Digital Prolixity
"There is no real life; you're either online, or AFK"- Ramzi Yakob
Geek porn on the way
Aug 29th
So this is my new computer which should be arriving tomorrow 
For those who may wanna know the spec… it is:
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 GO 2.40GHz Quad Core CPU Overclocked too a minimum of 3.40GHz and beyond. (8/9 x 400MHz – 1600MHz FSB)
- Tuniq Tower 120 Pro Blue LED Intel approved cooler
- Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink compound professionally hand installed by our technicians
- Abit IP35-Pro Intel P35 (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- Award winning Crucial 2GB PC2-8500 CAS5 (2x1GB) Dual Channel Kit (Overclocked at 1000MHz+)
- 500GB Western Digital 16MB Cache SATA-2 Hard Drive
- NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 VIVO HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) DirectX 10 Graphics Card
- Pioneer 112DBK 18x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- Antec NINE HUNDRED Gamers ATX Case
- OCZ 850W Next Generation Power Supply
I have an extra 2 gig of ram waiting for it to bring it up to 4 gig total *drool* – This computer should keep me going for the next 3-4 years, just as my current one has done me well since 2004.
I’ve paid out some extra cash for the advantage of it being a ‘silent’ computer. It has some funky cooling in it and the fans it does have have a large diameter so run at lower RPM’s which means lower volume – happy days.
I wasn’t originally looking for something this high-spec, but I got suckered by a ‘this week only offer’ which saved £250 before VAT. You can buy very well priced components and full systems from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/. They deliver quickly and I’ve never had a problem with them before.
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A band called Bug
Aug 25th
A long time ago in what I would almost call a different life, I was the head of staff for a small start-up, non profit video game company. I helped grow the game along with a dozen or so very dedicated people. Through this – I met and came to know a large number of different people who were all pretty cool in their own way.
Last night… I went to a gig in Clapham to see one of those people I’d known for about 5-6 years play… expecting like you do with any friend who has a ‘band’ that it would probably be a bit amateurish but nevertheless willing to be polite about it.
I was pretty blown away when they started playing and realised that this guy that I had known online for so long… had a polished band with a good sound. I feel quite privelaged to know Martin Whiteside – the guy who writes a lot of Bug’s songs and plays Bass too.
Amy Rennie – the lead singer – not only has a very good set of pipes on her but also has pretty amazing stage presence, drawing in and engaging the crowd. The way she moves about on stage reminds me a bit of Keith from the Prodigy.
Check out the video of them in action below – I hope you like them. If you do, have a look at their professional looking myspace page www.myspace.com/bugband for more vidoes and information on where they’re gigging. I’ll make another post before I go to see them again.
Is mobile media rubbish?
Aug 22nd
As I’ve feared for the last half decade… mobile media is a bit rubbish and will probably continue to be. [Although I should point out that I'm talking from a consumer perspective primarily, however that naturally feeds into why I have issues with it as a planner]
We should break down the above statement into 2 parts:
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Why it is rubbish
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Why it will probably continue to be rubbish
Why mobile media is rubbish
The idea of mobile media has some pretty intrinsic flaws that stop it from booming massively in the UK.
For a start – mobile handset makers have spent the last 10-15 years trying to make phones smaller. Obviously visual media doesn’t work at its best on a tiny screen, and only now really are we seeing a bit of a change in handset design to reflect the fact that bigger screens are needed if people are going to be using web or maps on their phones.
However as the screens have been getting bigger… the buttons haven’t been which makes navigating/surfing quite difficult. Even the IPhone in all its glory has been slammed for the simple fact that if you don’t have tiny fingers, its very hard to use the on screen keyboard. This sadly has led some individuals to believe that clearly it is their hands’ fault for being too large… rather than pretty stupid design planning that has caused this problem… even with at least one reported case of a person surgically augmenting their hands so they can better use the Iphone. This of course… is nothing short of being completely retarded.
So of course… even with larger screens… there is still the problem of small buttons, poor net connection speeds (at least in the UK), WAP (just in general), and of course the instinctive desire in consumers to have small phones.
Why mobile media will probably continue to be rubbish
A recent article on Brand Republic details some figures showing that use of mobile media has declined in the UK quite dramatically. Even the most popular past time of downloading ring tones etc has dropped by over 10% in the space of a couple of years. Mobile web/WAP use has declined over 20% in the same time period. Sadly I’m unable to link this article here as it is behind a log-in required part of the site. However people with BR log-ins can go here and read the full article.
At the same time – PDA sales have seen their 13th consecutive quarter of declining sales because “PDAs… have no voice capability, are unattractive, stand-alone devices. People want to buy something they can get more functionality from”. Smart phones will supposedly pick up some of the slack left in the wake of this dying hardware – but this will probably take the shape of a Blackberry as the typical PDA user was business professional of some description – not likely they’ll replace their PDA’s with an MP3 phone – not specifically at least.
So… the evidence is against mobile media for the moment at least. With decreasing demand and use, big companies are going to see less and less potential value from investing in it.
Who knows… maybe the rumoured Google phone will revolutionise mobile media in the UK… it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve revolutionised a medium.
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Faris Yakob + Iain Tait = 2.0
Aug 2nd
Check out an interview with Faris and Iain shot in Romania when they were over there talking to people about Digital.
I’d love to embed it on here.. but sadly it autoplays rather than having to click to play.
So click HERE to see it.
Banker teaches the gaming industry
Jul 25th
A story over at Ars Technica informs me of a talk an MD for an Investment Bank gave about the landscape of the gaming market and what is needed to succeed in developing a casual game with lasting appeal.
… yes that’s right… an investment banker telling game makers how to produce games to make money. This kind of thing makes me want to cry. This chap’s big idea has the sentiment of the following paragraph which is not a direct quotation from him, but rather my interpretation of it. Please go to the original Ars story linked above for a more objective look at what was said, and please forgive the hyperbolic use of marketing terms in this.. but it emphasises my feeling that his idea is only supported by ‘buzz’ words without much substance behind it.
“We need to do a 360 on the gaming landscape, use our learnings from the booming growth of social networks, apply this in the world of gaming in a way that gives a game mass appeal, but keeps users hooked like World of Warcraft does. Bringing Web 2.0 into a mash-up environment where we can get UGC involved to make game ‘sticky’, and make the game playable on even the lowest spec home computers and then let buzz generate to promote the growth of the game virally”
The problem this chap has – is he thinks the head of the tale in the gaming market is the wider public who are the same people who only go to the cinema to see blockbuster title’s like Pearl Harbour etc. I think in this case… is an incorrect assumption.
The head of the tail (as seen in the picture above) I think is made up of people who are considered to be ‘hardcore gamers’ such as the 9 million who play World Of Warcraft and that the long tail of gaming is made up of ‘niche’ gamers who instead of investing all their time in 1 game will split their gaming time between their Wii’s, flash based web games and their Nintendo DS’s. The whole point of casual gaming is that the games are simplistic (as games with depth are more time consuming) , and provide instant gratification.
Now the funny thing about the long tail end of the curve, is that it is made up of hundreds if not thousands of games all competing for a much smaller number of game-play hours when compared to the titans like World of Warcraft which generate huge numbers of game-play hours. What 1 game could gather this ‘niche’ audience and provide all of the necessary factors to fulfill the needs of a casual gamer? Granted there is no harm in trying – but any social based game will end up getting people to play more regularly than can be considered behaviour of a ‘casual gamer’. As social media has shown us already that people end up spending roughly an hour/day on MySpace/Facebook etc – so at what point do casual gamers become ‘hardcore gamers’? And if people who once were casual gamers, do become ‘hardcore gamers’ as a result of this society changing game – how long will it be before they migrate to games with substance and depth?
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Ok not so exciting.. but i’ll share
Jul 18th
I’m reading ‘The Long Tail’ as I explained before. In it – the author credits the founder of Amazon as being the first person to really take advantage of the long tail effect of the interent, with limitless choice resulting in tens of thousands of products being sold only a handful of times each to make a huge profit.
I was hoping he wouldn’t mention porn… but he does. Only in a passing comment.. but its enough to make me feel like i’ve lost my thunder. What thunder you may ask? Well I’ll explain.
Essentially I was hoping he wouldn’t mention porn because I’m of the opinion that the founder of Amazon wasn’t the first person to take advantage of the long tail online at all. My opinion is that the early Internet Porn guru’s were. The long tail explains that physical shops are restricted in what they stock as the physical attributes of products must be worth their space. I.e. the shelves in an offline shop need to be stocked with popular products which will be worth what few inches they take up on to pay for overhead like rent, staffing etc and as a result – even though there was a wealth of pornography available back in the day from the brown paper bag shops – there wasn’t limitless choice catering to all needs – just choice catering to the popular needs.
The internet saw huge growth and demand initially due to the long tail effect of a non physical ‘shop’ of pornography. Of course there were other factors that caused the rapid growth of the internet in the early days – but I think the consensus is that demand for porn was a major factor.
When people found the internet… they found a network that was 90% pornography of every description – catering for both popular and niche requirements – in a context that provided ultimate privacy. Thousands of people, turned into tens of thousands of people all looking for porn which catered to their preferences which otherwise would have been too difficult to find offline – and in the process… a handful of online porn guru’s grew extremely wealthy.
Anyway.. my point is.. I believe those entrepeneurs were truly the pioneers of utilizing the long tail effect provided by the internet.. as opposed to the dude who founded Amazon. Jeff Bezos just pioneered it from a family friendly brand perspective.
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Something coming soon… something good
Jul 17th
I’ve been reading ‘The Long Tail’ recently – and hopefully i’ll get to the end and the writer hasn’t mentioned something I think will make people look at ‘The Long Tail’ in a different way which I’ll post here.
Its a bit exciting (to me at least) – I’ll try to get through the book quickly to help not keep you in suspense 
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Hmmn Google is acting weird
Jul 13th
Well my blog appears to be 3rd again in the natural listings so maybe the algorithm hasn’t changed after all.
Oh well.. I’ve bought some PPC ads against my name anyway just in case (and because I’ve wanted to for a while for the fun of it).
p.s. don’t click on my ads… lol… if you happen to Google my name that is and see it.
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Google have changed their search algorithm
Jul 13th
Well I’m a bit depressed to be honest. 2 days ago if I Google’d my name – my blog would come up 3 in the listings just under my account on Plannersphere but now it isn’t shown at all on the first couple of pages – but randomly my RSS feed links for this blog are.
Also… when I used to search ‘digital prolixity’ my blog was nowhere to be seen but now it is top of the listing.
A bit rubbish for me 
– I clearly need more people linking to this blog.
*sigh*
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My definition of the human network
Jul 5th
Click on the image above to enlarge it and see my definition of the human network.
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