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How Zynga's CityVille Drew 70 Million Players In Less Than a Month 101

Posted by Soulskill from the none-of-us-are-as-dumb-as-all-of-us dept.
An article at Gamasutra takes an in-depth look at how Zynga's new browser-based social game CityVille managed to accumulate tens of millions of players in the relatively short time since its launch early this month. Quoting: "The Facebook interface induces a high degree of user blindness. It does not do a great job of exposing new games and applications, and lacks a directory or a 'Featured in the App Store' style of editorial (as Apple does for the iPhone), which means that for most developers there are huge problems in getting their games in front of users' eyeballs. With all of the free advertising channels on the platform now constrained or dead, this has meant that the Facebook economy has been acquiring an increasingly Darwinian shape. Where it used to be an egalitarian environment in which any developer could strike it big, over the last year it has become top-heavy with larger developers accruing exponential success, and cutting off oxygen to smaller companies by default."

Comment They're doing it wrong (Score 1) 280

by ninja59 (#34684574) Attached to: London Police Credit CCTV Cameras With Six Solved Crimes Per Day
From the article:

But the move from VHS to digital technology was a "double-edged sword", he said. "We get high-quality images that are easily searchable but they are often not held as long. "With VHS people held 31 tapes, one for each day of the month, and it did not require specialist officers to get hold of the stuff. "People are now being confronted by computers and hard drives and told to get those images and it is not as easy."

They must be doing something wrong, because for the money they are spending, either the SW or some basic training should make it pretty easy to grab X amount of time off an HD and burn it to a CD, DVD or USB drive. And as fare as holding on to it goes. I have a 650GB HD because it was the smallest one I could find that day. How high quality are these cameras?

Comment Re:Meanwhile in China & India (Score 0) 98

by ninja59 (#34652448) Attached to: Audio and Video Patents Haunt Apple and Android

Money is being spent on innovation........

I agree completely. The patent system was designed to promote innovation but now it seems to be promoting the export of innovation. I live and work in Argentina where IP law might be on the books but has 0 enforcement and people are innovating all over the place. I have heard people call it copying but that is not a fair assessment. They don't do the exact same thing over again. They take good ideas and make them better (not to say their aren't abuses) or apply them to things no one ever thought of. This is only possible because of the lax IP enforcement and there are great benefits to society in general which to me seems to be the spirit of IP law.
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Julian Assange's Online Dating Profile Leaked 334

Posted by samzenpus from the leaker-love dept.
Ponca City writes "The Telegraph reports that an online dating profile created by Julian Assange in 2006 has been unearthed from OKCupid disclosing that the WikiLeaks editor sought 'spirited, erotic' women 'from countries that have sustained political turmoil.' Writing under the pseudonym of British science fiction author Harry Harrison, Assange described himself as a 'passionate, and often pig headed activist intellectual.' Assange said he was seeking a 'siren for [a] love affair, children and occasional criminal conspiracy' adding that he was 'directing a consuming, dangerous human rights project which is, as you might expect, male dominated' and added enigmatically: 'I am DANGER, ACHTUNG.' Among Assange's listed interests were the 'structure of reality' and 'chopping up human brains' – although he added the caveat '(neuroscience background)' lest the latter put off potential admirers. 'I like women from countries that have sustained political turmoil,' Assange wrote. 'Western culture seems to forge women that are valueless and inane. OK. Not only women!'"

Comment Re:Did anyone understand Putin's Metaphor? (Score 1) 565

by ninja59 (#34528494) Attached to: WikiLeaks, Money, and Ron Paul
No, no clue what that was supposed to mean. Guessing, I would say that it refers to either the hypocrisy of arresting someone for charges (we assume) are false to avoid arresting him (illegally) for what they want to arrest him for, or a kind of "taste of your own medicine" type thing; as in the US makes a lot of noise about the bad stuff others do but hey look you guys do it too with a hockey playing cow.

Comment Re:Does it matter (Score 2) 82

by ninja59 (#34523366) Attached to: Canadian Supreme Court To Decide If Linking Is Publishing

what Canada decides?

reading that again it sounds like flamebait, sorry. What I mean is that the internet is an international phenomenon and while Canada or Nicaragua or whoever can decide whatever they want, most web sites and or businesses on the web are not fixed to a physical location. It's like raising corporate taxes. Companies will just go elsewhere or declare that they are doing X thing elsewhere where it is legal/cheaper.

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