Thou that does not believe…

The conference was for developers. Facebook has a large developer base. Some of the successful developers were at the conference sessions answering questions and giving advice. These successful Facebook developers were singing Facebook’s praises. I wondered if anyone else noticed the problem or conflict of interest in his or her words.

For example, one of the features announced by Facebook was the “like” button outside of Facebook. Users can “like” an article and it shows up in their stream to share with their friends. Sharing is the underlying message – share everything! Of course Facebook wants their users to share items and put them back on Facebook so they can monetize the data and keep more people in Facebook. If a person has enough friends sharing relevant information, the need to leave Facebook and read Twitter (or use another method of reading interesting articles) diminishes.

The more people using Facebook, the higher the odds some of them will use their application. Obviously, Facebook developers want whatever helps bring people in Facebook and spend more time there. What are the odds that a new developer can have the success that the top developers on Facebook has?

Not much…one developer almost slipped up and said so.

Different playing field, different rules…

Facebook has changed a lot since these developers started out. New developers do not have the same advantages and chances to go viral as developers once had. It was pitiful to hear their questions. They wanted access to 400 million users Facebook has and they did not care how they got their access. Spam users? Sure, if it helps their application goes viral. Get user data? Absolutely, and do what is necessary to monetize it, whether the user would like it or not. I could hear the pure desperation and frustration in their voices. Maybe because I heard it before:

I knew that i wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, fucking, now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I dont know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable.

It was pointed out, by the successful developers, that it was not necessary to be on the top charts to have a successful applications. Many applications did well being in the top 50 or 100 applications. It was also said many applications did well with 100,000 users. At the time of this writing, these are the top 10 applications:

1. Farmville – Zynga
2. Birthday Cards – RockYou!
3. Texas HoldEm Poker – Zynga
4. Café World – Zynga
5. Causes – Causes
6. Mafia Wars – Zynga
7. Treasure Isle – Zynga
8. PetVille – Zynga
9. Happy Aquarium – CrowdStar
10. Mobile – Facebook

Farmville has more than 80 million users. Petville has 21 million users. Facebook’s mobile application has 20 million users. Going to the top 25 applications, number 25 is CountryLife with nine million users. Facebook lists the top 200 applications. As of today, to make the list the application would have about 871,000 users (I rounded up to the nearest thousand). For the applications recommended to me, the one with the lowest number of users was 428,000.

Most applications will never see that many users.

Reality…in the numbers

Facebook obviously wants developers to make applications for users. Is it possible for a new application to have the level of success Zynga or the top 20 people have? Sure, but think about it. Unless their growth stops or plateaus, Zynga has 80M users right now on one application. By the time a new developer makes an application worthy enough to compete, Zynga will have 100M on Facebook alone. They are already expanding outside of Facebook and I would not be surprised if they were developing more applications for Facebook. They said they had 1000 employees. How can a developer compete with that? By the time a new developer is ready to compete, Zynga could easily dominate the top 10 (by dominate I mean only their applications show up). Let’s not forget that Zynga, allegedly, is not playing fair. They are making applications for the iPhone and the same scams are surfacing there by them.

I hope developers look at things realistically. When it comes to development:

• Facebook – Huge user base but the odd of getting on the top of the charts is slim. To succeed, their plan has to focus on getting Zynga off – even if they aren’t developing games.
• Apple – The iPhone/iPad/iPod market has a decent user base (nothing compared to Facebook) but they have a worse hurdle. The developer could invest in developing an application and it is refused. Or worse, Apple changes the rules of the game later on. Something Facebook has done as well.
• Android – A new marketing with a growing number of users but not nearly as much money to be made now. However, that is the case with all new platforms. The first ones that stick it out tend to usually do better but they have to stay on their game as the developers from other platforms port their applications over.

An interesting perspective: I wonder how many users applications bring to the platform? For example, I just (and I do mean “just”) created a Farmville account. I’m level 3. I could not play without logging in Facebook. I could not play, even though I have an account, without being logged in. I made the mistake of logging out of Facebook (since I was on Farmville.com) and it killed my Farmville game. If I want to play with my friends, I have to make a Facebook account (at this time). They would probably have tripled the amount of users if they were not dependent on Facebook logins. Since it is going by email addresses anyway, and now developers have access to email addresses within Facebook, I wonder if Farmville will become a standalone web game. In addition, the odds are extremely high I am going to kill the Farmville application. The ONLY reason I installed it was because I needed to research the application and I hardly ever use my Facebook account.

There are tons of places for developers to create applications, for example, Twitter. Exciting and challenging times for developers. Every platform has pros and cons but now more than ever, picking the right platform is crucial. So is diversifying if possible and not believing the hype.

I can’t go into specifics about anything but obviously, there are some things that need clarification. For the stupid.

Hello, my name is Tyme White….

I don’t date around, don’t have casual sex, don’t really publicly link to my offline friends on social sites, and I don’t cheat. I have high morals and I think honesty, loyalty, etc. are important. I am not obsessed with sex or having a man in my life.

I’m not the chick a guy will meet at the club and get sex from. I’m not the chick that expects to have her way paid for all the time. I’m not the chick that dates multiple guys. I’m not the chick that is clingy and wants to spend all her time with a guy.

However, if I do enter into a relationship, I will do my best to make the guy happy. Not getting overly serious too quickly, but I will appreciate he is in my life and try not to take him for granted. Hopefully we will learn, share things and grow together.

I’m not the chick that, if a guy comes to me about something, will say whatever words necessary to get him to shut up, and will betray him later on by lying and doing whatever I want to do. I don’t like hurting people I care about. It’s like hurting myself…I feel bad when I accidentally hurt someone.

Let me introduce myself again. My name is Tyme White…

If you thought I was dating someone, you were wrong. If you thought I was attracted to someone, you were wrong. If you came up with these ideas because of something said on Twitter, you’re seriously a dumb ass. If you thought these things, came to conclusions without asking me – fuck you and thanks for knowing me so well. If you came to an ever stupider conclusion (that I can’t say) and especially didn’t ask me – go to hell, fuck you, and karma’s a bitch.

If I were dating someone, I would focus on that one guy because um…that’s what I do. If the guy isn’t good enough to just date him why date him in the first place? And since when have my relationships EVER started out that way? They ALWAYS start out from a CLOSE FRIENDSHIP that developed OVER TIME because…

…wait for it…

I’m not the woman that has casual sex, dates around, etc.

Obviously I need to clarify some more…

If I ask a guy if he wants to hang out with me while I’m on a short trip…does that sound like we’re dating? I mean seriously, that would be a complete diss. To make the plans for the trip, completely exclude him, then – after I’ve been there a couple of days – invite him for a day or two. WTF? What it does sound like is a friend who was going through a tough time that could use a distraction for a day or two. That doesn’t mean he’d be sleeping in my bed. Why?

Aaah…you remember??????

That’s not how I roll.

When I am in a relationship, do I broadcast it, especially in the beginning? No…why….

Oh yeah, I don’t link to offline people on my social profiles and I’ve been there, done that. Especially in the beginning, I’d want it to be just about us. Not me, him and the world watching coming up with stupid ass conclusions I’d have to explain.

As much as I’ve been traveling what kind of relationship would that be? Where I purposely leave him out? Just pick up and go. Without a second thought to the guy. There are so many things here that are totally against my personality it’s laughable.

Except I am pissed off royally.

Do you know what it is like to have to explain everything?

You know I had to have a script written to periodically replace commenter information (email, IP) because I have stupid asses in my life that like to hack into shit? If I say a guy has a nice chest, nice legs, sexy name that somehow translates to some sort of higher level relationship. Yes, I can’t give compliments anymore without it getting twisted. Do you know what it is like to be worried your friends, who might not even be that close to you and heaven help them if they are, might say the “wrong” thing, drawing too much attention to them publicly because I have stupid asses in my life that don’t talk to ME about situations yet jump to stupid ass conclusions?

And let’s not forget praying that this time I’m being told the truth, the person will keep their word and is being straight with me.

That’s sad. It’s not normal. It’s definitely not healthy.

Seriously, get it together…

In life you will encounter toxic people. The type of person that knows they have faults, don’t resolve them, but are quick to point out faults in others. Willing to tear someone else apart to escape their own miserable life…they are too weak to fix. People who will drive wedges in good friendships because of their own insecurities. There are all types of toxic people with different sets of “symptoms”. In the end, they do not bring “good” into your life.

I try very had to bring “good” into the lives of those that are close to me. I try very hard to be loyal, honest, and dependable. For the most part, when my friends need me they know I will be there. Not only do we have fun with one another but we have a strong foundation. When the foundation begins to crumble and the “good” turns into bad (I’m dependable, loyal and honest – they aren’t. Not that I’m perfect but when I see something not working (or something outsides the boundaries I feel comfortable with), if I can’t resolve it, I’ll boucne), there is only one thing that can happen: the friendship, relationship, etc. crumbles.

If you keep toxic people in your life you become toxic yourself. If you’re one of those that want to be successful in life, your ability to achieve that success is directly dependent on you’re ability to remove toxic or “bad” situations out of your path. There are many paths to success but few ways to maintain it…the ability to make the right decisions the majority of the time over a long period of time.

It has gotten to the point where I don’t say anything about what is going on in my personal life anymore to anyone (but my crew) because of this. Stupid shit. This is why my Facebook profile is empty, MySpace is unused, comments are usually closed on my site and in a minute Twitter will go dark too. It’s not worth it. This is foreign to me because, at one time, I talked about personal things and my words touched people in different ways (didn’t really have toxic people in my life then). I miss that and I’ve become disinterested in many things because the thought of the drama turns me off.

The good news is…

Through World of Warcraft I’m meeting some really cool people and if I can force myself not to be dismal and trust a little bit, I think I can make some really cool friends. Of course, to not drag them into this craziness, I need to get rid of the toxic elements in my life once in for all. I went through crazy bullshit when I was trying to recuperate and I honestly wasn’t strong enough to recuperate and fight stupid shit at the same time. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of pain…some of it I still haven’t gotten over.

But I’m 100% healthy now and I’m done putting up with bullshit.

I’m not going to be the doormat. Not anymore.

And I’m tired of fixing shit that shouldn’t be broken in the first place.

To be triple clear….

This isn’t towards a guy I like that had things wrong (seriously, no guy on my mind at all – none). This is about people thinking weird shit that goes against my everything I believe in. That’s why I never wanted to be a celebrity – they go through this all the time. I’m focused on other things right now. A relationship isn’t a priority for me.

Basically…I want my life back. And I’m grabbing it.

I was doing so good not cursing too…and I know this isn’t going to make sense to many of you but I thought writing this rant would help me cool off. It didn’t.

• Working on Argent Tournament.
• Working towards a Netherwing Drake.
• Doing daily quests…daily.
• Working on the Explorer/Loremaster achievements.
• This week is Children’s Week.
• Just found out Dark Moon Faire started yesterday.
• Working on Sons of Hordir reputation.

There are a zillion other things to do in game that I have not begun to do. For example, while leveling to 80 I leveled so quickly (yes people, I said quickly) this happened:

I play a level 80 Death Knight and there are entire zones I have not seen:

• All the lower zones under level 55 (Death Knights start at 55).
• Obviously I missed at lot of Outlands (see the screenshot?).
• I haven’t seen all of Northrend (especially as new things are adding).

I’m definitely getting my monies worth.

With so much to do, along with balancing life and business responsibilities, one has to have the mindset everything cannot be accomplished at once.

RSS vs. Twitter

Reading Dare’s article today about how RSS readers are like email clients I couldn’t help but laugh because it is all about the person’s frame of mind.

When it comes to blogs and other casual content, this model breaks down. I really don’t need a constant nagging reminder that I haven’t read the half dozen reposts of the same tech news stories about Google, Twitter and Facebook after I’ve seen the first one. Furthermore, if I haven’t fired up my reader in a while then I don’t care to be nagged about all the stuff I missed since they are just blogs so it is OK if I never read them.

Simple solution: mark them read and continue on with your day. Better solution – unsubscribe to the feeds you never really read. Unless someone’s job revolves around RSS (for example, someone with a web site covering technology and the news he/she writes about comes via RSS) the unread items do not have to be read. Just like all tweets do not have to be read. Just like I don’t have to complete every activity in World of Warcraft. Or go to every party on Saturday night. Or keep in touch with every person I met over the years.

See the pattern? As always it boils down to freedom of choice. To get the news on Twitter as efficiently in RSS one has to either:

• Make a group to separate the “news” from friends and pray the “news” people only tweet about news.
• Keep Twitter open 24/7.

And let’s be real about the Twitter being efficient. Retweeting is the most inefficient way of spreading news. The people retweeting mean well and it is wonderful they share their finds. However, the odds of receiving the same news article multiple times on Twitter is much higher than in RSS.

Most people miss the majority of tweets they have access to and do not feel guilty if they miss the tweets – even from friends and loved ones. Add the same carefree attitude to RSS and the problem is solved.

Don’t let your frame of mind limit you.

Just like Stryker did in the movie. Look how crazy he was.

What is a Conflict of Interest?

Wikipedia has a good definition:

More generally, conflict of interests can be defined as any situation in which an individual or corporation (either private or governmental) is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity in some way for their personal or corporate benefit.

Here are some examples of conflict of interest from the same article:

• Self-dealing, in which public and private interests collide, for example issues involving privately held business interests.
• Outside employment, in which the interests of one job contradict another,
• Family interests, in which a spouse, child, or other close relative is employed (or applies for employment) or where goods or services are purchased from such a relative or a firm controlled by a relative. For this reason, many employment applications ask if one is related to a current employee. If this is the case, the relative could then recuse from any hiring decisions.
• Gifts from friends who also do business with the person receiving the gifts. (Such gifts may include non-tangible things of value such as transportation and lodging.)

Now that we have a basic definition let’s get back to Stryker. In the movie, Stryker is a religious fanatic. He killed his wife and mutant son (not shown in the movie) because he felt the birth of his mutant son was a sign from God to destroy mutants. Stryker, holding military positions, had a conflict of interest. His desire to kill mutants over-shadowed everything and was fueled by the positions he had in the military – giving him power to do things outside normal realms.

That’s Easy to See But What About This?

Ok, Stryker is an over-the-top example of conflict of interest. Easy to see, right? Ok, let’s try a more subtle example.

Alan meets a girl (Crystal) and he thinks she’s really cool. He’d like to get to know her better and of course, have sex with her. Crystal thinks Alan is okay and would like to get to know him better to see if he’s boyfriend material. Crystal decides to Google Alan…and she finds his MySpace and Facebook profiles. She sends a friends request, which Alan accepts because he “can’t” say no and still want to get to know her (without angering her) can he?

Crystal looks at the MySpace page and notices there is a woman with the first top left friend slot. She looks at the comments and sees the same woman making comments that imply they are a couple, or dating seriously. Next, she goes to Facebook. The MySpace girl isn’t a friend on Facebook but there is another woman posting comments daily. Crystal knows what that means because she’s done it herself. She looks at both profiles and the relationship status is Single. Crystal becomes angry because she specifically asked Alan if he was single and he said yes.

Next time Alan called her, Crystal asked about the two women. Alan said nothing was going on, they were just friends…and implied Crystal was “tripping” (he is single…he’s not married). While he explained Crystal was looking at the two profiles, looking at what the women said, and thinking Alan must think she’s stupid.

See the conflict of interest? In case you don’t…Alan desire to get to know Crystal better overruled being honest so Crystal can trust him. She called him out and he continued to lie.

Conflict Of Interest Takes You Down the Wrong Path

Stryker’s desire to kill mutants took him down the horrible path of killing and destroying innocent people. Alan’s conflict of interest caused him to lie to a girl that might have been “wifey” material. You can always tell a conflict of interest…

… because the person won’t let it go.

No matter how many people tried to reason with Stryker, he wouldn’t discontinue his mission. Alan, when confronted with his situation, continued to lie about it. In both cases, it’s end-game. To “stop” Stryker would have to give up his military position and reform. If Alan wants any type of relationship with Crystal those girls need to disappear – not hide from view – disappear.

What Alan doesn’t realize is that as long as those two other women are around it is a reminder he lied to Crystal. They were important enough to lie about. How can Crystal forgive him for lying if the women he lied about are still around? Hiding them from view isn’t good enough because when they reappear, unless he blows them off, it reminds Crystal again he lied to her. If Crystal is important, he’d remove the one girl from the top friend slot (if she’s not his girl she shouldn’t be there in the first place), set things straight with both women (ie: blow them off cause they have different agendas) and never put himself in that position again.

How often does a single guy do that? Let’s say almost never and move on…

Spotting the Conflicts….

The more efficient you become spotting conflicts of interest, the more time you’ll save wasting your time on people who are in direct conflict with what you want to achieve. Stryker wasn’t trying to help anyone, he was trying to destroy mutants. Anyone siding with him thinking in the end good would prevail was wasting their time. Crystal, looking for boyfriend material, was obviously looking in the wrong direction at Alan. In Crystal’s case, she spotted it quick and if she walks away the time she’ll waste trying get to know Alan (while he gets it together) she could be spending on a man that already has it together. No one is perfect but lying is not a trait one should look for in the person they want to get involved with. In life, we’ll always be confronted with conflicts of interest…the strong people remove themselves from them because they realize, in the end, it won’t work.

You can’t “win” with someone that has a conflict of interest because pleasing themselves overrules doing what is right.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: The Quick Review

The movie was good, definitely geared towards people not familiar with the comic. For those unfamiliar the movie has unexpected twists and turns where the balance of action/story is more balanced. For those familiar with the story (like myself) you might walk away wishing their was more action. They did a decent job staying true to the original story lines. I enjoyed it and I recommend going to see it.

What Really Happened, the Big Picture

Disclaimer: The thoughts I am about express are based on what these people said THEY wanted to accomplish as goals. Not what “I” want or hoped for them. Just needed to make that real clear…

I often say that I am not blinded by money and that people who are blinded by money usually end up missing their goals because the money takes them down the wrong path. Winning $100K would have been nice but what would the title WCG’s Ultimate Gamer, based on a TV show, really mean to people like Rob, Jamal and Swoozie? They are favorites in the community, and is that what they really wanted?

No…at least not according to them.

When I hear them talk (particularly Rob and Jamal), this is what it seems like they want. They want the cred, the wins and more important the respect that TriForce has earned over the years. Could they achieve that having the title of WCG Ultimate Gamer from a TV show geared more for entertainment than gaming? No…it is not the same because the gaming community does not respect the title. But they do respect WCG’s competitions, and that is where cross-genre props will come from. Filling up walls with wins in multiple genres consistently over a long period of time. As far as the money, if they handle the business side of their career with the same care they place in the gaming side, they have the potential to make a nice income being professional gamers (even if that means focusing on one genre or game).

In the end it boils down to what I talked about in my last article…wanting something and wanting something bad enough to put in the work and sacrifice to achieve it are two different things.

The Benefit of Mark Winning

I am a strong believer in taking gaming to the next level. I had a large gaming community. I have my battle scars trying to make gaming more mainstream. One of the drawbacks to the gaming community is that egos run rampant, the focus on games and gaming communities prevail and although the knowledge is there that gaming needs to become more mainstream to support professional gaming, nothing is really done on a consistent level to promote and educate gaming outside of the community.

Mark’s win made it clear that the underdog can win and that is great for the genre. Put the work in, you can even beat the favorites. Again, I applaud Mark’s win but honestly, that leaves Jamal, Swoozie and Rob free to do their thing without the confines of WCG’s hosting commitments or whatever else they have in store for Mark. I haven’t been to a gaming event in a while but to me it is similar to hosting a party. To be a good hostess I have to make sure everything is flowing good, people are enjoying themselves, the food and drinks are top notch, etc. Rarely can I be the hostess and the person chilling at the party. A get together with friends, sure – that’s chill mode. A party with 100+ people, that’s work. To me that is what Mark would be faced with. If he wants to be a pro gamer he’ll have to wear two hats at these events. The pro gamer winning competitions and the host that ensures everyone has a good time.

Mark has a tough road ahead of him. He’s going to have to work on being accepted in the position he now holds and learn how to get people pumped and excited. He has a title from a TV show that no one takes seriously. Mark will have to work hard to be that person people say “Ohh…wow, I want to meet him!” at upcoming events.

Ultimate Gamer, Taking Gaming to the Next Level….Really?

I hear that a lot. “I want to take gaming to the next level!” but really, what does that mean? What are they really doing to help achieve that goal? For pro gaming to sustain itself there has to be a profit. To consistently achieve profits the business side of gaming needs to be taken care of, from all angles. The companies holding the events need to ensure the funds to pay prizes, host events, etc. The gamers need to ensure funds so they can take the time necessary to compete, sustain and promote themselves. The companies investing in the gaming community (sponsors) need to recoup their funds so they will invest again. Gamers have classically dropped the ball on handling the business side of their careers. Let’s look at an example:

Rob is a favorite, well known gamer. He has a MySpace page with less than 2800 friends (at the time I’m writing this). I have no idea how many friends he had prior to the show but that is an extremely low number considering he was a favorite on a show that hundreds of thousands (who knows, maybe millions?) of people were watching each week. The cast are mostly on MySpace, the network that is in trouble and realizes they’ve lost to Facebook as the top social networking site (that’s not news – who doesn’t know that?):

Jon did not bring in Owen because he wants MySpace to be Facebook. “Big web brands can coexist and that’s going to happen,” says one source. Another says Jon knows “the social network game is over” and that “Facebook has won.”

To my knowledge, Rob doesn’t have a web site. I know my audience understands the importance of managing a brand but gamers don’t think like that. They’ll hype up a third party site instead of their own. It’s time to open their eyes and really see the opportunities ahead of them and realize they might take different paths to achieve their goals. What if MySpace decides to close their account for some reason? What if MySpace goes out of business? Pro gamers need followers other than gamers to sustain. They need the non-gaming people to take interest in them as people, support what they do, support their sponsors so that the circle is complete. For pro gaming to succeed everyone has to benefit: the gamers, the companies holding the competitions/promoting gaming and the sponsors.

Things Happened the Way They Should

And that is why it is good Mark won last night. He can host events and be the underdog that won. He is an inspiration to some gamers. It keeps the dream alive that they too can have opportunities like that. His story will hopefully open up gaming and draw more people to it.

That leaves the guys free to, if they dare, take things to next level. Show the kids that will eventually take their place how it is done. Lock their brands down, give the sponsors a reason to back them other than “I can play games”. Give their audience a reason to take interest in them and tell their friends about this cool gamer they found.

There is no excuse for these gamers not to have a basic site with general information like their upcoming competitions, what they specialize in, their press, and if they really want to slam dunk it – interact with their audience. Take the followers they have on third party social sites like MySpace or even XBL and convert them to fans that are excited to hear and interact with them on their own sites. If MySpace dies, their site will still be standing. Understand how social networking and marketing work so that they don’t say and do things that places them in a negative light, without the knowledge on how to spin it into a positive. When I search for Swoozie I should get the one, the only sWooZie, not a store. If someone doesn’t know Jamal’s gamer tag they’ll never find him. Rob…he’s a fun one to find if you don’t know exactly how. Do a search for his name and you’ll get this. I dare you to do a search for prodigy. I know, you’re thinking who would be searching, right? Sponsors when they try to gauge how much reach these gamers have. What are the odds of them making any money back? Fans that want to follow them because they saw them on a TV show but can’t…because they have no individual presence on the net. These gamers seem like good people that don’t “get” the opportunities they are missing. As with everything, we all learn our lessons in our own time.

Let me be clear, having a site isn’t the golden key to success. It takes work to have a “good” web site just like it takes work to be a good gamer. It’s a start. They will begin to be in control of their brand. Their career. Their destiny.

Congrats to Mark for winning and to all the cast for participating in the show. Each one played their part to make the show a success. The first season is done.

It’s time to move on.

Why are comments closed? Because what happened on that show really isn’t important and these are points we haven’t discussed before. We have more important things to talk about moving forward.

The US Commerce Department delivered the semi-shocking news that total retail sales for January rose 1 percent, defying a six-month decline in growth and marking the biggest overall retail gains in 14 months. Of course, that percentage climb paled in comparison to the US gaming industry. Reporting on US software, hardware, and accessory sales today, the NPD Group revealed that industry revenues stood at $1.33 billion for January, a 13 percent climb from a year prior.

Considering that people are purchasing games it is not surprising that GameStop, a game retailer, is doing very well.

For the 12 months ended January 31, 2009, GameStop racked up a company-best of $8.8 billion in sales, up more than 24 percent from the year before. Profits were also up, as the retailer reported more than $398 million in net earnings, an increase of more than 38 percent year-over-year.

That doesn’t make sense does it? People are losing their homes and jobs in record numbers yet people are spending money on games. How can that be? Diversification is GameStop’s savior.

Learn to Read the Small Print

If you read the article on GameStop’s profit there is one part that should have stood out, since it explains everything.

Regardless of new game sales, it’s the used game business that produces the most money for GameStop. While used games represented just 23 percent of the retailer’s sales in 2008, they accounted for nearly 43 percent of its gross profit.

GameStop’s used games sales represented 23% of the retailer’s sales but 43% of their gross profit. Time for a business lesson.

Gross Profit = Sales – Cost of Goods Sold

In plain English, gross profit equals sales minus costs directly related to sales. The used game sales buffed their gross profit because they have few costs associated with them versus new games and consoles that need to be advertised and marketed. As people are pinched pennies they exchanged their old games for new games or purchased old games instead of new games. People exchanging their games builds GameStop’s inventory and there is a demand by gamers for games, even used ones.

The beauty of this: as a gamer, if I want to get rid of an old game, GameStop is the place to go. GameStop has a lock down on used game sales that other retailers wished they had.

The Lesson for You

If you are in business, if you can, diversify your offerings but not at the cost of losing quality on current offerings. In other words, do not stretch yourself too thin. GameStop compliments their offerings, without extensively increasing expenses, by selling used games. How could this work online?

One of the common mistakes I see – people and companies are too reliant on third party sites. If all your traffic depends on third party sites you are in trouble. Instead, start your own site and have your site be a portal to the third party sites. Perez Hilton is a good example. His site is the portal then he sends traffic to other sites (Twitter, YouTube, etc.). When Twitter goes down his site still performs as normal. If Facebook changes their homepage his site is not dependent on that traffic. However, he can interact with Facebook users and send traffic to his Facebook profile or fan page. Perhaps make new friends which will come back to his web site, where the meat of his content lies.

However, if maintaining profiles on social sites is too time consuming, do not spend too much time over there. Instead, use the power you have worked hard for on your site to send traffic to members on those third party sites. That will make them happy, most likely draw more people to the profiles and to your site to see who you give props to next.

Depending on the goals you are trying to achieve, there are ways to strengthen your foundation. Think about what GameStop is doing. New consoles and games are not making them as profitable as they are; it is the used game sales that is making them profitable right now.

• Company allows developers to create software to interact with their product.
• Things go well for a period of time.
• Some greedy developer decides to push the limits, crippling the user experience.
• Company ends up putting in restrictions to block malicious behavior.
• Developers get upset because the rules changed.

People scoff at knowing history but one who takes the time and knows the history of their community or niche will go far by not repeating the same mistakes. Knowing what I stated above, one would think the people who created add-ons for World of Warcraft would not be surprised at the new policy changes. Let’s take a look at what happened and then look into the future.

Things Go Well For a Period of Time

Blizzard, through their API, allows developers to create add-ons that can add functionality to the game or even change the UI’s appearance. World of Warcraft was released four years ago and the add-on community is extremely active. Most add-ons are free, some ask for donations and there are a small amount of premium add-ons that have to be purchased to use. The creativity of the add-on community is excellent. The period of time things went well? Four years. Before we go any further, let’s keep in mind World of Warcraft’s Terms of Service that everyone agrees to when they play the game:

Grant of a Limited License to Use the Service
Subject to your agreement to and continuing compliance with the Terms of Use agreement, you may use the Service solely for your own non-commercial entertainment purposes by accessing it with an authorized, unmodified Game Client. You may not use the Service for any other purpose, or in connection with any other software.

Additional License Limitations.
B. exploit the Game or any of its parts, including without limitation the Service, for any commercial purpose, including without limitation (a) use at a cyber cafe, computer gaming center or any other location-based site without the express written consent of Blizzard; (b) for gathering in-game currency, items or resources for sale outside the Game; or (c) performing in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling;

Some greedy developer decides to push the limits, crippling the user experience.

Over time developers got the bright idea of making income off of the add-ons. Most just wanted to recoup their hosting fees and if there was extra they were happy. The ones that wanted to make a living off of their add-on (they went from creating to boost the community to being all about the money). As with all things, if someone is doing something for the wrong reasons they tend to make dumb decisions. Let me be clear in distinguishing the greedy developer from a developer like Zygor. Zygor’s leveling add-on(s) were not free but they handled their “business” like a business by advertising their product, not soliciting customers or abusing privileges, they supported their product, etc. They even had an affiliate program giving bloggers the opportunity to make money. Zygor reminds me of strategy guide publishers. They handled their business the same way.

Enter the Carbonite and QuestHelper developers. Carbonite and QuestHelper are leveling add-ons. Carbonite charged for their add-ons (but had a free limited version) and QuestHelper solicited for donations once the add-on was installed in-game. To compete with QuestHelper Carbonite developers got the bright idea of offering a free version with advertisements, in game. Many users were shocked to update the add-on and find in-game ads. Considering one pays to play World of Warcraft there are not many people who want to see advertisements but there were many people who were dependent on the add-on to level, particularly since the free “crippled” version of Carbonite was included in many UI packages. Things were quickly getting out of hand and it was time for Blizzard to step in. To be fair there are other add-on developers “pushing the limits” but these two add-ons are two the community will always name first.

Company ends up putting in restrictions to block malicious behavior.

The timing was perfect for Blizzard to step in because a patch is on the horizon where many of these add-ons would break. Update under the new terms or leave the playground. Blizzard announced the new add-on policy. Keep in mind that Blizzard does not take away the ability to make money completely:

5) Add-ons may not solicit donations.
Add-ons may not include requests for donations. We recognize the immense amount of effort and resources that go into developing an add-on; however, such requests should be limited to the add-on website or distribution site and should not appear in the game.

Essentially, an add-on developer will possibly make enough to recoup hosting fees and perhaps have extra money but the odds of making a living off an add-on are minimal.

Developers get upset because the rules changed.

Of course, some developers (namely the ones pushing the limits) became upset and some pulled their add-ons. Others will not be updated after the next patch. The add-on community is shaken up a bit but when the patch drops, the community will band together and honestly, there are free add-ons people will migrate to.

The key here: in order for Blizzard (or any company) to stop the deviant behavior, the change has to be applied to the entire community.

History Tends to Repeat Itself

For those that scoff at knowing history, smart people learn from history and do not repeat the same mistakes. If I were a developer I would not expect to earn money from something I built off of someone else’s API unless it was something like Apple or Facebook, where there was a verified (endorsed) system in place. Apple and Facebook charge a fee and encourage the developers to make money. In other words, a better foundation exists to build one’s future. Even in these environments, companies have later added restrictions because of #2 – the greedy developer.

Keep in mind it took four years for Blizzard to implement this change. If you are going to develop something that interacts with someone else’s intellectual property, invest your time with a company that has firm rules in place. It will save you a lot of trouble in the end.

If you opt not to follow my advice and when the inevitable change happens because the greedy developer surfaces, do not complain. Do not whine. You made your bed.

Lie in it. Quietly.

Swoozie finished a set of videos based on his experience with Sims Online. In Part 1 he explains how he got into the game and how he met a “friend”, the girl was popular, and to make a long story short, she moved in with him (in game), leaving her “husband” in a very cold manner (a Dr. John letter). In Part 2 Swoozie explains how things got old as they settled into a married couple type life style and how having “fun” again in the game backfired royally. I highly recommend looking at the videos. They are awesome and Part 2 will definitely make you laugh. If you want to subscribe to the RSS feed for YouTube here is the feed.

With social media (Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) it is very easy to meet new people online. Games (computer and consoles) makes it even easier. I’ve said many times the internet is like a shield for a person to act like a fool do something they wouldn’t do face to face. I keep it real – I’m the same way online and off. I don’t say anything behind a person’s back I haven’t said to them personally (unless I don’t talk to them of course) but if I do communicate I’m not going to smile in their face and stab them in the back talk about them behind their back.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of taking for granted the people we interact with online because the consequence of them reacting to it face to face isn’t there. Let’s step back a minute and talk about this.

In Swoozie’s video the lady he encountered was married to the mayor in the game. Swoozie spent a considerable amount of time with the girl before she asked to move in with him and Swoozie had no idea she was married. Where was the mayor? Why wasn’t he spending time with his “wife”? If he was handling his business in game she wouldn’t have been able to spend as much time with Swoozie as she did. When she “divorced” the mayor she had no problem writing him a Dr. John letter and moving in with a guy she’d know a week or so. When Swoozie “cheated” on the girl he kept saying, “It’s just a game” but instinctively he knew what he was doing was “wrong” because he took measures to mask his actions. That said, I don’t believe if Swoozie had “real” interactions with her he would have made the same choices….and that’s the crux of this article.

It’s so easy….

Online we create friendships easily and learn a lot about people. In Facebook every day I get the opportunity to share in the lives of complete strangers. When they get new partners, break up, get married, have kids, get fired I see their updates, almost as they unfold. It is very easy to feel as if you know someone, without ever talking to them or meeting them, because you know so much about them. And because of this, people enter into partnerships, friendships, relationships, etc. with people online because, let’s be honest, the internet is a wonderful networking tool.

How often do those different type of relationships actually work out? How long before one someone starts taking the other for granted? In a relationship presenting oneself different than he/she really is? In business not doing their share of the work? In friendships not acting like a friend? The trust and mutual respect become broken and the “relationship” falls apart. You’ll no longer be Facebook friends, talk on instant messenger, email each other – it dissolves into nothingness. So easy to move on to the next person….

Lessons learned…

One thing I’d bet Swoozie learned from his Sims Online experience is the fragility of online interactions. If you watch his videos you’ll see he seems to truly appreciate his audience. He doesn’t do the glib “I love you guys!” alone…his actions back up his words. He responds to comments. He lives the life he talks about in his videos. But most important, he makes an effort to release his videos on time. He doesn’t throw a video together, you can see the editing and thought that goes into his videos. The words and the actions match. When you interact with people online, that is what you want to look for. Consistent words = actions behavior.

Ok Tyme, what’s your point girl?

People treat you with exactly how they feel, regardless of what they say. Most times there are cues that show their “real” side that we often ignore. The fact that the girl was willing to leave her “husband” for a stranger (and write him a Dr. John letter) was a sign “flighty”. Asking to move in points to her being clingy. Putting 200K in the tip jar and redoing Swoozie’s house showed she was too attached (playing the wife role). Swoozie was suffering from…

“What you believe determines how you behave…” ~ Swoozie 8/21/07

It is very easy to make oneself appear to be one way when he/she is really the opposite. How do you know what to believe? It is equally as easy to ignore the signs knocking you upside your head. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in how “cool” someone appears to be. Take a good look at their actions instead. Here is another example: Swoozie talks about this in this video:

Make sure you watch the first one (the lies start 4 minutes in) so you know the three lies he tells. Can you tell which one is the lie and which two are the truth? I guessed right but I don’t want to spoil it. I’ll share why reasoning in comments. If you believe a person is cool, regardless of how the person behaves, you’ll treat the person like he/she is cool, ignoring the “bad” behavior (not that the person is getting away with anything because the bad behavior will catch up with them eventually).

Always remember…there is a consequence for every action we take. Don’t assume someone will always be there and take them for granted. Don’t always believe what you are told. Be cautious when the actions don’t match the words.

Look at things realistically…how things are…not how you’d like them to be when you interact with strangers online.

One last thing…

Below is a picture taken from a video response I was going to send to Swoozie to one of his videos. I opted not to send it because I kept looking bugged out. Say goodbye to the light hair. Next week I’m darkening it up. When I went outside the other day, the sun shined on my hair, bounced off the snow, and I lit up the block.

What about social media? Well, the same principles apply. For every decision there is a consequence. In social media it would be a disaster if there were no consequences. Someone that talks a lot about the consequences of start ups is Mike Arrington. This week he talked about the Facebook Burger King campaign drama. Burger King was giving out free sandwiches to Facebook users who dumped 10 friends – and the friends were notified they were being dumped, which goes against Facebook’s policy. Arrington said:

Facebook consistently tell users they can’t do things in the name of privacy, despite the fact that those users know full well what they are up to.

Now let’s go back a minute to what I said about actions having consequences. Burger King was the one who initiated the action of going against Facebook’s policies. If you don’t like the rules don’t play the game. In other words, don’t use Facebook. It’s really that simple. Since Burger King decided to ignore the rules Burger King should be willing to take the consequence – close the application until the friend notification part complies with Facebook’s rules.

If Facebook allowed Burger King to circumvent the rules, what is to stop other application developers from doing the same? One of the “promises” for Facebook users is that the friend will not be notified if he/she is removed. That’s a two way street. The person removing is free to remove people without the ex-friend being notified of the removal. The person being removed will never open their inbox and have that potential humiliating feeling that their “friend” removed them.

It’s a two-sided promise.

But I guess the receiver doesn’t matter, huh Arrington? No, of course not! Only the person sending the notice matters! Yes, that is sarcasm because it is nonsense.

People were willing to dump “friends” (most likely people they don’t know, don’t really care about but accepted to be nice but who knows?) for a sandwich. Self-pleasure for the win, right? As Swoozie’s video points out, every action has a consequence.

It would poetic justice (karma) if someone who dumped a friend ended up having to go for a job interview and the person they dumped as their friend makes the hiring decision. Or he/she falls in love and the best friend of the person he/she fell in love with is the person they dumped for a sandwich.

Because odds are, the person who dumped the friend (depending on the depth of the friendship) will forget who they dumped. The person dumped however, due to the way it happened, might not ever forget.

And up comes that forgotten consequence….

1) Many of the active people in comments weren’t around so comments would be light.
2) From what I can tell most the people that comment on my site don’t use Twitter.

Writing the article, I knew, would be an unpopular move (in terms of interaction) but I felt the need to express myself on the topic so I did it anyway. My core audience is the average, normal everyday non-geek person (mainstream-ish audience). Twitter has almost no appeal, Facebook is for friends only (people they know), they have no desire to try every new application that comes on the web. Matter of fact, their internet time is limited because they spend more time living their lives offline that interacting online. I’m lucky, I have the opportunity to find out things about my audience one on one.

Most people with sites aren’t that lucky. They are writing in the dark hoping to find people who connect with their content. That is where I think they fall into the pitfall of over-caring about traffic. People start blogs in hopes someone reads them, they check their stats to see if anyone is reading, then get trapped in being focused on the stats.

And unfortunately begin to care very little about the readers themselves.

You see this all the time. “I’ll do what I want, how I want, when I want but oh yeah, let me check those stats!”. When I see this I wonder how they expect to get traffic without understanding their audience? But tell me this: if you go to a restaurant and they don’t have what you want, do you stay? If the dealership doesn’t have the car you want do you look elsewhere? If the boy/girl you like doesn’t have the traits you’re interested in, do you make him/her your boy/girlfriend?

No.

Then why, while you’re doing what you want, when you want, how you want (with no knowledge about what YOUR readers want) should any reader stay on your site? What have you done for them lately?

And there you have, in a nutshell, why social sites are popular. Easy to gain followers with little to no effort.