The Leaper’s skill lay in his ability to detect bullshit. Being bright, a former engineer, and familiar with the problem space, he could tell when he was being spun. He knew when he was hearing less than the truth. Generally he was understanding when he sampled ambiguity, but there was one sure way to get him to leap: answer a question with an excuse.

The Leaper attacked excuses as a personal affront. He wouldn’t let anyone leave the room until it was painfully clear that the excuse card had been played, that it was unacceptable, and that the proper steps were taken to make sure it would never happen again.

The article is a good read. It is an honest entry on how often he uses excuses and why he used them. This made me wonder…

How often do we realize we are receiving excuses?

When someone says, “they are swamped” many times that is the truth? They are busy juggling things and missed doing something; don’t have the time to do something, etc. That does not change the fact that “something” isn’t getting done. When you receive an excuse what makes you madder? The fact you are getting an excuse or something not being done when it should be? Of course, there are people who say they are swamped when they aren’t. They are procrastinating on doing what is supposed to be done.

I’m not above making excuses

I may as well bring this up because I know some of my readers will be thinking about it. World of Warcraft. Not running instances/raids. I know, excuse after excuse. Here’s the real blunt deal:

• I don’t like being told how to play a game I am paying for. That happens a lot in WoW. “You’re playing a BM Hunter? They don’t deal out maximum DPS and shouldn’t because they are so easy to play…”, “Death Knights are overpowered! Whine whine whine!” “Feral Druids as DPS? No my dear…”. I hate that but unfortunately, that is what happens.
• I really don’t like running an instance praying for my gear to drop and if it does, I might not get it. Add to that the gear is needed to progress. Very time-consuming.
• I love PVP but I don’t want to play in arenas to do it. Battlegrounds were cool until they killed them with arenas (and they admit they screwed up with arenas).
• I missed my friends. That was what made the game fun. I made some friends in game but it wasn’t the same as my homies (the dynamics change because I don’t mind not getting gear because it isn’t about gear anymore).

I made every excuse in the book not to run them because I felt guilty not doing what everyone else was doing. I never adapted to what was fun to me…running a business within WoW. I might not have the best gear but I would have had fun maxing out my bank account and buying everything in game. If I log back in, I’ll explore that.

Anyway, instead of just admitting it and moving on I tried to do something I didn’t want to do and made excuses. Which I am sure all you very smart people saw through.

Ironically, in business I am the opposite. I don’t make excuses and I don’t put myself in a position for someone to call me out on an excuse (hence I don’t make them). I prefer someone just give me the real deal. I prefer to be mad for a minute than lied to. Excuses backfire in the long run.

How to improve on the excuse front

In business excuses are damaging. When something goes wrong or someone messes up the first (instinctual) response is to excuse yourself from blame or justify why it happened. Instead, just be honest. The truth will eventually come out anyway. Say something of value, turn things around. Instead of making excuses I should have said, “Without my peeps, instances aren’t my thing. This is what I do…” and leave it at that. Look how many maxed out bank accounts I could have had by now?

Read The Leaper. Then stop making excuses.

Written by: Tyme White | Follow Tyme on Twitter | Be Friends on Facebook

For example, Alistar in the above image is a member of my party. He is a fellow Grey Warden. He is “my” type of guy (sense of humor, made mistakes (he used to hunt mages!) so doesn’t judge others too harshly, doesn’t necessarily open up easily but talking he slowly lets the walls down, loyal, etc.) so when I found out that there are love scenes in the game I decided he is the one my character will have the love scene with, and hopefully fall in love. Here is where my ethics kicked in:

Once I made up my mind that I wanted the Alistar pairing, I wanted to see who else I might have fits and giggles pairing my character with before starting up with Alistar because he is long-term. I don’t cheat…I mean my character doesn’t cheat. Allegedly, there is a possibility to have a threesome in the game. If my character does the threesome (because um, when will that happen again? A threesome in a RPG?) it again has to be before Alistar and not with Alistar. Notice the half-naked bitch to the left. She is a powerful mage so I need her but damn, put some clothes on around my man. My character’s man. Bitch. I don’t like her because allegedly Alistar will have to have sex with her (to procreate) to save the world or some shit. Yeah, I know, my character doesn’t know shit and I don’t like it but not enough to stop my character from pairing up with Alistar. My toon will be a powerful mage. Maybe I can change that storyline….

Or another example: As a mage we have to go through a test called the Harrowing. I passed but not all mages do. To be a mage there has to be a strong sense of right and wrong, not to use magic for bad purposes. Blood mages are bad in the game. A fellow mage confided in me that he was seeing an initiate – which is forbidden. He said he thought he was being denied the Harrowing because he was being made Tranquil – stripped of emotion and feeling. He wanted to destroy his vial of blood in the tower so that the process could not happen and he could not be tracked down when he escaped.

While the story unfolded I felt he was lying, even before the clues gently pointed in that direction. When the option came up to tell our superior what he was up to, I told but felt uncomfortable doing it, especially being asked to deceive him by helping him get his blood (I prefer confrontation over lies). I did as I was told (which is often what happens in business – you find out someone is screwing up but no matter how good of a friend that person is, the situation must be corrected) and he eventually revealed himself as being a blood made. His girlfriend was devastated because she trusted him and was going to pay a heavy price for it (prison). I hoped his cowardly ass (he ran away and escaped) comes back up in the game so I can kill him. Or feed him to the darkspawn.

What’s so different about this game?

I looked forward to playing a Death Knight in World of Warcraft. I happily killed up innocents without giving it a second thought. In Dragon Age: Origins, I am careful and I match my choices with my own ethics. What is the difference?

The decisions I make in Dragon Age: Origins have consequences. Without knowing what they are, I tread lightly. If I play through the game again, knowing what happens, I will have more of a WoW play style. It won’t matter. People say they play wild and crazy to escape their life but I wonder if they make similar choices in real life, maybe without even realizing it?

I love that the game has choices. You can play good or more belligerent and smart mouthed. There is a guy who has already played through the entire game and uploaded it on YouTube. A very cool concept and a lot of work. I enjoy his commentary and watching him make choices that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. He sides with good choices. He opted to have his male warrior pair with Morrigan, by viewer request.

I guess, in the end, I am always one to be aware of how what I do today may impact me tomorrow. Sometimes I’ll care, sometimes I won’t but I’ll always be aware.

Written by: Tyme White | Follow Tyme on Twitter | Be Friends on Facebook

Here’s how you could sell the guide and not put up a single ad: Create a post about gold guides and how you hate them. Give examples of guides and then at the very end start talking about my gold guide and use my blog as credibility for the guide. Perhaps you can mention that this guide is the only one you will even consider tolerating. Leave a link to the 20kleveling.com site with your clickbank hoplink encrypted inside of it. I can guarantee that if you did this you would make $500-$1000 the first day it was posted. You’d maintain your ‘street credibility’ and at the same time make some great money. What’s more that post will continue making you money for as long as it exists because it will always have traffic hitting it and users clicking on the link. Just think about it, if you need help setting up the clickbank id and the link let me know.Markco’s email to Gevlon from Greedy Goblin

That’s the words of someone desperate to make money. Marcko claims he makes good money but his actions (and persistence of shoving his gold guide down people’s throats even when they say they are not interested) does not match his words. You can read some of his responses in the comments here (ironically it is the one year anniversary of his blog).

Because he approached the wrong person…a person who, if one took two seconds to think about it, would obviously say no. Gevlon.

Gevlon, the Greedy Goblin

Gevlon has a gold making blog as well. He posts all of his tips for free (disclaimer: he hasn’t been posting any recently but there is a wealth of information there on how to make gold). He has a unique personality and some strong opinions. He also regularly calls out morons on his blog (his word, not mine). Every Friday, he highlights people making unwise hustling type decisions. So you can see, it was really stupid (for lack of another word) for Markco to approach Gevlon. The risk was way too high that Gevlon would publish his email just like he does everyone else, ruining Markco’s credibility (which implies strong motives on why Markco would do this *cough – needs money* to take a stupid risk of approaching Gevlon twice). Why would Markco be an exception to being a “moron” if he was acting just like everyone else? Gevlon is taking some heat from some about posting Markco’s emails. Funny how two-faced people are. It was fine for Gevlon to post “moron” emails from in the game but let Gevlon post a real-life example and it is called a “bitch move”. That’s bullshit.

And then there were none…

You notice that there is always one that will spoil it for the bunch? An example, addon developers were able to make some money until someone decided to get greedy and push the envelope, causing Blizzard to take action. This is the exact same scenario. While addon developers were restricted from making an income, gold selling guide makers were doing okay.

Until now…maybe.

The problem is that Markco used shady tactics to sell his guide, which happens to be about playing World of Warcraft. Again, this proves an act of desperation because Blizzard has proved, many times, they will protect their IP. When bloggers are harassed about linking to a guide, Blizzard will step in a make a standard. All because someone got greedy.

And since a couple people told me they were so turned off by Markco’s actions they reported it to Blizzard, wouldn’t be surprised if all gold guides had to be free. If you read the highlighted lines in the image above, you’ll notice Blizzard makes their intent very clear: the game is to be used for non-commercial purposes. Do sites make money from WoW content? Sure they do, but that right can be taken away at any time in a two-fold way: a cease/desist and a more long-term solution by making gold easy to come by rendering gold guides obsolete.

Of course, it doesn’t end there…

For fun, I decided to ask Sassafrass, someone who reviewed the gold guide, how he got the guide:

Sassafrass has approved comments but has not answered my question. If you read the comments (and this is happening where people notice a review/ad for the gold guide), people are disgusted the blogger has the review or ad on the site. The trust is broken for many people and the only way to win it back is for Markco to permanently chill out of marketing the guide. If it sells it sells, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. The need to push it this much implies it is not selling well. Accept it and move on.

Update: It was Sassafrass not Triv that had not responded but there is a response now:

thanks for some support. the comments on the review are getting out of hand. I refuse to partake in any more drama. I conclude most wow players live in a One Tree Hill Ville. Geez.

No response to my question. Gold guide ad still up. Busted…IMO.

Update 2: There is an update below. Also, I received a couple of emails that they reported this issue to Google as well. As we all know, Google has a very clear policy about paid links within content…they don’t stand for it.

My point….

When people do things for the money, eventually their true intentions will show. In this case, one could argue Markco made the site to draw traffic so he could sell the guide. Let’s see if Markco learns his lesson and chills out (permanently) with pushing his guide. If he doesn’t, his actions will speak loud and clear.

Don’t be stupid.

Update 3: I seem to have attracted a troll. Luckily for me (which I kind of had to prove with my last edit), the person impersonated his/herself as someone else. My readers, being very smart people, know what that means .

As far as comments being closed – I easily receive between 200-500 comments on my entries, which makes it very hard to follow (for readers).

Written by: Tyme White | Follow Tyme on Twitter | Be Friends on Facebook

Q: I saw on Twitter you are participating in NanoWrimo. What are you writing about?
A: Currently, I have two things in progress. One is something based on real life but how I wished things were, so that makes it fiction. Booyah! The other is straight non-fiction, more like a memoir. Time will tell which one wins out.

Q: Are you writing erotica?
A: 50,000 words of erotica? Haha, no but if I do something with a love story twist there will most likely be a light-weight love scene in it.

Q: Have you had sex in your bedroom yet?
A: Nope. I tried but I still can’t let go of the “I want the special dude in my bed” thing. My house…I can screw where I want to.

Q: You hated baggy pants. How do you like the skinny jeans trend?
A: I assume you are talking about guys here. I hate it. I swear, guys go to extremes. Their bodies aren’t made for skinny jeans because they have equipment down there. So they end up looking flat assed, small dicked or big balled. And if a guy has skinny legs, why would he wear skinny jeans????????

Maybe I will do some a segment on men’s fashion….

Q: How is World of Warcraft coming?
A: Just had to go there, eh? I’m leveling a Paladin. She’s about to go through the Dark Portal (almost level 58). I enjoy playing her and so far she matches my play style the most (ability to heal, not squishy, DPS, solos good…sort of like myself…yeah). Sometimes I get the urge to play a Hunter for ranged though because I enjoy ranged as well, especially since Hunters are finally getting the overhaul I’ve been complaining about for a couple of years. To me Hunters are finally shaping up to be what they should have been in the first place. If they could heal, that would be it for me.

Q: Are you still playing the Death Knight?
A: No. I got tired of having to re-learn how to play my toon every patch.

Q: Are you still single?
A: Yup, and enjoying it. Seriously. Yes, I would like that special guy (companionship is cool and I like building things together) but I’m cool single.

Q: How is the move coming?
A: I am making progress. Every week I make sure trash day sees some shit I don’t need or want on the curb. I haven’t spoken about this but one hurdle I had was knowing what I needed vs. what I wanted. I can honestly say things happen for a reason. If I had moved previously, I most likely would have fucked myself over, most definitely with Mom getting sick. I’m looking at Portland. I’m going to check it out soon.

Q: You aren’t really going to move, are you?
A: Yes I am. It is honestly the one thing in my life I completely detest. However, with Mom getting sick my needs have changed. Hence, my statement above if I moved earlier, I most likely would have been fucked.

Again, things happen for a reason and sometimes we miss the opportunity that is right smack in front of us because our focus is in the wrong place.

Q: What do you want to do as a career or are you retired?
A: Haha, retired? WTF? I found that I like a challenge (I actually crave it) when it comes to business (but NOT with men – the guy should relinquish himself so we can get to the fun stuff). Hard to find a challenge I haven’t already conquered though. However, I won’t put myself in a position where I am not confident I can accomplish the goal. The problem is that many people want instant results, even if it took years to screw something up. It takes time to build an empire, achieve success, etc. and the things important to us should be worth the effort.

Q: Would you let your lover pay your rent?
A: Hahaha, what rent?

Ok, that is it for this session. Again, if you have questions hit me up: tymewhite@gmail.com. Enjoy the weekend!

Written by: Tyme White | Follow Tyme on Twitter | Be Friends on Facebook

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.

Yes, I have a very sexy Paladin wearing tangas and thigh highs. When I approach my enemies, you know to kill them, they aren’t shaking with fear. They are drooling over my uber sexy toon, perfectly willing to die by the hand of Ms. Sexy.

They didn’t create this gear for women. They did it for men. So men would stay glued to their computers playing their sexy Blood Elves. The horrible thing: I like it. /hangs head

I love my sexy toons. I wish I could make a Shaman a Blood Elf. I wish my Druid was a Blood Elf. I wish I could change my Undead to a Blood Elf. If I could give my toons a slightly darker skin tone I would be in gaming heaven. Interesting that the male Blood Elf is anything but sexy. He’s feminine with hair styles that would look better on women.

Unfortunately in real life, most women don’t come close to being this visually appealing. A large percentage of women are very insecure about their looks, being judged by males that don’t come close to looking as good as the expectation they have for females. From what I am told by males, a good portion of the “pretty ones” have messed up personalities. Just like there is more to my toon than looks (is she an efficient killing machine?) there is more to a person than their looks. Sometimes we forget that.

You didn’t laugh or smirk reading that, did you? Tsk, tsk….

The Unsuccessful Dodge

The Champion achievements are from Argent Tournament. In the beginning, the quests were easy, then I ran into a problem. The daily quest The Grand Melee. I had to defeat a NPC three times (from different cities). The problem: I couldn’t do it. I tried different approaches, read guides and looked at videos, and had my ass handed back to me each time. Smart woman that I am, I realized I could get the achievement without ever completing that daily quest. Booyah! Tyme outsmarted the game again!

Another problem: I don’t like having my ass handed to me so I wouldn’t let it go. I kept trying and the night before I would have made Champion without it, something opened up in my mind, I could see what I was doing wrong, and I won the three matches. It was a great feeling! I turned in my quest and, I received another quest: The Valiant’s Challenge. I had to defeat the Argent Champion before I could get my Champion title. Confident, I started the fight and had my ass handed to me again. And again. And again. This time, there was no way I could get around this.

I had two options: give up or keep trying. I left it alone for a while and tried again late that night. I had to step back and look at it objectively. What was I doing wrong? Then it dawned on me, he was upping his defenses twice faster than the others were and I was putting too much distance between us. It took a couple of attempts but I got it! I happily turned my quest in and I received the two Champion achievements. And another quest: The Black Knight’s Fall. I haven’t tried that yet because getting my Nether Drake is more important and I have no doubt I’ll have my ass handed to me again. However, I could start working on becoming a Champion of the other cities so I decided to check that out. There was only one quest open for me (because I had completed all the other dailies): The Grand Melee.

I have two “Tyme is going to get her ass kicked” quests in my queue. Lovely. I will conquer but it won’t be an easy victory.

Fate, Destiny, Karma…

At one time, I used to talk about fate, destiny and karma. I told the story of a man that was broke and needed a job, the one available to him was a garbage man. He thought he was too good to be a garbage man and found another way. He eventually became a successful doctor but as times changed, he didn’t specialize and he lost his success. He had to find other work and the only job available (so he could get paid without severe repercussions): a garbage man. He postponed his fate but he didn’t change it.

During the WCG Ultimate Gamer series, Rob was placed in the weird position of being up for elimination in the first episode. Swoozie “saved” him by picking someone else. Swoozie did not change Robert’s fate, he only postponed the inevitable.

I postponed doing The Grand Melee quest but in the end, I would have been better prepared if I mastered it earlier. As hard as I try I cannot stay focused writing about business. I always, inevitably end up writing about life’s lessons.

Look at your life and look at the things you think you are dodging and realize one day…you’re going to have to face them. The things of most value in our lives are the ones that take effort and sacrifice.

Be prepared.

• 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.

Along with the new content was an update to WoW Armory, a database site run by Blizzard. Users can search through player profiles (their specs), see guild information, and find upgrades for gear.

The updates to the site added Achievements to the front page and showing a player’s dual spec, a new feature added to the game with the patch. They also made small changes to the design of the site to improve usability.

The reason I am mentioning this? When the patch went live, it is kind of obvious that the new dual spec feature would be used by players since they’ve been talking about it for months. If players and users were going to use the feature then it makes sense to have dual specs viewable in the armory, doesn’t it?

Do you know how many companies would be so focused on launching the patch they would not have the Armory ready? Do you know how many, in an effort to meet the deadline they miscalculated, would launch anyway…knowing their users would be frustrated?

Tons.

The internet has a massive amount of half-done sites that expect to make money. I admit, I enjoy tweaking my site(s). This site, in its current form, is not complete. However, if I were going to release something where users needed information (and expected it to be on the site), I would have those components synced. Do you see the difference?

Cutting corners is not the way to success. Let’s look at another example…

Demigod, a real-time strategy game by Stardock and Gas Powered Games, released this week. They had problems with the online component to their game. Some people were unable to connect. Stardock addressed this issue head on:

“While I can say that there are, even as I type, many hundreds of people playing online together, mostly in Skirmish and Pantheon games, there are many hundreds of others having trouble connecting to people in custom games or having skirmish or pantheon doing something odd due to the server overload,” Wardell wrote. “We are working to address it and what I mean by that is that we intend to release another update this week to deal with as much of what we’ve found as possible.”

They had another problem to battle. GameStop broke Demigod’s street date and released the game early.

“First, it was Easter weekend. And many of us had just finished a good solid 8 weeks of massive crunch and were looking forward to the weekend to recover. Instead, we found ourselves back at work having to turn on and configure the multiplayer matchmaking servers (we had enough for a beta but not for thousands of people).”

They had unexpected problems that caused their launch to be troublesome. Unexpected problems happen all the time in business. To make sure a launch goes smoothly making the deadline is not enough. Making the deadline early so all tasks are complete, employees are well-rested, etc. leaves room for reflection to spot problems or potential enhances that would make the launch even smoother. In Stardock’s case, they were trying but the long crunch they talked about implies they were rushing to get everything done. Rushing most times leads to problems.

Companies are not fooling anyone when they have unrealistic expectations. Blizzard rarely makes the deadline they initially state on patch day. It would be better to give users a more realistic time-frame. Instead of rushing for eight weeks Stardock could have sent (initially) a more realistic launch date that took into account potential problems.

In your own goals, try making a deadline and finishing it early. It is a good habit to ease into.

The Example Problem: Piracy

EA implemented an online authorization system on some of their games to combat piracy. I do not think anyone can blame a company being concerned about piracy if the piracy levels become too high. I do not think anyone can blame a company for attempting to stop piracy if the company begins to lose significant income from piracy. However, if the protection they implement frustrates customers to the point of not wanting to purchase your products, this is when company owners should listen to their customers and make a decision.

Same goes for bloggers or site owners if they make significant changes to their site. When a site owner unintentionally makes changes their audience does not like, the site owner should sit back for a minute and listen to their readers (as in be aware of their thoughts).

Note I said listen (be aware). I did not say implement.

The Important Decision: Choice

Let’s take a look at Seth’s article again because he makes an excellent distinguishing point:

The critics are never going to be happy with you, that’s why they’re critics. You might bore them by doing what they say… but that won’t turn them into fans, it will merely encourage them to go criticize someone else.

This is very true. Critics love to criticize. This is one of the reasons why, when I write a critical piece, I try to go back and revisit the situation to see if the situation I wrote about is the same. If things have changed, I update my readers and I will definitely shift from being “the critic” to “the fan”. A good example of that is my latest Wayne Sutton article.

The key here is to understand the difference between your critics and people who have legitimate points about things you might be doing wrong. Sometimes negative criticism is correct, which is why I make the difference between being aware and implementing.

Seth makes another good point: Ignore fans too.

Your fans don’t want you to change, your fans want you to maintain the essence of what you bring them but add a laundry list of features. You fans want lower prices and more contributions, bigger portions and more frequent deliveries.

If you think of your favorite companies or sites you can relate to this. You might want your favorite pizza place to lower prices, deliver faster, and add specific toppings to their offerings. These requests might actually cause the company to lose money but hey, you want it right?

So who do you listen to according to Seth? Sneezers.

You should listen to the people who tell the most people about you. Listen to the people who thrive on sharing your good works with others. If you delight these people, you grow.

Now let’s bring this back to EA – who did they “listen” to and how can you learn from their experience?

Negative Criticism Sometimes Means You Screwed Up

When EA released Spore last year, they sold over a million copies. The game was also on the top of the piracy charts. Could they have contributed to their own problem? Why should a customer legally purchase the game and frustrate themselves when an option is available to download the game and play in peace? EA even released a de-authorization tool to help ease their customers. The situation was that bad.

This is when a company owner, site owner, etc. should stop and listen…carefully. EA went too far, frustrated their customers and broke their trust. Looking at what everyone else was going through I opted not to play the game at all since I was happily playing World of Warcraft stress free. The critics were right in this case. The method EA implemented was not reasonable and they made their piracy situation worse.

Learning from their mistake, a Sims 3 online authorization will not be implemented. In business (and life) there will be mistakes. Learning from them is a key to success.

Tying it All Together

I think a company/site owner should be aware of what is being said about the company’s products and services. This does not mean the immediate reaction should be to bend over backwards and implement every suggestion because it is impossible to please everyone. However, in some cases “critics” can be right. In the age of mobility and high travel it is not unusual for people to have multiple installs of a game. For example, on a desktop and a laptop or the desktop at home and a desktop at work. Multiple installs does not necessarily equate to piracy anymore.

The key here is that even though EA added the online authorization it still did not stop piracy, it increased it. So why bother going down that path again? There is a difference between users wanting features that does not increase your profit or are not inline with your current goals (ignore those) and users complaining about being able to play the game they purchased (listen to those).

Your users and readers will let you know if you royally screwed up. Learn from the mistake and do not repeat it. I’m glad EA will not be implementing online authorization and because of that…I’m pre-ordering Sims 3.

And that is an example of a critic turning into a fan.