It's pretty clear that the free market (blockbuster) has established the value of a license at $3-$5 per week
The local blockbuster charges at least $8 for a game rental.
It's rapidly approaching the point where it's more economical to buy a new game, and resell it a month later, than it is to rent the same game at blockbuster.
Like many brilliant ideas... it makes you smack yourself on the head and go "why hasn't everybody been doing this for years?".
Probably because the old solution was:
A) Simple B) Good enough for most purposes.
Sure, you can shave 80% off your patch filesize... but unless you're as big as google, patch bandwidth probably isn't a major priority -- you've likely got much more important things to dedicate engineering resources to.
You know how they say "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Well, when an invention isn't really necessary for most folks, it tends to show up a little later than it might otherwise have.
Hosting a bunch of images doesn't do any good unless you have a text (or at least searchable) description of what you're downloading.
Yes, but the host serving the images doesn't have to have the text.
This has already happened with rapidshare and other similar services. Files with obvious names ("New Metallica Album.rar") don't usually last long. Users have since taken to posting content using increasingly obscure filenames. They simply post links to these files on other sites, with summaries of what they contain.
Similarly, you could host a bunch of data-laden images on flickr with completely unhelpful filenames and descriptions, and provide a directory on another site.
The point is to get a 3rd party service to publicly serve your data for you.
USB key drives are banned. There is even software loaded onto the machines, by default, that detects if you've inserted a key drive (and can tell the difference from a USB hard drive) and reports you to the IS guys.
Why is this important?
Aren't a USB harddrive, USB key drive, and iPod all just as good for bringing in/taking home bad stuff?
Arbitron is already using something somewhat like this.
They have their "test families", or whatever they're called, carry small devices they call "portable people meters". Television programming includes sonic markers outside of the audible range, which these devices pick up via a small mic.
One would think that being able to identify television/radio programming without pre-inserting said inaudible watermarks could simplify their process.
Out of 2.9 million hits from IE browsers on our most active site since the beginning of the month, roughly 5200 are from versions of IE older than 6. That's about 0.1% of our IE users, and 0.05% of our total users.
Also, I've caught obvious UA spoofing in our logs -- one script reported a different, random UA with every request -- many of which were browsers you'll never actually see in the wild -- like "Lotus Notes web client"
What's more, even the biggest sites don't offer an A-grade experience for older browsers. Hell; I remember not being able to access microsoft.com using IE 3 in 1998! If microsoft dropped IE 3 support a decade ago, surely most of the web can as well. Even Yahoo offers a limited experience to users using old browsers, and facebook throws "get a better browser" messages up if you visit with IE6.
In the end, it's just not economically feasible, in many cases, for developers to spend time supporting 0.05% of browsers, especially when those browsers are so old that they support only a fraction of modern standards. I salute your efforts to make your properties accessible to _absolutely_ everyone, and I'd love to do the same, but we just can't justify the development cost, for the sites we run. We'd be spending thousands of dollars to support a number of users we can count on one hand, to the detriment of our tens of thousands of users on modern platforms. Frankly, if any of our frequent contributors are on older platforms, it's almost more cost effective for us to buy those few stragglers modern netbooks.
This is true of all software. Sure, we could write everything to run on DOS and Mac OS 7, but it'd be expensive to develop and test on so many platforms; there'd be minimal, if any gain in adoption; and we wouldn't be able to take advantage of more recent technology. In the end, taking the "support absolutely everything" philosophy just isn't a sound business decision.
EVE's approach is even more broken, because at least grinding rewards the player for playing the game. In EVE, you are rewarded for queuing skills and logging out.
EVE just moved the grind from experience to ISK (money). The grind is still there, which rewards players with lots of time.
EVE's skill system at least does a little to help casual players keep up with everyone else, if only a little. It also gives you an incentive to log in periodically, and stay subscribed.
Well, I suppose that depends on how you estimate the importance of modern music, doesn't it?
Regardless of your personal opinion of the artistic merits of Jackson's work, there's no denying he had a massive effect on American pop culture, and tens of millions of Americans.
Playing the SWG beta, one aspect of the experience stood out. When attempting to travel from planet to planet, you had to sit at the shuttle station for up to 5 minutes.
I did a lot of resource gathering, so I spent most of my game time out in the wilderness. The shuttle stop ended up being the place where I was most likely to interact with other players. I later learned that this was by design.
More importantly, there's usually nobody looking over your shoulder when you log in to a website. It's just you, sitting all alone in your office, suffering reduced usability to protect against a non-issue.
Not all of us have those nice cushy jobs Mr. Nielsen has, where we have our very own office. Roughly 99.9993% of office workers have colleagues. I guess Mr. Nielsen is just a tad detached from reality here.
When you put it that way, it starts to sound like this article may have been inspired by a specific episode in which Mr. Nielsen experienced difficulty typing in his own password.
"Damnit, again!? It's these damn fucking asterisks! I can't even see what I'm fucking typing!"
I find that nothing gets me cleaning the apartment like having a project to do. And nothing gets me working on a project like having a clean apartment AND another more urgent, less appealing project to do.
Right now, if your apartment is messy, work on your current project. Of course, instead of working the project, you'll procrastinate it by cleaning your apartment. When your apartment is clean, get yourself an urgent, unappealing project. Soon you'll be using your original project as a means of procrastinating the new one!
Unfortunately, I find the "read slashdot" project remains farily high on the list of "appealing projects".
Sounds a lot like, deep down, you don't really want to be there, or at least you don't want to be working on that project... Do you truly like your colleagues? Your employer?
TFS mentions that he's the only guy working on the project, so if his colleagues and employer are causing him issues, he's probably going to need the help of a competent psychiatrist
People who claim that Obama or the American Democratic party for that matter is socialist needs to take a trip around the globe. In many European countries the Democrats would be considered a right wing party.
Both the american communist and socialist parties have clearly stated that Obama is far too conservative for their tastes.
Shit. If I were a petty thief with a freshly-lifted wallet, one of these things would be my first stop. Instantly convert someone's credit/debit cards into gold, which can be melted down to remove any identifying marks, at a 70%+ rate of return?
Talk about being anti-web. The wave google tool is something you can use on the web. The Microsoft tool is something you have to download and then install before you can even start using.
Doesn't that make firefox anti-web?
Absolutely. Firefox should have been implemented as an activeX plugin.
No, wait. DHTML and javascript. And written to only run in IE6.
The 3D image is constructed in Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) format, meaning you currently need a VRML reader to see it (future browsers will likely build this functionality in)
Wow, apparently Arrington is completely unaware that VRML is a 15 year old spec that's been ignored by "future browsers" for over a decade because it's crap, and is practically unused.
Just what "future browsers" need -- a bloated 3d presentation format that targets a problem that no one has, and is less capable than already supported technologies like flash and java applets.
Can anyone explain Twitter to me? For all my efforts to comprehend its allure, it still seems like a bunch of hobos talking to themselves while they ramble around a city.
"Ok, gonna take a crap behind this here dumpster..."
"Cop saw me, gotta run!"
"Lady gave me two dollars, gonna buy ripple"
(etc)
Seriously. What's the attraction? Why post one-line updates constantly? Wasn't annoying everyone with an end of the day blog entry enough?
I use twitter a little differently from most, but to me, twitter is really just group SMS.
All of my immediate family members use it -- my wife and parents the most. It allows us to keep up with each other throughout the week. It's nice to be able to send a message to a single place, and have it automatically distributed to everyone else's mobile devices (or not, depending on how they use the service).
For a download based service, sure, I can see that. But streaming sucks, more so on video. Unless connections get a whole lot better, I'm not the least bit interested in streaming.
I don't share your experience at all.
My wife and I have fallen in love with netflix streaming on the xbox 360. Watch anything from their streaming library, in DVD quality, whenever we want, instantly? No driving to Blockbuster? No waiting 3 days for it to turn up in the mail? Sold.
On our crappy old CRT, netflix streaming is indistinguishable from DVD, and we've only had a handful of connection issues in hundreds of hours of viewing.
You're right, there's absolutely a contingent that won't pay for streaming. But there's also a significant audience that can't wait to.
Slashdot Mirror
The local blockbuster charges at least $8 for a game rental.
It's rapidly approaching the point where it's more economical to buy a new game, and resell it a month later, than it is to rent the same game at blockbuster.
Probably because the old solution was:
A) Simple
B) Good enough for most purposes.
Sure, you can shave 80% off your patch filesize... but unless you're as big as google, patch bandwidth probably isn't a major priority -- you've likely got much more important things to dedicate engineering resources to.
You know how they say "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Well, when an invention isn't really necessary for most folks, it tends to show up a little later than it might otherwise have.
Yes, but the host serving the images doesn't have to have the text.
This has already happened with rapidshare and other similar services. Files with obvious names ("New Metallica Album.rar") don't usually last long. Users have since taken to posting content using increasingly obscure filenames. They simply post links to these files on other sites, with summaries of what they contain.
Similarly, you could host a bunch of data-laden images on flickr with completely unhelpful filenames and descriptions, and provide a directory on another site.
The point is to get a 3rd party service to publicly serve your data for you.
Why is this important?
Aren't a USB harddrive, USB key drive, and iPod all just as good for bringing in/taking home bad stuff?
Arbitron is already using something somewhat like this.
They have their "test families", or whatever they're called, carry small devices they call "portable people meters". Television programming includes sonic markers outside of the audible range, which these devices pick up via a small mic.
One would think that being able to identify television/radio programming without pre-inserting said inaudible watermarks could simplify their process.
A bust:waist:hip ratio of 3 to 2 to 3 (in humans, 36-24-36)
It applies to all species. There's no debating that. It's science.
Honestly, I think there are a few people out there who simply overestimate the cost of upgrading.
They don't realize that you can pick up a solid netbook, or refurb desktop for $300.
Out of 2.9 million hits from IE browsers on our most active site since the beginning of the month, roughly 5200 are from versions of IE older than 6. That's about 0.1% of our IE users, and 0.05% of our total users.
Also, I've caught obvious UA spoofing in our logs -- one script reported a different, random UA with every request -- many of which were browsers you'll never actually see in the wild -- like "Lotus Notes web client"
What's more, even the biggest sites don't offer an A-grade experience for older browsers. Hell; I remember not being able to access microsoft.com using IE 3 in 1998! If microsoft dropped IE 3 support a decade ago, surely most of the web can as well. Even Yahoo offers a limited experience to users using old browsers, and facebook throws "get a better browser" messages up if you visit with IE6.
In the end, it's just not economically feasible, in many cases, for developers to spend time supporting 0.05% of browsers, especially when those browsers are so old that they support only a fraction of modern standards. I salute your efforts to make your properties accessible to _absolutely_ everyone, and I'd love to do the same, but we just can't justify the development cost, for the sites we run. We'd be spending thousands of dollars to support a number of users we can count on one hand, to the detriment of our tens of thousands of users on modern platforms. Frankly, if any of our frequent contributors are on older platforms, it's almost more cost effective for us to buy those few stragglers modern netbooks.
This is true of all software. Sure, we could write everything to run on DOS and Mac OS 7, but it'd be expensive to develop and test on so many platforms; there'd be minimal, if any gain in adoption; and we wouldn't be able to take advantage of more recent technology. In the end, taking the "support absolutely everything" philosophy just isn't a sound business decision.
There are several places around facebook that tell you to upgrade your browser if you visit with IE 6.
We're big fans of that around the office.
EVE just moved the grind from experience to ISK (money). The grind is still there, which rewards players with lots of time.
EVE's skill system at least does a little to help casual players keep up with everyone else, if only a little. It also gives you an incentive to log in periodically, and stay subscribed.
Regardless of your personal opinion of the artistic merits of Jackson's work, there's no denying he had a massive effect on American pop culture, and tens of millions of Americans.
Not to mention search engines.
Unless failure to block things in robots.txt becomes implicit permission for search engines to link to your content.
Playing the SWG beta, one aspect of the experience stood out. When attempting to travel from planet to planet, you had to sit at the shuttle station for up to 5 minutes.
I did a lot of resource gathering, so I spent most of my game time out in the wilderness. The shuttle stop ended up being the place where I was most likely to interact with other players. I later learned that this was by design.
http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/socialization.shtml
http://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/09/forcing-interaction/
When you put it that way, it starts to sound like this article may have been inspired by a specific episode in which Mr. Nielsen experienced difficulty typing in his own password.
"Damnit, again!? It's these damn fucking asterisks! I can't even see what I'm fucking typing!"
Unfortunately, I find the "read slashdot" project remains farily high on the list of "appealing projects".
TFS mentions that he's the only guy working on the project, so if his colleagues and employer are causing him issues, he's probably going to need the help of a competent psychiatrist
I think my wife and I have both used a laptop in the tub at least once.
Not both of us at the same time, mind you.
Both the american communist and socialist parties have clearly stated that Obama is far too conservative for their tastes.
It's already begun... (sauce [nsfw])
Shit. If I were a petty thief with a freshly-lifted wallet, one of these things would be my first stop. Instantly convert someone's credit/debit cards into gold, which can be melted down to remove any identifying marks, at a 70%+ rate of return?
It's a money launderer's wet dream.
Absolutely. Firefox should have been implemented as an activeX plugin.
No, wait. DHTML and javascript. And written to only run in IE6.
lol, I love this snippet from that post:
Wow, apparently Arrington is completely unaware that VRML is a 15 year old spec that's been ignored by "future browsers" for over a decade because it's crap, and is practically unused.
Just what "future browsers" need -- a bloated 3d presentation format that targets a problem that no one has, and is less capable than already supported technologies like flash and java applets.
I use twitter a little differently from most, but to me, twitter is really just group SMS.
All of my immediate family members use it -- my wife and parents the most. It allows us to keep up with each other throughout the week. It's nice to be able to send a message to a single place, and have it automatically distributed to everyone else's mobile devices (or not, depending on how they use the service).
And for their next trick, they're targeting the auto industry, planning a sports car that gets 40 mpg.
Sure, it may have an unimpressive 0-60 time of 8.4 seconds, but they've gotta hop on this "green" bandwagon while they still can!
I don't share your experience at all.
My wife and I have fallen in love with netflix streaming on the xbox 360. Watch anything from their streaming library, in DVD quality, whenever we want, instantly? No driving to Blockbuster? No waiting 3 days for it to turn up in the mail? Sold.
On our crappy old CRT, netflix streaming is indistinguishable from DVD, and we've only had a handful of connection issues in hundreds of hours of viewing.
You're right, there's absolutely a contingent that won't pay for streaming. But there's also a significant audience that can't wait to.