It also got them:
Zero revenue.
Hundreds of headaches and bugs.
Negative media coverage in the anti-trust trial.
Microsoft doesn't care about zero revenue, as long as their business objectives are achieved. Consider the XBox: they were losing money when they were selling it for $300, and they're sure as hell going to continue to lose money now that they're lowering it to $180. In fact, year-over-year losses for the XBox have doubled, but they're still in the market, looking for a way to outflank Sony and Nintendo.
Hundreds of headaches and bugs? What do they care about that? Apparently as much as they do about secure computing..... and if you've seen their scorecard for the last few months (the Passport and Hotmail fiascos being only the most recent examples), you'd realize this really isn't a major concern for them. They'll continue to insist that the NEXT version of [insert operating system / web service / application name here] will be much more stable, secure and robust -- and people will buy it.
Thing MS is scared of negative media coverage about the antitrust trial. It's over, and guess what? THEY WON IT. Yes, it cost a grotesque sum of money; yes, they received a Thanksgiving-sized helping of negative press. But they avoided some major potential liabilities: having to split up their company into "Baby Bills"; having to open up (or open source) parts, if not the whole of their operating system to competitors; having to unbundle Internet Explorer, or being prevented from integrating applications into the OS going forward; or being legally obligated to follow certain practices that would impair their ability to maintain a soft monopoly on the markets they currently dominate.
But despite the fact that they're taking a big chance here, I think they limit their overall appeal by limiting the library of titles which they'll debut with. Consumers aren't going to watch the channel at all just because it's anime, just as they wouldn't subscribe to the channel if it didn't have titles that appealed to the masses. Or at least, broadly enough to justify establishing a dedicated anime channel.
I really hope they make the cut, and have the chance to expand their offerings in the manner you describe. My girlfriend and I are both big fans of cartoons in general, and having oodles of anime to watch would be most welcome indeed.
Maybe you should check out this response to my post. That poster obviously got the point you missed -- that the offerings on this would-be anime channel are quite limited, NOT that they should illegally broadcast anime shows which they don't own the rights to.
Furnish all of your franchise diners in one fell swoop!
Nothing to see here. Move along, you lucky-loos!
on
High Density CDs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yet another proprietary method of storing more information than was originally intended on a media (format? type?) that continues its inexorable descent into obsolesence.
Start pushing that Blu-ray DVD technology, people. At 4.7Gb, even standard DVDs are starting to look at little bit tired; with any luck, Blu-ray will become affordable around the time DVDs really start to seem limited, where storage capacity is concerned.
Pulled this off the website, which is presumably intended to sell a prospective advertisers on Superstitial-formatted ads:
The Superstitial® generated 20 times the response than all other units.
18% lift in brand awareness
37% lift in purchase intent was attributed to the SS
Great...... you've raised awareness of your brand by shoving it directly in the face of your would-be customer. Who, as it happens, is visiting the hosting website to do something worthwhile, and not just look at rapacious pop-up ads all day.
But did you mention that your ads might have also chased away a user from your website forever? Or, at the very least, start searching for a browser plug-in that will block all forms of advertising, thus reducing the efficacy of ALL ads on your site?
Too bad they're limiting what they show to those properties they own the rights to. Or at least, that's what I thought I read somewhere recently. And that would also explain why their offerings are somewhat limited.
Yeah, getting a box that will allow you to take full advantage of Doom ]|['s capabilities will probably take some new hardware. Although I believe that the most expensive / demanding piece of equipment will be the graphics card..... I remember reading somewhere (Tom's Hardware? Ars Technica? ShackNews?) that the Radeon 9700 Pro -- then the fastest graphics card available -- would only be able to crank out 20-40fps on a high-end box.
What kind of box do you have right now? Would you be gaming under Linux, Mac or PC? I'm pretty sure that if you have 1GB of DDR RAM, upwards of 1.6Ghz CPU, a 7200RPM 8MB cache HDD and a fast video card, you'll be able to play it and not go without. Here's a box that has most of those features -- it's a SFF box that I spec'ed out a few days ago, and it costs under $1000 ($979):
$280.00 - Shuttle XPC SB51G SFF $184.00 - ATI Radeon 9500 PRO w/ TV-Out & DVI $190.00 - Intel Pentium 4 2.53Ghz / 533mhz FSB $130.00 - Western Digital 120GB HDD (8MB Cache) $142.00 - 2) 512MB Corsair PC2700 DDR $ 53.00 - Lite-On LTR-52246S 52x24x52 CD-RW
Yes, $1000 is still a lot of money to shell out for a PC. But it's not as much as it used to be for a quality box. And the longer you wait, the cheaper components will get.
... will be affected. Carmack has always been good about making his games available on a variety of platforms -- remember, the Quake3 test came out on Mac BEFORE PCs. Time will tell....... in the meantime, now there's Half-Life 2 to look forward to / keep us occupied until Doom ]|[ comes out.:)
Refusing any mail with the AG logo on it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to do anything. What if somebody's already bought the AG card? You're just gonna piss off the person who bought it, not knowing in the first place.
... who said that Segway would revolutionize transportation. I'm more interested in what Carmack and the other leading X-Prize company (with the wacky looking ship / plane) can come up with.
First of all, let's understand one thing: id Software does NOT need the cash. The company has a history of hits -- they create the technology next-generation games are inspired by, if not based directly on. They're one of the few companies that can spurn the Microsoft money machine and not regret it, because they've been more successful marching to their own tune than just following the easy money.
Second, Carmack has said he's getting tired of making games. But he's not looking to call it quits and retire: he's looking at ROCKETRY, for goodness sake! So here we have John Carmack, one of the most technically saavy minds of our time -- he's a geek's geek, he posts on Slashdot, he doesn't give two shytes about the fame that people would love to heap upon him. Why, then, should the gaming public begrudge him the seed money that could very well open up a new door in rocketry?
Sure, it'll push back Doom 3's release date -- we're still waiting for Duke Nukem Forever, aren't we? Give id Software its due -- let them have the cash, let Carmack make the millions he richly deserves. Because I want to see what Carmack can do when he really applies himself full-time to a REAL-WORLD endeavor.
Yes, the X-Box will have another instant hit if Doom 3 comes out. Is that what some people are hung up on -- MS pulling a Bungie and buying their way to success? Not that it's worked so far -- they have a handful of AAA titles (Halo being the only one I've ever played), and the PS2 still outpaces it in sales.
Boondock Saints (1999) is awesome -- I found it purely by chance back in June 2000, poring over some not-so-new Blockbuster VHS titles. Willam Defoe is absolutely hilarious as an over-the-top FBI agent, and Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus are both utterly believable as two Boston-dwelling Irish brothers out for vengence. Get the import version, if you can -- Fox removed a lot of the violence when they released it this past year for US consumption.
Donnie Darko (2001) is another keeper, too -- I only happened across it a few months ago because my girlfriend mentioned that it had been screening at a tiny indie NYC theater midnight on Fridays and Saturdays for over a year. Was so good I bought the DVD as soon as it came out.......... surprised I never heard of it before. Starring Jake Gyllenhal (the would-be Spiderman replacement for Toby McGuire).
I've heard that OLED will solve the refresh rate problems that LCDs have had, so that they'll truly be able to replace CRTs once the prices come down and such. Is this true? The only thing holding me back from buying a new monitor is the fact that I want to game and work on the same unit -- I want the viewable space, smaller form factor and lightweight properties all rolled into one. Is OLED the solution that will bring this all to pass?
First of all, I didn't think so many people knew / loved MULE. My eldest sister -- 25 now -- and I used to bash on our C64 constantly, and MULE was our favorite game of all time. Still is..... I went out and bought her an NES with a 4-person adapter and a copy of MULE, and we play it whenever we're able to visit each other.
That being said, MOM and Starflight were games that I miss even now. Apparently there's an effort being made to bring Starflight 3 to light; and some guy did a bit of modernizing work on Mail Order Monsters, too.
Granted, it operates solely against files for the time being, but it does create indexes for faster searching and such. And it does make metadata (user-definable or auto-extracted) available for searches...........
Granted, they're not down-and-out just yet, but they are going toe-to-toe with Microsoft Office on the for-profit front, and OpenOffice, too (mindshare / OSS). If they decide to get out of the business altogether, maybe they'd consider a program like this?
Slashdot Mirror
....is Shufflepuck Cafe.
Calculon's going to be jealous about this one.
Check it
Going for $18.00 at Amazon.com, or $22.50 including the CD soundtrack.
It also got them:
Zero revenue.
Hundreds of headaches and bugs.
Negative media coverage in the anti-trust trial.
Microsoft doesn't care about zero revenue, as long as their business objectives are achieved. Consider the XBox: they were losing money when they were selling it for $300, and they're sure as hell going to continue to lose money now that they're lowering it to $180. In fact, year-over-year losses for the XBox have doubled, but they're still in the market, looking for a way to outflank Sony and Nintendo.
Hundreds of headaches and bugs? What do they care about that? Apparently as much as they do about secure computing..... and if you've seen their scorecard for the last few months (the Passport and Hotmail fiascos being only the most recent examples), you'd realize this really isn't a major concern for them. They'll continue to insist that the NEXT version of [insert operating system / web service / application name here] will be much more stable, secure and robust -- and people will buy it.
Thing MS is scared of negative media coverage about the antitrust trial. It's over, and guess what? THEY WON IT. Yes, it cost a grotesque sum of money; yes, they received a Thanksgiving-sized helping of negative press. But they avoided some major potential liabilities: having to split up their company into "Baby Bills"; having to open up (or open source) parts, if not the whole of their operating system to competitors; having to unbundle Internet Explorer, or being prevented from integrating applications into the OS going forward; or being legally obligated to follow certain practices that would impair their ability to maintain a soft monopoly on the markets they currently dominate.
But despite the fact that they're taking a big chance here, I think they limit their overall appeal by limiting the library of titles which they'll debut with. Consumers aren't going to watch the channel at all just because it's anime, just as they wouldn't subscribe to the channel if it didn't have titles that appealed to the masses. Or at least, broadly enough to justify establishing a dedicated anime channel.
I really hope they make the cut, and have the chance to expand their offerings in the manner you describe. My girlfriend and I are both big fans of cartoons in general, and having oodles of anime to watch would be most welcome indeed.
Maybe you should check out this response to my post. That poster obviously got the point you missed -- that the offerings on this would-be anime channel are quite limited, NOT that they should illegally broadcast anime shows which they don't own the rights to.
I hope so. There has to be some benefit in exchange for women.
Excuse me, I think I'm a bit lost. Where do I go to exchange my geekiness for a woman?
Furnish all of your franchise diners in one fell swoop!
Yet another proprietary method of storing more information than was originally intended on a media (format? type?) that continues its inexorable descent into obsolesence.
Start pushing that Blu-ray DVD technology, people. At 4.7Gb, even standard DVDs are starting to look at little bit tired; with any luck, Blu-ray will become affordable around the time DVDs really start to seem limited, where storage capacity is concerned.
Pulled this off the website, which is presumably intended to sell a prospective advertisers on Superstitial-formatted ads:
The Superstitial® generated 20 times the response than all other units.
18% lift in brand awareness
37% lift in purchase intent was attributed to the SS
Great...... you've raised awareness of your brand by shoving it directly in the face of your would-be customer. Who, as it happens, is visiting the hosting website to do something worthwhile, and not just look at rapacious pop-up ads all day.
But did you mention that your ads might have also chased away a user from your website forever? Or, at the very least, start searching for a browser plug-in that will block all forms of advertising, thus reducing the efficacy of ALL ads on your site?
No? Didn't think so.
EOM.
Too bad they're limiting what they show to those properties they own the rights to. Or at least, that's what I thought I read somewhere recently. And that would also explain why their offerings are somewhat limited.
Yeah, getting a box that will allow you to take full advantage of Doom ]|['s capabilities will probably take some new hardware. Although I believe that the most expensive / demanding piece of equipment will be the graphics card..... I remember reading somewhere (Tom's Hardware? Ars Technica? ShackNews?) that the Radeon 9700 Pro -- then the fastest graphics card available -- would only be able to crank out 20-40fps on a high-end box.
What kind of box do you have right now? Would you be gaming under Linux, Mac or PC? I'm pretty sure that if you have 1GB of DDR RAM, upwards of 1.6Ghz CPU, a 7200RPM 8MB cache HDD and a fast video card, you'll be able to play it and not go without. Here's a box that has most of those features -- it's a SFF box that I spec'ed out a few days ago, and it costs under $1000 ($979):
$280.00 - Shuttle XPC SB51G SFF
$184.00 - ATI Radeon 9500 PRO w/ TV-Out & DVI
$190.00 - Intel Pentium 4 2.53Ghz / 533mhz FSB
$130.00 - Western Digital 120GB HDD (8MB Cache)
$142.00 - 2) 512MB Corsair PC2700 DDR
$ 53.00 - Lite-On LTR-52246S 52x24x52 CD-RW
Yes, $1000 is still a lot of money to shell out for a PC. But it's not as much as it used to be for a quality box. And the longer you wait, the cheaper components will get.
... will be affected. Carmack has always been good about making his games available on a variety of platforms -- remember, the Quake3 test came out on Mac BEFORE PCs. Time will tell....... in the meantime, now there's Half-Life 2 to look forward to / keep us occupied until Doom ]|[ comes out. :)
Refusing any mail with the AG logo on it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to do anything. What if somebody's already bought the AG card? You're just gonna piss off the person who bought it, not knowing in the first place.
... who said that Segway would revolutionize transportation. I'm more interested in what Carmack and the other leading X-Prize company (with the wacky looking ship / plane) can come up with.
First of all, let's understand one thing: id Software does NOT need the cash. The company has a history of hits -- they create the technology next-generation games are inspired by, if not based directly on. They're one of the few companies that can spurn the Microsoft money machine and not regret it, because they've been more successful marching to their own tune than just following the easy money.
Second, Carmack has said he's getting tired of making games. But he's not looking to call it quits and retire: he's looking at ROCKETRY, for goodness sake! So here we have John Carmack, one of the most technically saavy minds of our time -- he's a geek's geek, he posts on Slashdot, he doesn't give two shytes about the fame that people would love to heap upon him. Why, then, should the gaming public begrudge him the seed money that could very well open up a new door in rocketry?
Sure, it'll push back Doom 3's release date -- we're still waiting for Duke Nukem Forever, aren't we? Give id Software its due -- let them have the cash, let Carmack make the millions he richly deserves. Because I want to see what Carmack can do when he really applies himself full-time to a REAL-WORLD endeavor.
Yes, the X-Box will have another instant hit if Doom 3 comes out. Is that what some people are hung up on -- MS pulling a Bungie and buying their way to success? Not that it's worked so far -- they have a handful of AAA titles (Halo being the only one I've ever played), and the PS2 still outpaces it in sales.
Boondock Saints (1999) is awesome -- I found it purely by chance back in June 2000, poring over some not-so-new Blockbuster VHS titles. Willam Defoe is absolutely hilarious as an over-the-top FBI agent, and Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus are both utterly believable as two Boston-dwelling Irish brothers out for vengence. Get the import version, if you can -- Fox removed a lot of the violence when they released it this past year for US consumption.
Donnie Darko (2001) is another keeper, too -- I only happened across it a few months ago because my girlfriend mentioned that it had been screening at a tiny indie NYC theater midnight on Fridays and Saturdays for over a year. Was so good I bought the DVD as soon as it came out.......... surprised I never heard of it before. Starring Jake Gyllenhal (the would-be Spiderman replacement for Toby McGuire).
.... to the term "Gulf of Mexico".
I'm already thinking of the kittens.
I've heard that OLED will solve the refresh rate problems that LCDs have had, so that they'll truly be able to replace CRTs once the prices come down and such. Is this true? The only thing holding me back from buying a new monitor is the fact that I want to game and work on the same unit -- I want the viewable space, smaller form factor and lightweight properties all rolled into one. Is OLED the solution that will bring this all to pass?
First of all, I didn't think so many people knew / loved MULE. My eldest sister -- 25 now -- and I used to bash on our C64 constantly, and MULE was our favorite game of all time. Still is..... I went out and bought her an NES with a 4-person adapter and a copy of MULE, and we play it whenever we're able to visit each other.
That being said, MOM and Starflight were games that I miss even now. Apparently there's an effort being made to bring Starflight 3 to light; and some guy did a bit of modernizing work on Mail Order Monsters, too.
Granted, it operates solely against files for the time being, but it does create indexes for faster searching and such. And it does make metadata (user-definable or auto-extracted) available for searches...........
Granted, they're not down-and-out just yet, but they are going toe-to-toe with Microsoft Office on the for-profit front, and OpenOffice, too (mindshare / OSS). If they decide to get out of the business altogether, maybe they'd consider a program like this?