Archive for December 14th, 2006
You need mad skills to get into the clique that shakes down the 500 major game titles slated to hit the shelves each year. The life of a video game tester isn’t all fun and easter eggs, but it may be the best way to break into the industry. Once there, though, gamers turned producers find that scripting, game logic and making virtual worlds is a lot more difficult than fragging zombies. The hours are long and pay can be surprising low for an industry that is racking up serious cash and benefiting from battling console makers.
December 14th, 2006
Miami
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Mendota Heights, MN
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Dallas-Ft. Worth
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The blog alliwantforxmasisapsp.com was supposedly the creation of an amateur hip hop artist whose cousin wanted a PSP for Christmas. But turns out, it’s a flog (fake blog) built by a marketing company for Sony. A few bloggers had already figured it out, and quite a few users weren’t too happy about being deceived. “Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever,” Sony admitted in a statement. “From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.” And of course, Sony quickly pulled the comments feature on the site.
December 14th, 2006
The iTunes staff has put up a page of its favorite podcasts of the year. Too many to name here, but some I subscribe to on the list are TED Talks, Ze Frank and Ask a Ninja.
December 14th, 2006
Joining the ranks of cable channels that provide gay-themed programming comes the first over-the-air channel to target the gay audience. WGAY-TV in Key West launches in February, 2007. It’s a LPTV (low-power television station), but will be on Comcast Cable and on the internet.
December 14th, 2006
Clips that are highlighted on YouTube’s “Featured Video” section of the home page are all but guaranteed to drive hundreds of thousands of views. But how does YouTube pick ‘em? Are any paid positions? Mark Glaser interviewed YouTube, which responded, “We don’t always nail it, but the intentions are never commercially oriented, we can promise you that.”
December 14th, 2006
The Boston Newspaper Guild voted to approve a new deal with the Boston Globe that ties wage increases to revenue gains at both the newspaper and Boston.com. The deal also brings the 40 or so Boston.com staffers into the Guild. (WSJ sub. req.)
December 14th, 2006
Former CNN news chief Eason Jordan is launching a new site called IraqSlogger.com, named after Donald Rumsfeld’s reference to how the war is a “long, hard slog.” The site aggregates Iraq coverage around the world, and it even provides translated accounts from Iraqi newspapers. He explains, “(The site) grew out of the feeling that I think many people shared that there was no one place to go. Individual news organizations do terrific work but you can spend the better part of a day going from one site to another and one TV outlet to another,” searching for a full picture. Up next on Jordan’s agenda is a subscription-only site called IraqSafetyNet which will provide “intelligence” and security tips to employers of people in the war zone.
December 14th, 2006
Writes Terry Heaton, “2007 will be THE turning point year in the struggle for local supremacy, and those who do not address it immediately will find themselves being nothing more than content creators feeding the same companies that have descended upon us to pull money from our local markets.” He’s right on, and I have my own column in the works on the same subject, which I’ll post in the next few days. Local is where the battle will rage for online dollars, and unfortunately, local TV stations are out of position.
December 14th, 2006
Time Magazine White House reporter Mike Allen and Bloomberg News chief political correspondent Roger Simon have joined former Washington Post journalists John Harris and Jim VandeHei on the new political news startup, ThePolitico.com. The new site and its print counterpart, financed by Allbritton, is scheduled to launch on January 23rd.
December 14th, 2006
Now, I’ve never claimed to be a web designer, but I’ve spent plent of time tweaking the newish Lost Remote design. Then I stumbed across HotorNotDesigns.com, which lets users rank web designs on various websites. A quick ego search yielded my ranking, on a scale of 1 (not so hot) to 10 (hot)…
Sigh. Here are the lists of the hottest and ugliest web designs.
December 14th, 2006
