Coming Full Circle on Twitter

by Brian Guenther

One of the first posts I wrote on Digital Erudite was on the flaws of Twitter and why it annoyed me. Since then, I’ve written several other posts on the subject of Twitter, including how it had become useful for me, how it rose to prominence, and why spammers and other illegitimate users were a threat to its long-term viability. At long last though, I’ve come full circle on Twitter and I want to discuss how this happened.

Berkeley DMEC’s Twitter Visit

Now that I’m in San Francisco…

In the past when I wrote about Twitter, it was often as an East Coaster who was surrounded by other East Coasters. I hate to write it, but there is a fundamental difference between the cultures of the different coastal populations. To date, most of my East Coast friends have yet to embrace Twitter in any substantive way. It has been fully embraced by the media as a broadcast tool but the personal adoption of Twitter continues to lag. However, when I moved to the Bay Area last year I met a lot more people who had embraced Twitter. And just as Metcalfe’s Law states, the value of the Twitter network increased as I added new, active nodes. Twitter has become a lot more interesting when people I see on a regular basis are on-board and interacting with me. The nature of conversations around me has also shifted – it is no longer rare for me to discuss social media, tech news, and the future of technology. Again, the West Coast has proven to be a very different type of place.

The Addictive Qualities of Twitter…

I’ve recently started to conceptualize mobile games and applications as a form of distraction, one that is enabled by the combination of smartphones and reliable mobile access to the web. Ever since I picked up the iPhone, I have used it in the expected manner – playing games, reading email, and getting directions. I have also become accustomed to consuming a vast amount of news while I’m in between places. Rather than use RSS feeds, which is how I catch up on things when I’m using my laptop, I tend to do this through Twitter when I’m out and about. As soon as I run out of tweets to read, I often find myself updating to get the latest tweets – and because of how usage of the service has picked up, I’m often rewarded with a handful of new tweets to read. And whenever I post a tweet, I’ll often check periodically to see if I’ve provoked a response. The constant reward of fresh tweets and interactions is a powerful combination, and it has turned me into a bit of a Twitter junkie. It took a while for this pattern to emerge and its not always compelling, but during the week I can usually trust Twitter to deliver what I’m looking for.


Meaningful Connections Via Twitter…

I know precisely where I was when the news of Steve Jobs’ death broke. I was in the Haas library on Twitter, getting ready for a dinner I had later that night. At first I didn’t believe the news, but within a couple of minutes I was able to verify it as fact. I also know where I was when the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death broke – again, I was on Twitter. The value of Twitter as a news channel has increased steadily as my usage of it has increased and also as the media embraced it whole-heartedly. I can now think of meaningful moments that involved Twitter, and its hard for me to imagine a routine where Twitter wasn’t a part of my routine. These moments have involved the gamut of human experience, including notes of serendipity, sadness, excitement, surprise, and reflection.

When it All Came Together…

Through the Berkeley Digital Media and Entertainment Club, I was given the opportunity to visit Twitter HQ and hear from Haas alumni that worked at Twitter. As they described the global scale and impact of the service alongside their personal experiences as Twitter employees, it struck me how I my own experience with Twitter had changed over time. I realized just how much I depended on Twitter as part of my routine. I had to face the reality that this service that annoyed the hell out of me back in 2009 was now a vibrant ecosystem that I used to check the pulse on sports, entertainment, and technology. While I don’t think I’m part of the majority on this one, Twitter is no longer a niche social network for self-promoters and early adopters.

Note: If you want to see my previous posts on Twitter, just use the Tag Cloud to the right.

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Remembering Steve Jobs

by Brian Guenther

Today, when I heard the news that Steve Jobs had died, my first reaction was disbelief. The news came from a classmate, reading from his Twitter feed. Within a couple of minutes, we knew it was true. I felt an immediate void within, as if a part of me was missing. I didn’t understand this feeling, because while I was a user of Apple products,  I was never a lover of them to the extent of others I have known. I now realize that this void was not a sense of loss for the visionary behind the Apple products that adorned my wrist, filled my pocket, and rested on my bedstand. No, what I was feeling was the loss of a kindred spirit, an icon for all of those who love technology and the hope for a better future. In the last ten years of my life, the world has fundamentally changed in how people communicate with each other, how relationships are conceived and nurtured, and how we interact with technology. Steve Jobs was a central figure that drove technology forward, a passionate and polarizing man who created change through sheer force of personality and vision.

What I lost when Steve Jobs passed was the knowledge that somewhere, he was cooking up something great that would once again shift my world. When he lived, we knew that technology would evolve and improve. That was the only possible outcome for a world with Steve Jobs in it. He wasn’t always right, but his relentless drive and his refusal to compromise his vision allowed him to rise from failure. He defied expectations and then surpassed them beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. There are few people who have accomplished as much as he did in my era, and I admire the hell out of him. Today, I mourn him. Tomorrow, I will learn from his example.

To honor his memory, I watched his commencement speech at Stanford, given in 2005. In that speech he talked about his belief that what he did today would be important in the future. We all should believe this. It gives meaning to those things we do today, connects our past to our present, and provides hope that who we are and what we’ve done will make for a better tomorrow. He also talked about how he found what he loved early in life, and how that led him down the path to success and happiness. He begged the audience to never stop looking for what they loved. This is something I myself embraced over a year ago when I turned my back on a great career and chose to find opportunities in the technology industry. We should never be satisfied until we’ve found what we love, because that discovery will enable us to sustain ourselves despite whatever challenges may appear. Finally, Steve talked about his first experience with death and how it affected him. He talked about how death is a great catalyst for change and a motivational tool he used to make sure he met his own expectations. He lived life knowing that one day he would die, and used his finite opportunities to decide how to spend his time. Many of us live in the now and don’t dwell on the lost seconds, minutes, years. If we were to die today, would we be happy with what we’ve done? With what we’re doing? The answer to these questions are important, and I tried to come up with my own answers tonight. When was the last time you asked yourself these questions?

I’m saddened by today’s events, but I’m also hopeful for the future. Steve showed us a vision and a way forward. From what I’ve seen in response to his passing, many people were listening. It is very touching to see this community of people unite in their sincere regret. This is what gives me hope. It feels like more than ever before people want to achieve a better tomorrow.

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Games are becoming more like TV shows, not movies

by Brian Guenther

Last week I saw yet another article claiming that games were going to become more like movies. This seems to be a fairly common belief, since I see it in one of its forms every couple of months. In fact, it is not a new idea. Professor Steve Blank often uses the example of Rocket Science, an ill-conceived gaming start-up dedicated to marrying Hollywood and gaming, to teach entrepreneurship to students at the Haas School of Business. In 1994, the company had recruited star talent, attracted funding, and nailed the front page of Wired with an overly effusive write-up. But as it turned out, the games weren’t good and the company folded. Strike one for the video-games-as-movies concept.

Fast forward to today, and many games have started to resemble movies. Budgets for many games have exploded, as have their revenues. In fact, the opening week for the biggest games now dwarfs those of the largest Hollywood blockbusters. Development cycles last years and involve hundreds of people. Major franchises have been created and are refreshed endlessly by the big publishers. To those who who would say that games will become more like movies, I would contend that they have already been through that evolution. They’re now progressing to a very different model. Games are starting to become more like television shows than movies.
Television is a ruthless business where shows debut with a pilot and a limited run of follow-on episodes. Most shows only get a few weeks to find a significant audience. If they don’t find that audience, then the show quietly disappears. Even shows that have passed through this hurdle have to meet certain ratings expectations based on their scheduling, otherwise they get the axe. And while shows start with a certain premise, this premise evolves overtime as the audience reacts to plot lines, characters, and the overall tone of the series. TV writers often draw ideas from current events, fan suggestions, and show milestones (e.g., hundredth episode specials). Shows also often work with advertisers to do product placements. Does all of this sound familiar? It should, its how most social games and successful mobile games operate.
Social games are made in a fraction of the time it takes to make AAA games. They often aren’t fully fleshed out when they’re released, and the games grow with their audiences. Most social games are updated with new content on a weekly basis, and major new mechanics or levels every month or so. In mobile games, this is also becoming more common. Look at how Rovio keeps its Angry Birds franchise fresh with seasonal editions.
This model is much more efficient than the movie-making model. Rather than invest millions of dollars and years of effort to make a game, social and mobile developers can create a minimal viable product, release it, and then validate it with an audience before investing heavily. They can tinker with the original premise and tune it until it works. Once an audience is found, they can build new features and mechanics or work with advertisers to do promotions. Overall, the model is more capital efficient and less risky. Under this model, the developers are making smaller up-front bets that play out quickly rather than huge bets that take years to pan out and can be utter sinkholes for resources. It is also better for the staff that makes the games, because they are retained to build out successful properties and aren’t subjected to as much “crunch time” or the frequent downsizing that wracks developers following the completion of a long project that doesn’t pan out.
So, can we put this idea that games are going to be more like movies to rest? Because quite frankly, it misses out on what is really happening in gaming.
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Strategic Investing – Why TinyCo Created the TinyFund

by Brian Guenther

TinyCo, the mobile gaming company that raised its own capital only three months ago, recently announced the TinyFund. TinyFund is a $5 million dollar pool of money for mobile game developers that will be granted $500,000 at a time through an application process. Any developer can apply and it doesn’t matter if the game is free or paid, finished or conceptual. Why would a relatively early stage start-up make this move and offer up hard-won cash to independent developers that are competing in their space? The way I view this is that TinyCo is using excess cash to invest strategically, with the goal of creating partners out of competitors and reaching more customers than they would be able to if they developed internally.

TinyCo raised $18m three months ago, and in that time they’ve had a number of successes. Their ability to get into the top apps list on iOS indicates that perhaps they don’t need as much cash as they raised, and therefore need to deploy it. Well, with the explosion of interest in mobile and social gaming, its probably fairly difficult to scale internal development efforts quickly. TinyCo also has valuable expertise in marketing mobile games and a customer list that would be an invaluable asset to other companies looking to get a jumpstart. With these assets, TinyCo has a lot to offer and should be leveraging them to get ahead.  This combination of factors makes external development via partnership an attractive opportunity, and what better way could they do this then to open up an investment fund, recruit partners, and gain a ton of PR in the process? This approach allows to quickly deploy the cash, turn potential competitors into partners, and at the end of the grow more quickly then they would be able to otherwise.  As I commented previously regarding Zynga, achieving scale before others can be a huge advantage.

There are tertiary benefits as well. Applicants for funding can be targets for hiring, acquisitions, or partnerships down the road. The fact that a start-up is able to launch this kind of fund makes TinyCo seem larger and more successful than they may actually be, and will benefit their reputation at the least. The applications they receive will also serve as competitive intelligence, giving them a preview of future competition and allowing them to position themselves beforehand.

Taking a step back, I find this kind of strategy to be an intriguing way of adapting a business model to take advantage of the current funding situation. This is an interesting model and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it used elsewhere. The benefits TinyCo could extract from this fund seem to be worth the cost, and there is significant upside for them as well if one of their partners succeeds.

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A Caution on Employing Game Mechanics

by Brian Guenther

Note: I first drafted this post in September 2010, but was never quite satisfied with it. I just looked at it again and realized that I still agree with everything I wrote before. So, I’m posting it because it has actually withstood the test of time. I’m going to follow-up on it soon though.

Since Foursquare and Farmville hit the technology scene, I have observed a steady rise in the number of businesses that utilize game mechanics in their services. As I noted in a previous post, everything from cars to exercise machines to blogs now incorporate game mechanics. I understand why this is becoming a trend in Internet business, there are many benefits that can be gained from the appropriate use of gaming mechanics. Here are just a few of the important ones:

  • Game mechanics drive user engagement: When a user is presented with a game, they are motivated to do some sort of behavior for some sort of reward. By introducing badges, trophies, or some other mechanism, you turn your service into a form of game with rewards that encourage you to continue interacting with the service.
  • Game mechanics can fuel competitiveness: One way to motivate people is to create a competition. This is often done through leaderboards that rank people based on some sort of defined points system that is supported by the game (or perhaps your service). Even this simple of a feature can be enough to motivate people to spend an extra hour on your service, trying to improve their ranking.
  • Game mechanics can create user identity: An opportunity for people to express themselves, define themselves, and allow other people to see this effort is very valuable. Whereas before a user might be anonymous, if you recognize them and give them a place to establish themselves, they may become much more involved in your service.

As you can imagine, if successful these mechanisms keep your customers around longer, allowing them to spend more money on your service or giving you the opportunity to serve them more advertising. This sounds great in theory, but I believe there is a risk in employing these mechanics.

The Dark Side of Game Mechanics

While they are trendy and potentially powerful, businesses need to carefully consider how well game mechanics actually fit with a given product or service. You can’t just bolt on game mechanics and expect it to mesh well with either your product or your customer base. For example, if you run an e-commerce store, it may not be appropriate to encourage users to buy more products and reward them with badges or virtual items. You’ll look greedy and this will turn off customers. Perhaps offering them coupons for reviewing products or referring friends is a better way to encourage engagement.

Considering the customer side of the business, an example would be a professional-oriented social network. While clever design or a quirky set of users may make me look foolish for saying this, I would say the network should probably stay away from anything resembling game mechanics, since the tone and usage of the network is not casual. These are rough examples, but you get the point. If your customers don’t want to play games to utilize your service (e.g., checking their finances) or are used to very transactional usage (e.g., just getting the weather forecast), then you should steer clear.

Another key consideration is what types of user behaviors should be encouraged. The behaviors you want to target should be central to your business model, but should not be things that introduce risk to the business model. An example would be targeting the number of reviews users write as opposed to the quality or accuracy of user reviews. An influx of terribly written and researched reviews would negatively impact the site.

The incentives for users is another important component of game mechanics. Incentives should be about recognition, reward, and making your service fun for users. If your incentive structure is based on inappropriate pay-offs, then you’ll create changes in behavior or your customer base that may be undesirable. For example, if you introduce some sort of top user leaderboard and offer prizes to your top user, you may find that other users target the current leader and attempt to bring them down in the rankings.

My final word of caution is that every product or service does not need to be a game. I’ve seen this scenario posited in multiple places and the prospect of that reality is offensive to my sensibilities. Imagine virtual rewards for doing mundane daily tasks, performing civic duties like voting and paying taxes, or absorbing marketing messages. Gaming, be it in a video game or online service, should be a conscious activity. When the act of gaming becomes unconscious, it is no longer emotionally valuable. Perhaps even more important than this is that game mechanics should be tied to a service that is fun or rewarding in some way. Who wants to file taxes early and get rewarded with a virtual cookie from IRS?

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Competitive Advantage in Social Gaming

by Brian Guenther

Zynga has often been the target of criticism. They’ve been accused of copy-cat game design, using Pavlovian psychological tricks to addict people to their games, and facilitating scams through their offer walls. Whether or not these accusations are true or not, well-founded or not, is frankly irrelevant at this point. That’s because they’ve built a sustainable competitive advantage in the social games space, and they’re using this advantage to create genre-dominating properties that fund their growth and acquisition of new talent.

The secret to Zynga’s success isn’t necessarily their ability to design compelling social games or their ability to optimize new features for monetization, though these skills certainly help. Having played CityVille to level 65, I can attest that Zynga knows how to create a game with masterful game mechanics. They also regularly refresh their games with new content and new mechanics that keep it fresh. Their target audience, casual gamers that average out to 40-year old Midwestern housewives, is also a good audience to have because of its vast size and low level of gaming sophistication. But Zynga’s capabilities and their focus aren’t the reason that they dominate the space right now. No, the reason for Zynga’s great success is that they were the most aggressive in customer acquisition when it was easy to do.

Before Facebook shut off the viral marketing spigot for applications, Zynga was one of the most aggressive companies in the utilization of this marketing channel. This viral marketing channel was essentially free and they designed their games to exploit it mercilessly. They were also big spenders in Facebook advertising, which primed the viral marketing pump further. This dual focus on viral marketing and advertising, coupled with their push into every major casual gaming genre on Facebook, led to massive customer acquisition. When Facebook took steps to minimize the ability of social games to market through viral channels, customer acquisition costs for social games rose dramatically. This coincided with a wave of me-too companies entering the space with similar offerings, which raised the competition for new users and further drove up costs. Zynga, however, had already won a vast audience that was much larger than that of the next largest competitor.

With this large audience and a comprehensive portfolio of games, Zynga gained several advantages. Instead of acquiring new, expensive customers for games, they can simply recycle old customers to new games or revitalized games. RewardVille, a meta-game for their entire portfolio of games, does an excellent job at this. Instead of borrowing money or raising funding to fuel customer acquisition, they can simply tap their revenue streams for advertising dollars and promotions. Because they are the largest player, they have access to partnerships with movie studios, music stars, and other celebrities that augment their games with new features, positive brand associations, and healthy amounts of PR. Because of these advantages, Zynga’s cost to acquire new customers is dramatically lower than anyone else’s. This allows them to funnel relatively higher amounts of resources into product development, product maintenance, and corporate acquisitions. These activities, in turn, become advantages for Zynga that make it even more difficult for competitors to win market share. This is an example of a self-reinforcing business model. Self-reinforcing business models such as those created by Southwest, Intel, and now Zynga, are very powerful and difficult to assail.

The danger for Zynga at this point is that their audience will tire of the core game mechanics or will be entranced by innovative new game mechanics. We’ve seen this before in gaming, which is a hits-based business that can be very cyclical in terms of what genre dominates. A couple of years ago, the music genre was huge but received too much investment, causing later products to flop. Interest in the genre has since waned. Zynga is battling this kind of market transition by continuing to develop new games and working to keep their existing portfolio fresh by introducing new mechanics. They’re also acquiring talented developers and promising new properties, squelching future competition early.

Other players in the social gaming space are circumventing Zynga’s advantages by aggressively attacking specific market niches (e.g., Kabam) or by focusing on mobile platforms. These strategies can be successful because the business model is very different and Zynga isn’t a direct competitor (yet). The companies that operate in the fringes still face the customer acquisition problem though, and that requires either a very compelling offering that grows organically or lots of money to pump into marketing. The conclusion I draw from this is that well-funded competitors such as those owned by large publishers will remain relevant in the social gaming space. Start-ups that hope to make it big have to innovate in terms of market niches, develop compelling new forms of gameplay, or get sufficient funding to out-market competitors.

At the end of the day, Zynga is the clear winner in the first generation of social gaming. This win has created a sustainable competitive advantage that, in turn, reinforces a set of other advantages. However, competitors can still emerge and challenge Zynga. They will simply need to be: a) very innovative b) very well-funded or c) very lucky.

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Experimenting with… sigh…. “Gamification”

by Brian Guenther

People that know me are already aware of my misgivings with the one of the great trends of 2011, gamification. There is a disclaimer at the end of this post to clarify my stance, but I think the term itself is crude and misleading. I think that good designers have always used game mechanics to architect good experiences. And I believe that Gartner’s assertion that 50% of US businesses will be “gamified” by 2015 is completely absurd. However, despite all of this, I’ve just launched a gamification experiment of my own.  This is because I believe that games are absolutely fantastic at teaching skills, building knowledge, and eliciting behaviors in players. This means that if done well, game mechanics can be used for good. I hope that this experiment helps me prove (to myself) the power of game mechanics in non-game environments.

This experiment is an attempt to harness game mechanics to several lifestyle objectives I have. These goals are improving my overall health, learning and developing new skills, and writing on a regular basis. These are objectives I have had for some time and have pursued through informal means. I would say that in the last year, I have been successful in addressing these goals, but noticed that I was inconsistent and lapsed frequently. My hypothesis with this experiment is that by adopting a formal measurement system that is directly tied to rewards, I will be much more consistent and dedicated.

So here is how the game works. For each of the three objectives (health, learning, writing), I outlined a set of explicit goals. With these goals, I identified the key activities that were directly related to achieving those goals. Tied to each activity is a point value. As I complete these activities, I earn points (termed experience points). I also created achievements that are unlocked by completing specific goals (e.g., hit my desired weight, write a book, etc.). Unlocking each achievement is worth a certain amount of experience points. Experience points are tied to a virtual currency I created for the game, with an exchange rate of 10 experience points per dollar. Each dollar I earn can be used for a list of discretionary purchases that I have a bad habit of making without consideration towards my budget. So, I’ve effectively killed two birds with one stone – I limit my bad-habit purchases of unnecessary gadgets, books, and video games while also incentivizing myself to be a better person.

So far, this may not sound like much of a game and it may bear more resemblance to the data journals kept by people bent on quantifying their lives. This is a fair criticism. It goes beyond mere data journaling by creating incentives for the target activities and has several metrics that can penalize me for not doing these target activities regularly. I’ve also created other structural characteristics that make it more of a game that include a high score feature and a “health level” based on experience points. I have some thoughts on other ways to extend this experiment, but I want to test it out a little bit before I make it anymore elaborate. Ideally, there would be a way to compete with people other than myself, but since this is all contained in a Excel spreadsheet there isn’t a way to introduce that social component. If I get good results (which I will report), I may try to hack together a website to facilitate this kind of experiment with other people.

So here goes. Brian Guenther’s life has just become a game.

Note: I dislike the term gamification, but acknowledge that crafting game-like experiences or adopting game-like structures is a powerful trend we’re witnessing right now. I do not mean to suggest that there is anything inherently immoral about using game mechanics outside of video games, but I do believe that games should be inherently fun. I also do not mean to belittle the trend, I just prefer to think of it as an evolution in experience design.

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Reprint: Separating Form from Substance – The Future of the Book and E-Book

by Brian Guenther

Note: This article was run previously, but I feel it is every bit as good now as it was eight months ago. Enjoy!

Amidst all of the “discussion” on the Internet regarding the iPad, the Kindle, and the future of the printed book, one key thought has been overlooked. The book is a delivery mechanism, just like the iPad and the Kindle. It is merely the technology facilitating the distribution of content. Looking at it from that perspective, history reveals the answer to our questions about the future of the book as we know it.

Over the course of history, mankind has used many different technologies to capture words or images. Stone, papyrus, and paper are just some of the surfaces we’ve used, and charcoal, paint, and ink are how we’ve transmitted our words or images to those surfaces. Today, we’re seeing the rise of distinct new technologies to capture and transmit words and images. So what is going to happen to the venerable bound book now that we have screens and digital storage? Well, if history is any indicator, the old ways of doing things will die out slowly once the new technology gains adoption, as costs go down and superior effectiveness is demonstrated. The process can take long periods of time, or it can be swift. For example, look at the impact of the printing press – books became accessible to the masses, newspapers emerged, and the scroll was lost to the ages.

So is the book going to go away? Eventually, it will. But that is a process that is going to take a long time, because the technology has to find ways to be as versatile as paper, it has to be cheaper, and it has to be as effective. E-readers in a couple of years will fit those criteria for your basic fiction novel. They won’t necessarily match those criteria for things like atlases or magazines, but they’ll be getting closer. All parts of the world won’t be on the same adoption curve or time line either, since e-readers depend on reliable and ubiquitous computing/power/networking infrastructure.

Now let’s ignore the distribution element of “books” and instead look at how content has evolved. Over time, mankind went from isolated content (cave drawings) to scrolls (small amounts of information) to books (large amounts of information) to periodicals (timely information). Our modern content-distribution systems, e-readers, computers, and the Internet increase the amount and complexity of content, create interconnections between content, and introduce the ability for content to have a lifetime. This means new types of content (e.g., blogs) will emerge and old types of content (e.g., books, newspapers, magazines) will change. The physical analogs will survive as long as the economics and audiences exist, but I can tell you now that it is only a matter of time.

Content is going to change beyond what we’ve seen already. Just look at Penguin’s demo for the iPad. Interactivity and multimedia are the key aspects of their future vision. As I’ve written before, the book is no longer a collection of written words. It can include video, audio, links to other content, social dimensions, and more. Any one of those dimensions of the book may dominate – it all depends on the author(s) and the audiences’ needs. In the end, this is more important than whether or not people are reading on a Kindle or an iPad – the content is the future. And the future is blended content – mash-ups of long-form text, graphics, video, audio, and social commentary. I’m not saying all content will have all of these elements, but I would suspect even your basic novel will have other elements produced by fans (e.g., the social commentary) that make the book more than it is today.

As the technology enabling publishing changes, so does the nature of content authors. In earlier eras, it was artists, priests, nobles, and the wealthy who could afford to write things down. With the printing press, professional writers and journalists emerged who regularly produced content. Now, with the Internet, we’ve seen the rise of the blogger – practically anyone with a modicum of tech savvy, some writing talent, and a little time can now publish content. The democratization of content-production will extend to all creative types, as content is mixed and matched with the advent of e-publishing.

People across the blogosphere can debate merits of the Kindle and the iPad all they want, but they’ve missed the point. We are not only witnessing a change in publishing technology (from print to digital), we’re witnessing a change in the nature and origin of content. This is going to rock the publishing business and create new opportunities for content production. We’re facing a future where anyone can publish content, creating a reduced role for the big publishers. Who needs their editors? A lot of people can edit work, and a lot of them could probably do a better job (I’ve seen some truly atrocious work out there that never saw the hand of an editor and got published anyway). The distribution channels will be more open to independent authors. Book publishers will become more like music publishers – inventive or highly talented authors will be able to circumvent them and succeed, but the publishers will continue to use their knowledge, contacts, and power to produce big hits. Eventually publishers may go the way of the dinosaur, but who knows when. One thing is clear, they won’t be the only game in town. Services like Lulu will mature and become an viable alternative path. Hell, it may even make sense for Amazon to get into the game, reducing it’s dependence on publishers. We’ve all seen how friendly they are with each other.

We’ll also see the rise of new agencies that specialize in blending different types of content, especially serving the entertainment industry. We’ll see more collaboration among specialists (e.g., writers, video editors, musicians, computer programmers) to produce blended content. Pricing of content will change as interactive and multimedia elements become more common.

Now let me curb my enthusiasm a bit. This vision sounds great and futuristic, but it is a transformation which will take time. As I said earlier, the old-fashioned book will die a slow death. Traditional authors, who work with words only, will continue to write text-only works. The other creative types will continue to work in their varied media. But everyone will be pushed into blended content, led by collaborative works such as textbooks. It is just a matter of time. Especially when you think about how easy it is for today’s youngsters to manipulate different types of media and how much tools to do this will progress in our lifetimes. And all the while, it won’t matter if you have an iPad, Superkindle, netbook, or the next i-gadget.

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Review: Microsoft Kinect

by Brian Guenther

The release of the Nintendo Wii in November 2006 was a defining moment in the video game industry, introducing movement-based controls and creating a new, friendlier user experience that enabled casual gaming. In an attempt to duplicate this success, Sony released the Playstation Move and Eye combination four years later. Unlike Sony, Microsoft chose to surpass the Wii and the Move with the Kinect. With this innovative new product, Microsoft has succeeded. Moreover, the Kinect makes the Wii and the Move look silly.

Let me back up a second. I first saw the Kinect in action at the >play conference, put on by the Haas School of Business. It was enormously popular there, as a crowd of eager early adopters surrounded it for the majority of the day trying to give it a try. As a game lover, it was inevitable that I would get my hands on a Kinect. As luck would have it, I received one as a Christmas gift. I’ve spent the last few days putting the Kinect through its paces in a number of circumstances with three games: Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports, and the crowd-pleasing Dance Central. Here are my thoughts.

The Kinect Experience

Setting up the Kinect was easy, taking less than two minutes. There were more cords than I would have thought and this didn’t lead to an elegant arrangement, but the Kinect was up and running immediately. I had some issues with the amount of space the Kinect requires, but with some adjustments to where the sensor was placed I was able to get it working just fine. This is probably the single largest issue with the Kinect – it requires a good amount of free space in front of the television to work. Ten feet seems to be sufficient in my current set-up, but the Kinect claims to work with as little as 6 feet. For party play, a fairly wide area is required.

Once the set-up is done, the fun can begin in earnest. The initial wave of Kinect games are not very polished in design or graphics, reminding me of the first set of Wii games. Kinect Sports is very similar to Wii Sports with a variety of activities including bowling, soccer, boxing, and volleyball. Kinect Adventures is more polished but has fewer activities to work with. Dance Central is the most complete game, as would be expected from Harmonix. It is pretty much a Rock Band game centered on dance. There are also a number of exercise games, some kids’ games, and some lesser entries in the dance or sports genres. I focused on getting the best, more adult-themed games that are available.

Each of these games was a blast to play. Like Wii games, they cross generations, are playable by non-gamers with ease, and make great party games. I have to say it again, because it is so true – great party games. While all of this is wonderful, this isn’t very different from what the Wii accomplished four years ago. Where the Kinect surpasses the Wii is in the overall experience. The Wii required a set of controllers and accessories that were complicated, put TVs at risk, and cost a ton. They also needed batteries and had to be stored somewhere. The Kinect is the only equipment required and just works. The benefit of that cannot be overstated. A common remark upon first seeing the Kinect in action was how much better it was than the Wii, though a lot of people kept confusing Kinect Sports with Wii Sports. They are very similar games. The slogan “You are the controller” is the perfect one for the Kinect, because it is the simple truth. It also a wonderful user experience. The lack of controllers, the ability of the Kinect to work with people immediately, and the capturing of humorous pictures and videos are all innovative and surprising to people.

Overall, the Kinect is great. Every one I’ve seen play it absolutely enjoyed it. It is more flexible than the Wii, adopts many of the Wii’s best features, and does so in a technically brilliant fashion. I don’t have much experience with the Playstation Move, but it seems like the Kinect surpasses it too.

The Impact of the Kinect on the Xbox 360

For years, the Xbox 360 has been a hardcore gamer’s console. Casual gamers had the Wii. Now, the Xbox 360 offers the best of both worlds. Gamers can take on hordes of zombies in Call of Duty or switch over to Kinect Sports for some ping pong. They now have the choice. The Playstation 3 has also bridged the two gaming worlds, but in a less spectacular fashion. The big winner out of all of this is definitely the 360, and the Wii is being left behind fast. The Wii has been dead to me for years, but now everyone is going to pick up on it. The Kinect is the new sensation in gaming. While Nintendo claims they aren’t working on a new Wii, they have to now. The Wii’s only real advantage is IP like Mario and Donkey Kong, and that advantage will only erode as the Wii becomes more and more dated.

Many people have suggested that the Kinect will extend the life of the Xbox 360, and this seems to be Microsoft’s expectation as well. While the Kinect is great, making the Xbox 360 the leader in the current generation of consoles, it won’t be enough to push the 360 through the next five years. The next generation of consoles will feature 3D gaming, greater integration with online media services, native app stores, digital distribution, virtual goods, and social networking. The 360 won’t be competitive against a console with next generation capabilities. However, the Kinect will make the 360 the clear winner in the current generation. Microsoft needs to capitalize on this advantage. They can ride the Kinect to market leadership and use that as a springboard for the next generation of consoles.

Microsoft also needs to take this great product and make it available to PC users. It is a capable video conferencing product, and enterprising hackers have found a number of other uses for the Kinect. Microsoft should continue to encourage these hackers and formalize it through some sort of program or application store. While it takes a lot to move the needle at a company like Microsoft, the Kinect could be a valuable tool in restoring the company’s image with consumers and making people aware of just how innovative Microsoft can be.

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Coming Soon…

by Brian Guenther

So, I’ve been neglecting this blog for the last few months as I’ve been consumed by my studies at the Haas School of Business. For that, you have my apologies. However, now that I have precisely two weeks of relative freedom, I promise to spend slightly more time here at Digital Erudite. I’ve already started updating the Resources page and that’s not all I’ll be working on. Expect some posts, some refreshes, and perhaps even a new banner. And if you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to the RSS feed or follow me on Twitter.

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