economics « Tama Leaver dot Net

6Jul/09

Annotated Digital Culture Links: July 5th 2009

Links for June 30th 2009 through July 5th 2009:

Tories 'distressed' Facebook blew MI6 cover [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] - "Opposition politicians in Britain have raised concerns about security after a newspaper revealed that personal information about the newly-appointed head of Foreign Intelligence Service MI6 had been posted on Facebook. Sir John Sawers' wife's Facebook page had no privacy protection, allowing anyone to see photos of him playing frisbee on a beach or posing dressed as Santa. Also exposed was information about the couple's children, their flat and high profile-friendships." (Could their be a more timely reminder about the importance of using privacy settings carefully, even with Facebook's immensely confusing privacy controls?)
Twitter your Flickr [Flickr Blog] - You can now Twitter your Flickr pictures with one click. Really, is there anything you can't put in your Twitterstream these days?
China cracks down on virtual cash [BBC NEWS | Technology] - "Cash earned in games in China can no longer be spent on real world goods. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce policy aims to limit the impact of game currencies on real-world markets. In the future, any cash earned by Chinese gamers can only be spent to acquire items or equipment in that particular game. The move is widely seen as a crackdown on so-called "gold farming" in which players amass virtual money and then sell it to other players for real cash."

Tagged as: api, china, digitalculture, economics, goldfarming, integration, mmorpgs, security, socialnetworking 2 Comments

26Feb/09

The Credit Crisis Explained

People who’ve been taught by me in the past know I’m a huge fan of using icons and graphical representations in video and animation to try and find new ways to make fairly complex things simple enough to be accessible. Thus it would be irresponsible of me not to post this wonderful video from Jonathan Jarvis which explains the reasons behind the current Crisis of Credit. Sure, Jarvis has had to simplify a bit (and perhaps rely a little too much on stereotypes to show a ‘sub-prime family’!) but overall I thought this was really impressive. I also understand a few things about the current Credit Crisis more than I did before!

Tagged as: Credit Crisis, economics No Comments

23Dec/08

Annotated Digital Culture Links: December 22nd 2008

Links for December 18th 2008 through December 22nd 2008:

Better Than Free (Manifesto by Kevin Kelly) [ChangeThis] - "When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable. When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. Well, what can't be copied?" (A very timely and insightful look at what can be 'sold' in an era in which all media can, by and large, be obtained through various channels for free.)
Australian Internet Filter Will Target BitTorrent Traffic [TorrentFreak] - "Previously thought to be limited to HTTP and HTTPs web traffic, the touted Australian Internet filter will also target P2P traffic. In response to a comment posted by a user on his department’s blog, Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy has admitted that BitTorrent filtering will be attempted during upcoming trials."
New Vision for Perth Community TV [TV Tonight] - "The Australian Communications and Media Authority has issued a community television trial licence in Perth for two years. The successful applicant, West TV Ltd, will provide an analogue television service, to be known as New Vision 31. New Vision 31 expects to commence broadcasting within the next six months."
The creators behind JibJab [Ourmedia] - "...a 4-minute video interview with Evan and Gregg Spiridellis, the founders and creators of the wildly popular animation site JibJab.com, conducted at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, Calif. Gregg and Evan talk about how their business has evolved over the past nine years, what business models are working for them, and how their use of social media propels the site forward."
Warner Music pulls videos from YouTube [Australian IT] - "Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down. The order could affect hundreds of thousands of videos clips, as it covers Warner Music's recorded artists as well as the rights for songs published by its Warner/Chappell unit, which includes many artists not signed to Warner Music record labels. The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube's massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking."
Australian couple served with legal documents via Facebook [Telegraph] - "In what may be a world first, lawyers from Canberra law firm Meyer Vandenberg persuaded a judge in the Australian Capital Territory's Supreme Court to allow them to serve the documents over the internet after repeatedly failing to serve the papers in person. Lawyer Mark McCormack came up with the Facebook plan after it became clear that the couple did not want to be found." (This sets a terrible precedent; how many dead social profiles do most people have that they never look at - that's a pretty poor conduit for something as serious as legal notice!)

Tagged as: censorship, channel31, community, digitalculture, economics, facebook, free, freemium, ip, jibjab, kevinkelly, law, legal, monetize, music, nocleanfeed, p2p, socialnetworking, viral No Comments

30Jul/08

Links for July 30th 2008

Interesting links for July 28th 2008 through July 30th 2008:

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog [Hulu] - Joss Whedon's 3 Dr Horrible webisodes - availble for one week only - are now back - for 4 months - on Hulu. Only, of course, if you live in the US. Or know how to circumvent Hulu's region locking.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Trailer [Moviefone] - The new trailer for the Harry Potter 6 film looks amazing. The embedded version seems geo-locked to the US, but the HD versions should load anywhere (or, at least, they loaded in Australia). Evil Young Lord V looks very creepy!
Conroy welcomes ISP filtering [Australian IT] - "The federal Government will embark on the next step of its internet filtering strategy after initial trials proved successful, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said. ... today released the findings of a recent ... ISP-level internet filtering trial...
Scrabulous pulled from Facebook in US and Canada [ABC News] - "The creators of online Scrabble knock-off Scrabulous say they have pulled their application from US and Canadian Facebook pages due to a lawsuit filed by game-making giant Hasbro."
Google enrolled for schools email deal [The Age] - "Google has snatched what is believed to be its biggest single client in the world - the NSW Department of Education - away from its rival Microsoft to claim up to 1.3 million new users of its free email product."
Joss Whedon's online musical comedy Sing-Along Social Media Blitz [Chief Marketer] - "WWJWD. What Would Joss Whedon Do. Marketers looking to capitalize on the power of social media could do worse than keep that mantra in mind next time they want to launch a campaign." (A look at the success of Dr Horrible.)
China becomes biggest net nation [BBC NEWS | Technology] - "China now has the world's largest net-using population, say official figures. More than 253 million people in the country are now online, according to statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC)."
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Absurdly Implausible Excess [NYTimes.com] - Has the phrase “jump the shark” jumped the shark? Or, more to the point, should we be saying that it has “nuked the fridge”? ...which emerged from a 1980s dorm-room discussion of a particularly ridiculous episode of the TV show “Happy Days"...

Tagged as: censorship, china, copyright, demographics, digitalculture, drhorrible, economics, education, ethics, facebook, gmail, harrypotter, Hulu, internet, ip, itunes, josswhedon, scrabble, stats, trailer, tv, us, webisode No Comments

23Jul/08

Links for July 23rd 2008

Interesting links for July 23rd 2008:

WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned Geeks and Phreaks Into Stars [Wired Magazine 16.08] - To celebrate it's twenty-fifth anniversary, Wired has a good overview of the place of WarGames in videogame and geek history.
What's In It For Doogie Howser? [Jeffrey McManus] - McManus takes an educated stab at the economics of Joss Whedon's Dr Horrible web experiment. (Joss himself notes that these figures aren't that far off.)
Xbox 360 users to build and sell own games [The Age] - It'll be interesting to see how well the coming "Xbox Live Community Games" take off and, most importantly, what terms and conditions Microsoft force game creators to accept in order to sell their work to other Xboxers.

Tagged as: business, digitalculture, digitalhistory, drhorrible, economics, history, itunes, josswhedon, microsoft, wargames, webisode, xbox No Comments

2Jul/08

Links for July 2nd 2008

Interesting links for June 30th 2008 through July 2nd 2008:

The Internet Has the Power to Transform Your TV Show into a TV Brand [Deep Focus/Yahoo!] - New research (from a survey of 2000) which shows viewers under 35 treat the TV show as part of a franchise or brand, and that engaging with the franchise online strengthens brand ties (viewers > 35 see the TV show as the main event). [Via Nancy]
World's Best Presentation Contest [SlideShare] - Online slide sharing service Slideshare are running their annual competition to find the best slides (ppt, keynote, whatever else in pdf form) from around the world. We need many examples of powerpoint done better, so get sliding! (Entries close July 31st 08).
Fast-talking Fred is the toast of YouTube [The Age] - Fourteen year old Lucas Cruikshank and his online persona, 6 year old Fred (with anger management issues and a chipmunked voice), is YouTube's latest (and very annoying) micro-celeb. Visit Fred's Channel.
The romantic appeal of the "long tail hypothesis" [PopMatters | Blogs] - An interesting critique of Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory: "With our identity riding on what we consume, we come to believe that there's something valuable about having unique tastes, but we don't actually pursue such a course in practice."
That Violet Blue thing [Boing Boing] - Boing Boing respond to accusations of censorship, stating their own position (they can retrospectively delete whatever they want) and getting quite a few comments in response!
MySpace suicide: new law outlaws cyberbullying [The Age] - "Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed a bill today outlawing cyberbullying, just kilometres from where a 13-year-old girl committed suicide nearly two years ago after being harassed on the Internet."
EA Grabs Your "Spore Creature Creator" IP [Clickable Culture] - "Talk about harshing my buzz. Electronic Arts is going to let us design creatures with its long-awaited Spore game and stand-alone Creature Creator, but in using the game and creator, we agree to hand over all rights in our creations to the megalithic publisher..."
swedish teenager making millions off her blog? [jill/txt] - Jill Walker Rettberg looks at the fascinating case of a Swedish teenager who appears to be making a very healthy sum blogging by inserting paid ads and editorial comment without disclosure. [More links here.]