I think a lot of guys don't think the girls would "stoop to their level". There's this inherent understanding among male gamer geeks that we're not necessarily popular and good with girls, so we expect them to not naturally hang out with us. Thus, when actually confronted with them on our home turf, it catches us off guard, some people to the point where its simply easier to deny their existence than accept that yes, there are girls who play games, and some may be even geekier than you.
Personally, I would love to meet a girl who played video games like I did, but they tend to either not be my type, or are never single.
While this is hardly true, I feel that I should point out that there is no guarantee you'll make a lot of money out of school. In fact, the vast majority of people in America DON'T make a lot of money, and end up in low paying service jobs. Welcome to reality, we can't all be wealthy.
As for working your way up, if you bust your ass, you most certainly have a better shot at making 100k. For example, I borrowed my friends law school books, and will probably be going into about 100k of debt in a year or two if I get into law school. But if I bust my ass there, and get into a good firm, I could be making well over that in 10 years.
There's a few other posts where people have made good arguments from the supplier management perspective, but from the marketing perspective.....well, lets just say that consumers don't like fake buzz. I REALLY hope that every single news organization that mentions MS selling out on day one will also mention in the same article that this is due to intentionally limiting the number available in order to generate a lot of fake buzz.
Not all press is good press, and I think that if people are going to hear about MS for this, they might as well hear how disgenuine and fake MS is intentionally being here.
$500? I'm REALLY curious as to why the price is that high. If Honda takes care of all maintenance and pays for the fuel, thats one thing...but for something that looks as ugly as this (seriously, look at the pictures), I can't really justify paying about what it costs to lease a high end Mercedes or BMW for the purpose of testing something...
And you've just hit on the reason MS is doing this. Their dream is to have their entire usebase on a subscription model. Easy control, easy ability to monitor them, easy ability to start putting in ads even though people are paying subscriptions, etc.
The reason I made that comment was because I had a hangover, and was unable to decipher the story blurb. The person who responded made a post that was even more confusing and impossible to decipher, hence my comment reflecting the fact that rather than just give people what they want, he has to be a twit and try to show off with how smart he is.
There's a difference between it being a fair deal and it being foolish. I too agree it is very foolish, hence the data cord I have that lets me upload my own ringtones for free.
However, the market has shown that it is willing to bear the cost of $2.50 for a ringtone, and in comparison to that price, this is an exceptionally fair deal.
"My initial reaction was $2.50 a pop?, what the? My next reaction is, I'll never buy music at $2.50 a song, never! "
I had the same initial reaction, but you need to take a step back and think about what you're getting...You're getting a high quality download for your computer, and a ringtone for your phone.
You DO realize that most people pay $2.50 for JUST a simple lo-fi ringtone, right? And that may even be a weekly fee depending on who they buy it from.
So what it really comes down to is this: Download for computer - $1.00 Download for phone - $1.50
Or however you wanna break it down. Either way, i'd say you're getting a pretty fair deal here depending of course on what sorts of DRM and restrictions they put on it.
Shows how much you actually know about the industry. There are many of us who work for agencies who stand on their morals. In fact the real powerhouses of the industry are as such. Grow up and stop being a Slashbot.
Actually, as someone in the ad industry, allow me to explain why this is NOT astroturfing.
Astroturfing occurs when there is NO disclosure of the fact that it is a paid sponsorship/advertisement. There are currently not many rules about it right now, although recently Adrants.com has started blasting some of the companies that do something similar to what this article is discussing, but fail to disclose at any point that they are paid spokespeople.
You see, the ad industry, believe it or not, does NOT want undisclosed shilling. The vast majority of us want people to pitch the product, but also disclose the fact that they are paid. It builds trust, and shows we're not trying to trick people.
That is why we get VERY upset when companies don't have their shills disclose these things.
Reminds me of an excellent book called Everybody In Silico. Basically it takes place in the future where advertising has run even further amok and people are transitioning permanently to a new cyber world.
What reminded me was that in the book, they have people who go up and pitch things directly to other people, and they have watches that listen for audio cues, and when they've successfully pitched someone, money is deposited into an account for them.
And while I should know this since I'm in advertising.....how do these companies make sure these kids are actually pitching? How do they know they're not just paying them to go dick around with their friends and not do anything? There's no real sort of metrics for this sort of thing nor is there much control.
Whatever happened to those displays that were under development that would basically be able to duplicate luminosity? Like....if you were playing a flight sim and flying into the sun, it would actually be very bright like an actual light source in reality. Whatever happened to all of that?
I'll save you guys the trouble of looking at the site....its just a press release to try to drum up some Halloween traffic with what amounts to an article about the history of zombies and what people thought caused it. Nothing to great.
You know...there's something really scary to imagine those hardcore EQ, WOW, and w/e players getting into stocks. I seriously think they could give a lot of traders a run for their money if they got into it.
Whats even scarier is the fact that there are Sun banner ads for this article...coincidence? I think not.
Its funny, a lot of my friends bashed MS for doing this, and then go right back to playing HL2 which they got through Steam...which is starting to charge for mods....chilling indeed.
"Way to sell your new system. I don't know about anyone else, but I read that as 'We're really rushing this thing to market to beat Sony, and the early games might be as botched as that EA football game on the PSP, but hey! In a year from now, we'll probably have figured out how to do some really neat stuff!' And then adding on the next page, 'In the meantime, you can buy all these cool customised fascias! That's gotta be worth something, right?'"
Sounds kinda like the whole thing is a hardware open beta test to me.
Couldn't agree more on MS wanting to be in the living room. They're realizing that everybodies entertainment has pretty much gone digital, and since game consoles are basically computers these days, MS is gambling on people wanting access to all their media in one COMFORTABLE location. Let me reemphasize that....COMFORTABLE!
Most people (aside from us geeks) don't make their computing station that comfortable because they do not spend that much time there as say...the living room. MS wants everybody using them in the living room because that will mean everybody has to go through them, and when you're locked in as the de facto standard hub with the most market share, suddenly you have a lot more money, a lot of power, and just about final say in whatever gets used in that environment.
More power to this guy if he really thinks this, and I of course hope that this is a point in the right direction. But take a moment and think about what company this story is about. Do we really think they would accept anything less than total donination?
Part of me wonders if the location/composition of this identity shifts throughout your whole life. And I honestly can't wait for the day when we are able to figure out what would happen if you gradually replaced one persons brain with another.
" Natural selection has had its turn. Now it's time for intelligent design to give it a shot."
The most ironic part is that when (not if) humanity gets to the point where we're creating new life forms from scratch and are essentially Intelligent Designers, it will all have arrived out of natural selection granting us intelligence and us using that intelligence to create.
Could get into some weird kinda feedback loop there if our creations ever make creations of their own...
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I would love to meet a girl who played video games like I did, but they tend to either not be my type, or are never single.
As for working your way up, if you bust your ass, you most certainly have a better shot at making 100k. For example, I borrowed my friends law school books, and will probably be going into about 100k of debt in a year or two if I get into law school. But if I bust my ass there, and get into a good firm, I could be making well over that in 10 years.
Not all press is good press, and I think that if people are going to hear about MS for this, they might as well hear how disgenuine and fake MS is intentionally being here.
Infected with DRM
However, the market has shown that it is willing to bear the cost of $2.50 for a ringtone, and in comparison to that price, this is an exceptionally fair deal.
I had the same initial reaction, but you need to take a step back and think about what you're getting...You're getting a high quality download for your computer, and a ringtone for your phone.
You DO realize that most people pay $2.50 for JUST a simple lo-fi ringtone, right? And that may even be a weekly fee depending on who they buy it from.
So what it really comes down to is this:
Download for computer - $1.00
Download for phone - $1.50
Or however you wanna break it down. Either way, i'd say you're getting a pretty fair deal here depending of course on what sorts of DRM and restrictions they put on it.
Astroturfing occurs when there is NO disclosure of the fact that it is a paid sponsorship/advertisement. There are currently not many rules about it right now, although recently Adrants.com has started blasting some of the companies that do something similar to what this article is discussing, but fail to disclose at any point that they are paid spokespeople.
You see, the ad industry, believe it or not, does NOT want undisclosed shilling. The vast majority of us want people to pitch the product, but also disclose the fact that they are paid. It builds trust, and shows we're not trying to trick people.
That is why we get VERY upset when companies don't have their shills disclose these things.
What reminded me was that in the book, they have people who go up and pitch things directly to other people, and they have watches that listen for audio cues, and when they've successfully pitched someone, money is deposited into an account for them.
And while I should know this since I'm in advertising.....how do these companies make sure these kids are actually pitching? How do they know they're not just paying them to go dick around with their friends and not do anything? There's no real sort of metrics for this sort of thing nor is there much control.
I guess we should just be grateful that both of your hands were already occupied....
Whats even scarier is the fact that there are Sun banner ads for this article...coincidence? I think not.
Sounds kinda like the whole thing is a hardware open beta test to me.
Most people (aside from us geeks) don't make their computing station that comfortable because they do not spend that much time there as say...the living room. MS wants everybody using them in the living room because that will mean everybody has to go through them, and when you're locked in as the de facto standard hub with the most market share, suddenly you have a lot more money, a lot of power, and just about final say in whatever gets used in that environment.
More power to this guy if he really thinks this, and I of course hope that this is a point in the right direction. But take a moment and think about what company this story is about. Do we really think they would accept anything less than total donination?
The most ironic part is that when (not if) humanity gets to the point where we're creating new life forms from scratch and are essentially Intelligent Designers, it will all have arrived out of natural selection granting us intelligence and us using that intelligence to create.
Could get into some weird kinda feedback loop there if our creations ever make creations of their own...