Blog Club

America's Army Invades Xbox 360 (Hilary Goldstein/IGN)

Just a quick link that carries the announcement from the US Army that they are moving their "video game" to the Xbox 360. They emphasize the "realism" of their games. My favorite counter-intuitive quote from the games developer "IGN: Will the single-player have gamers facing realistic situations based on the current war in Iraq or are you staying clear of this? Greenback: We are steering clear of any current Iraq situations as well as any other real-world scenarios."

That's the ticket, we want to use the game to teach tactics, but we wouldn't want the "realism" of war to get in the way.

America's Army Invades Xbox 360 (Hilary Goldstein/IGN):

Where's Microsoft?

Where's Microsoft?:


A couple of days ago, I reread Ray Ozzie's famous memo to top Microsoft's top executives and engineers on "the internet services disruption," as well as Bill Gates's cover note. The sense of urgency in both men's words remains striking. Gates spoke of the software-as-a-service model as being a "wave" that could swamp the traditional software business. Ozzie said that "the most important step is for each of us to internalize the transformative and disruptive...

Is Blog Club a Failure?

It has been a few months since the creation of blogclub and it seems healthy to have a few moments of true introspection about how things are going. The dominant question of the moment, is blog club a failure?

Let's re-examine the beginning premise of blog club, let's call it the "real world" of blogging. Invite a few people who don't really know one another into an on-line environment, give them basic tools to post their ideas, and then watch to see what happens. Like any good experiment the reality is for it to work you can't really interfere in the process without rigging the results.

The data on blog club (starting back in January of 2004) isn't all that encouraging. But does that mean it is a failure?

How Much Are You Worth?

Each day millions of net users are asked for personal information on-line. Many of these requests seem somewhat innocuous, part of an innocent bargain: provide us with your date of birth, and zip code and we will give you free email service, etc.

What most of us miss is the intrinsic value in this information, our digital DNA if you would. Just like real DNA can place you at the crime scene divulging tiny DDNA fragments of your identity on-line can allow "owners" to amass a great deal of information about the aggregation of their client base, or if enough information is provide, you personally.

Just How Weird Am I, Or You?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released their most recent survey of internet users, "Content Creation Online", this week. The study conducted between March 12th and May 20, 2003 found that fifty- three million Americans have published on the Web.

My goal is simple...just how strange am I, or you compared to the average internet user?

Forty-four percent of internet users have done at least one of the following (see graph below)

I'm feeling pretty normal at this point, I've done most of these things...and a few more. I must admit blogging according to this data makes me feel a little AB normal but perhaps that is just a sign of things to come.