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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

why internet marketing

They do not like to spend 20 or 30 minutes on a single brand's page, unless they are consuming innovative, funny, or exclusive content. So a travel site looking for a long time spent on a page should not put up a treasure hunt on a world map where you invite your friends and can together find great prizes after exploring cities. Sounds good in a pitch meeting, but it results in abysmally numbers of active users.

Facebook users are very sophisticated, and there is no way a single campaign is going to compete on game mechanics with CityVille. If you want to build CityVille, it might work. But, even Netflix pulled their Facebook app. You're better off putting up a bunch of funny videos from around the world and leave it at that.

Lots of Apps on One Tab Don't Work

It is easy to think of a Facebook tab like a Web page, and throw a bunch of features on it - such as a poll, gifting, and some videos - all on one tab. However, most users do not show up on a Facebook tab like they do on a Web page. They are usually coming in by clicking on a page's newsfeed posting ("What kind of traveller are you? Take the quiz!"), a friend's newsfeed posting ("I'm a cranky traveller! What kind of traveller are you? Take the quiz?"), or a Facebook ad ("Find out what kind of traveller you are!").

Now, if after clicking on one of these links a user is dropped into a Facebook Page tab with eight different things on it, they are not going to see a quiz immediately and move on. There should only be one engagement feature per tab.

Sweepstakes Don't Work

After an initial onslaught of Facebook sweepstakes promotions, marketers are learning that sweepstakes have very low conversion rates and almost no viral uptake. We're also learning that they attract unengaged users who are there for the prize rather than a relationship with the brand.

Facebook users like to click around and look at stuff, and absolutely do not like filling out forms. We have run highly promoted sweeps campaigns for major artists that included things like backstage passes and a limo ride to the show that had abysmal conversion rates. There is absolutely no incentive to make sweepstakes social.

Why would you invite more people to join a sweepstakes? It reduces your own chances. Have you ever seen a "I just entered a sweepstakes and you should to" posting on someone's wall?

One attempt to increase viral spread in sweepstakes is to offer more prizes when there are more entrants, but all that does is confuse users with conflicting agendas. There is a disincentive to invite people since it reduces your chances of winning, but if enough new people join up perhaps you can win something else... "Ah, too confusing, I'm going to watch videos instead."

Photo and Video Contests Rarely Work

A lot of brands like to do photo and video contests, but unfortunately they do not have the user base that likes to submit photos and videos. Travel and photography brands? For sure. Mobile carrier? Beverage brand? Not likely. Even clothing brands can't pull this off.

Uploading a photo or video is a big investment on the part of the user, and they do not expect to do it for the vast majority of businesses. These campaigns also require the labor to moderate the submissions. If you must run a photo or video Facebook campaign, the best way to do it is actually NOT in an app.

Instead, have users upload the photos and videos to the brand's page, and moderate them there. Then have users get their friends to Like the photos or videos. This way, the campaign leverages all of Facebook's viral channels around photos - when the user uploads the photo, when they Like the photo, when their friends like or comment on their photo submission, it is all highly likely to show up in their friends' feeds, drawing traffic. The great thing about this is that it is easy to do for free, since using all of Facebook's photo and video features are free, and users get to use the known Facebook photo and video interface, which increases conversions.

Next page: Like Blocks Rarely Work; Extended Permissions Rarely Work

Lots of Apps on One Tab Don't Work

Sweepstakes Don't Work

Why would you invite more people to join a sweepstakes? It reduces your own chances. Have you ever seen a "I just entered a sweepstakes and you should to" posting on someone's wall?

Photo and Video Contests Rarely Work

Next page: Like Blocks Rarely Work; Extended Permissions Rarely Work

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Monday, March 14, 2011

Making Money Without

It’s nearing two weeks since unions and their cohorts on the Left have thrown a nationwide fit over Scott Walker’s solution to what is ailing Wisconsin. Unions and Democrats have made Wisconsin their cause célèbre by deploying OFA astroturf, the big talking heads, as well as recruiting just about every known Grateful Dead concert attendee on their mailing lists into Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Democratic state senators (now humorously known as fleebaggers) comically continue to hold the state hostage over an issue of union power, politics and money—nothing more and nothing less.

Despite unions’ long hatred of Scott Walker, the new governor is moving to address both the symptoms of the disease and the disease itself—the public-sector union scheme that has molested Wisconsin’s taxpayers and their children by gaming the system. Unions like Wisconsin’s teachers’ union [WEAC] (which was Wisconsin’s biggest-spending lobby in 2009) have been extraordinarily adept at fixing the system through spending millions to elect politicians who, in turn, reward the unions at the expense of the taxpayers.

Now, in response to Walker’s proposals, the Left has gone overboard in their attempt to protect their stranglehold on Wisconsin taxpayers. Even though unions have made clear that their fight is not about their wages or benefits (they’ve offered concessions), they’ve made the fight all about their “right to be unionized” and the fictitious right to “collective bargaining”—which makes their cause even more despotic.

In making Madison into something reminiscent of the spectacle of the 1960s, unions, Democrats and their liberal cohorts are attempting to make the Wisconsin union battle into a civil rights battle, when it is not. In fact, the Wisconsin fight, when compared to private-sector negotiations is about: 1) the Scope of Bargaining, 2) Union “Income” Security [Right-to-Work vs. Forced Dues], 3) whether Wisconsin should be the unions’ dues collection agency [payroll deduction of dues], and 4) whether public-sector unions should be ‘recertified’ by holding elections every year.

Contrary to the Left’s hyperbole, Scott Walker’s proposals do nothing to eliminate public-sector workers’ right to association, assemblage, or to petition their government. Even pretending that it is a “rights” issue is a mistake. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires a government to engage in a back and forth negotiation with a collective of workers. In a poignant piece entitled There is No Right to Collective Bargaining, Public Service Research Foundation President David Denholm summarizes the problem with the unions’ argument, stating:

A law granting public-sector unions monopoly bargaining privileges gives a union, a special interest group, two bites at the apple. First, it uses its political clout to elect public officials. Then it negotiates with the very same officials.

When you consider that between 70 and 80 percent of all local government expenditures are personnel costs, you begin to get an idea of the magnitude of the power such laws give unions.

Not only is there no right to collective bargaining in public employment, it is wrong. Collective bargaining distorts and corrupts democratic government.

Collective bargaining is a process for employer-employee relations that was designed for the private sector. This process served as the model for the development of public-sector collective bargaining without taking into account the fundamental differences between the two sectors.

As Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour explains:

“When they have collective bargaining in Wisconsin, on one side of the table there’s state employee unions or the local employee unions. On the other side of the table are politicians that they paid for the election of those politicians,” Barbour said. “Now, who represents the taxpayers in that negotiation? Well, actually, nobody.”

Even Newsweek’s Evan Thomas noted on Sunday [via Newsbusters]:

The Democrats really depend on these public employee unions in a lot of states for their support and for their political muscle, and public employee unions got a problem here. I want to distinguish between unions and public employee unions. Unions obviously are critical, but in the public sector, public employee unions have a pretty easy time getting a lot of benefits because nobody’s really pushing back all that hard.

Admittedly, Walker’s proposals are a threat to unions in several ways. As Walker’s proposals determine:

The extent of what unions will be allowed to bargain about. Walker’s proposal limits bargaining to wages only, effectively eliminating the WEA Trust monopoly which gets its money from local school boards and runs it through a union-run insurance company.

Whether unions can have workers fired for not paying union dues. According to its most recent financial record on file, WEAC (the teachers’ union) raked in over $25 million in 2009. Walker’s proposal makes paying union dues voluntary, as opposed to mandatory. This goes to the lifeblood of any union. If, for example, 20% of those teachers who are currently required to pay union dues as a condition of employment opt out, WEAC could lose up to $5 million a year in revenue. [It is noteworthy that, in the private-sector, the SEIU will be conducting its second strike at a Pennsylvania medical center over the issue of mandatory dues.]

Whether the state will continue being the unions’ dues collector. Walker’s proposal eliminates’ the employers’ payroll deduction of union dues. Again, while it is commonplace for unions to negotiate payroll deduction, there is nothing anywhere (in private or public sector law) that states that it is an employers’ duty to be a union’s collection agency.

Whether the unions will have to ‘re-certify’ every year to maintain representational status. Of all of Walker’s proposals, this seems to be one that could be considered a ‘throw away’ item in negotiations. If Walker’s other proposals get enacted, and union-represented employees feel that the union is worthless, they can initiate an election themselves every calendar under existing law [see Section 111.83(5)[h]] .

Given the ability of the unions and their co-conspirators on the Left to hijack the issue in Wisconsin over these last two weeks, there appears no way for a “win-win” compromise to be worked out. One side or the other will win. Either the unions and the Left, or taxpayers will prevail.

If the Left wins, all chances of reforming public-sector unions will be tossed aside by weak-kneed Republicans who will then be held hostage by temper-tantrum throwing Democrats (see Indiana for example). In addition, the Left has already painted the entire Republicans party with bulls eyes and has for years. Therefore, there is no reason for GOP governors like Scott Walker, Chris Christie and John Kasich to back down, which puts the Left in an untenable situation as well.

In the meantime, the disciples of Saul Alinsky will continue their prattle, attempting to convince America that the Battle of Wisconsin is something more than a fight over union power, politics and money…even though it’s not.

_________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

X-posted.

There are two NPR executives in the video, identified as Schiller and Director of Institutional Giving Betsy Liley. Neither executive works in NPR's news division. They are shown having lunch with potential NPR donors, who were really working for O'Keefe undercover. In the video, they pose as representatives of a Muslim organization that is considering making a $5 million donation to NPR.

Schiller, who announced last week that he is leaving NPR, makes repeated criticisms against the Tea Party, saying the group is racist.

"Tea Party people" aren't "just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic," Schiller says. "I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

He goes on to say, "The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian. I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move."

In the video, Schiller says that NPR, which is partially funded by government money, would be "better off without federal funding."

"The problem is that if we lost it now, a lot of stations would go dark," Schiller said.

Schiller's remarks come only one day after NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller (who is unrelated to Ron Schiller) told an audience at the National Press Club that federal funding for NPR was essential.

"Government funding is critical because it allows taxpayers to leverage a small investment into a very large one," she said, according to prepared remarks. "It is seed money. Station managers tell me that 10 percent plays a critical role in generating the other 90 percent that makes their broadcasts possible."

A movement to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps subsidize NPR along with the Public Broadcasting System, is making the rounds among some congressional Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who released a statement Tuesday afternoon in response to reports of Ron Schiller's comments in the undercover video.

"As we continue to identify ways to cut spending and save valuable resources, this disturbing video makes clear that taxpayer dollars should no longer be appropriated to NPR," Cantor said.

"Not only have top public broadcasting executives finally admitted that they do not need taxpayer dollars to survive, it is also clear that without federal funds, public broadcasting stations self-admittedly would become eligible for more private dollars on top of the multi-million dollar donations these organizations already receive."

Tea Party representatives were also quick to decry Ron Schiller's remarks, using his suggestion that NPR would be better off without government money as an opportunity to call for defunding the organization.

"Mr. Schiller himself candidly admits in the video that NPR doesn't need federal funding, and welcomes the opportunity to slant their reporting without the oversight of the taxpayer," said Mark Meckler, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, in a statement. "At a time when the country is upside down by more than a trillion dollars, can we really afford to provide huge subsidies to entities that openly state that they don't need the money? Let's take his advice and pass legislation that would defund the clearly biased news organization that is out of touch with Americans across the country."

– CNN Political Producer Shannon Travis contributed to this report.

Updated 4:35 p.m.

Friday, March 11, 2011

foreclosure defense

Founded in 2009 by Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth is known as a each day email newsletter that includes facts on fiscal literacy and cash management skewed towards a female audience. DailyWorth’s subjects range from the best way to organize your finances to tax tips to conserving guidance. And DailyWorth has an extraordinary editorial workers to build content. MP Dunleavey, previously a individual finance columnist with all the Ny Times and now a contributor with Capital magazine, is foremost DailyWorth’s editorial crew.

Regardless of unions’ long hatred of Scott Walker, the new governor is shifting to tackle each the indicators for the condition plus the disorder itself-the public-sector union scheme which has molested Wisconsin’s taxpayers and their young people by gaming the program. Unions like Wisconsin’s teachers’ union [WEAC] (which was Wisconsin’s biggest-spending lobby in 2009) are actually extraordinarily adept at fixing the system by way of investing millions to elect politicians who, in turn, reward the unions on the expense on the taxpayers.

the Wisconsin fight, when in comparison with private-sector negotiations is about: 1) the Scope of Bargaining, 2) Union “Income” Security [Right-to-Work vs. Forced Dues], 3) no matter whether Wisconsin should be the unions’ dues assortment company [payroll deduction of dues], and four) whether or not public-sector unions should be ‘recertified’ by holding elections each and every 12 months.

set the photographs on the net to indicate our projects crew at msnbc.com, and photographer Jim Seida mentioned, why really do not we just publish it like a slide exhibit? I used to be skeptical in the beginning - would that crimp the writing? - but within the end I used to be advocating executing it this way once the picture group was skeptical. I considered much more folks would study because of it this way, and it would be well worth an experiment.”

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On Monday night, I watched my first of all, The Previous Phrase host Lawrence O’Donnell.
Whilst O’Donnell laudably tried to concentrate the audience’s focus onand hopefully final, Charlie Sheen trainwreck interview, courtesy of the tragic undertow that threatens to pull Sheen under for wonderful, I was overtaken, not through the pulling around the thread, along with the voracious audience he serves. It didn’t make me unhappy, it developed me angry.

Concerning celebrities, we can be a heartless region, basking within their misfortunes like nude sunbathers at Schadenfreude Beach. The impulse is understandable, to some degree. It can be grating to pay attention to complaints from men and women who love privileges that most of us can’t even imagine. When you cannot muster up some compassion for Charlie Sheen, who can make alot more funds for any day’s deliver the results than most of us will make in a decade’s time, I guess I can’t blame you.

With all the fast speed of occasions online plus the advice revolution sparked from the Online world, it is particularly uncomplicated for the engineering market to think it is special: consistently breaking new ground and performing details that no person has ever completed prior to.

But there are other kinds of business which have already undergone a few of the exact same radical shifts, and also have just as great a stake with the long run.

Take healthcare, as an illustration.

We generally feel of it like a enormous, lumbering beast, but in truth, medicine has undergone a series of revolutions in the past 200 years which can be no less than equal to people we see in technology and information.

Significantly less understandable, but nevertheless in the norms of human nature, is the impulse to rubberneck, to slow down and look at the carnage of Charlie spectacle of Sheen’s unraveling, but of your blithe interviewer Sheen’s daily life as we pass it within the best suited lane of our daily lives. To be honest, it can be hard for people today to discern the big difference concerning a run-of-the-mill awareness whore, and an honest-to-goodness, circling the drain tragedy-to-be. On its very own merits, a quote like “I Am On the Drug. It’s Described as Charlie Sheen” is sheer genius, and we can not all be anticipated to consider the complete measure of someone’s life every time we hear a thing humorous.

Quick forward to 2011 and I'm attempting to take a look at will mean of staying a bit more business-like about my hobbies (typically new music). By the conclude of January I had manned up and started off to advertise my weblogs. I had created a variety of numerous weblogs, which were contributed to by close friends and colleagues. I promoted these actions by means of Facebook and Twitter.

Second: the minor abomination that the Gang of Five about the Supream Court gave us a yr or so back (Citizens Inebriated) literally incorporates just a little bouncing betty of its very own that may pretty nicely go off inside faces of Govs Wanker, Sacitch, Krysty, and J.O. Daniels. Given that this ruling prolonged the notion of “personhood” to equally firms and unions, to test to deny them any best to operate inside of the legal framework that they were organized under deprives these “persons” on the freedoms of speech, association and movement. Which implies (as soon as again, quoting law school educated friends and family) that possibly the courts really have to uphold these rights for the unions (as person “persons” as guaranteed by the Federal (and most state) constitutions, or they have to declare that these attempts at stripping or limiting union rights really have to use to important corporations, also.

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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Making Money System

Actually, these bastards are going to end up hanging themselves on a couple of points (not my words, but family deeply involved in the legal business as lawyers and law professors).

First, there is a little point of technicality called the “Equal Protection Clause(s) of the U.S. Constitution, which pretty pointedly states that it is not exactly legal to try to deny guaranteed rights (under the constitution) from any one group of citizens. This is what ultimately torpedoed much of segregation (and Jim Crow laws) in the Deep South, and why the attempts to impose a modern day equivalent in Arizona are unlikely to survive a constitutional challenge. Trying to deprive these state union members of legally recognized rights, in organizations that are recognized as legitimate under both state and federal laws, is going to set off a whole minefield of legal issues, and could extend way beyond just the rights of union members to seek representation for collective bargaining purposes. Such as the rights of any number of groups to organize and hold meetings about common points of interest. Not too great an extension to say that if this bullshit can fly (what the Spotted Wanker is pushing in WI) than some other governor with a rubber stamp legislature could turn his attention to stripping rights from gays. Or blacks. Or Jews. Or whoever the hell these goons feel like ganging up on. That is why the poem from the 1930s has never lost any of its power…”first, they came for the trade unionists, but I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a trade unionist…” (apologies if this quote is not completely accurate or otherwise misstated) )

Second: the little abomination that the Gang of Five on the Supream Court gave us a year or so ago (Citizens Inebriated) actually contains a little bouncing betty of its own that could very well go off in the faces of Govs Wanker, Sacitch, Krysty, and J.O. Daniels. Since this ruling extended the concept of “personhood” to both corporations and unions, to try to deny them any right to operate within the legal framework that they were organized under deprives these “persons” of the freedoms of speech, association and movement. Which means (once again, quoting law school trained family) that either the courts have to uphold these rights for the unions (as individual “persons” as guaranteed by the Federal (and most state) constitutions, or they have to declare that these attempts at stripping or limiting union rights have to apply to major corporations, also.

It was a nice idea. Today the unemployment rate is hovering above 9 percent—better than it would have been without the stimulus, most experts agree, but still painfully high. Why didn’t we get more for our money?

While liberals and conservatives alike blame the stimulus itself—It wasn’t big enough! It was never going to work!—the problem may have more to do with how the money was spent. It’s not enough just to inject money into infrastructure, because not all transportation funding is created equal—or at least, it doesn’t create jobs at an equal rate. As any infrastructure policy wonk can tell you, money spent on fixing up existing systems or building mass transit delivers more jobs, and faster, than building new highways. With their wallets bulging with their federal allowance, the states were allowed to spend $26.6 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money however they saw fit.

A new study shows that most states didn’t end up making the most of the windfall. The report by the transportation research group Smart Growth America found that states spent more than a third of the money on building new roads—rather than working on public transportation and fixing up existing roads and bridges. The result of the indiscriminate spending? States missed out on potentially thousands of new jobs—and bridges, roads, and overpasses around the country are still crumbling. Meanwhile, the states that did put dollars toward public transportation were richly rewarded: Each dollar used on transit was 75 percent more effective at putting people to work than a dollar used for highway work.

The government meant to get the biggest bang for its buck, with “shovel-ready projects.” But building miles of new roads requires planning, land acquisition, and other lengthy steps that put fewer workers on the job immediately.

Mandel Ngan / Getty Images

The government, of course, meant to get the biggest bang for its buck. The stimulus bill forced states to spend their allocated cash quickly, which was intended to get them to fund maintenance needs—“shovel-ready projects”—that had already been identified. Building miles of new roads, on the other hand, requires planning, land acquisition, and other lengthy steps that put fewer workers on the job immediately.

Some states did that. Sue Minter, Vermont’s deputy transportation secretary, says a longstanding “fix-it-first” policy for infrastructure and bipartisan collaboration shaped Vermont’s decisions about how to use the funds. The state spent all of its highway money on system maintenance, with a small amount going to mass transit. (Minter, a Democrat, was a member of the state legislature at the time.) “This shot of money into our economy was very, very significant. It’s part of the reason we have a relatively low unemployment rate,” she says. Only 5.8 percent of Vermont residents are out of work, one of the nation’s lowest rates. State research shows that ARRA funding employed 11,000 people—a small number overall, but a significant one in a small state. Minter says the maintenance was important for keeping economic growth, particularly in tourism, strong.

Other states, however, took a different tack. Arkansas used 81 percent of its money for new projects and none on transit; it also has a higher unemployment rate than Vermont. And unlike other states near the bottom of the list, just 38 percent of its roads are in good condition, according to a report by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, a trade organization.

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

New York Times editor Bill Keller hit out at Fox News for the second time in as many monthsâ€”only this time, he went after people who watch the network. As The Cutline's Joe Pompeo reported, Keller made the comments during an event at ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Florida is becoming a potential new battleground for union rights. New Republican Governor Rick Scott is proposing that teachers in his state contribute five percent to their pensions. Florida teachers rank 47th in the country in salary ...

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

ATLANTA — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he expects to be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Gingrich announced Thursday that he's exploring a run for president, launching a website to collect ...

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

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Bill Keller: Fox News Viewers 'Among The Most Cynical People On ...

Florida's Teacher Union Fight: the Next Wisconsin? - FoxNews.com

Newt Gingrich: Fox News Said 'You're Not Here Anymore'

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Making Money Your

It goes without saying that having a heavy right foot while driving tends to waste fuel while creating more carbon emissions than desired, but altering driving habits can be a pretty tricky process. Good thing the Eco-Navigator device is here to help, where it will let you know how to get to your destination courtesy of Navteq maps of the U.S., Canada, Europe and China – but its goodness doesn’t end there. The Eco-Navigator will also deliver high-speed Internet access into your vehicle’s cabin, while making sure you arrive at your intended appointment in the greenest method possible. Plugged into your car’s diagnostic port, it will then monitor and display a number of vehicle parameters. Selecting Eco-Drive will show your current miles-per-gallon, throttle position (as a 0-100 percentage), and pounds of CO2 emitted per mile. This helps you figure out and adjust your driving style accordingly, and it is definitely not something to look at when you’re in a mad rush. The Eco-Navigator will retail for $249 a pop if you’re interested.

App Store Classics: Game Dev Story, a game about making games.

Ever wondered what it’d be like to run your own game development house? Me neither, but don’t let that stop you getting involved with Game Dev Story (iTunes link), a little gem of a game from Japanese developers Kairosoft, currently on sale in the app store for $0.99.

The concept is straightforward – grow your development house from a tiny team of four staff churning out cheap and cheerful PC games to a revered coding powerhouse in swanky offices crafting masterpieces for the latest consoles.

At first you’ll probably be going over budget left right and centre, trying to figure out which game types work best and therefore shift more units, but once you get into the swing of it you can concentrate on hiring and training the best staff and purchasing licences to develop console games, resulting in better made and better selling games with higher profit margins.

It’s not just a question of hiring and firing, coming up with game ideas and watching your staff working their buns off though. Through the use of ‘boosts’ which are periodically made available to purchase as the game progresses (not in-app purchases I hasten to add), you can choose one of your coders to work on enhancing one specific aspect of the game. This pushes up the overall quality of the game you’re making and results in better reviews and sales, adding a further strategic element as you choose the right moment and category in which to use your boosts. At certain points within the development cycle you also get the chance to work on the graphics and sound specifically, either using one of your own staff or hiring in a freelancer, and this too gives you the opportunity to increase the overall quality of your virtual product.

When you make your first million seller it’s a satisfying moment but there’s no time to rest on your laurels. There are always new consoles appearing on the market, contract jobs to take on, new staff to hire and new game types to discover. If you leave too much of a gap between development cycles you start losing fans and therefore a few sales, but think carefully about what kind of games you make – my pirate simulation was a right turkey.

It’s all great fun, but it’s fair to say there are a few things here which need to be addressed by the time Game Dev Story 2 arrives in the app store. I know it’s a tall order on a phone but I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be if I could play the games my team had made. Even a comedy cut sequence showing some aspects of the latest game would have been good. There are also some hugely expensive advertising options within this game that offer no feedback other than some numbers increasing on a stat page. If I’m sponsoring a racing team I’d like to see my company logo on the side of a formula one car at least!

Finally, the game is perhaps a bit on the easy side. I’m sure if developing a multi million selling game was this straightforward we’d all be at it. Well, maybe not, but it’s easy to make enough money that you don’t have to worry too much about how you spend it, and this negatively impacts the strategy element.

All things considered however, Game Dev Story is great fun. It’s a good natured game and from the cute graphics and retro sound to the amusing titles you can give your creations, it’s a rewarding experience which works perfectly whether in short bursts or longer play sessions. Did I mention that it’s currently only $0.99 on the app store?

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