David Lidsky's Blog, page 4864

WANTED: Jaga Play Radiator

Jaga's Play radiator managed to make me say a sentence I never thought I would say. Not one of those sentences that you've thought before, always ending with "...but I'd never actually say that," like maybe an epic aspiration or an outlandish non sequitur. No, this is a sentence so humble yet unlikely that you could never precisely construct it until the exact moment when the planets align, you can balance an egg on its end, and you actually need to express that most unthinkable of...

Twitter's Success: Tweeting 600 Times Per Second, but How to Monetize This? [Updated]

Twitter has released some analytical stats that reveal how much of a rocketing success story it is: Forget rumors Twitter has plateaued--Tweeps are now Tweeting over 600 times every second. The sheer volume of that data is astonishing. But can Twitter monetize all this activity?

Looking at the curve of Tweets per day over time, the growth of Twitter's popularity can only be described as exponential. Since Twitter's very raison d'etre is somewhat viral--like most social networking...

'Heavy Rain' Creator David Cage Reveals the Secrets of His Photo-Realistic Serial-Killer PS3 Game

Heavy Rain, is an an interactive drama for PlayStation 3 with nearly photo-realistic graphics. It's also an emotional mystery about four people trying to find a boy who's been kidnapped by a serial murderer called the Origami Killer that asks the player: "How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?" I talked with Quantic Dream CEO David Cage, the game's creator, to find out more.

Kevin Ohannessian: How did the game come together?

David Cage: When Fahrenheit was finished we...

Brand It. Brand It Good. Devo Crowdsources Its New Look

The New Wave kings re-think those wild red hats in honor of their new album, the first in 20 years.

Are they not icons? They are Devo! So what's with the re-branding? If you caught Devo's performance at the Olympics last night, you might have noticed their new -- gasp -- white suits and blue hats (apparently passed out to the crowd; the band went hatless). The band's first album in 20 years, Fresh, comes out in May, and they were hungry for a change. According to a bizarre, marketing-speak...

Twitter's Success: Tweeting 600 Times Per Second, But How To Monetize This?

Twitter has released some analytical stats that reveal how much of a rocketing success story it is: Forget rumors Twitter has plateaued--Tweeps are now Tweeting over 600 times every second. The sheer volume of that data is astonishing. But can Twitter monetize all this activity?

Looking at the curve of Tweets per day over time, the growth of Twitter's popularity can only be described as exponential. Since Twitter's very raison d'etre is somewhat viral--like most social networking...

Macmillan's New Digital Textbooks Let Profs Reorder, Rewrite, and Stick It to Rival Academics

Macmillan's newly announced DynamicBooks textbooks are a huge change for the stodgy, ultra-conservative world of academic writing. The digital textbooks give professors the power to reorder chapters, insert extra reading, delete irrelevant passages, rewrite individual sentences, and scribble in the margins. Oh, and they'll cost half the price of physical textbooks.

The inherent question here is whether professors should actually have the right to alter textbooks as they see fit--but the fact...

Apple's "Boobie Apps" Banning Resulted In the SuicideGirls' Removal

Apple claims they removed those 5,000 boobie apps because women were complaining over the "degrading" and "objectionable" content. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the removal of the SuicideGirls' app--which actually empowers women--seems most questionable.

Sure, the free app features nudity. If you count nudity as being of the bras 'n knickers kind. But when the site was set up by a woman, and populated entirely by women, it just means Apple really does have to define what criteria an app...

How One Ad Agency Boosted Productivity After Cutting Costs

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EFFICIENCY EXPERTS: Sharon Napier and Jeff Gabel embraced ISO 9000 and reaped big gains. | Photograph by João Canziani

As the ad business carps about cost controls, one agency embraces them and thrives.

Close your eyes and listen to the fight. One side says we have to change the way we do things now and the other warns grimly that if we do, the end result will be the Dark Ages. This isn't Washington, D.C., but the Madison Avenue echo chamber, with corporate America pushing for cost...

How to Sell New Innovations Without Killing the Excitement

So you've got a great innovation on your hands--a new product or service
that is going to change everything. Well, soon you'll face your first
battle: How to explain the thing. If it's new, it's going to take some
explaining, but long explanations make for lousy marketing. So how do
you talk about your innovation without killing the excitement?

The first thing you've got to do is anchor in what people already know. So
let's say I had to explain Netflix to somebody who'd never heard of...

Macmillan's New Digital Textbooks Let Profs Reorder, Rewrite, and Stick it to Rival Academics

Macmillan's newly announced DynamicBooks textbooks are a huge change for the stodgy, ultra-conservative world of academic writing. The digital textbooks give professors the power to reorder chapters, insert extra reading, delete irrelevant passages, rewrite individual sentences, and scribble in the margins. Oh, and they'll cost half the price of physical textbooks.

The inherent question here is whether professors should actually have the right to alter textbooks as they see fit--but the fact...