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StreamTransport Grabs Hulu Videos for Offline
Viewing (Windows) It may not stick around that long once the powers that be find out, so if downloading and
watching Hulu videos offline could help you out, grab StreamTransport. The tricky little app
provides full-quality captures of streaming shows and movies.
ExtensionFM Is a Very Cool Browser-Based Music
Library, and We've Got Invites (Chrome) Chrome extension ExtensionFM automatically collects MP3s from sites you visit and adds them
to a browser-based library within the extension, allowing you to find all sorts of cool, new
music without cluttering up your local library until you buy them.
NetBalancer Prioritizes Network Traffic by
Application (Windows) Ever wish you could guarantee your BitTorrent download didn't choke your streaming YouTube
video-or vice versa-but don't feel like setting up Quality of Service rules on your
super-router ? NetBalancer shapes bandwidth allocations for different apps on your PC.
Gnome Gmail Tightly Integrates Gmail into Linux
Desktops (GNOME-based Linux) There are work-arounds to set Gmail as a default mail app in Linux, but they don't cover
right-click file sending and complex mail links. Gnome Gmail does a much better job of
integrating Gmail.
MusicBee is a Powerful, Easy-to-Use Music Manager
(Windows) Despite the many great media players out there, MusicBee earns itself a spot high on the
list with super tagging, managing, browsing, ripping, syncing, and converting powers, all on
top of an intuitive interface familiar to any iTunes user.
WeatherBar Integrates Weather Forecasts with the
Windows 7 Superbar (Windows 7) Like to keep the eye on the weather but never been too keen on sidebar gadgets or system
tray apps? WeatherBar is a simple app that puts the weather in your Windows 7 taskbar, offering
quick access to the forecast.
TestDrive Virtualizes Brand-New Ubuntu Builds for Easy
Testing (Ubuntu) Want to try out the latest build of the next Ubuntu release with almost no hassle at all?
TestDrive is a one-shot tool that downloads, virtualizes, and keeps daily Ubuntu builds up to
date.
Etacts Adds Contact Info, Social Networking, and Handy
Statistics to Your Gmail Sidebar (Chrome/Firefox) If you ever thought previously mentioned Xobni looked cool, but you prefer Gmail to
Outlook, free Gmail plug-in Etacts adds many of the same features. You get social information,
conversation history, and advanced sending preferences right in your Gmail sidebars.
LastHistory Graphically Visualizes your Last.fm
History Through Time (Mac) Just when you thought you couldn't possibly need more statistics on your music listening
habits, free Mac app LastHistory comes along and graphically analyzes your Last.fm logs, over
time, while also integrating with other Mac apps like iPhoto and iCal.
StreamTransport Grabs Hulu Videos for Offline
Viewing (Windows) It may not stick around that long once the powers that be find out, so if downloading and
watching Hulu videos offline could help you out, grab StreamTransport. The tricky little app
provides full-quality captures of streaming shows and movies.
ExtensionFM Is a Very Cool Browser-Based Music
Library, and We've Got Invites (Chrome) Chrome extension ExtensionFM automatically collects MP3s from sites you visit and adds them
to a browser-based library within the extension, allowing you to find all sorts of cool, new
music without cluttering up your local library until you buy them.
NetBalancer Prioritizes Network Traffic by
Application (Windows) Ever wish you could guarantee your BitTorrent download didn't choke your streaming YouTube
video-or vice versa-but don't feel like setting up Quality of Service rules on your
super-router ? NetBalancer shapes bandwidth allocations for different apps on your PC.
Gnome Gmail Tightly Integrates Gmail into Linux
Desktops (GNOME-based Linux) There are work-arounds to set Gmail as a default mail app in Linux, but they don't cover
right-click file sending and complex mail links. Gnome Gmail does a much better job of
integrating Gmail.
MusicBee is a Powerful, Easy-to-Use Music Manager
(Windows) Despite the many great media players out there, MusicBee earns itself a spot high on the
list with super tagging, managing, browsing, ripping, syncing, and converting powers, all on
top of an intuitive interface familiar to any iTunes user.
WeatherBar Integrates Weather Forecasts with the
Windows 7 Superbar (Windows 7) Like to keep the eye on the weather but never been too keen on sidebar gadgets or system
tray apps? WeatherBar is a simple app that puts the weather in your Windows 7 taskbar, offering
quick access to the forecast.
TestDrive Virtualizes Brand-New Ubuntu Builds for Easy
Testing (Ubuntu) Want to try out the latest build of the next Ubuntu release with almost no hassle at all?
TestDrive is a one-shot tool that downloads, virtualizes, and keeps daily Ubuntu builds up to
date.
Etacts Adds Contact Info, Social Networking, and Handy
Statistics to Your Gmail Sidebar (Chrome/Firefox) If you ever thought previously mentioned Xobni looked cool, but you prefer Gmail to
Outlook, free Gmail plug-in Etacts adds many of the same features. You get social information,
conversation history, and advanced sending preferences right in your Gmail sidebars.
LastHistory Graphically Visualizes your Last.fm
History Through Time (Mac) Just when you thought you couldn't possibly need more statistics on your music listening
habits, free Mac app LastHistory comes along and graphically analyzes your Last.fm logs, over
time, while also integrating with other Mac apps like iPhoto and iCal.
Group of wealthy investors plans to take club back from Glazers and distribute shares to fans
Manchester United supporters spearheaded by a group calling themselves the Red Knights are poised
to table a £1.25bn bid for the club by June that will involve fans owning a majority stake.
Under proposals being studied by the bidder's financial adviser, Nomura, around 30 wealthy Red
Knights investors would take control of United by setting up a new company that would later
invite fans from around the world to subscribe to new shares.
The structure of the bid is designed to wrest control of United from the US Glazer family as
quickly as possible and to meet legal requirements that determine how firms can be run under
collective ownership. "The takeover would be in two stages but the objective is to give the fans
a central role in the club's future," said a City source.
Jim O'Neill, Goldman Sachs's chief economist, who is one of the founding members of the Red
Knights, is keen to distribute equity as widely as possible among millions of supporters
globally.
The idea is for United to resemble Spanish rival Barcelona, which is owned by its fans and where
profits are ploughed back into the club. At the moment, United's profits are having to be used to
service huge debts drawn down by the Glazers when they acquired United in 2005.
Barcelona relies on the same revenue streams as British clubs, but experts say its model could be
adopted by Premiership teams with a strong sense of their own identity.
Japanese bank Nomura last week met with wealthy supporters of the Red Knights campaign, which is
backed by investment banker Keith Harris and Paul Marshall, founder of London-based hedge fund
Marshall Wace. The man in charge of negotiations is Guy Dawson, who set up financial advisory
boutique Tricorn before it was recently acquired by Nomura.
Dawson has already held talks with the Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must) to demonstrate
that the Red Knights are serious about giving fans a major say in how United is run.
Duncan Drasdo, Must's chief executive, said: "We want a big stake in the club although the exact
size will depend on any take-up of shares in the event that supporters are invited to subscribe
to new equity."
Drasdo adds: "It's important that as much of the debt is paid down as quickly as possible so that
the club has maximum headroom to invest in new players and to ensure affordable ticket prices."
As a symbol of opposition to the Glazers, Must has been encouraging fans to forsake United's
traditional red colours and wear green and gold scarves – the colours of the
club, then known as Newton Heath, until 1902.
But a spokesman for the Glazers, who reiterated that the family had no intention of selling,
said: "There is no dress code printed on the tickets, people are entitled to wear what they like.
The important thing is that they show their support for the team."
Drasdo said "the amount of money flowing out of club to service the Glazers' £700m debt
pile is quite astonishing. "United needs to invest a lot of money in new players in the next
couple of years as well as eventually find a replacement for manager Sir Alex Ferguson. He is
going to be a very hard act to follow and his successor will not come cheap."
United's chief executive, David Gill, has defended the Glazers, saying that funds are available
for Ferguson to use in the transfer market this summer. Gill maintains the £80m received
last year from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid is still part of the club's budget.
Gill said: "The money from Ronaldo is sitting in the bank account."
Sources close to the Red Knights say that offers of financial support continue to pour in, with
several sovereign wealth funds expressing an interest. Five British individuals are said to be
willing to invest £10m apiece. It is understood they have also won the support of former
United chairman Sir Roy Gardner.
Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business
with each other could change for ever
Don't act too surprised if, some time in the next year, you meet someone who explains that their
business card isn't just a card; it's an augmented reality business card. You can see a collection
and, at visualcard.me, you can even design your
own, by adding a special marker to your card, which, once put in front of a webcam linked to the
internet, will show not only your contact details but also a video or sound clip. Or pretty much
anything you want.
It's not just business cards. London Fashion Week has tried them out too: little symbols that
look like barcodes printed onto shirts, which, when viewed through a webcam, come to life.
Benetton is using augmented reality for a campaign that kicked off last month, in which it is trying to find models from among the
general population.
Augmented reality – AR, as it has quickly become known –
has only recently become a phrase that trips easily off technologists' lips; yet we've been
seeing versions of it for quite some time. The idea is straightforward enough: take a real-life
scene, or (better) a video of a scene, and add some sort of explanatory data to it so that you
can better understand what's going on, or who the people in the scene are, or how to get to where
you want to go.
Sports coverage on TV has been doing it for years: slow-motion could be described as a form of
augmented reality, since it gives you the chance to examine what happened in a situation more
carefully. More recently cricket, tennis, rugby, football and golf have all started to overlay
analytic information on top of standard-speed replays – would that ball have
hit the stumps, the progress of a rally, the movement of the backs or wingers, the relative
flights of shots – to tell you more about what's going on. Probably the most
common use is in American football where the "first down" line – the distance
the team has to cover to continue its offence – is superimposed on the picture
for viewers.
But those required huge systems. AR took its first lumbering steps into the public arena eight
years ago: all that you needed to do was strap on 10kg of computing power –
laptop, camera, vision processor – and you could get an idea of what was
feasible. The American Popular Science magazine wrote about the idea in 2002 – but the idea of being permanently
connected to the internet hadn't quite jelled at that point.
"AR has been around for ages," says Andy Cameron, executive director of Fabrica, an interactive
design studio which works with Benetton, "maybe going back as far as the 1970s and art
installations that overlaid real spaces with something virtual." He mentions in particular the
work of pioneering computer artist Myron Krueger.
What's changed in the past year is that AR has come within reach of all sorts of developers
– and the technology powerful enough to make use of it is owned by millions of
people, often in the palms of their hands.
The arrival of powerful smartphones and computers with built-in video capabilities means that you
don't have to wait for the AR effects as you do with TV. They can simply be overlaid onto real
life. Step forward Apple's iPhone, and phones using Google's Android operating system, both of
which are capable of overlaying information on top of a picture or video.
Within the small world of AR, one of the best-known apps is that built by Layar, which – given a location, and
using the iPhone 3GS's inbuilt compass to work out the direction you're pointing the phone
– can give you a "radar map" of details such as Wikipedia information, Flickr
photos, Google searches and YouTube videos superimposed onto a picture you've taken of the scene.
For Americans, it will also pull in details from the government's economic Recovery Act
– so that if you're on Wall Street and want to see how many billions went into
which building, it will show you.
Or, more usefully, Yelp offers an augmented reality
application that will show you ratings and reviews for a restaurant before you walk in
– the sort of thing that could make restaurants quiver with delight, or
shudder in horror.
Or maybe it wouldn't need to know where it is; only who it's looking at. A prototype application
demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further
again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the
web and attach details – their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts
– and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed
through your phone, of course). "It's taking social networking to the next level," says Dan
Gärdenfors, head of user experience research at The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish mobile software company.
And there are fabulously useful applications: at Columbia University, computer science professor
Steve Feiner and PhD candidate Steve Henderson have created their Augmented Reality for
Maintenance and Repair (Armar) project. It combines sensors, head-up displays, and
instructions to tackle the military's maintenance needs: start working on a piece of kit, and the
details about it pop up in front of
you. Imagine if you could put on a pair of special goggles when you needed to investigate
your car's engine, or a computer's innards, and the detail would pop up. That's the sort of idea
that Armar is trying to implement, though for the military at first..
Yet it's fashion which seems to have leapt quickest into this technology. The T-shirt with AR in
London Fashion Week was developed by Cassette Playa, a label that has been worn by Lily Allen,
Rihanna and Kanye West. Carri Munden, who designed it with the Fashion Digital Studio at the
London College of Fashion, described it as "mixing reality and fantasy". Adidas, too, has
launched trainers with AR symbols in the tongues: hold them to a webcam and you are taken to
interactive games on the Adidas site.
The process by which the strange symbols get translated into images is simple enough: the website
takes the feed from your webcam (you have to explicitly allow it to do so, so there are no
security worries) and analyses it for the particular set of symbols that the program is looking
for. (Some easy calculations mean the symbols can be detected whichever way up you hold the
item.) Videos and pictures are then sent back to you.
Andy Cameron says that the arrival of an open-source, hence free, AR tool kit has let companies
build their own AR applications, using Flash – the pervasive animation and
video technology used for many online ads and YouTube's videos – "which
immediately meant you had huge penetration, because Flash is everywhere". (Something like 98% of
all computers are reckoned to have Adobe's Flash Player installed.)
"If you build your AR application with Flash, then you can get it out to everybody in the world
with a computer with a webcam," says Cameron.
Benetton is using AR in its latest campaign, called "It's My Time" which aims to get members of the public to put themselves forward as
potential models, and uses AR to show more details about existing models. But its first most
visible use of AR was last year in issue 76 of Benetton's Colors magazine, a quarterly
fashion product. Dozens of pages have AR symbols: hold the page up to a webcam, and you see film
and more photos of the person on the page. "The Colors editor and the creative director
of Fabrica got very excited about it," says Cameron.
Cameron can see huge potential which could even revive the fortunes of print advertising. "Think
of a commercial page, an advert, in a fashion magazine. It's pretty expensive. With this
– and this is the way that the more hard-nosed people in Benetton saw the
advantage – it means that you can get more products on the page." Print an AR
code, get people to come to the site, and you can show them so much more, while measuring the
return from your effort.
The technical cost is a tiny part of the overall effort. "The printing and photography cost [of
the advert] is the same. And the development cost is pretty small."
And of course where advertisers go, the publications that house them are sure to go as well.
Esquire magazine in the US and Wallpaper* in Europe have done "augmented
reality" editions, with Robert Downey Jr coming to life on the cover of the former, and AR text
providing videos and animation in the latter. But there are more possibilities for journalism
using AR: for example if you "geotag" newspaper articles (so that you say that an item relates to
a particular place) then someone visiting a site could learn about events relevant to the area
via their smartphone.
Book publishers too are leaping in: Carlton Publishing will release an AR book in May, featuring
dinosaurs that pop out of the pages when viewed, yes, through a webcam. Future releases include
war, sport and arts titles which will also have extra AR elements.
Yet in media it's the advertisers who are most excited. The possibilities of geotagged, targeted
adverts – which in effect hang in the air until someone comes along to find
them with a smartphone – or of AR adverts which open up a whole new world of
opportunities (and perhaps discounts or loyalty bonuses) when you follow them through
– are yet another glimpse of the holy grail ofads that know exactly who and
where you are.
Is there a risk that we'll all become AR'd out – that it will become boring as
advert after advert invites us to hold it up to a webcam? "What's hot today is ancient history
tomorrow," says Cameron. "There have been a lot of bad uses of this technology with a rush to use
it. We have had the chance to reflect on what it means and how to use it. The key is that it
should be an enhancement of the stuff on the printed page."
Even so we're still in the early stages, he argues. "It's very primitive –
having to use a webcam, holding a magazine up to it. Obviously we're really interested in the
opportunities with handheld devices. It's very frustrating that the iPhone doesn't allow access
to the live video stream." (Nor does it run Flash, another problem for would-be AR designers.)
"People in design are very annoyed with Steve Jobs," he observes. "We don't really understand why
Apple won't allow that."
Given that access, he says, "you could hold your iPhone up to a billboard and get something
amazing right there". What about the alternative, such as Google's Android-based Nexus phone? "It
looks like you could do it on that," he says. But of course the iPhone is a target market. "Maybe
Apple wants to keep that for itself," Cameron says. "Maybe they're lodging patents. Or maybe the
processor on the iPhone isn't fast enough."
Yet there are some who think that AR has already had its brief time in the sun. At the Like Minds
conference in Exeter at the beginning of March, Joanne Jacobs, a social media consultant,
described an AR application that demanded you buy a T-shirt and then go and sit in front of your
webcam – so you could play Rock, Paper, Scissors. By yourself.
"It's hopeless," Jacobs said.
Cameron admits to some uncertainty about AR's measurable impact. "I don't know if it sells more
things, but it seems clearly a good thing if we can get people who may be customers to
participate in the adverts." But, he adds: "If people start to play with the adverts in a way
that exposes them to more products, that's got to help bring a commercial return."
Salut c'est avec plaisir que je vous retrouve pour le résumé de la semaine. Petit
rappel, nous avons le plaisir d' accueillir Anne-Julie qui est chargée de la
communauté française pour le prochain jeu vidéo LEGO Harry Potter :
Années 1 à 4, je vous invite donc à lui rendre visite sur notre forum ;) ...
L’expérience est totalement intégrée avec Facebook et utilise donc vos
données personnelles via Facebook
Connect (comme ce fut le cas pour The Prototype Experience,
souvent imité mais jamais égalé) pour rendre cela encore plus
intéressant. Pour les paranoïaques qui ont peur du grand méchant Facebook, il
existe une version qui ne nécessite pas de connexion, mais qui sera moins
personnalisée du coup…
L’idée derrière le site part de deux constatations simples :
Avoir beaucoup d’amis, ça pollue !
Avoir beaucoup d’amis, ça coute cher !
N’oubliez pas le concours pour gagner un iPad ou un week-end en
Polo !
Our top story this week was about bad news for the big guys: Google,
Facebook, Digg's top users. As you catch up on the news, be sure to watch the conversation about China, tech and
democracy that took place between activist/artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and
ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet
trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.
Note: We've refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly
Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010,
as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your
thoughts on the new format.
Sponsor
Story of the Week: Nexus One's woes, spies love Facebook, top Diggers lose power
We
recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone
app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch,
we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and
Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to
download it now from iTunes.
Yakuza fait partie de ces
séries bénéficiant d’une curieuse aura de sympathie, bien que, sous
nos contrées, peu de personnes, finalement, y ont vraiment joué. La faute a une
plate-forme exclusive, la PlayStation (2 puis 3) et, surtout, un univers et une
accessibilité un peu à part. Difficile, en effet, d’apprécier les
Yakuza sans s’y plonger corps et âme, et prendre le temps de lire les tonnes de
dialogues qui emmaillent chaque opus. À cet égard, le fait que Yakuza 2 n’ait pas
été traduit en français — tout comme ce troisième
épisode, qui ne propose que des sous-titres anglais — n’a
évidemment pas arrangé les choses… Quoi qu’il en soit, on
appréciera particulièrement, ici, la possibilité de regarder les
résumés vidéo des deux premiers volets, véritables petits films de
15-20 minutes commentés par la voix chaude de Takaya Kuroda (Kiryu dans
le jeu). Une manière pour certains de se rafraîchir la mémoire, et pour les
autres de découvrir des scénarios (tordus) suintant l’énergie et la
passion, entre trahisons, combats à mort et improbables coups de théâtre.
Notons qu’à l’écrivain Hase Seishu, scénariste
des deux premiers opus — et de l’épisode Kenzan —
succède Masayoshi Yokoyama, un illustre inconnu qui a su heureusement
respecter à la lettre l’esprit Ryû ga Gotoku, à
quelques mièvreries près. L’indéboulonnable Toshihiro
Nagoshi (qui a oeuvré notamment sur les Super Monkey
Ball… et Shenmue
!) reste le maître d’oeuvre, et partage avec Hideo Kojima, un vieux
compagnon de troquet (véridique), un amour certain pour les cinématiques à
rallonge, ici plus que jamais présentes.
Okinawa way
Difficile, pour un fan de la première heure, de ne pas être immédiatement
emballé par Yakuza
3. Enfin, la qualité de réalisation —certes imparfaite sur
certains points — permet de faire honneur au sens du détail qui
caractérise la série. Quant aux cinématiques, elles transcendent un
character design d’une qualité et d’une variété
étonnante, soutenu par des visages désormais presque photoréalistes. Le
bonheur. À l’image d’un Kazuma Kiryu désormais retiré du monde
et cherchant avant tout la paix, le début du jeu vous invite à découvrir
l’île d’Okinawa, son temps superbe, ses touristes en chemises à
fleurs… Une atmosphère idyllique entachée par une conspiration
politico-mafieuse dont on conçoit peu à peu l’ampleur, tandis que l’on
devine, évidemment, que la retraite de l’ex 4ème chef du clan
Tôjô, qui administre désormais un orphelinat, ne peut être que de courte
durée. Une parenthèse d’une dizaine d’heures avant
l’inévitable retour à Kamurocho qui, toutefois, permet de se faire la main,
et découvrir à peu près tous les aspects du titre entre mini-jeux (on va y
revenir), intérieurs de magasins modélisés avec un soin maniaque, ambiance
de foule plus vraie que nature (on regrette juste une atmosphère sonore un peu en
deçà) et, il faut bien le dire, missions diverses pas toujours follement
intéressantes. Entre livraisons de nouilles, recherche de gamine égarée,
cache-cache et transport de glaces à six boules, on n’a en effet pas toujours
franchement l’impression d’incarner le yakuza le plus classe du monde. Les petites
frappes que vous croisez sans cesse et qui ne manquent jamais de vous provoquer
— les inconscients — sont heureusement là pour
arranger ça…
Mawashi-geri dans ta face
Coeur du gameplay, les combats dans Yakuza 3 se révèlent, sans
surprise, d’une richesse ahurissante. Comme dans les précédents opus,
c’est en gagnant des points d’expérience que vous pourrez améliorer
certains de vos talents, et étendre votre palette de coups. Projections, esquives,
contres, rétablissement sur chute, garde… Les possibilités offertes
permettent de développer son propre art du combat, tandis que l’on
privilégiera plutôt telle ou telle capacité (résistance,
vitesse…), le tout en ayant la possibilité, évidemment, d’utiliser
diverses armes blanches ou de poing, ces dernières étant de surcroît
customisables. Surtout, le dynamisme des combats et la possibilité sans cesse
renouvelée de découvrir de nouveaux finishing moves —
différents en fonction de l’environnement immédiat, du type d’armes ou
d’objets utilisés, de la partie du corps que vous attrapez, etc.
— font qu’au final, chaque nouvelle échauffourée peut se
révéler différente de la précédente. Évidemment, pour
cela, il faut creuser au maximum le “fighting system”, comme dirait Van Damme, mais
tous ceux qui se donneront cette peine prendront un pied monstrueux, vraiment, à
démonter yak’ et wesh-wesh à tous les coins de rue. Cadeau Bonux :
désormais, avec son téléphone portable, Kazuma peut “saisir” une
scène qui l’interpelle dans la rue (première
“révélation” : une petite vieille qui percute une voiture en scooter et
fait un soleil…), et s’en inspirer pour mettre au point un coup spécial, le
tout étant ensuite relaté, de façon assez drôle, sur un blog
imaginaire ! Un principe complètement con… et absolument réjouissant.
Serial gamer
On trouve de tout dans Yakuza
3 : des bars et des restaurants à écumer, des salles clandestines proposant des
jeux de cartes ou de dès exotiques (chô-han, koi-koi, oicho-kabu…), des
tournois d’Ultimate Fighting underground, des courses-poursuites, des clés de
consignes disséminées ici et là qui permettent de récupérer
différents objets, du bowling, du golf, des jeux de fléchettes, des sessions de
pêche à la ligne… Pas mal de choses déjà visibles dans les
précédents épisodes, mais que l’on retrouve avec toujours autant de
plaisir et qui bénéficient évidemment ici d’un soin particulier. Il
faudra notamment gérer particulièrement bien les sticks analogiques pour certaines
épreuves, comme le billard ou les fléchettes, qui réclament de la
concentration et une vraie précision (ce qui en énervera plus d’un). On ne
soulignera évidemment jamais assez à quel point Yakuza 3, à
l’image là encore de ses illustres prédécesseurs, ne se prend pas au
sérieux et s’autorise une constante autodérision. Tout est dans le
détail : ennemi qui vous attaque avec un énorme thon congelé, finishing
moves à la violence totalement démesurée, séances de karaoké
durant lesquelles Kiryu aligne les paroles niaises et chante comme une casserole, salary man qui
vous défie à un concours de biture et roule sous la table… L’ambiance
légère du jeu, qui contraste sainement avec l’atmosphère plus
sérieuse des cinématiques, fait que l’on parcourt le jeu avec un plaisir
toujours renouvelé.
No woman, no cry
Sujet (évident) de discorde, “l’ablation” avérée des
versions américaine et européenne du jeu, qui se voient amputées de la
séquence des bars à hôtesses, notamment, a donné à certains
gamers l’envie de couper la dernière phalange du petit doigt des responsables de
cette décision a priori aberrante. Et fait naître des velléités de
boycott. Bien que je n’excuse en aucun cas ce genre de procédés, il convient
toutefois de ranger les canifs. Ne plus avoir l’occasion de draguer à loisir
quantité de jeunes femmes aux coiffures improbables, trop heureuses de faire suer votre
carte bleue, n’a finalement rien de dramatique. Surtout qu’il est toujours possible
d’en rencontrer quelques-unes au hasard, dans la rue (et de profiter d’elles pour
commander en une fois toute la carte d’un resto histoire d’accumuler les points
d’expérience !). De plus, dans un effort louable, la version “premium”
du jeu proposée en Europe contient différents bonus, entre B.O. d’une
trentaine de titres, tableau “interactif” détaillé des relations entre
personnages (dont on retrouve l’équivalent dans les menus du jeu) et DLC
gratuitement téléchargeables (malheureusement très axés baston, et
pas forcément inoubliables). Bref, un titre d’une richesse absolue, quoi qu’il
en soit, et à la durée de vie impressionnante, de toute façon incontournable
pour tous les amoureux de la série. Ceux-là pardonneront aisément les
quelques dérives d’un titre ancré dans des mécanismes certes un peu
old school, et apprécieront pleinement ce que Yakuza 3 sait proposer de
mieux : une fantastique aventure humaine.
On peut reprocher à Yakuza 3 certaines choses : une maniabilité parfois un peu raide, une
difficulté évidente à innover d’un épisode à
l’autre, une durée de vie artificiellement augmentée par des missions pas
toujours passionnantes, une atmosphère curieusement gnangnan sur toute la partie qui se
déroule à Okinawa… Et pourtant, la magie, cette fois encore, fonctionne.
Bénéficiant d’heures de cinématiques superbes, impressionnant de
possibilités, et proposant un système de combat riche et soigné, ce nouvel
opus ne peut être qu’accueilli à bras ouverts par les amoureux du Japon en
général, et les habitués de la série en particulier. Quant aux
quelques éléments malheureusement absents de cette version occidentale
— le résultat de coûts de localisation trop élevés,
dit-on officiellement chez Sega — il serait dommage qu’ils fassent
oublier à certains la qualité globale du jeu, qui n’a, dans le fond, rien
perdu de sa superbe.
Gameblog.fr est LE site internet de jeux vidéo français du moment, totalement
incontournable et surtout indispensable. Accompagné de commentaires pertinents, et surtout
poilants, vous y retrouverez toute l’actualité Jeux vidéo, les derniers tests
en avant première, des reportages exclusifs, des interviews, des émissions
vidéos, des chroniques, de superbes Podcast... Bref, le nirvana du Jeux Vidéo a la
française!
Pour ma dix-neuvième chronique à l’émission LeLab, je discute avec
Philippe Fehmiu de tatouage numérique, identité numérique, déconnage
et connerie sur le web: La voici donc : tatouage numérique, identité numérique, déconnage et connerie
sur le web
Bouger notre Education Nationale pour l'adapter à l'économie numérique, n'est pas
une mince affaire...
Mais Jean Paul, dans son petit coin, s'y est attelé. Il n'est pas le seul (il y en a
quelques autres). Structures hiérarchiques lourdes, syndicats ... Mais telle une poule
qui a trouvé un couteau, notre Education Nationale observe...
Jean Paul est enseignant à Lyon. Il est professeur de gestion en section "design de mode"
(Lycée La Martinière Diderot). Il intègre des mondes virtuels dans des
dispositifs d'apprentissage en présentiel... Pourquoi a-t-il choisi la
plateforme Assemblive
(déjà passé au e-billautshow) ? Est-ce vraiment un cours qu'il fait dans ce monde
virtuel ? Comment fonctionne la mécanique ? Ses étudiants sont-ils intéressés
? (oui car ce sont des digital natives, pas besoin de leurs expiiquer comment cela
fonctionne...). Etc
A l'avenir n'y aura-t-il que des classes virtuelles ? Quel serait le rapport entre
l'éducation traditionnelle et l'éducation virtuelle ? Jean Paul en virtuel a des
participants qui viennent d'autres pays ... Pourrait-on mettre en oeuvre une université
francophone virtuelle ? Peut-on adapter la mécanique de Jean Paul à d'autres
matières ? Le virtuel est-il plus "productif" que le traditionnel (les éléves
apprennent-ils plus vite et mieux ?). La visiophonie apporte-t-elle un plus ? Quel serait
l'impact d'un système éducatif virtuel sur l'environnement durable (bonne question -
merci de l'avoir posée..).
Différences entre le e-learning 1.0 et l'enseignement en monde virtuel 3D ? "Quand j'anime
des cours virtuels le soir, ce n'est pas prévu dans mes statuts"... Que pensent les
syndicats de l'Education Nationale de tout cela ? Quid du temps statutaire et du temps
numérique... Si vous étiez à la place du Ministre de l'Education Nationale, que
feriez-vous ?
Si cela vous dit, vous pourriez participer au prochain cours de Jean Paul le Jeudi 25 mars à
partir de 20:45. Jean Paul y invite une designer pour discuter avec ses éléves...
ici.
Ci-dessus mon avatar qui entre dans le e-bahut de Jean Paul Moiraud...
Pour contacter Jean Paul Moiraud : moiraudjp(arobase)orange.fr
Le blog de Jean Paul : http://moiraudjp.wordpress.com/
[‘Design Diversions’ is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column
by Andrew Vanden Bossche. It looks at the unexpected moments when games take us behind the
scenes, and the details of how game design engages us. This time -- how emotional design can make
us think about not thinking about violence.]
Senseless violence in videogames is fun, but more importantly, it can also be intellectually
stimulating and thought provoking. While designers and critics alike cry out for more depth in
games, pathos is not the only path to artistic merit. For a medium that's constantly patronized,
misunderstood, and derided even by its supporters, sometimes satire and irony is the best way to
get a point across.
This is the philosophy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, as
the most unapologetic of that series so lambasted by those who were the target of the
game’s satire. The ultraviolent and candy colored Vice City is an excessively pink world in
which violence is comical and cartoonish. Violence in this game is already highly desensitized.
Pedestrians die, but after their bodies despawn the world will be back to normal as if nothing
happened, maintaining the status quo like a TV serial.
It's the worst possible environment for a serious engagement with issues of violence, but it's a
great environment to engage with how we depict violence. Most games take the opposite position of
Haunting Ground, and are designed to soften, justify, or excuse violent actions so that players
feel like heroes instead of murderers.
It's the same treatment summer blockbusters get. But unlike most of these media, Vice City goes a
step further. This is a game that mercilessly skewers the groups most opposed to its existence,
freely leaps into self parody, and satirizes the cultural attitudes towards violence that
ultimately gave it form. By the end of Vice City it's clear that everyone from the mob to the
talking heads on the radio are guilty of the same violence as the protagonist. No one in Vice
City is innocent, and neither is anyone in the world.
How to Take the Sense Out of Violence
While technology makes blood and gore more realistic, game designers continue to construct this
violence to minimize its impact. In the goriest of games (like Mortal Kombat) violence is there
to thrill or disgust, not to inspire existential terror. Designers (and gamers) get excited over
realism, but we want it for specific reasons. Despite how much we clamor for realism in graphics
and physics, emotional realism actually gets in the way of enjoying games like Grand Theft Auto.
For this reason GTA4 has actually been criticized for being too realistic. GTA4 succeeded in its
attempt to be more serious and taken more seriously, but it resulted in a different game
experience--one that many fans hadn't been looking for and subsequently found in the much less
serious Saints Row 2.
GTA4’s Nico feels more like a person than the caricature that is Vice City’s Tommy
Vercetti, and for that reason it can be hard for players to engage senseless violence. Even the
normal missions feel a little odd considering the sheer number of people you kill, creating a
scenario in which the gameplay and story don’t quite mesh.
Abstracting Emotion
Trauma Center is an interesting example of a game that uses abstraction to eliminate
squeamishness. This is a game inspired heavily by medical dramas with surgery-based gameplay.
Medical dramas have a wide appeal; exposed organs do not. Surgeons and other medical
professionals have to get used to blood and guts, but most people are pretty squeamish about
that. Even the bloody fantasy violence of the average videogame can be less intense than the
exposed entrails of a living human. Because of this, the designers went to great lengths to
create a representation of the human body that wouldn't be grotesque.
Naoya Maeda, the lead 3D and event designer said on the Trauma Team web site that he came up with
this abstract approach while thinking of how a surgeon would see the entrails. What's interesting
about this approach is that the more realistic option may be less "true." In the game, the player
is a doctor and revulsion is not part of the experience. In the same way, Tommy Vercetti attitude
towards human life is pretty obvious from the way pedestrians are depicted.
A World of Mannequins
In violent videogames, it’s common to dehumanize the enemy so that players can feel
justified in killing them. Zombies, robots, and aliens all serve their roles. With human
opponents, it’s common to make them as evil as possible, which may be why WWII is the
favorite FPS genre and Nazis the favorite foe. Ultimately though, the greatest tool for removing
humanity is simply to leave them undeveloped.
The civilians in GTA don’t mourn, cry, or express themselves. Because they don't exhibit
sympathetic actions, it's hard to empathize with them. They exist only to run screaming like
Godzilla was stomping through the city. Vice City is inhabited by crash test dummies that respawn
endlessly no matter how many times they die. It’s similar to watching Bugs Bunny gets
blasted point blank with a shotgun: the next second, he's up and chomping carrots.
No matter how many times the player dies in GTA, or however many generic citizens he wastes,
everything in the world will be respawning and back to normal in minutes. In this way, actions
that would normally appear reprehensible loose all their emotional impact. If GTA was an accurate
murder simulator, depicting the horror of real-world violence and murder with unflinching
accuracy, the nightly news stories would have been about kids getting PTSD.
Sensitive Violence
If there is a flaw in this form of violence in videogames, it’s that it isn’t violent
enough. It’s emotionally casual, designed specifically to not challenge the player’s
feelings of empathy or guilt. Although it takes a lot of design work to make sure the player
won’t feel sorry for the extras, seeing how many pixilated crash-test dummies you can run
over isn’t emotionally challenging for the player.
Haunting Ground has a near-opposite outcome, but the design is obviously quite intentional.
Compare GTA to the visceral Manhunt, and you can see that Rockstar is quite capable of creating
an experience uniquely tailored to inspiring certain emotions. That’s a game that really
does make the player feel like a murderer.
So Vice City is engineered for players to be as violent as possible without thinking about it.
This is where a lot of game stop, having accomplished their purpose, and just let the player have
fun. But Vice City fills the game with relentless satire, and this cleverness works in part
because it's so violent. The result is a game about thinking about not thinking about violence.
Whose America?
The talk radio blabbering about videogame violence is underscored by the incredible violence
perpetuated by the player. With Tommy Vercetti chaining rows of exploding cars and fighting
everything from SWAT to the US Army, the irony of legislating against bleeding pixels isn’t
lost on the player.
The jingoistic ads run by the game's gun stores unsubtly implicate that GTA is not the cause of
America's attitudes towards violence, but a product of it. The entrepreneurial rise of the main
character reflects a certain pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-attitude that, along with
this construction of violence, satirically constructs Tommy Vercetti as an ideal American.
Vice City is violent videogame about America’s attitude towards violence. Vice City came
out after GTA 3, and it was born while the immediate reaction to that game was fresh in the minds
of its audience and opponents. As the in game talk show parody unfolds, extremists from all sides
fight over which vision of America to cram down the rest of the country’s throat while the
player is laughing at them and having a grand old time.
While the guests on talk radio worry about fictional violence, their world is being blown up by
the player on a regular basis. After mowing down the city in a tank, players may wonder why they
aren't the ones being discussed on the news. Shouldn't they be thinking about real violence?
Shouldn't the player? It's fun to live the American Dream as Tommy Vercetti, but is this bitter
satire worth bringing to reality?
Even though Vice City goes to great lengths to create emotionally uninvolved violence, it wants
the player to be conscious of how different this is from real world violence. At the time, the
charge levied against the playerbase and the industry was that videogames confused the two. With
the pitch perfect satire of radio pundits and activists, Vice City invites the player to think
about whether the game is more damaging to society than the people trying to ban it. Rockstar has
a clear agenda, of course, and stacks the deck in their favor. Even so, that’s a lot to
think about for a game that’s not supposed to be about thinking at all.
Pathos certainly has its place in videogames, and it's certainly something we need more of. A GTA
like game that forced players to confront the realities of murder would be an interesting idea.
It couldn't work as a satire, and it wouldn't really be fun, but that’s just fine as
it’s another way to engage the player. One of the great things about survival horror games
like Haunting Ground is that they've proven that games don't necessarily need to be fun to be
compelling.
But let's not underestimate Vice City just because it makes us laugh.
[Andrew Vanden Bossche is a freelance writer and student. He has a blog called Mammon Machine, which is updated less often than this
message, and can be reached at AndrewVandenB@gmail.com]
Vous avez bien lu : après Lil' Louis en mars, Ruba Deep invite le maestro David Morales pour
une session "Golden Years Of House" spécialement élaboré pour le public averti
du Djoon.
C'est dans l'esprit des grandes heures de la house qui l'ont [...]
Novell is providing the first glimpse of
Pulse, its new real-time collaboration service. The new service will eventually fully integrate
with Google Wave. This version does not include
Google Wave as part of its service. But there is an expectation that eventually the integration
will serve as a federated platform that may serve as the basis for new open-source collaboration
efforts.
Novell is releasing the service initially to analysts and participants at BrainShare, its user group meeting next week in Salt Lake
City. Each person will get to invite one new user, Novell will provide a fuller release in the
next few months. A release at the end of the year will include OpenID as a core aspect of the
platform.
Sponsor
The service resembles platforms that we see emerging. It has a real-time activity stream. People
may create their own groups within an activity stream. Groups may also be created with external
communities such as partners or customers. Pulse will be available as a SaaS or on-premise.
The service includes a co-editing feature, much like you see in Google Wave.
Novell Pulse looks like a viable alternative for the companies and government organizations that
want a platform they can modify without concern about proprietary constraints. Still, it is clear
that Pulse is in its infancy with a host of features needing integration.
We question how many people may use the service simultaneously. Google Wave has received
criticism for its inability to handle large numbers of simultaneous users. Novell says it will
see how many people the platform can handle. Of note is that the beta is so limited. It will
essentially only be open to a very limited subset of the market. Perhaps it will spread through
invites. We'll see.
Its open-source roots make Pulse most compelling. The approach fits with the company's roots.
Novell sees an opportunity to federate with Google. The larger question will come down to how
well the integration works with Google Wave.
Red, yellow, pink, black with a hint of blue. Red, yellow, pink. Black with a hint of blue. It
was a dress, slightly shimmery. The girl wearing it talked to me about a magic guitar.
Montreal, October 2008. The POP
Montréal festival throughout the city and its venues. Every night packed with
concerts, drinking, and running from venue to venue, city map in hand. On the marquee tonight:
The Persuasions, a mythical American acapella group from the 60s. The Ukrainian Federation
packed, Richie du Fire losing control in the middle of the crowd, the group who got off the stage
and passed around the mics, low rhythmic voices and high melodic voices, the concert which
finished with an amazing song by one of the organisers of the festival. One of the most amazing
concerts of our lives and the apotheosis of POP Montreal that year.
But. Victor had insisted that we not miss the concert at 11:30 at Casa Del Popolo. It was the
Luyas, his favourite new band, a
band buzzed about by most of the people I met. Casa was only a few blocks away, but it was
already too late. From the middle of the crowd, Victor signalled ‘It's
Jessie!'. The girl had a red, yellow, and pink dress on. And she talked to me about a magic
guitar. And she talked tirelessly.
Reykjavik, November 2008. Jessie had told me she'd be in town for the Airwaves festival. Not with
the Luyas, but with Miracle
Fortress, her buddy Graham's band. I found myself in Iceland on the trail of a docu-fiction
project, Sun (Set & Rise) which, bit by bit, was breaking us down with each subsequent day.
We spent a lot of our time drinking, catching shows, drinking even more, making the most of our
nights to forget the drudgery of our days. At a Yelle concert on our last night, during a stage
diving session, in a room packed with young Icelanders shouting the lyrics at the top of their
voices, a surreal moment: I broke my back, lost all my stuff, thanks to Jessie, who crushed me
into the ground before disappearing into the cold without even singing me a single note.
Perpignan, August 2009. The magic guitar Jessie had talked about was in fact the work of Yuri
Landmann, guitar-maker extraordinaire, the only person that my friend Gaspar and I had decided to
invite to Pedro
Soler's festival Guitares au Palais. Through his instruments, we'd encountered the Malian Sidi
Touré, the Dutch group The Moi Non Plus, who are the force behind Subbacultcha in
Amsterdam, the vagabond Noel Akchoté, who improvises with astonishing ease. And Jessie
Stein, who – discreetly this time – brought the sensation
of a faraway night through her accent and her soft voice. I only saw her briefly; my head, too,
was somewhere far away.
Montreal, October 2009. It had been one year since I'd discovered the Luyas and Jessie Stein. One
year of replaying the melodies in my head, dreaming about this girl and her distinctive voice.
One night, as we biked together, I told her, “Every time I hear you sing I get the
impression that I am across the ocean, even if I am close to you.” It is this sense of
nostalgia for an unknown country evoked through her music which makes me crazy for her.
POP Montreal invited me to organise another screening, but this year I was also invited to film
a series of selected
local acts for Arte Live Web. This
series was to include the Luyas, of course, whom I had long wanted to film. We had hoped that I
would be able to join them in the previous winter's snow, but fall proved to be more welcoming.
Réal : Vincent Moon
Tourné à Montreal
Réal : Vincent Moon
Tourné à Montreal
The Luyas is Jessie, Stefan (the
percussionist/drummer from Bell
Orchestre), Pietro (formerly of Arcade Fire, as well as Bell Orchestre and Torngat), and Mathieu, the group's newest
member. Jessie proposed that we film on the sidewalks of the Jacques-Cartier bridge and on the
island in the middle of the St. Lawrence. Crossing Montreal by bike felt easy, light and airy. I
had thought that Jessie would be more stressed for this little film, considering how many times
it had been delayed, but to the contrary she brought a constant humour and a capacity for
off-the-cuff improvisation. A joy to follow from in front of and behind a camera.
Réal : Vincent Moon
Tourné à Montreal
Réal : Vincent Moon
Tourné à Montreal
Film to meet, record to remember. That afternoon remains the apotheosis of numerous voyages, the
perpetual quest for sound, of many different experiences. To see these images again brings back
an entire week of musical encounters, like the confluence of emotions in a single final
explosion.
Réal : Vincent Moon
Tourné à Montreal
Réal : Vincent Moon
Tourné à Montreal
The last song of this film, shot in and around a playground, is probably the sequence which most
represents these final months of my travels – entirely improvised, from the
beginning to the end, a moment of pure musical magic the likes of which I had never filmed
before. And the last phrase, hilarious and which will stick with me for a while: "It looks like
dirt, but it's death."
New York, February 2010. The night deepens, Jessie has had too much to drink and she talks
nonstop. Under the table, she takes my hand and I remember when I fell in love with a girl who
talked about a magic guitar, who played music while looking straight into your eyes, and who sang
like a child far across the sea. Sometimes simple encounters change lives.
Kôshi invite Sanae à passer l'après-midi avec lui mais cela va anéantir
la demoiselle et Sumomo. Sentimental puis musclé : un dixième volume qui
dépote !
Note : 4/6
It's Friday, and if you're like me there is some question of what game you're going to play over
the weekend. Or maybe you're looking forward to playing with your children or spending time with
your wife? You should scuttle any plan you have of going outside into the daystar, because we
have something very special to give away.
You see, Blizzard has invited us to, well, invite a friend to the StarCraft 2 beta. I
could slam that code on eBay and make a few hundred dollars, but instead I am choosing to share
it with you. Why? Because you're my friends, right?
Here's how you win: simply send an e-mail to giveaways@arstechnica.com with the subject line
"Beta rush kekekekeke," and inside answer a simple question: Why couldn't I go to visit Blizzard
to play the single player portion of the game when Ars Technica was invited to do so?
We'll choose one e-mail at random, and check it for the correct answer. If it's incorrect, we'll
simply draw again.
We hope everyone is having a good Friday, and we hope to see you online this weekend!
Leyl Master Black is a Managing Director at Sparkpr, one of the world’s top independent PR agencies. Leyl has more
than 15 years experience driving high-impact communications programs for emerging technology
companies.
While more than three million businesses, brands and celebrities have created Facebook Pages, many are struggling to figure out
how best to use them. Companies are finding that even when they keep their pages updated with
fresh content, they still aren’t seeing steady growth in their fan base.
And yet there are many brands who’ve surpassed the one million fan mark, while their peers
have languished in the thousands. What’s their secret? These companies have figured out how
to move from “broadcast” mode into engagement. They have engaged people so well that
their fans even invite others along for the ride.
Here are four ways that savvy Facebook marketers are using the medium to engage with their fans.
1. Ask Their Opinion
If you post something on your Facebook Page, you might generate a good number of comments. But if
you post your content in the context of a question, you provide an easy call to action. With a
question, you engage people’s egos and provoke viral distribution of your content —
everyone loves to share their opinion!
At the DigiDay: Social conference
this month, social media marketing application developer Fan Appz highlighted an example of how a simple question can boost
engagement. One of their customers — a leading video content provider with over 300,000
Facebook fans — routinely posts videos on their Facebook Page. The company found that when
they paired videos with a question, video plays jumped by a whopping factor of 7 to 10. This
simple yet effective strategy also generated 100 times more Facebook media impressions, as people
posted videos to their walls in the context of their response to the question.
The NBA has also adopted this approach, issuing a steady stream of “Top Five” polls
and other engaging content that has propelled the organization to top the two million
fan mark, an unprecedented number for a sports league on the social networking site. The NBA
routinely invites fans to rank their top five shooters, point guards and more. During the 2009-10
NBA season, their Fan Page generated nearly 500 million status update impressions and more than
six million video views.
2. Test Their Knowledge
Consider testing people’s knowledge with a fun, relevant quiz, and even tying the results
to a giveaway or promotion (more on that later). A clever quiz is not only entertaining, but also
lengthens the time a user spends engaged with your brand.
One company embracing this approach is Molotov, a digital marketing agency whose clients include
comedians such as George Lopez, David Spade and Jamie Kennedy. Molotov worked with George Lopez
to create quizzes such as How Well Do You Know George Lopez? to push his fan base over the one
million mark and drive viewership for his TV show.
In another Molotov program to promote a client’s new TV show, the company ran a series of
quizzes about the celebrity in conjunction with a sweepstakes for signed merchandise. The quizzes
were tests of knowledge about the comedian, his comedy, his routines, even about what happened on
last week’s show. Giving people the opportunity to test their knowledge got them into a
competitive mode and provided an additional incentive to share their results with friends. In the
span of a little over a week, the campaign drove over 12 million brand impressions — and
the premiere of the show was the highest rated show on the cable network for the year.
3. Pair Promotions with Content
While a contest or sweepstakes may get you some e-mail addresses, simply posting these on your
page provides limited incentive to share with friends or even to participate. The way to boost
participation is by tying the offer to content. People taking a brand-related quiz are great
targets for your message. They may already have an affinity for the brand, so this is the best
time to make them an offer.
In the example mentioned above, Molotov gave fans a chance to enter a sweepstakes to win signed
merchandise — but the offer was made within the flow of the quiz. This strategy resulted in
a 50% conversion rate. For every ten fans who tested their knowledge, five signed up to
participate in the promotion, generating over 30,000 sign-ups for the weekly e-mail blast to
promote the show.
The offer doesn’t even have to be big. Before the Super Bowl, the NFL ran a How Well Do You Know the
NFL? quiz, with one lucky participant selected to receive a $50 gift card to NFLshop.com. Over 10,000 people took the quiz. If you
estimate that each participant has 200 friends, that’s a possible two million impressions
in the news feed with a relatively small giveaway.
4. Thank Your Fans
Giving your fans something of value — whether it’s as simple as a coupon, or as
flashy as tickets to the Tonight Show — is a great way to show that you appreciate
their continued support.
But what about picking one fan at random to get something really special?
The NBA again shows that they are on the leading edge. This brilliant strategy taps some of their
biggest stars to record personalized video clips thanking select fans. Here’s a picture of Shaq
thanking fan #385. If you’re an NBA fan, you could be next!
Put These Ideas Into Action
You don’t have to be a major brand like the NBA to turn your Facebook Page into an engaging
destination. Any business can take these ideas and get creative. A restaurant could pair a quiz
about famous restaurant movie scenes with a $100 gift certificate sweepstakes, or a Ford
dealership could run a poll gauging people’s reactions to the Toyota recall news and give
away interest-free financing to one lucky winner. The trick is to think about what your users
would be interested in, what’s trendy or fun, then try it out.
In what ways are you engaging with your Facebook fans?
It's Friday, and if you're like me there is some question of what game you're going to play over
the weekend. Or maybe you're looking forward to playing with your children or spending time with
your wife? You should scuttle any plan you have of going outside into the daystar, because we
have something very special to give away.
You see, Blizzard has invited us to, well, invite a friend to the StarCraft 2 beta. I
could slam that code on eBay and make a few hundred dollars, but instead I am choosing to share
it with you. Why? Because you're my friends, right?
Here's how you win: simply send an e-mail to giveaways@arstechnica.com with the subject line
"Beta rush kekekekeke," and inside answer a simple question: Why couldn't I go to visit Blizzard
to play the single player portion of the game when Ars Technica was invited to do so?
We'll choose one e-mail at random, and check it for the correct answer. If it's incorrect, we'll
simply draw again.
We hope everyone is having a good Friday, and we hope to see you online this weekend!
Voilà une nouvelle qui devrait faire plaisir aux amateurs de handball : Neutron
Games est actuellement en train de développer un jeu en l’honneur de ce
sport. Nommé Handball Challenge, le soft, prévu à la fois
sur Playstation 3, Xbox 360 et PC se dévoile pour l’instant via un
court trailer. En attendant d’en savoir plus…
L’explorateur Jean-Louis Étienne s’apprête à partir dans une
expédition au pôle nord en solitaire et en ballon qui devrait lui permettre de
réunir des données uniques pour mieux appréhender les questions du
réchauffement climatique.
L’expédition compte avec un suivi informatique poussé qui permettra de
transmettre ces données en temps réel du pôle, mais aussi de discuter tous
les jours avec Jean-Louis Etienne. Techniquement une petite prouesse vraiment intéressante
à partager.
J’y participe et je vous invite, à une rencontre de blogueurs le 24 mars à
17h avec Jean-Louis Etienne à son PC Course à Paris.
Quand : mercredi 24 mars à 17h
Où : au PC Course - Generali : 2-8 rue Luigi Cherubini, Saint-Denis (en face de la gare du
RER D, station Stade de France Saint-Denis)
Comment : envoyer un mail à daphnepierrot@teymour.fr
PS (disclosure – mise au clair) – C’est avec
Dominique que j’ai écrit “Comment le web change le monde ” (nous sommes en train de préparer
une seconde édition qui devrait sortir à l’automne). Je participe à
RebellionLab , la
boîte qu’il vient de lancer et qui organise l’évènement.
J’y serai. FP.
Call for Papers Let the Games Begin: The Medieval World at Play Humanities Research Institute,
University of Sheffield 19th - 20th June 2010 We invite postgraduate students and early career
researchers working in any field of Medieval Studies to submit abstracts for an interdisciplinary
conference at the University of Sheffield, organised by medievalists in the Department of French,
hosted by the Humanities Research Institute, and subsidised by the Society for French Studies. We
welcome papers that approach issues concerning games and sports in medieval culture. Suitable
topics may include, but are not limited to: Children's games / play / toys Courtly games Chess /
card / board games Drinking games Love games Competitions Jousts / Tournaments / War games Fairs
Hunting / Hawking Sports: archery, hammer-throwing, quarter-staff contests, stoolball, hurling,
gameball, wrestling etc Please send proposals of no more than 250 words for a twenty minute paper
in English with your name, institution and contact details either by e-mail to
gameplayconference@shef.ac.uk or by post to the address by 12 April 2010. As in previous years, a
selection of papers is likely to be published in an edited collection. Medieval Studies Conference
c/o Dr Katariina Nara SOMLAL University of Sheffield Jessop West 1 Upper Hanover Street Sheffield
S3 7RA U.K. For further information, please contact the organisers: Lorna Bleach, Keira Borrill,
Katariina Närä, at the e-mail address [...]
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