On a serious note, as much as we at Slashdot love to bash M$ and its employees, people need to realize something. When you have the kind of money Microsoft has, you don't hire run of the mill employees. You hire the best, because you can afford the best. Make no mistake, there are some SMART people over there, its just that they get tied down by stupid rules, policies, and corporate visions. And this is a perfect example.
"For some odd reason I don't see anybody coming to Kazaa's defense in court now like Napster saw when they were up on the chopping block."
While it may be in part because of spyware, it may also be because when Napster went to trial, there existed no alternatives. That's WHY Kazaa was made. Now that Kazaa is under fire, there exist so many different alternatives (better ones at that) so people just don't care.
Don't be jealous. Simply use the same tactics they use, but do it with your better skills and product. Networking is reality of the business world, and to just get pissed off at people who do it better than you gets you nowhere.
While I agree that it is hard to quantify what exactly the net gain/loss of fansubbing is, perhaps I can provide some insight into the "free advertising" since I am in advertising/marketing.
There is something called viral marketing, which you can't just pay for with "cheap advertising". It is VERY effective (possibly the most effective form of advertising), and when done the right way, free. Currently that is what fansubbing acts as, and as such, it is classified as free advertising.
I won't be a hypocrite though and say that I buy everything I download. In fact, I'm one of those people who almost never buy anime (mainly due to lack of funds, I would prefer to buy it though). However, I can't even count on two hands how many people have bought anime as a direct result of a recommendation from me. So instead of seeing it as losing my one sale, they should see it as a net gain.
The way things are going with the evolution of media and the net, people have decided they don't like paying for things without knowing what they're getting. People want to sample the product, and fansubbing provides that at no cost to the anime companies. Again, they should consider themselves lucky we're on their side.
If they were smart they'd realize the increase in sales revenue will come not from making you pay each time you view their content, but giving you incentive to actually want to buy their content such as um...I don't know...giving people a sample through fansubbing groups...
'Nope. That's actually an easy argument: The company WILL someday soon sell its DVDs in the USA, so distributing fansubs earlier will cut into their future sales."
Bzzzt. Wrong answer. This is the same as saying that a downloaded song equals a lost sale.
There is no guarantee of future sales.
If anything, fansubbing works like free advertising. People download the show, and buy the DVD when it comes out. Sure, plenty don't, but those people were never going to buy it anyway. Same thing with music downloads. They're finding that the increase in music downloading has led to an increase in cd sales since people are able to sample whats out there and find out about new artists that way.
Same thing with anime. If anything, I say we send the anime company's a bill for all the free advertising us fansubbers do for them.
I think I speak for a lot of Slashdot when I say that one of the coolest things we might see in our lifetime is the development of quantum computing. Once we figure out the basics, it is going to transform the way we computer simply out of the sheer computing power we'll be able to throw at things.
In addition to all of this, it is important to note that fansubbers often produce better quality "subs" than the professionals. While the translations run the whole gamut of quality, I love how some groups go the extra mile and provide cultural footnotes that you can read, and translations of writing that appears on the screen. Many commercial products don't do that.
In addition, I would just like to take this post to give a warning to the anime industry.
Take a lesson from market behavior with the RIAA and MPAA. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, or not only will the fansubbers stop buying anime (I'm willing to bet fansubbers are also the anime company's most profitable customers) from you, but they'll just spend their effort on subbing licensed material to piss you off. As it is now, there's a pretty good agreement where we basically get to sub things that aren't licensed in the states, and they back off. They send notices out to the sites that do host licensed stuff, but that will be done no matter what, and there's no way to get rid of these people.
As it stands right now, the VAST majority of the anime community respects the wishes of the anime companies, and we understand that we have a symbiotic relationship. They need our money to keep producing anime, we need their anime to get our fix. Very dumb move on behalf of this company to change that "agreement" just in search of higher profits. Write fansubbing off as a marketing expense and collaborate with some of the better groups instead, like Anbu or AONE or Seichi. Work with their translators, and get market insight from the fansubbers who have WAY more experience dealing with the desires of fans than the actual anime companies do.
You jest but I think that may have been one of the purposes of this submittion. Talk about a high count focus group who will ALSO trouble shoot your product for you and give you great feedback.
Here's a tip for any idiots who are making a startup game and want to release it to large numbers of people who probably will need some incentive to be interested in your game since it isn't mainstream and wellknown:
DON'T USE FILEPLANET!
Gamers hate it, but are forced to use it because everybody gets their files hosted their. The waits are a pain in the ass. Why use anything OTHER than bittorrent now that it has become mainstream, would really help your server load, and would get it to a lot more people a lot quicker since people could simply copy/paste the torrent link to their friends.
I'm a college student who's just gotten some freelance marketing work. I signed a contract, but since I'm not too experienced, I left out a termination clause in the contract.
Now, the real issue comes in now that I may be hired by a great agency full time with salary and benefits, but I don't know if I'll be able to work on personal projects on the side like this. Now, normally, if I got the job, I'd just quit this freelance thing, but since I don't have a termination clause, I can't figure out any way out of the contract. I get paid biweekly, and the deliverables are due at various milestones and the end date.
Any suggestions for how to get out of it? How should I approach this with my freelance client that I want to drop?
Not only that, but wait till grandparents kid is a teenager. If they are high functioning, try to ask them whether they'd like to be "cured". Remember, you may think they don't need a cure, but they're people to, and they may feel a lot differently than their parents.
Let me explain something to slashdotters about buying time in the Superbowl from an advertising perspective (yes, I'm in the industry). The Superbowl is expensive as hell, I believe current 30 sec. slots go for 2.4 mil. Unless you are a BIG company with that kind of money to toss around, you should NOT be in the Superbowl unless you are ready to risk it all.
Reading AdAge (industry publication) it is interesting to see that most of the spots that the companies are going to be airing are not product related spots, but rather branding spots. These are designed to increase your awareness of the brand, and to make you remember the company more. Branding of that scale is usually only best for companies that have an established foot print in the market place, and that have a customerbase who is already aware of their products.
Once you think about that for a bit, it is pretty obvious how foolish it was of the dotcoms to advertise during the Superbowl. Although I'm sure the media buyers and sellers that took part were MORE than happy to collect those commissions.
Absolutely. But I should point out that while it will get tossed away if its just in a pile of resumes, if you are good at networking and meet someone from a big company, by all means. This card is best used when there's a personal connection already there.
Part of the problem though is that for all intensive purposes, a lot of times they DO show a lot of promise. Mostly because the reviewers are promised things in the future like feature X or feature Y, so they preview it assuming that the game will rock much more once it has those features. Of course, we all know how often every feature gets included.
And honestly though, I don't think you can judge a game too much based on the preview, unless the games gone gold already.
Also, if you want to stand out from the crowd and already have a decent portfolio, look into purchasing those cut cdrom business cards. You can print your information on the front, and burn your portfolio to the card, and the coolness factor is so high that you will definitely get your work viewed.
Slashdot Mirror
While it may be in part because of spyware, it may also be because when Napster went to trial, there existed no alternatives. That's WHY Kazaa was made. Now that Kazaa is under fire, there exist so many different alternatives (better ones at that) so people just don't care.
There is something called viral marketing, which you can't just pay for with "cheap advertising". It is VERY effective (possibly the most effective form of advertising), and when done the right way, free. Currently that is what fansubbing acts as, and as such, it is classified as free advertising.
I won't be a hypocrite though and say that I buy everything I download. In fact, I'm one of those people who almost never buy anime (mainly due to lack of funds, I would prefer to buy it though). However, I can't even count on two hands how many people have bought anime as a direct result of a recommendation from me. So instead of seeing it as losing my one sale, they should see it as a net gain.
The way things are going with the evolution of media and the net, people have decided they don't like paying for things without knowing what they're getting. People want to sample the product, and fansubbing provides that at no cost to the anime companies. Again, they should consider themselves lucky we're on their side.
Oh well, least its nothing good thats being taken down (well, Kimi ga nozomu Eien was decent, but they finished subbing it LONG ago).
"FUKUI Kensaku Attorney at law"
Now if only I could think of a way to mock this lawyer...
Bzzzt. Wrong answer. This is the same as saying that a downloaded song equals a lost sale.
There is no guarantee of future sales.
If anything, fansubbing works like free advertising. People download the show, and buy the DVD when it comes out. Sure, plenty don't, but those people were never going to buy it anyway. Same thing with music downloads. They're finding that the increase in music downloading has led to an increase in cd sales since people are able to sample whats out there and find out about new artists that way.
Same thing with anime. If anything, I say we send the anime company's a bill for all the free advertising us fansubbers do for them.
In addition, I would just like to take this post to give a warning to the anime industry.
Take a lesson from market behavior with the RIAA and MPAA. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, or not only will the fansubbers stop buying anime (I'm willing to bet fansubbers are also the anime company's most profitable customers) from you, but they'll just spend their effort on subbing licensed material to piss you off. As it is now, there's a pretty good agreement where we basically get to sub things that aren't licensed in the states, and they back off. They send notices out to the sites that do host licensed stuff, but that will be done no matter what, and there's no way to get rid of these people.
As it stands right now, the VAST majority of the anime community respects the wishes of the anime companies, and we understand that we have a symbiotic relationship. They need our money to keep producing anime, we need their anime to get our fix. Very dumb move on behalf of this company to change that "agreement" just in search of higher profits. Write fansubbing off as a marketing expense and collaborate with some of the better groups instead, like Anbu or AONE or Seichi. Work with their translators, and get market insight from the fansubbers who have WAY more experience dealing with the desires of fans than the actual anime companies do.
2) Shoot down competitors product.
3)???
4)PROFIT!!!
DON'T USE FILEPLANET!
Gamers hate it, but are forced to use it because everybody gets their files hosted their. The waits are a pain in the ass. Why use anything OTHER than bittorrent now that it has become mainstream, would really help your server load, and would get it to a lot more people a lot quicker since people could simply copy/paste the torrent link to their friends.
Now, the real issue comes in now that I may be hired by a great agency full time with salary and benefits, but I don't know if I'll be able to work on personal projects on the side like this. Now, normally, if I got the job, I'd just quit this freelance thing, but since I don't have a termination clause, I can't figure out any way out of the contract. I get paid biweekly, and the deliverables are due at various milestones and the end date.
Any suggestions for how to get out of it? How should I approach this with my freelance client that I want to drop?
What he meant was "making it simple and making ME rich"
And cue Thinkgeek slashvertisement in 3...2...1...
Reading AdAge (industry publication) it is interesting to see that most of the spots that the companies are going to be airing are not product related spots, but rather branding spots. These are designed to increase your awareness of the brand, and to make you remember the company more. Branding of that scale is usually only best for companies that have an established foot print in the market place, and that have a customerbase who is already aware of their products.
Once you think about that for a bit, it is pretty obvious how foolish it was of the dotcoms to advertise during the Superbowl. Although I'm sure the media buyers and sellers that took part were MORE than happy to collect those commissions.
And honestly though, I don't think you can judge a game too much based on the preview, unless the games gone gold already.