For the love of the (fill in the blank)

Things have been a little rocky for me in the last few weeks... nothing serious,  just some work stuff, some life stuff and some other stuff.  Nothing bad and I am well. Nothing a great vacation cant cure.  One thing has been made clear   - do the things you love,  love the people you choose to hang out with and to find things you love in general.  
Too often people do or work in places that make their souls collapse,  or make their life collapse or simply go through the motions (which might be worse)  This may sound froufy but it's real.  Keep looking for things to love. Be it people,  a street,  a thing,  a class or anything keep seeking the thing that make you happy.  

Baseball is doomed if it loses people like me

I am a huge baseball fan.  In some ways my baseball fandom has been a defining trait.  Its long seasons and requirement that you take a nuanced view of the game always appealed to me.  This year baseball lost me.   I didn't participate in a live fantasy baseball league,  I didn't buy and read any pre  or post season baseball analysis or anything like that.  The game simply slipped away and I didn't miss it.  Why and how did this happen?

Couple of reasons come to mind.  One,  nuanced and statistical view of the game is now accepted.  That was the one thing that got me excited about the game, now everyone views the game, that way. Two, having folks to talk to regularly about the game. I used to go to the same bar week after week and talk about the game.  Without the constant need to catch up, the drive to be informed has waned.  Third,  the game itself has changed.  Most of my deep fandom seasons came during the "steroid era" offense was big and pitchers were bad.  My entire understanding of the game was based around offense.  This is no longer the case.  That shift has cause so much of my game understanding to shift.  Third,  fatigue and lack of intrigue.  Fundamentally,  the best team in town,  the Yankees, are boring.  I'm tired of the narrative.  Without the Red Sox as their "Cowboy up!" foil they simply aren't interesting.  The team has taken on Derek Jeter's personality - boring, buttoned down, with no personality. 

Lastly,  other sports have taken up my brain space.  The NBA has been outstanding the last few years - the decison, the hated Miami Heat, and Lebron in general is a better story.  The Premier League - the great game is so good, that just watching it for a couple of weeks gets you hooked. It has the passion of college football,  with the atleticism of basketball and poetry of baseball.  (Plus Manchester City's Mario Balotelli is the most captivating sportsmen on the Planet - an African Italian,  with a blond mohawk he is just as likely to kick a guy in the face as score a goal!)  It seems I don't have the patience for the pace of baseball anymore.

You will catch me on Saturdays watching Premier League football and not watching Sunday night baseball.

Keep learning, keep reading, keep writing.

 

I was going to post about how hard writing is but it was too hard so I didn't.  Instead I started reading a book, Running Lean.  Running Lean is just another in the long lines of business books I read to keep up.  For me, reading ALWAYS leads to writing.  A sentence here, or a word there inspires me, and I just have to write.  Everything flows from reading.

All that shit they told you in school is true.  The more you read, the more you know, the more you read the better you write, the better you write the better you are at expressing your thoughts, the better you are at expressing your thoughts the better you are at your job, the better you re at your job the more opportunities come your way.... you see where this is going.  (Maybe they didn't tell you this in school?)

If you're an avid reader, stop sitting on the side lines.  Start writing.  It can be done.  If you are a regular writer,  read more!  The two go hand in hand.

Break some goddamn windows! Change won't come without breaking some eggs.

I am all for peaceful protest and I mostly believe it works.  However,  for change to come,  real change,  eggs have to be broken.  In the United States the authorities have gotten very smart.  They learned from the turbulent 1960's that beating the shit out of protestors doesn't work.  So now,  they just wait use the law and apathy ( see Occupy Movement).

Its time for the protestors of the world to change their strategy.  Its time (if you really think things are that bad) to break glass. Got beef with the banks?  Smash the windows!  Got beef with a brand? Deface their ads. Yes,  I am advocating radicalism,  I understand that - but really,  I am advocating action.  If things are that bad.  Do something.  Sitting peacfully isn't working, the man is wise to it.
If we have a real issue with guns, people should drive down south and destroy the stores!  

The mob has power.  People fear the mob, the rabble and anarchists,  You will get peoples attention when you start breaking shit. 

No change ever occurred without some sort of violence.  We're not that far evolved. (you can look it up)

When things  are bad, breaking a few eggs is sometimes necessary. 

The hurdles that go undisccused

If you read business books or productivity books they very rarely have any context written into them.  I assume they are written for white-middle-aged-middle-managers.  Which would make sense,  these are the types who read these books trying to justify their existence.  But what about everyone else?  What about the specific context of the urban poor?
How do you make a business or get thing done book for a 20 year old with a 3 year old kid who is struggling to survive? 
Where is the "How to survive the ghetto in 10 easy steps" book? 
Where is the "How to get straight A's while you have to take care of your siblings" book?
How about "How to get ahead in with a junkie parent in 20 days"
How to survive the ghetto for dummies - (short book, dummies don't survive)
Where is the "How to keep your dignity when you're wear your brothers shoes (that you wore last year too)"
Or even better "How to feel great about yourself when everything smells like piss in your building"?

Where is this information?  Where are these how to and easy steps books for the urban poor?  I guess hip hop is the only medium that describes the life?  Are they blue prints for survival though?  They are what we have so I suppose we should be thankful we have it.   I just wish there was more. 
You know what my system was?  Get out and don't come back.  Hold it inside and pretend it didn't all happen.

The origin of MeowSplash - feels quaint now.

I pulled this from the original about page of the first incarnation of MeowSplash.  It was my first personally host WordPress site.  (Thanks Willis Lambert) I set it up in my brothers study and just thought I would be a jerk about the world and capture my general snark.  It's not serving that purpose anymore (that's what this blog is for)  

So without further ado - from December 17th, 2008.

 Meow Splash?  WTF is meowsplash?  Iḿ still trying to figure it out but I know where it comes from.  Meowsplash is a term that I came up with when yelling at a whiny co-worker who was complaining about having to spend $5,000 to save his cat. My thought was was ¨Fuck!  That is a hell of a lot of cash to save and old cat.” He of course said ¨You don´t know my cat - heś awesome”

I have a problem with that.  Your cat isn´t $5,000 awesome.  Shit IḾ not $5,000 awesome.  I blew a gasket and said for $100k you can get a herd of cats an find and new awesome one!  I may have in the middle of the rant mentioned that we could throw the old one in theGowanus Canal and go ¨MeowSplash”  Someone picked up on the term ¨meow-splash¨ and itś been a legend ever since.

Meowsplash.com is the FIRST UR: I have ever purchased and I am damn proud of it.Oh right,  the about should be about me.  My hope is that youĺl figure it out as you move through some of the posts.

If you want to know about me,  you can find out here:http://twitter.com/gamesdotcom

here: http://blog.games.com.

Any questions?  No?  Good.

Lots of ideas no focus....

I've got this list of blog post ideas I've been keeping that just grows.  Sure, some have become posts,  but not all.   Writing is hard.   I'm only writing this because all the other things I do on the subway have run out of content (Read tweets, read RSS).  I'm not up for reading after 12 hours of work and class.  
I'm just a little a little fried but I promised I'd write so I am.  
Some questions:
What do you eat when you are tired?
Is there a non caffeinated energy booster?
Why don't I like baseball any more?
Who invented the term "hanging curve ball"? (My favorite baseball thing)

Are you busy? Really? Do you need to be?

In the last few years there has been a lot of psychological work done on the brain and how it functions.  One of the items coming out of all the wonderful work being done is the need for rest.  Both physical and mental rest are as necessary as breathing.  Being tired can impair you as much as being drunk or distract you as much as texting!

For me, busyness is part of this epidemic.  It seems we are judged on our level of busy.  Oh they are busy, they must be vital!  Oh their calendar is full they must be busy.   I don't see it that way.  Folks who are busy all the time are usually  using just the surface of their minds.  They are shuffling from here to there checking off lists because they can't remember anything because they are so busy.  If let people slow down,  focus at their most important tasks and do less multitasking we might get better and smarter work out of people.   Think of it this way... would you rather have someone shuffling three projects/ideas eight hours a day for three weeks or have them work on one thing for one week with a new project each week.   Just makes sense to work in serial through-puts.  Get one thing completely done and complete.

I think the obsession with busyness is specifically American.  We judge Europeans on this weird notion of production, per capita GDP.  What does that even mean?  Its a math equation that has no bearing on the quality of that persons life or the quality of the work.  We put our historical Puritanical notions on work - "... the devil will find work for idle hands".  Maybe weare wrong?  Maybe all the work we're doing is killing us?

Take a nap.... take a day off.... sit at your desk do nothing.... see what happens.... see what comes into your mind... you might be surprised.

Size does matter - my life with 7 inches of Nexus.

So I am that nerd who has a Google Nexus 7, the iPad competitor tablet.  The iPad is a different beast entirely.  The differences crop up because of size.   In an era of touch interfaces with phones and tablets, the screen size changes the experience.  If every millimeter and fraction of an inch can be interacted with then it makes sense the the six of the interaction surface would change everything?

The Nexus fits between the handy snack-sized usage of a mobile 4 inch screen and the relaxed on the couch usage of a the iPad sized 10 inch screens. A 10 inch device can be cumbersome and heavy in a daily commute situation, the Nexus is handy and light.   It allows for the snappy, quick actions of the iPad, without the horrible sluggishness of the Kindle Fire or weight of both. With a screen size that is large enough,  banging out emails and writing is possible. That's really what comes through, the ability to actually write something while in transit is invaluable.  I can hold the Nexus in my hands on the train, not look conspicuous or awkward. 

Another big advantage to the size is the portability.  Amazon illustrated the value of the paper back sized device.  The Nexus fits in the back pocket of my jeans (no I would not sit on it) and would likely fit nicely in a purse.  Essentially if you are comfortable with the original Kindles then the Nexus will feel familiar (except that it has the power of an iPad) .

If are drawbacks, its that it is a WiFi only device without a tremendous amount of storage.  If you are an app junkie and download movies, you are going to run out of space in a hurry. 

So can you tell I like it?  I would recommend it heartily, especially for the heavy Google ecosystem person.   I am looking forward to the Apple entry and wonder how that audience will take to the 7 inch form factor.

MeowSplash no more - confessions of a cat owner

So my cat,  The Colonel, has been sick.  A little pee problem,  now he has some sort of cold.  It is very troubling.  Your animal, that you take care of, acts one way, then he doesn't and you have nothing to go on.

The unknown is what is so troubling.  If he could just say "Don't sweat it, its just a little cold" it would be much easier.  So I sit around looking at the cat guessing at signs of health. A stare here, a swagger away there all in an effort to guess at his health  All I'm left with is searching the web and reading the panicked questions of people online.  He'll be fine but the worrying is unnerving. 

So to my cat owning or pet owning pals who know the story of the MeowSplash brand -  I get it.  

Eulogy for a street corner kid - I miss you all.

I just read David Simon's obituary for DeAndre McCullough (1977-2012).

Please read it now.

.

.

.

Are you done yet?

Good.

I couldn't finish it.  I was too moved by the story and too moved thinking about all the people in East Harlem that I saw every day that had the same story.  I didn't know them,  I didn't hang out on the corners with them but they are all a part of me.  The people you see every day are a part of your life whether you speak to them or not.  The kids I grew up with and the junkies seemingly holding up lamp posts forever are a part of me.  Every last one of them seared into my experience.  They live forever tucked into my memory banks.  When I read something that talks about them,  the memories flood back in.  Every single kid who hung out in the "D" in Washington Houses,  every heroin-dance-zombie and every single face-scratching crackhead pour out.  

DeAndre's eulogy is the eulogy for every single person who doesn't make it.  For every kid who deals and does.  For every junkie and for every smart kid you knew that simply vanished into the ether of either prison or death.  They all vanish and are forgotten.  These people have always exisited. Whether they be drunks on the Bowery,  heroin addicts on the Lower East Side or crackheads in Harlem - the underclass always exist and always struggle.  We pretend that we're making it better.... but we aren't.  Occasionlly they are made into fables when ONE of them makes it out by writing a memoir every or when someone like David Simon depicts their lives on his monumental televsion show "The Wire".  Fundamentally,  we don't care - if we did as society we'd make raising all boats a priority. 

What struck me is how we are all completely aware of these worlds and lauds them.  Every hipster on Bedford Avenue wears his "I watch 'The Wire'" badge as a sign of enlightenment. Like they are somehow down.  News flash... you aren't down.  You will never be down and you shouldn't want to be down.  No one wants to feel the feelings that the underclass feel.  No one wants to really know, REALLY know the pain that goes on. Being part of the ghetto and the no-hope-no-way-out-why-should-I-give-fuck-about-anything class is awful.  The struggles aren't just survival they are deeper and psychological. You struggle with: Am I worth anything?  Do I matter?  If I disappeared would anyone give a shit?  Who really cares if I live or die?  Why should I go to school?  Why should I get a job?  There are real and difficult hurdles to over come - aside from the addiction, violence, depression and poverty.

I don't have the answer - I don't know how to be a part of the solution... I am still just as scared as I always was - happy to have made it. Happy to have said --- hey?  I don't have to be a loser? Wow! I'm still struggling and feeling the feelings that every ghetto kid feels but I'm faking it until I make it.

Rest in peace DeAndre... rest in peace all of you.

 

Eulogy for a street corner kid - I miss you all.

I just read David Simon's obituary for DeAndre McCullough (1977-2012).

Please read it now.

.

.

.

Are you done yet?

Good.

I couldn't finish it.  I was too moved by the story and too moved thinking about all the people in East Harlem that I saw every day that had the same story.  I didn't know them,  I didn't hang out on the corners with them but they are all a part of me.  The people you see every day are a part of your life whether you speak to them or not.  The kids I grew up with and the junkies seemingly holding up lamp posts forever are a part of me.  Every last one of them seared into my experience.  They live forever tucked into my memory banks.  When I read something that talks about them,  the memories flood back in.  Every single kid who hung out in the "D" in Washington Houses,  every heroin-dance-zombie and every single face-scratching crackhead pour out.  

DeAndre's eulogy is the eulogy for every single person who doesn't make it.  For every kid who deals and does.  For every junkie and for every smart kid you knew that simply vanished into the ether of either prison or death.  They all vanish and are forgotten.  These people have always exisited. Whether they be drunks on the Bowery,  heroin addicts on the Lower East Side or crackheads in Harlem - the underclass always exist and always struggle.  We pretend that we're making it better.... but we aren't.  Occasionlly they are made into fables when ONE of them makes it out by writing a memoir every or when someone like David Simon depicts their lives on his monumental televsion show "The Wire".  Fundamentally,  we don't care - if we did as society we'd make raising all boats a priority. 

What struck me is how we are all completely aware of these worlds and lauds them.  Every hipster on Bedford Avenue wears his "I watch 'The Wire'" badge as a sign of enlightenment. Like they are somehow down.  News flash... you aren't down.  You will never be down and you shouldn't want to be down.  No one wants to feel the feelings that the underclass feel.  No one wants to really know, REALLY know the pain that goes on. Being part of the ghetto and the no-hope-no-way-out-why-should-I-give-fuck-about-anything class is awful.  The struggles aren't just survival they are deeper and psychological. You struggle with: Am I worth anything?  Do I matter?  If I disappeared would anyone give a shit?  Who really cares if I live or die?  Why should I go to school?  Why should I get a job?  There are real and difficult hurdles to over come - aside from the addiction, violence, depression and poverty.

I don't have the answer - I don't know how to be a part of the solution... I am still just as scared as I always was - happy to have made it. Happy to have said --- hey?  I don't have to be a loser? Wow! I'm still struggling and feeling the feelings that every ghetto kid feels but I'm faking it until I make it.

Rest in peace DeAndre... rest in peace all of you.

 

Fear and anxiety are not real - Then why are we so afraid?

We live an orderly society with the rule of law, we have food in massive abundance, there are not beasts trying to kills us,  there is no threat of a neighbor coming over and trying to kill you and steal your wife or children and yet... many of us live in constant fear and anxiety. 

Why?  We are afraid because we are designed to be.  Fear and anxiety have tremendous value when you are living on the plains of the Serengeti, in the jungles of the Amazon or medieval Europe.  Fear is a defense mechanism to keep you alive when times are tough, food is scarce and people or animals are trying to kill you.  Speaking in front of tens of your coworkers? Not life and death - yet we feel the same feeling as if we were being hunted by a lion.  Our brains are using their survival system and applying them to modern life - where it just doesn’t jive.

We feel the same fears because human life has evolved a million times faster than our brains biology.  In the thousands of years humans have been on Earth fear served us well, in the last 100 years? Not so much.  Your boss, even the worst boss, is not going to kill you.  Even in the worst recession, you won't starve, even in the coldest winter you won't freeze to death.  

What can you do?  You can't control the natural fear you have, but you can at least be aware of it. We civilized world humans, we have it good.  Try to quite the fear that your million year old brain systems have created and recognize,  even at the worst,  you have it really, really easy compared to the poor fearful bastards who huddled at night, were amazed by fire and happy they made it through the night.

Take it easy, life is good, I mean really good.  There aren’t saber-toothed tigers after you!

PS.  This is in no way meant to minimize the real and debilitating fears people have.  I know they are there.  I have them. But recognizing they come from a biological place deep in the brain can help us to navigate our modern fears.

 

The product manager as maestro - Orchestras are like groups of engineers.

I've formally been a product manager for just over a year and had the duties of product manager for at least three.  What I have learned is that the product manager job most resembles being the conductor of an orchestra. 

Like a conductor,  you choose the work the orchestra is going to play - the product that will be built.
Like a conductor,  you choose the feel and vision of the piece or product. 
Like a conductor you have to deal with players themselves - some virtuoso soloists or workmen like 3rd oboes - the engineers and operations folks. Like a conductor you have to deal with all the personalities and needs of the players - engineers have a way about them just like musicians.
Like a conductor you have to understand the business of the hall and that you may be beholden to the donors-  product managers are beholden to business stakeholders just the same way.  Make money and play the songs I want to hear the way I want to hear them.
Like a conductor timing is everything - having work sequenced and flowing is paramount.

Lastly,  conductors and product managers don't actually do the playing of the piece or the development of the work.  We work to help everything run smoothly to get the horns to play when they are supposed to or bring in designs when our developers need them. 
We're both looking for unity and flow within a larger group. Our job is to build trust so our players can play without the fear of making a mistake.  A good product manager like a conductor makes the individual pieces move as one - we make the sum greater than the individual parts.

Sometimes it can come out like beautiful music or a dissonant mess!

Mobile technology - its not the about the money

My brother once again popped by for lunch and we had our normal, very loud conversations

He likes to give me blog post ideas by giving me one or two sentences of what's on his mind. Its on me to decide how to capture his intent.

His last two suggestions involve mobile technology and the poor.  His first suggestion was that I write about the urban poor of the United States (which I did) and his second is the cultural effect globally that mobile technologies will have on the world.

Mobile technologies are an extension of the 35 year era we are in of personal computing.  The first wave based around the home computer touched the wealthy nations and the rising BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) with the BRIC's just catching the tail end of the personal computing evolution. 

The next wave of personal computing will be mobile, much more broad and leveling.  Mobile technologies need far less infrastructure than PC's. Just a satellite, a radio tower and a smart phone and you are go to go.

What does that mean?  It means that every one in the World could potentially be connected to the web... Read that again.... everyone worldwide could be connected to one another.  The social and cultural implications cannot be understood right now.  We've already seen the minor ramifications of connected people in the Arab Spring.  We're starting to see markets previously never available in Africa to open up.  The idea of a kid in Nairobi using a smartphone to connect the internet and access the worlds information cannot be understated.  It is a such a massive change that its power can't be defined by some talking head in the moment.  History will mark the late 2000's as when life as we knew it changed.

We should all be studying the effect rail had on culture for our best  guess for the societal change that is coming.  Ideas spread faster,  goods and services moved faster,  whole areas became inhabited.  The isolated got pulled in.  Cities exploded in population.

Why wouldn't a computer in everyone's hands have similar effect?

Get your ass to Mars - why Mars matters

On the same weekend that a remake of "Total Recall" (the original was based on Mars with Schwartzenegger in the lead role)  was released in theaters NASA landed a new craft, Curiosity on Mars.   With lots of hoopla and a live stream of the landing (it can be done, NBC) NASA triumphantly gave us interesting black and white stills pictures from Mars. 

Very cool,  but why is it important?  Are we going to colonize Mars?  Will we find a new oil deposit?  Are the rocks and barren wasteland of Mars going reveal something so amazing that our minds will be blown?  Probably not.
Its important because of the dream of Mars.  Its important because it is government funded education.  Its important because of the number of children who watch the video of the landing on YouTube and go "I'm doing that!"

Going to Mars is great and all but what's really important is the training of the engineers needed to go to Mars.  So many problems come up when you send shit into space with a remote control that you are bound to discover great stuff along the way.  Our NASA programs were never about going to the Moon or beating the Soviets.  It was about training thousands of engineers.  Thousands of people who had the dream of solving problems and building new things.

Going to Mars just for the sake of doing it is something only the government can do.  There is no ROI involved. The value is measured in decades not quarters.   If the US wants to lead the world we need the thousands of engineers that it takes to go to Mars and beyond.

So... get your ass to Mars indeed!

Zynga is doomed and we all should have known it

This won't be a long post.   A recent post on Gamasutra detailed why Zynga is crashing and burning.  Its a  straight forward post and well worth the read. Read it here http://t.co/1ZISL7d0
What strikes me is how no one saw this coming?

My view is that it all stems from the Zynga culture which comes down from Mark Piincus.  Everything I have read is that he is nasty, mean and was driven by revenue and narcissism. He seems to believe he is owed greatness.  It shows in the games.  Game play is sacrificed for the sake of revenue.  Players are treated the same as the virtual cattle they shuffle around.  There are accounts of fraudulent reporting of numbers.  From the numbers of players to amount of money being made. Zynga"s culture is one of largesse. From  the flagrant cloning of IP to the inability to succeed at any of the games with inflating friend counts all smell of corrupt culture.  Zynga's demise was telegraphed by anyone paying attention.

While I admire the amazing success that Zynga has had,  I just don't see how it is sustainable with a culture that relies on some level of deceit and fraud.  
Zynga really is the embodiment of game studio as hedge fund.  Management driven by profit and revenue alone.

Am I wrong?  Gone to far?  What say you!

You will be counted, and counted and counted.

So there is this idea of "big data" out there in the world.  Big data is this, big data is that.  It seems to be everywhere.  Big data as I understand it is the umbrella term used to cover the massive terabits (or more) of information that is being stored, categorized and analyzed.  Big data is the application of all the data we!re generating.

  Last week I read about the idea of big data in the realm of Hunan resource.  What does that mean?  It means that everything you do,  every meeting you take, every email you send, every progress report you submit could be analyzed,  digested and understood.  The trends in the work generated by all employees will be consumed and how you are graded at work will be based on an algorithm.

Potentially,  the human work you do will be boiled down to machine analysis.  Whether you get a raise,  a promotion, fired or hired could potentially be determined by big data processing.  It is both exhilarating and petrifying.  Companies may find out that anyone who surfs ESPN, Deadspin and CBS sportsline within a week will always lose massive amounts of productivity during football season.  There may be correlation between people who spend half their time in meetings and actual productivity.  Or that people who read twitter two hours a week are the most innovative etc. 

Using all the data generated on a typical work day could indeed answer some of the basic human resource question:   Should I hire or fie this person?

What do you think?  Are you ready to be judged by just the numbers?

I'm back.... Renewed dedication to write

Last year I pledged that would try and post once a day.  I did a decent job all things considered.  I wrote nearly 200 posts through August, 2011. In August I started a new job and bought my first home.  That brought lots of change.
What suffered most was writing.   I could not muster the mental effort to put thoughts into words while I was figuring out my new life.

I've settled in now.  I've been in Queens and at Oberon for a year.  I have the perfect writing device in my Nexus 7 Google tablet (that will be another post) and I have the time(1 hour commute).  I will be writing again. There are no excuses! 

While folks who label themselves writers are generally douchy, (sorry Ben)  I find that the act of writing has tons of value.  Too bad the labeled writers have given the act such a negative feel.  Maybe I should separate the verb from the noun.  I love the verb writing. 

I feel my smartest and most engaged with the world when I put things down and share.  What's odd is that its not about whether anyone reads the posts or not,  but simply that they are written.  That the effort was made.   In that sense writing is just like exercise.

I expect to cover my usual stuff.  I'll write about New York City,  technology, the stuff I see and some general contradictory positions about the world.  Be ready.

I plan on exercising for the rest of the year.  Who is with me?  Will you write for the rest of the year?

Untitled

Testomg

More testing of games that I should not have, but do - Bubble Town.

MeowSplash Games

More games -- This one is for Isaac.

MeowSplash Games

Innovation in the Ghetto: Mobile Usage for the US Poor - It's not about emerging markets overseas

 

My brother Bernard is a sharp guy.  He occasionally comes to me and says tells me things I should write about.  Usually it's a one word or one sentence thing that I have to decifer.  Last week he asked me to write about the ghetto and the cellphone.  I didn't know what he meant and needed to mull it over.  I think I got now.

If you read tech news all you hear about is mobile this,  mobile that,  there are x millions of people who's first web experience will be mobile, blah blah.  What is never addressed is how many of the US urban poor will have the cellphone be their first internet experience.  (or at least,  their OWN computer)  This is significant.  Mobile and to a broader extent, personal computing power is a great leveler.  Putting personal computers in the hands of every kid on the corners of the US ghettos is already changing our culture. 

One thing I know in my years of observing,  understanding and reading history,  is that it is the poor of the US that bring cultural change to the masses.  Whether it be jazz,  blues,  rock and roll or hip hop - the urban poor have always led our culture.  Sure,  they may not have been given the credit, accolades or gotten rich off their contributions,  but it is their sweat,  soul searching and their need to express their lives that drives culture forward in the US. 

The cellphone and the ghetto kid on the corner will change the world in some way or another.  Having a little computer in their pocket will spur the innovation in their minds to do something amazing.

This is why I love Flash Games --- Stalingrad based WW II Shooters

MeowSplash Games
Oh and it's live on meowsplash.com (My crappy flash game site)

So - Angry Birds can be imbedded like a YouTube video...Yikes!

So - Angry Birds can be imbedded like a YouTube video...Yikes!

Check out Alexander Armero's "Spill Your Heart" - So very, very proud of him

Cuteness matters. Just ask buzzfeed or icanhazcheezburger. I think we may have another "When Harry Met Sally" on our hands.

Alexander Armero (Big Al, or Big Red) was an intern at AOL Games while I worked there and he's one of the finest young dudes I know. (By the way,  hire him,  he's about to graduate from Fordham)   Full of quirky insights and funny anecdotes, I am not surprised that he has made such a delightful little film. Everything about it reflects Alex's personality. Connecticut, A love food, an eye for film and a joy for romance. Good stuff Al!  Really proud of you.

Shout out to his pal Logan,  whom I have never met,  but appeared to be Alex's foil in nearly all of his adventure stories... they usually began "So my buddy Logan and I went...."

Winer on News "What news must do" - what about if this were done for games?

© Copyright 1997-2012 Dave Winer. Last update: Friday, February 24, 2012 at 11:07 AM Eastern. Last build: 2/26/2012; 10:02:26 AM. "It's even worse than it appears."

Previous / Next

via scripting.com

Take this idea a bit further and apply it to the games industry. This would mean that the developers go direct. That anyone, with any game can be posted to your site. If you are the owner of a portal, you simply direct the people who come to your site to the games you think are the best?
What if there were simply a site that had everything about games in it. I mean EVERYTHING. A river of games, games news and game stuff.
Someone for the love of God, explain to me why this wouldn't work?

If games are art, why are there no galleries. Or are there?

Whether games are art (the way movies are) is an actual debate.  There are arguments on both sides.  Most notably Roger Ebert who definitively says games are not art and can't be art because the players CHOOSE what happens.  (Or something to that effect) Even the most classic games have never been considered art. How could anyone thing chess or checkers being considered art?

It's and interesting debate.   Me,  I think they are art.  Not art in the classic sense, (Cave paintings, canvas, Rembrant and all)  but the sense that someone (or a group of people) create something out of nothing and GIVE of themselves to the world.  Art is about bestowing gifts.  Every time someone gives of themselves into the ether and says "Look what I thought of this, want the world to have it and don't you think its fucking AWESOME"  So yes,  games are art - especially,  the original flash indie games.  Those guys? They are the artists of the games world.

Does that mean,  every Mochi powered, WordPress hosted flash portal is an art gallery?  Maybe.

Steal this idea: Pixable for Games.

I just read an article on GigaOm about a small photo sharing app called Pixable.  What they do is pull images from your relevant social feeds and present them algorithmically to you. 

They apparantly are very sticky with engagement metrics that are.off the charts.

How this could be applied to games: (I'm sure between Raptr, Heyzap or someone they are doing this)
Scan folks twitter feeds or public feeds and note any game play.  Present in a compelling or visual way,  what is being played. 
Where is the value?  Ths value is in discovery of new games or finding out what friends play and to find that connection through games.

This is the gaming communities biggest problem.

I wrote about the games industry a month or so ago but didn't post it because it felt too angry and grumpy.  Reading it over, its a little heavy handed, but I thought I would leave it up to the committee to decide.

The gaming communities biggest problem:

It is boring and conservative.

For all the high tech engineers, discussion about being artists and trying to be the next great media, the game industry is fundamentally conservative. 

Every innovation in the business comes in the form of new distribution that is outside of the industry. Every new editorial site comes out with same angle of being made "by gamers for gamers" . There is a pervasive ethos of protecting the good ol' days, of saying this is a game or this isn't a game.  Its insular, exclusionary, a boys club, a nerd haven.  Ths industry lacks vision and each and everytime a new paradigm changes the game, it digs its collective heads in the sand.
There is so little variation in the self-identified gamer thought, that I could probably write a profile of one and be 85% accurate. 

Push yourself people!  Get better,  embrace difference and find the Bill Simmons of video game writing.

Steal This Idea: iTunes for just game content.

So we have itunes.  It manages all media (that we allow Apple to control in our lives)  It is the accepted UI/UX for how you manage content in large quantities.

(Right or wrong, it is) 

Why hasn't someone done an iTunes for all games?  While there is a section for Games on iTunes today,  it is really specific to the Apple eco-system.

What if we went a step further and made a iTunes style app or web based product that encompassed,  Mochi Games,  Kongregate,  Miniclip,  Addictinggames, Android Games,  iTunes games and whoever else you want to put in there.

You could browse, save and "have" all your flash games from around the web in one place.  Sort of like a download game manager that you would see on a download game portal like Steam or BigFish games,

Why wouldn't this be valuable?  It solves a specific problem - where the hell do I store all these great flash and download games I've been playing for the last 10 years?  

(Yes,  monetization is a bit of an issue,  but if you could work something out if the thing takes off,  go freemium for add-ons or mobile access - thing Spotify or Pandora style)

A vertical without our a leader - Games

Every vertical on the web has a go to source - a search engine, a social network that encompasses that network.  For information it's Google,  for social it's Facebook, for shopping it's Amazon and on and on. Each one of these has worked to aggregate it's vertical and present it in a way that makes it the go to source for those items. 
Games, does not have that.  There is no single source where ALL the game information is stored.  There is no where I can go to find out the rules to Canasta,  buy an expansion to the table top game Carcasonne, find out where I can play an arcade cabinet of Ms. Pac-Man and play an online game from Pogo.com.  The game information aggregator does not exist.  This is an opportunity lost.
Until someone tries to build the mega games data base,  I will continue to advocate for it.  There has to be someone who can combine, gamespot.com, paget.com, boardgamegeek.com and Kongregate into something usable, playable and a must visit.

Am I wrong?  Why hasn't this been done? 

The Top 50 Posts from KISSmetrics of 2011

The Top 50 Posts from KISSmetrics of 2011

via The KISSmetrics Marketing Blog by Kristi Hines on 12/26/11

It’s almost time to ring in the New Year, but before we do, we want to take a moment to shine light on the amazing content published here on the KISSmetrics blog in 2011. This way, you can catch up on the great information you might have missed throughout the year so you can start off 2012 with a knowledgeable bang! This sampling of our top content includes posts on analytics, conversions, social media, SEO, website design, and much more!

Analytics & Metrics

• You vs. The Data: When to Stop Optimizing and Start Thinking – When “non-quantifiable” factors like brand values, aesthetic, staff retention and corporate strategy (to name just a few) bump up against what the data is telling us, what should we do?
• A Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics 5 – We’ve compiled everything you need to know to get started with Analytics in general, and specifically with Version 5. This is a beginner’s guide, aimed at users who may or may not be familiar with Analytics, and doesn’t cover some of the more in-depth features.
• The 2011 Web Analytics Review – Dig into the data presented in this infographic to discover global web usage trends.
• 9 Awesome Things You Can Do With Google Analytics 5 – Here are nine awesome things you can do with Google Analytics 5 that will help you get the most out of your analytics information and use it to improve your website’s content, conversions, and user experience.
• 50 Google Analytics Resources – The 2011 Edition – This post includes 50 resources to help you get to know Google Analytics inside and out, from the new version, latest updates, social engagement tracking, advanced hacks, and much more!
• 9 Metrics to Help You Make Wise Decisions About Your Start-Up – In the end, it’s watching and learning from the traditional metrics that will help you grow your startup into a real business. Here are the 9 most important.

Business & Ecommerce

• Do Your Users Have Shopping Cart Abandonment Issues – This infographic explains more in detail which particular abandonment issues are causing your users to leave your site – and how much it could be costing you.
• How To Calculate Lifetime Value – Roughly defined, LTV is the projected revenue that a customer will generate during their lifetime. In this infographic we’ll briefly cover how to calculate LTV and how to use LTV to help solidify your marketing budget.
• Are You Losing Sales By Giving Customers Too Many Choices – Shouldn’t lots of options be good for customers? Isn’t that what people want–more options? Actually, no, and here’s a university study that shows why.
• How to Successfully Outsource Social Media for Your Business – Some businesses are not ready or able to commit the kind of time and personnel to managing a full-force social media campaign for their brand. This is where outsourcing comes into play.

Conversions

• 10 Little Known Factors that Affect Your Conversion Rate – 10 little-known factors that could be eating away at your successes – and how to fix them immediately.
• Steal These 5 High-Converting Website Tricks – Some sites convert even better than Amazon – two to three times better, in fact. Here’s who they are, and what you can “steal” from them to help improve your own conversion rates.
• Beginner’s Guide to Landing Pages – Creating effective landing pages isn’t the same as crafting a successful website or email newsletter. There are certain guidelines you should adhere to in order to maximize your page’s success.
• How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line – Website visitors tend to care more about speed than all the bells and whistles we want to add to our websites. Additionally, page loading time is becoming a more important factor when it comes to search engine rankings. This infographic shows you why every second counts!
• Speed Is A Killer – Why Decreasing Page Load Time Can Drastically Increase Conversions – How do you test and measure your site’s load time while squeezing every drop of performance out of your website?
• Learn How To Increase Your Conversions From These 5 Consumer Psychology Studies – Learn why people feel connected, what is critical in getting people to take action, and how price points affect conversions.

Copywriting

• A Beginner’s Guide To A/B Testing: Exceptional Web Copy – A/B testing is the simplest type of testing you can do to figure out which variations of copy, headline, and other factors are most effective in direct relation to your site and your offerings.
• The 4 Keys to Writing Persuasive Copy Without Hype, BS, or Other Icky Gimmicks – Four keys for writing clear, shiny copy that affords prospects the perfect view of whatever it is you’re selling.

Facebook

• 7 Tips and Marketing Strategies for the New Facebook Fan Pages – Here is a look at how you can take advantage of this year’s changes to Facebook fan pages and use them to market to your targeted audience.
• 7 Sneaky Ways to Use Facebook to Spy on Your Competition – Here are some sneaky (or little known) ways to use Facebook to learn more about your competitor’s online marketing strategy.
• 4 Strategies For Engaging Facebook Fans No Matter How “Unsexy” Your Brand Is – By examining real-life examples of companies that range from housing development builders, to banks, to security software, and gardening suppliers, this post will show you how to engage your Facebook audience, regardless of what your brand does.
• The Importance Of A Fan Base & How To Grow One – In this infographic we’ll tell you how a fan base can make a real difference and what you can do to nurture it.

Online Marketing

• The 2011 B2B Marketing Guide – This survey assessed how these marketers planned to spend their marketing budget, the challenges they faced, how they analyzed ROI and the overall effectiveness of marketing programs.
• 7 Creative Ways to Get Customer Testimonials – Let’s look at some of the sites you can collect reviews upon, as well as how to encourage reviews from your customers and how to gather them from all around the web.
• The Ultimate Online Marketing Recipe – We’ve crafted the ultimate online marketing recipe. One that’s easy to follow and breaks everything down into steps. We’ve linked more information about most steps throughout the article so you can easily access more in-depth information if you need it.
• The Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet – Crafting a successful viral marketing campaign is more difficult than it looks. It requires careful planning and research. Use this cheat sheet to get started.
• The Beginner’s Guide To Content Marketing – This article provides a complete introduction to content marketing by discussing the fatal flaws of traditional advertising, advantages of content marketing, and best practices.

Online Testing

• A Beginner’s Guide to A/B Testing: Email Campaigns That Convert – It’s vital to run A/B tests when trying out new techniques or formats for your email campaigns. Improving conversion rates here can make a bigger difference in your bottom line than many other marketing efforts, especially those of similar cost.
• Online Testing Essentials – A brief guide that outlines what things are good to regularly test and optimize—including PPC, media buys, landing pages, and email campaigns.

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

• 79 Link Building Resources – 2011 Edition – This post includes 79 link building resources that are current, or currently updating for 2011. Because the stuff from 2010 just won’t do!
• SEO for CEOs – Use the tools and template herein to delegate the important tasks to your team. Empower each team member to project manage their assigned chunk of the SEO effort.
• Search Engine Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing: The Showdown – When it comes to driving traffic to your website, there are a variety of ways to get visitors. The primary two that individuals and businesses almost always have a struggle with investing their time and money into are search and social. Sometimes the issue is convincing people why these are a necessity for a thriving business.

Social Media

• Who Likes What: Social Media By Demographic – This handy infographic breaks down the top social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon and YouTube) by gender, age, income, and education demographics.
• 5 Social Media Mistakes That Make You Look Like an Amateur and Cost You Sales – Below are five beginner mistakes that can cost you serious credibility online. Some are very easily avoided, while others take a bit more effort. By adhering to all of them, you’ll have a much better experience with social media, as will your fans and followers.
• The Science of Social Timing Part 1: Social Networks – Use the data in this infographic to learn when your audience is most likely to tune in. Be sure to check in with us next week when we discuss timing & email marketing.
• How To Change From A Social Media User Into A Social Media Leader – Five key techniques ANYONE can use to become a leader in social media. Some of these would rightly be called “secrets” because so few people seem to have ever heard of these concepts.

Traffic

• 4 Ways to Increase Your Traffic With StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon is one of the best traffic generators among the top seven social media sites, referring more than other social bookmarking and voting sites such as Digg and Reddit according to Statcounter. So how can you capitalize on this great network and start getting traffic?
• How to Increase Traffic with Social A/B Testing – Social optimization is not as foreign a concept as it may seem on the surface, it just has to be treated like something many of us have already done: landing page optimization and conversion rate optimization.
• How to Find Out Which Online Marketing Strategy Drives the Best Traffic – Learn how to create segments for different groups of referral traffic – traffic from social media, article marketing, link building, directories, local search, guest posts, and so on. Then see everything including demographics, conversions, and top content for each group of referral traffic and compare them against each other to know which ones are the best.

Twitter

• Twitter Marketing Guide – The following is a guide to help you setup your Twitter profile and implement a successful Twitter marketing strategy. It gives suggestions and tips for those who are new to Twitter or are just looking for some new ideas.
• 5 Tips To Make Your Startup’s Twitter Account Stand Out – A vital point was to grow an engaged Twitter account to increase our distribution. Along the way I have tried many different techniques and I believe the following 5 tips were most important to make things work for us./li>
• 10 Twitter Tools Used by Social Media Experts – With so many Twitter tools out there, it’s hard to know which ones to trust with your Twitter account management. Here are ten Twitter applications and tools used by some of the top Twitterers.
• 10 Great Twitter Tools To Transform Your Tweeting Experience – Top 10 tools to help you transform your Twitter experience into something a lot more efficient and powerful:
• The Hidden Guide to Using Twitter Effectively – In this post, we are going to unearth some commonly unanswered questions in standard Twitter how to posts when it comes to getting the most out of your Twitter experience.

Web Design

• True Colors – Breakdown of Color Preferences by Gender – While there are no concrete rules about what colors are exclusively feminine or masculine, there have been studies conducted over the past seven decades that draw some generalizations. Let’s take a look at what they say about color and gender.
• The Evolution of Web Design – This infographic is a peek at the evolutionary tale of web design, which is ironically still in its infant stages. You might find yourself asking, “Where will web design be in the next 20 years?”
• Why You Should Build A Sitemap Before Designing Your Site – Sure, designers might create wireframes and mockups to plan out the site before they get started, but what about non-designers? How do you get the structure of the site figured out before you turn everything over to your designer?
• What Makes Someone Leave A Website – It’s important to design your site so that user frustration is kept to a minimum, thereby maximizing customer retention. Below are some examples of what not to do when designing your website.
• The Anatomy of an Effective Homepage – We’ve identified certain qualities that compose an effective homepage. We recommend you spend a few minutes with this infographic to see if your homepage’s current state is effective.
• The Art of Color Coordination – In this infographic, we will briefly discuss color coordination and how you can use this to your advantage when designing your site.

Are there any of your favorite posts from KISSmetrics that didn’t make the list? Please share them here, and Happy New Year!

About the Author: Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Kikolani focuses on blog marketing, including social networking strategies and blogging tips.