article was but its Sunday...in-depth scientific articles should be reserved for the work week, when I can pursue them and their related materials/research and waste copious amounts of work time.
"It is only "bad" when it is based upon lies of FUD."
Which is not the case this time.
"This attempt at "viral marketing" is stupid because your chance of winning anything DECREASES as it spreads."
Isn't that the way most contests work?
"
Not to mention that they really need different levels of participants. If Linus enters his story, but all the prizes go to people who "evangelize" Linux.... yeah, that's dumb."
The whole point of the contest is for people to say good things about Linux. That's what is being exchanged for the chance to win. Not dumb, quite smart actually.
For those who aren't clear on what this is from the blurb, this is a viral marketing campaign. However it is important to note that these sorts of things can be used as a tool by us. If you want to promote this, then by all means write your story, possibly win a prize etc. Not all marketing is bad, especially if you're interested in furthering the wellbeing of a certain company or product or movement (such as open source).
And of course the way a viral campaign really spreads is if you tell people. So if you feel this is important to promote and you want it to get more press, then write about it on your blogs.
No, I don't work for Novell, but I am involved in advertising and viral advertising in particular and I'm hoping that by explaining how we can harness this, people won't just jump down their throats and start bitching out all advertising in general, and slashvertising etc.
"So a lawyer takes his/her valuable time to try to share the fruits of their expensive legal education with you for free, and all you can do is mock them over a stray character or two. Grow up. They don't get paid to write comments here, let alone proofread them exhaustively."
Well, I normally don't respond to AC's but this is worth mentioning for everybody.
YOU CANNOT TRUST PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET! Given the actual demographics of Slashdot, which odds do you think are higher...that there's a kid who can't spell who's pretending to be a lawyer for shits and giggles, or that there's an actual lawyer who's giving free legal advice and NOT making a disclosure that none of their advice applies unless they are retained by the client.
Apologies to parent if you are an actual lawyer. I'm just saying that people shouldn't get all offended over this because frankly the odds of it being someone pretending to be a lawyer are a lot higher than the odds of it being an actual lawyer and they should be keenly aware of that when considering legal advice.
A little off-topic but the drug testing stuff really gets to me. I don't do drugs, but what the hell right is it of the company to know about what I do in my free time off the clock. They don't give employees breathalyzer tests everyday and trust me, there are a few at my company who would probably fail those if taken during the day.
Yeah, but I don't know if all people who have been depressed would feel the same way. Take myself for instance. I was clinically depressed for a large portion of my youth (yeah....who wasn't?) and while it REALLY sucked, in hindsight I would not trade those experiences for anything because they have forged me into who I am today. The trick is balance. If you're depressed more than 50% of the time, then yeah, life is going to be hard, but if its cushy too much, you get soft and are unprepared for the curveballs life can throw at you.
Think of it as the tempering of a blade, you need to heat and cool it to forge it correctly. Life is much like a double-edged sword in more than one aspect.......and...back to WoW.
"Lexapro can cause nausea, insomnia, problems with ejaculation, somnolence, increased sweating, fatigue, decreased libido, and anorgasmia. Most of the side effects experienced by patients taking Lexapro are mild to moderate and go away with continued treatment, and usually do not cause patients to stop taking Lexapro............"
Additional side effects may apply, see a lawyer in your state for details to determine how seriously you could sue our ass if any of these occur.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you "try out" the girls before you hired them?
Did you get freebies on a regular basis?
Did the girls honestly like the sex? Or was it just for the money?
What would you say to someone who has considered paying for fun in the past, but is still a bit uneasy about it even though logically its cheaper than having a girlfriend in the longrun.
The reason I ask is that when WoW first took off, they had a large number of new players constantly joining the game...but I have a hunch that they are starting to approach their plateau as the game matures and new games come out. Yes, the expansion will help, but its primary customers will be existing players, not new ones.
Anybody have any figures as to what games new players are flocking towards these days?
While I certainly appreciate the humor of the parent comment, he raises an interesting point. Not necessarily with murder, but with other "crimes".
Example: Lets say a brothel in Second Life sprung up where the "employees" had characters that resembled underage girls and the players pretended to act underage. Would this be considered child pornography? Would they be able to arrest them for creating child porn? Who exactly would be liable? I know there have been cases against virtual child porn (and I apologize for my lack of researching that for this post...I'm not quite sure what the outcomes were) but what about an instance where its not just an image of virtual child porn, but 18+ people actually acting it out in the game?
Honestly, not only is a lot of the spam completely unintelligible, but it just looks so phony its hard not to laugh. Does anybody on /. personally know anybody who's actually purchased something from spam? What about the really bad retarded spam like this?
I know I should never underestimate the stupidity of humanity...but I really have no idea how someone could literally be stupid enough to buy something from one of these, yet smart enough to be able to fill in the credit card form required to give the spammer money. Please, explain that last one to me.
I don't disagree with that statement. Unfortunately, shareholders don't exactly tolerate LESS profit than the previous quarter. This means that they need to come up with ways to constantly make more money. In reality, its a giant balancing act. Please reread my post. My point is that they need to get additional revenue to satisfy shareholders, but they know that they can only charge so much for games so they supplment it with in-game advertising to prevent themselves from being forced to raise core game prices to meet those rising revenue expectations.
Honestly, I think there might be some false advertising in this, but my honest opinion is that we need to fight fire with fire and get the tech companies to start advertising as well. The ads need to be factual, straight to the point, and needs to explain in layman's terms EXACTLY what is happening and why the providers have a vested interest in spreading misinformation.
Yeah, the rules of this game suck, but if we want to win we either have to play by them, or rewrite them.
Everybody harps on companies for not lowering their price when they have another revenue stream such as this. What those people don't realize is that the additional revenue may not be enough to lower the price of the product, but it will certainly help prevent them from being forced to RAISE the price due to outside influences.
Hi, welcome to America, you must be new here. What our political system needs is nothing short of the kind of crusade Eliot Spitzer has led against corporations. I mean...corporations and politicians are tied hand in hand on this.
Unfortunately, politics is a game built by corrupt people for corrupt people.
Oh, thats simple. You didn't realize their ENTIRE business plan.
1. Release music for free.
2. Support it with ads.
3. PROFIT!
4. Sue people who work around the DRM and copy the music.
5. MORE PROFIT!!!
What IS the world coming to?
Welcome to America where children get ad-supported text books and advert-news from Channel One.
Which is not the case this time.
"This attempt at "viral marketing" is stupid because your chance of winning anything DECREASES as it spreads."
Isn't that the way most contests work?
" Not to mention that they really need different levels of participants. If Linus enters his story, but all the prizes go to people who "evangelize" Linux .... yeah, that's dumb."
The whole point of the contest is for people to say good things about Linux. That's what is being exchanged for the chance to win. Not dumb, quite smart actually.
And of course the way a viral campaign really spreads is if you tell people. So if you feel this is important to promote and you want it to get more press, then write about it on your blogs.
No, I don't work for Novell, but I am involved in advertising and viral advertising in particular and I'm hoping that by explaining how we can harness this, people won't just jump down their throats and start bitching out all advertising in general, and slashvertising etc.
Well, I normally don't respond to AC's but this is worth mentioning for everybody.
YOU CANNOT TRUST PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET! Given the actual demographics of Slashdot, which odds do you think are higher...that there's a kid who can't spell who's pretending to be a lawyer for shits and giggles, or that there's an actual lawyer who's giving free legal advice and NOT making a disclosure that none of their advice applies unless they are retained by the client.
Apologies to parent if you are an actual lawyer. I'm just saying that people shouldn't get all offended over this because frankly the odds of it being someone pretending to be a lawyer are a lot higher than the odds of it being an actual lawyer and they should be keenly aware of that when considering legal advice.
Which law school did you say you graduated from again? Let me guess, they didn't have an emphasis on legal writing...
Think of it as the tempering of a blade, you need to heat and cool it to forge it correctly. Life is much like a double-edged sword in more than one aspect.......and...back to WoW.
Additional side effects may apply, see a lawyer in your state for details to determine how seriously you could sue our ass if any of these occur.