These are my links for February 19th through February 22nd:

  • What women want… from online games – Summary of research into habits of women who play social games. In short: they like to play for a short amount each week, they don't want to pay, they still feel stimatised as 'coming out' as a gamer.
  • Blogging Innovation: Four Models for Competitive Crowdsourcing – An explanation of how different forms of crowd engagement can work, by filtering through experts or directly to an audience, and the relative merits of both.
  • HOW TO: Make Your Small Business Geolocation-Ready – Mashable article great for retail and 'real world' businesses on places to get listed and take advantage of the new phenomena of connecting real world places with mobile digital interaction, e.g. virtual loyalty cards.
  • There’s No Future in Digital Strategy… – Well I may as well pack up and go home then.
    Ah…
    …But there will always be a future for strategy in a world going digital.
    It's subtle, I think I agree. It's a business strategy for a 'going digital world' not just limited to the strategy for what we do using digital. And this fits perfectly with the ethos of what Digital Consultant do: helping you to succeed by building strategies for the digital economy. Voila.
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These are my links for January 17th through January 18th:

  • Technology Review: How Google Ranks Tweets – The news that Twitter results will be included in Google has come as a cheer to those of us working within the social web. This article suggests that 'popular' Tweeters (i.e. those with a lot of followers, whose followers have high follow numbers) will rank higher in search terms, as 'followers' are akin to links in how Google calculate Page Rank.
  • Howard Rheingold interview – USA – Lengthy BBC interview with online communities and education expert Howard Rheingold discussing how virtual communities have developed and are evolving.
  • 5 Ways Foursquare is Changing the World – Foursquare, the mobile game that rewards location activity attending real-world places, is the latest phenomena in social gaming, but also offers means of retail spaces to reward customer loyalty.
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These are my links for November 27th from 18:48 to 18:51:

  • How to Make $55,000 by Giving Away Your Work – Interesting economic article about New York animator Nina Paley, showing what incomes she made from other sources and revenues by distributing her films for free online. For a no-budget, emerging artist it shows that there is an economy in generating content to promote yourself and your art, but equally $55K is a pitiful return on investment on a film – not taking into account what the production costs are and time.
  • Survey uncovers the nation’s favourite websites – Interesting survey of 2,000 UK web users shows which websites they are using. In social media, interestingly Facebook is far more used than thought – with 74% actively using the site, against just 4% using MySpace and Twitter respectively.
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These are my links for November 5th from 18:07 to 18:18:

  • ‘Why the games industry needs the Tories’ – As title suggests: OMG!! But actually this speech by Ed Vaizey, Shadow Minister for Culture, is cutting it with games sector, suggesting fiscal breaks and better quality education can help grow the games sector rather than haemoraging it overseas. Disagree strongly with his view that the UK Film Council should take on games: bad idea. They don't even want to work with TV and the aesthetic and structures are all so contradictory.
  • There’s life outside London – Ruth Pitt, new director of Screen England, on the power of media production outside London – and how we need to shake off the shackles and connotation of "regional" as a euphism for 2nd class. You go girl!!
  • At the Base of the Pyramid – Erik Simanis writes an insightful article on reaching untapped markets of the very poorest people in developing nations, using unconventional tactics like selling the joys rather than the necessities, and involving communities as entrepreneurial sellers.
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These are my links for November 2nd through November 3rd:

  • Constant Transformation Is the New Normal – Piece by disruptive innovation expert Scott Anthony on how 'business as usual' ain't coming back: you need to be customer-focused, adaptable to change and have distinct, autonomous spaces for innovation.
  • Lord Mandelson sets date for blocking filesharers’ internet connections – In full: the timetable and approach for UK government to impose the "three strikes and your offline" policy to tackle file-sharing; which, interestingly, WASN'T a recommendation of Lord Carter's Digital Britain report from this year.
  • A fistful of (internet) dollars – The Guardian have produced this useful round up showing the size of the digital industries (music, TV, film, games, publishing) in 2000 compared to now, and how they are siddling with Lord Mandelson and the government on the issues around downloading and regulation.
  • To Be a Better Leader, Give Up Authority – Prof Vlatka Hlupic believes that in complex trading environments in knowledge industries, the leader who delegates more control to their workers can see improved levels of innovation and results. Command and control models are broke.
  • Expansive English Game Development Hub Discussed – The long-running 'games centre of excellence' proposal seems to be zoning in on becoming a reality, with a research, training and testing facility mooted to be established in MediaCity in Salford – which could put the noses out of joint in Liverpool, where most of the North West games industry are based.
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