Monday 23 November 2009

World of warcraft

Virtual quests lead to real love and death for World of Warcraft fans
World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft has resulted in a thriving black market for virtual goods to use in the game
Image :1 of 2
Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter, and Rob Fahey

When it began it was just a computer game. Now it is seen as a cultural force that sparks love affairs, breaks marriages and creates “sweat shops” to satisfy a black market in virtual goods.

World of Warcraft marks its fifth birthday today as something more than just an online role-playing game where users become wizards, warriors, orcs and elfs.

“It has had an enormous cultural impact,” said Tom Chatfield, author of Fun. Inc, a book about the growth of the games industry. “It has proved that online gaming can make huge profits, making a billion in revenue a year. It has proved that gaming could be for a truly global audience.”

Analysts say that its popularity has paved the way for other blockbuster games. This month Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, made a record-breaking $500 million (£303 million) within 24 hours of its release.
Related Links

* Computer games fan 'planned school killing'

* The Warcraft widows

Others argue that the game’s success has suffocated rivals. “Pretty simply, it’s one of the best games ever made,” said Oli Welsh, a writer at Eurogamer.net, the video game news website. “But it’s a mixed blessing for the games industry. People are trying and failing to match Warcraft, and get enough players to take it on. Other games have been strangled by it.”

An estimated 12 million people play the game, paying a monthly subscription of about £9. They spend many hours taking on quests and doing battle with each another, building up their character — or “levelling up” as it is known in the game — to gain powers and abilities.

But it has a dark side. A thriving black market for virtual goods to use in the game, such as swords and animals, has emerged. Some top-level goods take thousands of hours to earn, and impatient players are willing to pay up to $5,000 on eBay to get them.

The real financial rewards on offer have created an underground industry, where players play in slave-like conditions to obtain the items and sell them on. “You effectively have sweat shops in China,” Mr Chatfield said. “If you were to visit one of these gold-farming things, you’d find a building with maybe 20-40 people in it, playing in shifts on banks of computers. They do it because they can earn more money doing that than producing garments in factories.”

The addictiveness of the game has been accused of destroying relationships, creating “Warcraft widows” as players set it above anything else.

One “widow” told The Times: “We’ve had to enter into some heavy negotiation to work out the nights and weekends when he can play without me nagging to stop. Because it’s not just the odd half-hour. Sometimes if he’s locked into a group he’ll break only to eat and visit the loo.”

Blizzard Entertainment, which owns the game, will not reveal the average time that players spend on it, but academic research estimates that it is between 25 and 40 hours a week.

This obsessiveness has even led to violent consequences. Last week, police in France said that they had thwarted a plot by a boy, 13, to murder his school teachers. He was allegedly addicted to Warcraft. He was found by officers with his father’s shotgun and cartridges.

In 2007, two parents were arrested for allegedly killing their child after becoming obsessed with the game.

However, fans say that the game’s popularity stems from the social atmosphere that it has created. In the game, people often have to join together to compete quests. Mr Chatfield said: “I know of several people who have got married through meeting in games. I even play the game with my wife.”

Blizzard said that they would mark today’s anniversary by introducing surprise elements into the game, such as the “Onyxia Brood Whelpling Pet” as well as new “bosses” for players to battle against.

Fans are also awaiting the latest “expansion”, which is an update to the game. Cataclysm is likely to be the biggest release of next year.

Mike Morhaime, the president and co-founder of Blizzard, said: “We never expected the series would grow into a social and pop-culture phenomenon. We’ve always simply made the games that we wanted to play ourselves and I hope that approach will continue to serve us well in the years to come.”

The darker side

Attempted murder In October 2008, ABC News in Australia reported that Zhenghao Shen, 21, a student, had stabbed a friend in the head with a knife and nearly severed one of his fingers. The reason for the attack? The victim had asked Shen to turn down the volume on his World of Warcraft game. When Shen refused to compromise, the victim challenged him to a fight. Shen responded, turning from his computer screen with a blade


Divorce A Californian woman, 28, who identified herself as “Jocelyn” told Yahoo Games that she divorced her husband of six years after he spent all his free time on World of Warcraft. Jocelyn ended her relationship with her husband, Peter, by explaining to him: “I’m real, and you’re giving me up for a fantasy land. You’re destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you’re giving it up for something that isn’t even real”


Suicide The parents of a Chinese boy, 13, who died after jumping from a building, attempted to sue Blizzard Entertainment, the developers of World of Warcraft, because they believed that the game led to the death of their son. The boy’s parents said that he had jumped on the morning of December 27, 2004, after playing World of Warcaft for 36 hours without a break in a “game hall”. Zhang Chunliang, an attorney and a well-known campaigner against the game in China, supported the parents in their claim

World of warcraft

Virtual quests lead to real love and death for World of Warcraft fans
World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft has resulted in a thriving black market for virtual goods to use in the game
Image :1 of 2
Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter, and Rob Fahey

When it began it was just a computer game. Now it is seen as a cultural force that sparks love affairs, breaks marriages and creates “sweat shops” to satisfy a black market in virtual goods.

World of Warcraft marks its fifth birthday today as something more than just an online role-playing game where users become wizards, warriors, orcs and elfs.

“It has had an enormous cultural impact,” said Tom Chatfield, author of Fun. Inc, a book about the growth of the games industry. “It has proved that online gaming can make huge profits, making a billion in revenue a year. It has proved that gaming could be for a truly global audience.”

Analysts say that its popularity has paved the way for other blockbuster games. This month Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, made a record-breaking $500 million (£303 million) within 24 hours of its release.
Related Links

* Computer games fan 'planned school killing'

* The Warcraft widows

Others argue that the game’s success has suffocated rivals. “Pretty simply, it’s one of the best games ever made,” said Oli Welsh, a writer at Eurogamer.net, the video game news website. “But it’s a mixed blessing for the games industry. People are trying and failing to match Warcraft, and get enough players to take it on. Other games have been strangled by it.”

An estimated 12 million people play the game, paying a monthly subscription of about £9. They spend many hours taking on quests and doing battle with each another, building up their character — or “levelling up” as it is known in the game — to gain powers and abilities.

But it has a dark side. A thriving black market for virtual goods to use in the game, such as swords and animals, has emerged. Some top-level goods take thousands of hours to earn, and impatient players are willing to pay up to $5,000 on eBay to get them.

The real financial rewards on offer have created an underground industry, where players play in slave-like conditions to obtain the items and sell them on. “You effectively have sweat shops in China,” Mr Chatfield said. “If you were to visit one of these gold-farming things, you’d find a building with maybe 20-40 people in it, playing in shifts on banks of computers. They do it because they can earn more money doing that than producing garments in factories.”

The addictiveness of the game has been accused of destroying relationships, creating “Warcraft widows” as players set it above anything else.

One “widow” told The Times: “We’ve had to enter into some heavy negotiation to work out the nights and weekends when he can play without me nagging to stop. Because it’s not just the odd half-hour. Sometimes if he’s locked into a group he’ll break only to eat and visit the loo.”

Blizzard Entertainment, which owns the game, will not reveal the average time that players spend on it, but academic research estimates that it is between 25 and 40 hours a week.

This obsessiveness has even led to violent consequences. Last week, police in France said that they had thwarted a plot by a boy, 13, to murder his school teachers. He was allegedly addicted to Warcraft. He was found by officers with his father’s shotgun and cartridges.

In 2007, two parents were arrested for allegedly killing their child after becoming obsessed with the game.

However, fans say that the game’s popularity stems from the social atmosphere that it has created. In the game, people often have to join together to compete quests. Mr Chatfield said: “I know of several people who have got married through meeting in games. I even play the game with my wife.”

Blizzard said that they would mark today’s anniversary by introducing surprise elements into the game, such as the “Onyxia Brood Whelpling Pet” as well as new “bosses” for players to battle against.

Fans are also awaiting the latest “expansion”, which is an update to the game. Cataclysm is likely to be the biggest release of next year.

Mike Morhaime, the president and co-founder of Blizzard, said: “We never expected the series would grow into a social and pop-culture phenomenon. We’ve always simply made the games that we wanted to play ourselves and I hope that approach will continue to serve us well in the years to come.”

The darker side

Attempted murder In October 2008, ABC News in Australia reported that Zhenghao Shen, 21, a student, had stabbed a friend in the head with a knife and nearly severed one of his fingers. The reason for the attack? The victim had asked Shen to turn down the volume on his World of Warcraft game. When Shen refused to compromise, the victim challenged him to a fight. Shen responded, turning from his computer screen with a blade


Divorce A Californian woman, 28, who identified herself as “Jocelyn” told Yahoo Games that she divorced her husband of six years after he spent all his free time on World of Warcraft. Jocelyn ended her relationship with her husband, Peter, by explaining to him: “I’m real, and you’re giving me up for a fantasy land. You’re destroying your life, your six-year marriage, and you’re giving it up for something that isn’t even real”


Suicide The parents of a Chinese boy, 13, who died after jumping from a building, attempted to sue Blizzard Entertainment, the developers of World of Warcraft, because they believed that the game led to the death of their son. The boy’s parents said that he had jumped on the morning of December 27, 2004, after playing World of Warcaft for 36 hours without a break in a “game hall”. Zhang Chunliang, an attorney and a well-known campaigner against the game in China, supported the parents in their claim

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Channel 4 and Youtube

Channel Four is the first broadcaster to Monetise Youtube and give out all its services through youtube for free, legally and have no restrictions.

Within months, the Google unit will start offering full-length, time-delayed TV shows and archived hits from the British broadcaster.

Channel Four Television has signed a deal with YouTube to bring its flagship shows to the video-sharing site.

The agreement will see programming from Channel 4's catch up service, 4oD, made available for free through YouTube, a unit of Google (GOOG).

The broadcaster's best-known shows such as Skins, Hollyoaks, The Inbetweeners and Peep Show will all feature on YouTube, along with around 3,000 hours of full-length programming such as Teachers and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares from the Channel 4 archive.

The first Channel 4 content will begin appearing on YouTube in the coming months—shortly after the programmes appear on TV—with a full service available by early 2010.

The partnership will initially run for three years and the two parties will share advertising revenues.

Under the terms of the deal, Channel 4 will have a branded presence on YouTube and will be able to sell advertising around its own content, as well as around some non-Channel 4 content on the site.

The broadcaster hopes that syndicating its programmes on a non-exclusive basis will help 4oD to expand its market share.

"Syndication deals are key to Channel 4's strategy for monetising on-demand audiences," said a spokeswoman for Channel 4. "YouTube…already has 20 million users in the UK and we believe it is certain to be a major player in the UK [video on demand] market."

While the Channel 4 deal may be the first time a broadcaster has put its catch-up service on YouTube, it seems unlikely to be the last. "We look forward to other similar agreements to come," YouTube's director of partnerships Patrick Walker said in a statement.

Channel 4's original programmes are already available over the internet via its own on-demand 4oD platform, which it launched at the end of 2006. According to the broadcaster, the 4oD platform had more than 10 million views of long form content in September—a year-on-year increase of 204 per cent.

Project Canvas

Project Canvas
Freeview via Broadband!
The main incentive behind this idea is a cross between watching TV online (which is a very underdemanding market at the moment), and watching traditional television. The answer is to simply watch normal television but entirely through your broadband stream, offering (HD, etc) services for free.

Project Canvas is the current working name given to a proposed endeavour concerned with internet-connected television in the United Kingdom market. It is intended to combine broadcast content with broadband content, delivering both through the television (as distinct from the computer).

The endeavour's core principle is around developing a set of standards - including both technical and content standards - that once confirmed will be open to the industry as a whole. These standards will be used to create the necessary hardware (such as set top boxes) and programming content to allow for content typically accessed via the computer on the internet to be delivered to the television, combined with existing digital terrestrial television.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/february/project_canvas.shtml

http://www.projectcanvas.co.uk/
1 Sep 2009 Stakeholder comments to BBC Trust based on further in-depth information close
Autumn 2009 BBC Trust due to publish their provisional conclusions, followed by a four week period of public consultation
Before Xmas 2010 First Canvas set top boxes anticipated to go on sal

Wikinomics

Sharing of Information

Based on 4 powerful new ideas:
- Openness
- Peering
- Sharing
- Acting Globally


Traditionally, Heireachy type companies with management levels are the opposite of Peer sharing. Peer sharing is the idea of a horizontal community with no sublevels of importance in its users.

An unofficial term for this is "Cyber-hippy"

File Sharing (p.2.p peer to peer file sharing)
Collaboration of Products, Ideas.
Acting Globally and Development of Information
Interacting/Communicating of knowledge
By Everyone
SNS (social networking sites) - pictures and information
Wikipedia - Knowledge
Music/TV/Film/Programmes/Knowledge/Development/Contact/Ideas
Openness
News/Fact or Opinions

Linux - Contribution to growth of a new operating system by thousands of Volunteers, BETA testers, etc. to rival Microsoft Windows without money. Entirely run by contribution by code sharers

Book: Wikinomics by Anthony D. Williams and Don Tapscott

Creative commons license agreements. "You can use this, but you cannot make money out of it". E.g. Beyonce sharing her music free for fans to make remixes.
Posted by Liam at 11/03/2009 09:26:00 AM 0 comments
20 Oct 2009
Project Canvas
Freeview via Broadband!
The main incentive behind this idea is a cross between watching TV online (which is a very underdemanding market at the moment), and watching traditional television. The answer is to simply watch normal television but entirely through your broadband stream, offering (HD, etc) services for free.

The Ignorance of Crowds The Open Source model can play an important role in Innovation, but know its limitations.

Informal group of volunteers
Radical development of software
Combining of Knowledge
Coinciding with the birth of the World wide web
Peer production
Forums/Blogs/Reviews
Social Activism - Organisation of masses, Riots, Propeganda, Mass sharing of ideas, Congregation.
Organisation and Speed.

It was not until things could be sent out to people so cheaply on the net that people had the ability to codeshare and collaborate so fast. High-Speed communication in the last 10-20 years has meant that there is an explosion in mainstream sharing and expansion.

Problems with Wikinomics

\Problems with Wikinomics
Who is to authenticate it?
Do I trust the information?
Just because it is built by passionate volunteers, does it make it more trustworthy than if it was built by a company?
Competetiveness?
Democracy/Disagreement - finishing the project?
Do the projects ever end? Will we be constantly bothered with updates? Improvement.

With accuracy comes quality.
Lazy?
Money and rights.
Legalised productation
Democracy

Participatory Culture

Participatory Culture
What is a participatory culture?


One-half of all teens have created media content
One-third of teens who se the internet have shared what they producde.
These teens are involved in what we call participatory culture.

e.g; Youtube, Wikipedia, blogger.
Typically, A participatory culture has relatively low barriers to artistic exression and civil engagement.

Informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed on to novices.

Examples of websites and forums that you can encourage tihs sort of participatory online behavior:
- Wikipedia
- Youtube/Google video

- SNS (facebook, myspace, Bebo)

- Linux/OpenSolaris - Open source projects

- Flickr/Photobucket/Imageshack - image sharing websites
- Online newspapers allow participation of comments and views- sharing news and feelings.
Creative commons license - Allowing the use of work in whole or part and distribute it as you like, sometimes allowing them to make money, or just as long as they attribute them as the author.

The sharing of knowledge for others benefit, or knowledge/reference. Free.
Participatory culture is a neologism in reference of, but opposite to a Consumer culture — in other words a culture in which private persons (the public) do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers (prosumers). The term is most often applied to the production or creation of some type of published media. Recent advances in technologies (mostly personal computers and the Internet) have enabled private persons to create and publish such media, usually through the Internet. This new culture as it relates to the internet has been described as Web 2.0.

Games being shaped around public participatory culture:
- Second Life

Wikinomics

Thanks to the web, millions of people can have their say. Mass sharing of ideas and communication and creativity has flourished and because of this, sharing and mass innovation has come together and consumption of these ideas has taken part in communication. Sharing of all this creativity, ideas and news has never had the chance to flourish like it has with the dawn of the internet. Mass innovation comes from communities, and everybody has their chance to leave their piece. People are drawn to these communities not for money, but to socialise and get recognition. We think therefore we are a domocracy because everybody has a voice.

Equality and freedom in thoughts and ideas.

Are we always safe sharing?
There is no leader/management structure? We may just have a sea of confusion
Flame Wars - When negativity sparks and fights can disable and cripple projects.
Is it private enough?
Is some of the wikipedia we look at complete bullshit?

Journalism & Public participation in news reporting. The notion of trust in media.

"News organisations have opinions about their audience which develop over time which are in fact myths".
"People like to hear Crime and disasters" "It is more important to stir events and scare people" "Having a reporter live at the event made no difference to the ratings".
--
"Find things utterly meaningless, especially if the news reporter has no things to add to the story".
--
"Sky news uses live reports 24, they keep having to go back to their reporter to get more updates".
"younger people use the internet, cruise around and find things interesting".
"Older people prefer to be pushed their information, and only the most important and selected resources".

The way that the internet has taken over with faster and better news reporting, the only way that Journalists can survive is to do better Story telling, and proffesionalism.

The dangers of social media are humberly debated.

Frederic Filloux (editor mondaynote.com):
People have better ways of gathering news, with cell phones and live crowd sourcing for opinions. Network ways of getting crowd sourcing are another way of doing that.

Are crowds good at generating rumours?
"The notion of trust; and rogue for news gathering is able to filter. big news media is in the filtering business".

Is public participation in news reporting a good thing or bad thing?

Reuters (pronounced roiters) - The biggest news gathering organisation in the world. Reuters is a London based organisation, although it is Canadian controlled. It is a subsidary of Thomson Reuters, which is based in New York but is also Canadian controlled. It is also known as "The wire". Most news is now gathered and sourced through Reuters.
Reuters also has a team of several thousand journalists who over the years have covered major news events. Reuters Canary Wharf base, London:



News editors have to be in their guard for political hoax's- sometimes done delibrately by foreign governments.