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The golden age of America is fleeting fast into the night. The recent change of NASA’s official mission is a painfully clear picture of this. Whereas America was once a pioneer of the final frontier, we are no longer even attempting space exploration. The primary mission of NASA has been changed to humanitarian outreach, particularly to the Islamic community—under the Obama Administration. I could go into detail about the many pillars of American greatness that are crumbling—like the national credit rating being downgraded twice during Obama’s stay in the White House—but I’m guessing most of my readers can already see the sad truth all around them. In case you’re not part of that group, let me be frank with you.
Don’t call me a prophet, and I hope I never have to say I told you so. But one thing in this uncertain world is definite: AMERICA IS AT…
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The March of Time
China Daily. There was a time when the newsweeklies set the agenda for the nation’s conversation – when Time and Newsweek would digest the events of the week and US readers would wait by their mailboxes to see what was on the covers.
Those days have passed, and come the end of the year, the print edition of Newsweek will pass, too. Cause of death: The march of time.
“The tempo of the news and the Web have completely overtaken the news magazines,” said Stephen G. Smith, editor of the Washington Examiner and the holder of an unprecedented newsweekly triple crown – nation editor at Time, editor of US News and World Report, and executive editor of Newsweek from 1986 to 1991.
Where once readers were content to sit back and wait for tempered accounts of domestic and foreign events, they now can find much of what they need almost instantaneously on their smartphones and tablet computers. Where once advertisers had limited places to spend their dollars to reach national audiences, they now have seemingly unlimited alternatives.
So on Thursday, when Newsweek’s current owners announced they intended to halt print publication and expand the magazine’s Web presence, there was little surprise. But there was a good deal of nostalgia for what Smith called “the shared conversation that the nation used to have”, when the networks, the newsweeklies and a few national newspapers reigned.
Bowing Out…
FT.com. Yahoo has decided to pull the plug on its portal service in South Korea in December after years of struggling to compete in one of the world’s most wired markets.
“Yahoo has faced several challenges in the past couple of years and decided to pull out of the [Korean] business to put more resources on global business and become more powerful and successful,” the internet service provider said on Friday.
Yahoo is a marginal player in South Korea’s internet search sector, having only 2-3 per cent market share.
Geek is New Hip
Cartoon via Webdesignerdepot.com
MarketWatch. With geeks and their lifestyles emerging as the new totems of coolness, marketers from a wide swath of companies are jumping on the trend for marketing opportunities, and there is perhaps no better target audience than the attendees at New York Comic Con.
The people drawn to New York Comic Con because of their fascination for Avengers, Spider-Man characters, and countless other creations “are people who are setting trends,” said Dan Buckley, president and publisher of print, digital and TV at Marvel, in an interview. “They are the early adopters of technology. These are the people who start things and make them hot.”
Getting the attention of trendsetters is crucial for these companies particularly in today’s digital world, where a tweet or a Facebook post can generate broad levels of interest. Companies are seeking to build loyalty with consumers who have myriad choices and have changed the way they purchase and spend their leisure time with smartphones and other mobile devices, analysts said.
Want to Quit Smoking, Use Social Media
Checking social networking sites is more tempting than sex and cigarettes, a study has revealed.
Researchers at Chicago University’s Booth Business School used BlackBerrys to log reports about participants’ willpower and desires over seven days.
The online poll of 250 participants in Germany revealed the yearning to interact through tweets, photos, and comments was stronger than sex and cigarettes.
Over seven consecutive days participants were signalled seven times a day over 14 hours, reported the Guardian.
This meant they were required to message back and inform if they were experiencing a desire at that moment or had experienced one within the last 30 minutes.
They had to identify what the desire was and how strong they felt it was, as well as if it conflicted with other desires and what decision they had made – whether to accept or resit the pull.
The results showed Facebook, Twitter or other social networks yearnings were ranked as the hardest desires to resist.
Updated: It seems a week can’t go by without a new incident of plagiarism by some prominent journalist, and this week it’s Margaret Wente, a star columnist with one of Canada’s national newspapers, who has been found guilty of using content from other journalists and academics without crediting them. As others have in similar cases, Wente says it was a simple mistake, although she has apparently been disciplined (in some unknown fashion) by the paper’s editor-in-chief. But there is a much larger point here than just the fact that journalists can get sloppy, and that the internet is a fact-checking machine unlike any other: Just like Jonah Lehrer and Fareed Zakaria before her, Wente’s behavior — and the newspaper’s lackluster response to it — speaks volumes about the flaws of print and the corresponding benefits of online media and journalism.
As I’ve argued before, part of…
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“An expansion where it’s really about exploration and mystery”
“After Wrath of the Lich King, where there’s a threat to destroy the world, and another expansion like Cataclysm where Deathwing did wreck the world, after so much ‘We have to save the world, we have to save the world!’ it’s like, hey, let’s go into an expansion where it’s really about exploration and mystery, which was a word that popped up in a lot of design things.
“That sense of going into an unknown land, this place that just rose out of the mists and no-one has ever seen it before and it’s all different out there, so absolutely – that was a huge goal”
Why Mists of Pandria
WTH.
A sleepy Dutch community was still recovering on Saturday from the aftermath of a sweet sixteen party whose invitation, for no clear reason, went viral, spawning a YouTube video, drawing impromptu partygoers by the thousands as well as riot police, and causing the young celebrant and her family to flee town.
Fires were set, a car was burned, shops were vandalized, six people were hurt and some 34 arrested, according to the BBC and the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation.
“She posted the invitation on Facebook and sent it to friends, who then sent it to other friends and soon it spread like wildfire across the Internet,” a spokeswoman for the Groningen police, Melanie Zwama, told Agence France Presse, according to the BBC.
Haren, a town of 19,000 about 110 miles northeast of Amsterdam, had been girding for trouble all week after the youngster’s Facebook party invitation, which had not been set to be private, ended up going out to a reported 30,000 people. Popular deejays endorsed the event, a Twitter account was born, and T-shirts were printed, sold and sported by some who descended on the town. NYT
When it Comes to Social Media Marketing…
Toronto marketing firm a5MEDIA founder, Yusuf Gad, says most businesses will take at least six months to a year before they begin seeing the effects of online marketing and social media use translate into a sales uptick. And, although it has become an important niche in the marketing world, Gad says social media is only equally as effective — if not less so — than traditional advertising.
“People assume online marketing is a panacea for marketing solutions and it isn’t, it’s simply another tool in your arsenal,” he says, suggesting small business owners look into radio spots and outdoor signage to supplement an online presence.
It’s not as easy as it looks
Gad says the number one mistake most entrepreneurs make is thinking they can run a social media campaign themselves.
“Managing social media has the illusion of simplicity, when it’s actually very complicated and time consuming,” he says, advising owners outsource to specialized social media consultants, or — if financially viable — a marketing firm. “It can bury an entrepreneur and detract from actually growing their business and driving sales.”
Jack Shapiro, President and CEO of The Speech Therapy Centres of Canada, learned this firsthand after a number of failed in-house marketing attempts.
“We found it tough to find someone who was well-rounded enough to handle all of the online platforms we had,” says Shapiro. “We made many mistakes before deciding an external company with many experts would be better value for our money.”
Shapiro’s marketing firm conducted in-depth research before rebranding the company’s message, rebuilding the website and implementing a social media campaign to reflect those changes.
“Looking at our old website, it seemed like we were trying to sell people something, which is not what you want when you’re running a healthcare-type business,” he says. By changing their message and implementing a social media strategy based on practical advice and user engagement, Shapiro’s business grew from near anonymity to more than 1500 followers on Twitter and 1000 likes on Facebook.
Still, Gad says, successful marketing involves much more than online popularity.
“There is no magic solution, but marketing begins with the fundamentals,” he says. “Understand your market, develop your brand and message, and ensure your website and sales materials reflect that message.”
Check out more: Social Media Is Big
Solomonic: Who owns the word ‘catholic’, ‘islam’, ‘bible’ online
Centuries-old theological disputes have broken out in cyberspace as religions aim to influence the future presentation of faith on the Internet.
The forum for the rivalry is not the pulpit or church bulletin, but the website of ICANN, the corporation that oversees the Internet address system and now wants to expand it beyond the usual .com, .org or .net domains.
When ICANN began accepting applications for new names early this year, bids came for extensions such as .catholic, .islam and .bible. Not far behind were critics who challenged many applicants’ right to monopolize those and other religious terms.
“I respectfully ask you not to award .bible to a bunch of hardcore Bible-thumpers,” wrote one critic of an application by the American Bible Society to manage that extension.
Questioning a Turkish IT company’s bid for the .islam domain, Fahd Batayneh of Jordan’s National Information Technology Centre asked how it could ensure no pornographers or Muslim extremists would use names with this ending?
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is accepting comments on these and other applications for another month and will then evaluate the bids for new extensions, known as top level domains (TLDs).
First results are due next summer. A group awarded a TLD can manage that domain exclusively, renting out addresses that use its extension and rejecting bids it considers unsuitable. Via Stuff NZ
Uh-Oh! Warcraft Players Hit By US Sanctions
Iranian players of the popular online multiplayer franchise World of Warcraft have expressed their anger at being unable to play the game due to US sanctions in place against the Islamic republic.
Game enthusiasts have gone on to the message board of the US company behind the game, Blizzard Activision, to complain about how they could not log on to the service – only to be told that US law was to blame.
“United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran,” the company said in an email sent to players.
“Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.”
A post to Blizzard’s message board by a company employee also noted that rules meant Iranian players would not be getting refunds.
Via Sky.com
“It’s absolutely the worst scenario for us”: Samsung
$1 billion judgment levied against Samsung for infringing on Apple’s patents reportedly has the South Korea company reeling. While Samsung executives weren’t optimistic about an overwhelming victory in a Silicon Valley courtroom last week, the one-sided decision loss apparently caught them by surprise.
“It’s absolutely the worst scenario for us,” a senior Samsung executive told the Korea Times as he rushed into the company’s Seoul headquarters.
Since a jury in a San Jose, Calif., courtroom on Friday decided overwhelmingly in favor of Apple’s patent claims against Samsung, the Korea electronics giant has focused on the verdict’s effect on the smartphone market. The company called the awarding of $1.05 billion in damages to Apple “a loss for the American consumer” and promised that “this is not the final word in this case.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a companywide e-mail that the case was about “values.”
“For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values,”
From TechT@lk Read More Here
PC Game Companies Still Making Dough
Despite persisting rumors of Vivendi is eager to sell its $8.1B stake in ActivisionBlizzard; WoW publisher has become a bright spot among the videogame giants, weathering lethargic industry sales (especially for console games) by pushing out more content for Call of Duty
While net income for the quarter came in at $185 million, down from $335 million in Q2 2011 and down from $384 million in Q1 2012, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was optimistic in the company’s earnings statement thanks to its renewed international efforts and its gains online mitigating shrinking retail sales:
On a non-GAAP basis, we delivered record Q2 and first half net revenues, operating income and earnings. Our performance was driven by strong audience demand for our great games. We are very excited to have announced our expanded investment in China through Activision Publishing’s agreement with Tencent to bring the Call of Duty franchise to the Chinese market.
As for other highlights, the company said that, unsurprisingly, World of Warcraft remains the top subscription-based MMORPG, with approximately 9.1 million subscribers, and announced that it expects to release its newest WoW title on September 25th — “World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.”
From Techcrunch.com Read More Here
Silicon Valley’s Search The Next Big Thing
Venture capitalists and angel investors so hot on social media just months ago have largely turned their backs on the space, investors say. Even for the most promising social startups, they won’t pay nearly as high a price to get into deals as they would have a year ago.
That’s true in part because the markets have shown that public investors won’t dumbly buy in at the inflated prices set by private exchanges and late-stage rounds. But it’s also true because some investors who scored a piece of those hot companies in the last funding rounds before the initial public offerings ended up in the red themselves, sometimes deeply. The markets deflated the hype and valuation of those firms faster than they could unload shares.
“The investors who bought into Zynga and Facebook at high prices, they look stupid, it looks terrible,” said Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners. “Once you see people get burned, the discipline returns.”
That renewed discipline includes avoiding riskier deals, paying less for the promising ones (particularly in the late stages) and holding off on IPOs until growth prospects are clear.
Next big thing?
Still, even with the pricking of the social media bubble, hope springs eternal in Silicon Valley.
Total deal making has barely taken a breather. The activity is just shifting into new categories. Opportunities still abound in mobile, cloud, digital media, security and other categories, particularly for companies focused on the business market, investors say.
When asked if we’re still in a tech boom, each venture capitalist interviewed for this story responded with a resounding yes.
“There’s so much exciting stuff going on,” Carolan said. “Video is taking off; mobile is taking off. I think we’re just getting started.”
The top source of Web attacks is Myanmar!?
When you think about which country is the world’s biggest source of Internet attacks, the usual suspects first come to mind.
The United States, perhaps, because it has the most individual IP addresses and such free-flowing Web traffic. China is always a candidate, since it has so many users and has often been accused of being behind attacks. Russia is another traditional source of attacks.
But Myanmar?
According to Akamai’s first quarter report for 2011, Myanmar was the source of 13 percent of the attack traffic during that period, ahead of the U.S. (10 percent), Taiwan (9.1 percent), Russia (7.7 percent) and China (6.4 percent).
Myanmar, aka Burma, has 55 million people, but it was under military rule from 1962 until earlier this year and is one of the least-developed countries in the world.
So how does it wind up leading the Internet in anything?
Read More To Find Out http://gcn.com/articles/2011/07/28/myanmar-top-source-of-internet-attacks.aspx
The Blog Is Back (And A Story of Stats)
The Warcraft game have come a long way in the past few years. And oddly enough, this blog’s internet traffic tells a story of that popularity. We are (the blog I mean) read even in Russia, blocked in China (not even one traffic out of millions), have reached Myanmar, Saudi Arabia and more countries I never knew existed. (But still blocked in China! C’mmon!)
During our absence we have doubled our traffic all because we ‘sell’ (kinda) a trusted brand! PEOPLE LOVE THE GAME! And Warcraft is still the ideal example of how to retain a user base, even in the era of F2P competition)
When Cataclysm sold-through a record 4.7 million! copies during its first month alone, we knew Warcraft will only get bigger and bigger. As a brand, we predicted declared in ’10, that World of Warcraft have proven itself as competitive and irresistible.
And that’s probably why we at Agency News loves reporting every bit about Warcraft. (Oh and it’s so nice to see all these traffics to the blog — except China!)
Thousands of online consumers are leaving themselves at risk from scams and identity theft because of their online passwords, Yahoo reports today.
(A) third of people choose passwords made up of six or fewer characters, while 60% opt for passwords from a limited set of alpha-numeric characters.
With around 50% of people also using the same (or very similar) password for all the websites they use, there are concerns that they are unwittingly leaving themselves at risk of online fraud. (Read more…)
10 most commonly used passwords
| The most common passwords |
|---|
123456 |
12345 |
123456789 |
Password |
iloveyou |
princess |
rockyou |
1234567 |
12345678 |
abc123 |
| Souce: Imperva |
How to ensure your password is secure
DON’T…
- don’t choose passwords that could be easily obtained by fraudsters – for example, your mother’s maiden name, your home address or the date of your birthday.
- never use a single word that you might find in the…
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London – The number of Britons targeted by cybercrime is expected to overtake conventional crime for the first time next year.
Internet security experts claim that up to 19 million people will come under attack from hi-tech criminals, generally involved in identity theft.
While at one time, the biggest threat was a burglary or someone smashing a car window to grab a radio, today’s Britons are facing up to the growing menace of internet crime which can be carried out from thousands of miles away.
The success of “hacktivists” in targeting big businesses, such as the Visa and Mastercard credit card companies in the wake of the Wiki-Leaks furore, has highlighted concerns about cyber security.
A survey of UK police officers specialising in hi-tech crime found that 79 percent have noticed a steep increase in cybercrime activity within the past six months.
Identity theft and so-called malware attacks, in which…
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If you’re thinking of launching a new site for your guild, try free webhosting first. Guildomatic, guildlaunch, guilzilla, guildportal, wowstead and similar webs hosting sites should be adequate for your beta period. If you have a knowledgeable hand to deal with the administration, get Joomla.
With free sites (bare with the gold spams though… and they are annoying) most of them have ready-made templates and ‘bboard’ for your guild, some even allows you to customise and add features of your own (be prepared to read through basic website-building stuff but you should be OK).
Don’t spend money willy-nilly for your site. Give it 3-4 months if you are comfortable. You can also use a variety of free online tools to make your site more appealing– from templates to photo-editing. On the other hand, if you’re after a specialist program that will allow rooms for improvement…
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We Have To Get Back Blogging
BECAUSE
[youtube http://youtu.be/wvYXoyxLv64]
Mists of Pandaria is Coming Soon…
[youtube http://youtu.be/FjCehYrEbO0]
Guild Wars 2 Sounds Crazy…
Social Media is Exploding…
Internet (R/Evolution) is Crazier Than Ever….
AND FOR THE THOUSANDS THAT KEEP CLICKING TO THIS SITE EVERY MONTH!
(But first we have to refresh the site)
Who’s Afraid of Bloggers?
For a few hours this week, the cacophonous discourse that typically reverberates through the Russian Internet went silent when cyberattacks crippled the country’s top blogging service.
The attacks were short-lived, and it is unclear who was behind them. But they provoked such outrage here that President Dmitri A. Medvedev, who has his own Livejournal blog, personally ordered the police to look into the matter.
With nearly five million users, Livejournal is immensely popular in Russia. Invented by an American college student, and now owned by a Russian company, Livejournal differs little from such services the world over, offering large helpings of celebrity gossip and racy photos.
Yet, in a country where press freedoms and public displays of dissent have been curtailed over the years, it has also come to serve a crucial social function.
“Livejournal is actually the only uncensored, uncontrolled and unmoderated channel for discussion,” said Anton Nossik, a prominent Internet specialist and blogger. “It is equally used by all sides of our political landscape, not only by the opposition, but by the president.”
Indeed, many government ministers and governing party officials now have Livejournal blogs, and they have become the targets not only of opposition leaders, but also of cynical teenagers and the occasional disgruntled retiree.
Debates can be fierce and sometimes spill from the virtual world into the real, as when Oleg Kashin, a government critic famous for attacking officials on his Livejournal blog, was beaten nearly to death in November.
Because of restrictions on the press here, it is often up to bloggers to expose corruption and other misdeeds by the authorities. Some, like Aleksei Navalny, a prominent anticorruption crusader, have become political forces in their own right.
“For me, there are no opportunities to publish materials about corruption in, say, Gazprom or Transneft,” Mr. Navalny said, referring to Russia’s large government-owned energy companies. “Through Livejournal, I can bring this information to a few million people, which is comparable to a television audience.”
Unlike in countries like China and some other former Soviet republics, access to the Internet has largely remained unfettered in Russia. But for many, the recent cyberattacks have undermined a long-held assumption here that the Internet would remain free no matter how strictly other forms of media were controlled.
Livejournal was hit twice this week by so-called distributed-denial-of-service attacks, which take down a target’s server by overwhelming it with requests. It was attacked in a similar way on March 30.
The Web site of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta was also shut down for most of Friday, reportedly by attackers.
Though the perpetrators remain unknown, many immediately blamed Russia’s security services.
“Bloggers have obviously begun to represent a threat to many political forces and official media outlets,” Oleg Kozyrev, a prominent blogger, wrote on Livejournal. “Those who are independent and not indifferent have sent a challenge to the swamp of corrupt officials.”
Via New York Times
Access Blocked
A US State Department report notes how the revolutions of the Middle East have been aided by the Internet, but points to another trend occurring simultaneously: governments fighting the power of the Internet.
The department’s annual human rights report says governments around the world are “spending more time, money and attention in efforts to curtail access to these new communications outlets.”
It says more than 40 governments are blocking their citizens’ access to the Internet through regulatory restrictions and technologies “designed to repress speech and infringe on the personal privacy of those who use these rapidly evolving technologies.”
The report released Friday singles out countries such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Vietnam and China as egregious examples.
Via AP
Drop Net Neutrality
The US House of Representatives has told the Federal Communications Commission to back off from a plan to impose “net neutrality’’ rules that would prevent service providers from deliberately slowing or blocking Internet traffic.
The Republican-controlled House voted 240 to 179 to block enforcement of an FCC net neutrality order issued in December, but the resolution faces uncertain prospects in the Senate, and President Obama has vowed to veto it.
The vote came on the eve of a possible shutdown of the federal government.
Some Internet activists and businesses say that net neutrality regulations are needed to prevent Internet service providers like Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., or Comcast Corp. from blocking or slowing down Internet traffic generated by competing firms, or sup pressing politically controversial content. But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would prevent such abuses, and that imposing federal regulation on the Internet is a bad idea.
Via Boston.com
2011 Here Goes…
We knew this was coming…
When Cataclysm sold-through a record 4.7 million copies during its first month alone, we knew Warcraft will only get bigger and bigger. As a brand, we predicted declared early last year, World of Warcraft have proven itself as competitive and irresistible.
Cataclysm is now “the fastest-selling PC game of all time.” (Contrast that with Warcraft’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which sold a then-record 2.8 million copies during its initial 24 hours.) But, of course, for the zealous gamer– it’s still the game.
And that’s probably the reason why we at Agency News loves reporting every bit about Warcraft.
Last year, these posts were Agency News ‘attraction’ of 2010
(Or at least what an automated mail told me about the site…)
The posts and pages that got the most views last year were…
1 BBC “Panorama” Show Highlights Game AddictionDecember 2010
2Top 8: Best WoW Guild WebsitesFebruary 2010
3MMO Big in Britain But US Still No 1March 2010
4 ICC Mage Tidbits, and LFG SolutionMarch 2010
Although if I have to list our own top 5 reports, for our first 12 months of blog-ging, the list might include these 3 gems:
China’s approval of Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King– Weren’t we glad when the Chinese decided these two expansions could come to their shores after all 🙂 The news read interesting but who would have thought that an MMO could generate such a tantalizing story over there.
Mr T Parade, Draenor– NAH!, it’s not the Sydney G&L Mardi Gras folks but the Mr T Parade on our server. Revelers were yelling WTH! when hundreds of dancing Mr Ts stunned unwitting players in Stormwind Trade District.
And then there was Icecrown Trailer by Vodka– who can ever forget that trailer that was decisively more memorable, more unforgettable than Blizzard’s own. Simply shows ‘love’ by fans of the game.
Here goes 2011 and we promise to keep providing the best Warcraft, MMORPG, net technology news on-line 
To all readers of Agency News… Many thanks for supporting us!
4.7 Mil Sold in One Month
You knew this was coming.
Blizzard claims World of Warcraft: Cataclysm sold-through a record 4.7 million copies during the expansion’s first month of availability.
While we can’t verify those numbers independently, Blizzard says they’re based on internal company records and information from distribution partners.
Cataclysm, the third expansion to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft online roleplaying game, shipped in early December to dozens of countries and was available in advance of retail copies for online, download-exclusive purchase.
Though not specified in the presser, I’m assuming Blizzard counts pre-sales as well as “day-of” sales. Those of us who purchased and downloaded the essential game code weeks in advance are presumably umbrellaed in that 4.7 million figure.
Blizzard also cited previously released day one sales of 3.3 million copies and called Cataclysm “the fastest-selling PC game of all time.” Contrast with World of Warcraft’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which sold a then-record 2.8 million copies during its initial 24 hours.
2010 Best Sellers
Video game players heard the call and snapped up more than 12 million copies of Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops in 2010, making the title the best-selling game of the year, according to a report released Thursday by NPD Group.
Though sales of video games played on consoles such as the Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 fell 6% to $9.36 billion in 2010, total game software sales were about $15.5 billion last year, roughly flat compared with 2009. That’s because sales generated by PC games, smart phone games and online virtual goods grew last year, making up for much of the lag in console games, according to NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
Top 10 games for 2010
- Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard)
- Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts)
- Halo: Reach (Microsoft)
- New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo)
- Red Dead Redemption (Take-Two Interactive)
- Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo)
- Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
- Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
- NBA 2K11 (Take-Two Interactive)
Top 10 games for December 2010
- Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard)
- Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft)
- World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Activision Blizzard)
- Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
- Donkey Kong Country Returns (Nintendo)
- Epic Mickey (Disney)
- Madden NFL 11 (Electronic Arts)
- Michael Jackson the Experience (Ubisoft)
- NBA 2K11 (Take-Two Interactive)
- Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Electronic Arts)
Blizz Mulls Tol Barad ‘Rebalance’
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm introduced the PvP mega fest of Tol Barad, but it’s proving to be too great a frustration for many as the forums rage despair.
Blizzard acknowledges something needs to be done and so will tackle “design and balance issues” with several updates. Tol Barad grants access to a raid.
It’s a level 85 PvP zone and Tol Barad opens up the Baradin Hold raid but only for those controlling the castle – naturally it’s a hot bed of deaths as control is constantly jostled for. The problem lies in defending and attacking as users complain it’s too gruelling.
The Blizzard team “intend to make several updates in the next minor patch to address design and balance issues affecting attackers that we can’t address with hotfixes.”
“For example, we plan to alter the battle slightly so that a team with two bases captured can more quickly and easily capture the third, as opposed to a team with one or zero bases. This way, if the defenders turtle up, it’ll be a little easier for the attackers to take their last base before the defense can take one of the attackers’ other bases.”
Lead content designer and LEGO set lover Cory Stockton blogged the balance changes that they intend to make after such an outpour of discontent from gamers.
“…we want winning Tol Barad to be a challenge for the attacking faction… but we don’t want it to be impossible. Taking Tol Barad should be tough — but right now it’s a little bit too tough, and it’s something we’re actively working to balance.”
“We want owning the zone to be meaningful throughout the lifespan of the expansion — and while the attackers may always face somewhat of an uphill battle, the defenders should feel much more pressure not to lose than they do currently.”
“Just the same, the attacking faction should feel motivated to take Tol Barad back, but they shouldn’t feel that the odds are insurmountable,” he added. Has Tol Barad been taking its toll on you, videogamer? Check out the full blogpost for more.
Pentagon-Hearts-Twitter
Pentagon looks to make friends on Facebook
The importance and relevance of an effective social media presence has been highlighted by the Pentagon’s decision to re-evaluate their online strategy.
Douglas Wilson, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, has told Wired that while the military has ceased operations of the institution’s social media office, it views the platform as something that should be embraced by all Pentagon employees.
Former social networking experts hired by the Pentagon – Price Floyd and Sumit Agarwal – have left or been redeployed to another department respectively. Wilson commented that he views social media as an area that encompasses all aspects of the military.
He said: “It’s important for people in press operations, community and public outreach and communications and planning to be able to know how to use and access Facebook, Twitter and the other social media tools, rather than just have a single unit or single person do nothing but social media.”
Via E Word
Top Online Risks
London – The number of Britons targeted by cybercrime is expected to overtake conventional crime for the first time next year.
Internet security experts claim that up to 19 million people will come under attack from hi-tech criminals, generally involved in identity theft.
While at one time, the biggest threat was a burglary or someone smashing a car window to grab a radio, today’s Britons are facing up to the growing menace of internet crime which can be carried out from thousands of miles away.
The success of “hacktivists” in targeting big businesses, such as the Visa and Mastercard credit card companies in the wake of the Wiki-Leaks furore, has highlighted concerns about cyber security.
A survey of UK police officers specialising in hi-tech crime found that 79 percent have noticed a steep increase in cybercrime activity within the past six months.
Identity theft and so-called malware attacks, in which spying software is inadvertently downloaded onto a home computer, are considered among the greatest threats.
TOP CYBER RISKS
Social media identity theft
On Facebook many people display a huge amount of personal information which can be used against them by criminals.
Smartphone and tablet hacking
Criminals can set up temporary, and apparently innocent, wi-fi hotspots, which will capture the details of people who log on to the web via this link.
Hijacking social fads
Spying software Ð malware Ð can be attached to websites and forums. Clicking on an infected link will download spying software on to the home computer or smartphone.
Shortened Web addresses
Clicking on shortened web addresses, known as URLs, can direct users to a site that installs spying malware.
Pharming
This infects a computer or smartphone with software designed to direct the user to a bogus website that can capture identity information. – Daily Mail
Via IOL
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