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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
DELTA BETA LAMBDA LAUNCHES WWW.DBLPRO.COM
GAMING FRATERNITY LAUNCHES BETA COMPETITION MODEL FOR PROFESSIONAL & CASUAL GAMERS
United States of America (Press Release) October 19, 2008 -- Spartanburg, South Carolina (Press Release) October 20, 2008 – DBL LLC & Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity Inc., announce the launch of The Virtual Athletic Network, the ultimate professional and causal gaming competition website. This new site is being designed for online tournament s, league and game augmented play. Designed by members of The First Gaming & Technology Fraternity members based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, this site is fully content managed, built in valid and accessible XHTML and CSS. Further site will support the Nintendo DS/Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, PS3, PC and iPhone platforms.
DBL LLC , “ A company of gamers with innovation for gamers” focuses on supporting and developing the Delta Beta Lambda brand, Merchandising and project management of our online communities, while beginning to further the development of educational video games for all gaming and educational platforms.
Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity Inc, founded in 2007; The World’s First Gaming & Technology Fraternity with a mission bringing together shared interested individuals at local, collegiate & online communities to promote community service, technology access and gaming involvement.
This site will be the home of the Virtual Athletic Network Beta, which will be comprised of game publishers/developers, online gaming communities, and gaming organizations that will regulate and provide certification for professional level athletes. Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity has formed an online chapter Psi Gamma (www.deltabetalambda.org ) for professional level gamers in order to function as The First Virtual Athletic players union in the industry.
The site will employ professional gamers as trainers, officials, content editors and referees. Registration is available on www.dblpro.com limited to the first 5,000 registered users.
Sponsorship options available: For more information regarding sponsorship contact Eric Whiteside, Project Manager, Email: projectmanager@dbllive.com 864-574-2055 (office) 864-752-1715 (fax).
United States of America (Press Release) October 19, 2008 -- Spartanburg, South Carolina (Press Release) October 20, 2008 – DBL LLC & Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity Inc., announce the launch of The Virtual Athletic Network, the ultimate professional and causal gaming competition website. This new site is being designed for online tournament s, league and game augmented play. Designed by members of The First Gaming & Technology Fraternity members based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, this site is fully content managed, built in valid and accessible XHTML and CSS. Further site will support the Nintendo DS/Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, PS3, PC and iPhone platforms.
DBL LLC , “ A company of gamers with innovation for gamers” focuses on supporting and developing the Delta Beta Lambda brand, Merchandising and project management of our online communities, while beginning to further the development of educational video games for all gaming and educational platforms.
Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity Inc, founded in 2007; The World’s First Gaming & Technology Fraternity with a mission bringing together shared interested individuals at local, collegiate & online communities to promote community service, technology access and gaming involvement.
This site will be the home of the Virtual Athletic Network Beta, which will be comprised of game publishers/developers, online gaming communities, and gaming organizations that will regulate and provide certification for professional level athletes. Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity has formed an online chapter Psi Gamma (www.deltabetalambda.org ) for professional level gamers in order to function as The First Virtual Athletic players union in the industry.
The site will employ professional gamers as trainers, officials, content editors and referees. Registration is available on www.dblpro.com limited to the first 5,000 registered users.
Sponsorship options available: For more information regarding sponsorship contact Eric Whiteside, Project Manager, Email: projectmanager@dbllive.com 864-574-2055 (office) 864-752-1715 (fax).
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Asian Online Game Community Garena Secures $2 Million
Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 29, 2008 - 11:11am.
Singapore - Garena, a Singapore-based company that hosts online game tournaments, has raised $2 million in angel funding from investors including Skype co-founder Tovio Annus and the government of Singapore, Alarm Clock reported.
Garena counts over 5.5 million registered users for its advertising-supported service, which supports LAN games, casual games, and various leagues and tournaments.
The company also has a deal with MTV Asia that lets its users watch MTV programs, music videos and animation content on an integrated player.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/37bdu (Alarm Clock)
http://www.garena.com
Singapore - Garena, a Singapore-based company that hosts online game tournaments, has raised $2 million in angel funding from investors including Skype co-founder Tovio Annus and the government of Singapore, Alarm Clock reported.
Garena counts over 5.5 million registered users for its advertising-supported service, which supports LAN games, casual games, and various leagues and tournaments.
The company also has a deal with MTV Asia that lets its users watch MTV programs, music videos and animation content on an integrated player.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/37bdu (Alarm Clock)
http://www.garena.com
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Project Manager
Changing The Game 3.0
From: DBLColonel, 38 seconds ago
Virtual Athletics Network
Professional Gaming For All Gamers.
SlideShare Link
Game industry projections - 2005 to 2010
Short Sunday post - just some Very Important Data:
Total global game software market:
$23.1 billion in 2005
$35.4 billion in 2010
Compound Annual Growth Rate 8.9%
Mobile game software 2005 $1.67 billion
Mobile game software 2010 $6.5 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 31.2%
PC online game software 2005 $3.2 billion
PC online game software 2010 $9.1 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 23.2%
Console online game software 2005 $0.26 billion
Console online game software 2010 $2.95 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 62.5%
Handheld game software 2005 $3.84 billion
Handheld game software 2010 $2.7 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate -6.8%
PC retail game software 2005 $3.1 billion
PC retail game software 2010 $2.7 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate -2.7%
Console game software 2005 $11.0 billion
Console game software 2010 $11.4 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 0.7%
Online gaming drilldown:
2010 long session market (eg MMOs) $4.82 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 26%
2010 mid session market $4.72 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 29%
2010 short session market (eg casual games) $2.5 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 34%
Total global game software market:
$23.1 billion in 2005
$35.4 billion in 2010
Compound Annual Growth Rate 8.9%
Mobile game software 2005 $1.67 billion
Mobile game software 2010 $6.5 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 31.2%
PC online game software 2005 $3.2 billion
PC online game software 2010 $9.1 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 23.2%
Console online game software 2005 $0.26 billion
Console online game software 2010 $2.95 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 62.5%
Handheld game software 2005 $3.84 billion
Handheld game software 2010 $2.7 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate -6.8%
PC retail game software 2005 $3.1 billion
PC retail game software 2010 $2.7 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate -2.7%
Console game software 2005 $11.0 billion
Console game software 2010 $11.4 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 0.7%
Online gaming drilldown:
2010 long session market (eg MMOs) $4.82 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 26%
2010 mid session market $4.72 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 29%
2010 short session market (eg casual games) $2.5 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 34%
Video games Reference Sources
The video games market reflects consumer spending on console games (including handheld games), personal computer (PC) games, online games, and wireless games, as well as on video game advertising. The category excludes spending on the hardware and accessories used for playing the games.
A sampling of global facts and forecasts:
* "In the US, the console video game market is being driven by the newest generation of platforms. Console/handheld games will continue to dominate the market, increasing at a compound annual rate of 6.3 percent to $11.7 billion in 2012 from $8.6 billion in 2007."
* "In Asia-Pac, rising broadband penetration will drive online gaming in general and MMOGs in particular, especially in China. Across the region, online games will increase at a 13.3 percent CAGR, reaching $5.6 billion in 2012"
* "The introduction of advanced wireless phones capable of downloading games will help to make wireless games the fastest-growing segment of the Canadian market, with a CAGR of 20.2 percent taking it to $346 million in 2012."
A sampling of global facts and forecasts:
* "In the US, the console video game market is being driven by the newest generation of platforms. Console/handheld games will continue to dominate the market, increasing at a compound annual rate of 6.3 percent to $11.7 billion in 2012 from $8.6 billion in 2007."
* "In Asia-Pac, rising broadband penetration will drive online gaming in general and MMOGs in particular, especially in China. Across the region, online games will increase at a 13.3 percent CAGR, reaching $5.6 billion in 2012"
* "The introduction of advanced wireless phones capable of downloading games will help to make wireless games the fastest-growing segment of the Canadian market, with a CAGR of 20.2 percent taking it to $346 million in 2012."
Gaming expected to be a $68 billion business by 2012
If gaming seems to be all the rage these days, just wait until five years from now. PricewaterhouseCoopers has published its comprehensive Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report for 2008. Data from the report indicates that the future of gaming is, unequivocally, a bright one.
The report offers in-depth global analysis and five-year growth projections for the year 2008 through to 2012. As Reuters points out, headlining the report is a projected compound annual growth rate for the gaming industry of 10.3 percent, which will easily top growth in the majority of other entertainment sectors. Global industry sales as a whole will rise from $41.9 billion last year to $68.4 billion in 2012. This falls in line with previous forecasts, including PWC's own from last year that predicted gaming would outpace growth from other entertainment sectors like movies and music.
Console games will continue to lead the way in terms of sales, with an expected growth of 6.9 percent from $24.9 billion in 2007 to $34.7 billion in 2012. In the US alone, the report predicts an increase at a compound annual rate of 6.3 percent, with sales up to $11.7 billion in 2012 from $8.6 billion in 2007. Following suit, online games will also see massive growth. Online games, which generated $6.6 billion in 2007, will jump to $14.4 billion in 2012.
Data source: PriceWaterhouseCooper
Despite comments from industry insiders who adamantly defend the PC market, the study forecasts a decline in PC gaming through to 2012. The sector's sales are expected to drop from $3.8 billion last year to $3.6 billion in 2012. That 1.2 percent drop, though small, isn't great news for the PC market. This will likely come as a result of the general downturn in the number of quality PC game releases, with just a few big titles each year winning the hearts and wallets of PC gamers at large. One would expect that platforms like Steam and GameTap will continue to enjoy growth, however.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the recent influx in video game advertising ventures—most notably the acquisition of Massive by Microsoft and Sony's recent deal with IGA Worldwide—will lead to a 16.7 percent annual growth rate for in-game advertising, as profits are posited to rise from $1 billion in 2007 to $2.3 billion in 2012. It's likely that more companies will begin to take the plunge, too, as profits continue to soar. In-game advertising is here to stay, whether gamers like it or not.
Riding on the ever-increasing wave of success, the oft-ignored mobile gaming market will see the most substantial increases of all. With handheld devices at large hosting more and better games, predictions peg the mobile gaming sector to grow a staggering 19 percent, sales rising from $5.6 billion last year to $13.5 billion in 2012. Canada will apparently benefit the most from this boom following the introduction of more Edge and 3G phones to the country, with a compound annual growth rate of 20.2 percent, bringing profits for the sector up to $346 million in 2012.
With more and more consumers picking up a controller these days, the video game industry shows no signs of slowing down. The report makes it clear that gaming is clearly going to outpace almost every other form of entertainment, movies and music included. That could mean that movie and music revenues continue to fall as game revenues rise. These forms of entertainment are all competing for the same wallets.
For the gaming industry, growth is proceeding at a rapid rate, and it's not hard to look past these figures for 2012 and see an even brighter future as the industry moves toward the eighth generation. For that to happen, though, game companies will be pressed harder and harder to come up with new ideas, which could make for an uphill battle. After all, the last time industry forecasts looked this rosy, back in 1983, the whole industry crashed.
Video Gaming Industry Adapting to Internet Age
By JARED NEWMAN, Special to the Sun | February 1, 2007
In the future, video games will be shorter in length. They will be easier to comprehend, and they will appeal to a wider audience. They will lack hefty instruction manuals and lengthy tutorials. Many will be downloadable. Some will contain advertisements.
These were some of the ideas tossed around Tuesday evening at a panel discussion on the booming video game business at New York University's Stern School.
With broadband Internet becoming more accessible, everyone wanted to talk about the future of digital distribution of video games. Online gaming sites are popular as ever, and all of the new consoles — Microsoft's XBox 360, Sony 's Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii — offer their own online marketplaces for downloading smaller games. The panelists, who included the Vice President of Business Development for Atari, Robert Stevenson, and an interactive entertainment analyst for Bear Stearns, Edward Urban, each had their own strategies and reasons for tapping in to the online market.
"It's kind of a tricky thing for publishers, because your bread and butter is the retail business," Mr. Stevenson said. "So you want to do the digital distribution, but you don't want to bypass or avoid Wal-Mart and Best Buy because it's still a valid business." Mr. Stevenson pointed out that online sales of the game Neverwinter Nights made up 5% of total sales. Although Atari was pleased with that figure, it obviously didn't compare to sales in stores. Still, Mr. Stevenson suggested that the online would strengthen over time.
The chief executive officer of the online game company Kuma Reality Games, Keith Halper, said digital distribution is more analogous to television than to Wal-Mart. His company offers free games over the Internet, distributed in small bursts, or "episodes," and forces players to watch advertisements. "As a startup, you don't want to find yourself competing against the likes of Atari or Vivendi," he said, adding that smaller companies need to find less traditional business models.
The vice president of Sierra Online Latin America, Esteban Sosnik, said there would be a change in the way video games are made as the Internet's role increases. He said that his company's awardwinning game, Assault Heroes, wouldn't have been possible without Live Arcade, Xbox 360's downloadable game service. He also implied that micro-transactions — the purchase of add-ons or upgrades through the Internet — would become more prominent.
Panelists agreed that shorterlength video games would be popular with consumers.
"I think it's happening because of a change in demographics," the coordinator of the New York City chapter of the International Game Developers Association, which helped organize the panel, Wade Tinney, said after the discussion. There are still kids who can play for hours on end, he said, but there are also older people, like himself, who grew up on games and don't have that kind of time anymore. "And I'm the one with the credit card and the income," he said.
"I personally don't think our players have any interest in the 40-hour experience," he said.
Mr. Halper found that his customers, many of whom are new to gaming, were unsatisfied with the company's longer offerings and preferred games to last an hour or less. "There's something about the mass market coming in that makes a difference in the kind of games you create," he said.
After the panel, Mr. Stevenson said that his business model isn't going to change much, but that the games Atari distributes probably will. In his words, video games in the future will simply be more "digestible."
In the future, video games will be shorter in length. They will be easier to comprehend, and they will appeal to a wider audience. They will lack hefty instruction manuals and lengthy tutorials. Many will be downloadable. Some will contain advertisements.
These were some of the ideas tossed around Tuesday evening at a panel discussion on the booming video game business at New York University's Stern School.
With broadband Internet becoming more accessible, everyone wanted to talk about the future of digital distribution of video games. Online gaming sites are popular as ever, and all of the new consoles — Microsoft's XBox 360, Sony 's Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii — offer their own online marketplaces for downloading smaller games. The panelists, who included the Vice President of Business Development for Atari, Robert Stevenson, and an interactive entertainment analyst for Bear Stearns, Edward Urban, each had their own strategies and reasons for tapping in to the online market.
"It's kind of a tricky thing for publishers, because your bread and butter is the retail business," Mr. Stevenson said. "So you want to do the digital distribution, but you don't want to bypass or avoid Wal-Mart and Best Buy because it's still a valid business." Mr. Stevenson pointed out that online sales of the game Neverwinter Nights made up 5% of total sales. Although Atari was pleased with that figure, it obviously didn't compare to sales in stores. Still, Mr. Stevenson suggested that the online would strengthen over time.
The chief executive officer of the online game company Kuma Reality Games, Keith Halper, said digital distribution is more analogous to television than to Wal-Mart. His company offers free games over the Internet, distributed in small bursts, or "episodes," and forces players to watch advertisements. "As a startup, you don't want to find yourself competing against the likes of Atari or Vivendi," he said, adding that smaller companies need to find less traditional business models.
The vice president of Sierra Online Latin America, Esteban Sosnik, said there would be a change in the way video games are made as the Internet's role increases. He said that his company's awardwinning game, Assault Heroes, wouldn't have been possible without Live Arcade, Xbox 360's downloadable game service. He also implied that micro-transactions — the purchase of add-ons or upgrades through the Internet — would become more prominent.
Panelists agreed that shorterlength video games would be popular with consumers.
"I think it's happening because of a change in demographics," the coordinator of the New York City chapter of the International Game Developers Association, which helped organize the panel, Wade Tinney, said after the discussion. There are still kids who can play for hours on end, he said, but there are also older people, like himself, who grew up on games and don't have that kind of time anymore. "And I'm the one with the credit card and the income," he said.
"I personally don't think our players have any interest in the 40-hour experience," he said.
Mr. Halper found that his customers, many of whom are new to gaming, were unsatisfied with the company's longer offerings and preferred games to last an hour or less. "There's something about the mass market coming in that makes a difference in the kind of games you create," he said.
After the panel, Mr. Stevenson said that his business model isn't going to change much, but that the games Atari distributes probably will. In his words, video games in the future will simply be more "digestible."
Company's Mission
As the popularity of the gaming industry continues to grow at an exponential rate, expect the demographics of the average videogamer to change significantly. The grow of various game platforms and technology innovation opens up gaming for people who wouldn't normally play videogames.
Our mission is to take steps for the future of the industry by offering so-called "casual games" specifically targeted at an older, female audiences in a innovative competitive convenience environment.
We will focused on creating cooperative, competitive social games in online environments that particularly appeal to this demographic as well as the traditional hardcore gamers.
Our company stakeholders will be comprised of these tight-knit, hierarchical groups that are dispersed geographically, and they' will be used in playing specific roles in the grow of our organizations.
Company Objectives For Fiscal Year 2009
1. 1,000,000 Online Subscribers by the end of fiscal year 2009
2. Less than 20% Turnover Ratio in Subscriptions
3. Two Franchise Developer Level Network Commission Members by fiscal year 2009
4. Average Visits per Visitor of 15 per month by 4 th Quarter of 2009
5. Net income more than 35% of Gross Sales by end of fiscal year 2009
6. Feature minimum one game title per genre offered on Virtual Athletics Network
7. 80% Network Reliability (Measured by trouble tickets)
8. 95% Customer Satisfaction rating from users
9. Develop Dynamic content from platform and game titles for 80% of games offered
10. Gaming Online Communities with 1,000 members registered on site and members of Network Commission by the end of fiscal year 2009
11.100% Callback-driven content derive equally easily from our server, our partner's site and platform manufacturers.
Keys To Web 3.0 Design and Development When Using ASP.NET
1. Think dynamic HTML, not dynamically generated HTML. Think of HTML like food; do you want your fajitas sizzling when when it arrives and you have to use a fork and knife while you enjoy it fresh on your plate, or do you prefer your food preprocessed and shoved into your mouth like a dripping wet ball of finger-food sludge? As much as I love C#, and acknowledge the values of Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, et al, the proven king and queen of the web right now, for most of the web's past, and for the indefinite future are the HTML DOM and Javascript. This has never been truer than now with jQuery, MooTools, and other (I'd rather not list them all) significant scripting libraries that have flooded the web development industry with client-side empowerment. Now with Microsoft adopting jQuery as a core asset for ASP.NET's future, there's no longer any excuse. Learn to develop the view for the client, not for the server.
Why? Because despite the fact that client-side debugging tools are less evolved than on the server (no edit-and-continue in VS, for example, and FireBug is itself buggy), the overhead of managing presentation logic in a (server) context that doesn't relate to the user's runtime is just too much to deal with sometimes. Server code often takes time to recompile, whereas scripts don't typically require compilation at all. While in theory there is plenty of control on the server to debug what's needed while you have control of it in your own predictable environment, in practice there are just too many stop-edit-retry cycles going on in server-oriented view management.
And here's why that is. The big reason to move view to the client is because developers are just writing WAY too much view, business, and data mangling logic in the same scope and context. Client-driven view management nearly forces the developer to isolate view logic from data. In ASP.NET Web Forms, your 3 tiers are database, data+view mangling on the server, and finally whatever poor and unlucky little animal (browser) has to suffer with the resulting HTML. ASP.NET MVC changes that to essentially five tiers: the database, the models, the controller, the server-side view template,and finally whatever poor and unlucky little animal has to suffer with the resulting HTML. (Okay, Microsoft might be changing that with adopting jQuery and promising a client solution, we'll see.)
Most importantly, client-driven views make for a much richer, more interactive UIX (User Interface/eXperience); you can, for example reveal/hide or enable/disable a set of sub-questions depending on if the user checks a checkbox, with instant gratification. The ASP.NET Web Forms model would have it automatically perform a form post to refresh the page with the area enabled/disabled/revealed/hidden depending on the checked state. The difference is profound--a millisecond or two versus an entire second or two.
2. Abandon ASP.NET Web Forms. RoR implements a good model, try gleaning from that. ASP.NET MVC might be the way of the future. But frankly, most of the insanely popular web solutions on the Internet are PHP-driven these days, and I'm betting that's because PHP is on a similar coding model as ASP classic. No MVC stubs. No code-behinds. All that stuff can be tailored into a site as a matter of discipline (one of the reasons why PHP added OOP), but you're not forced into a one-size-fits-all paradigm, you just write your HTML templates and go.
Why? Web Forms is a bear. Its only two advantages are the ability to drag-and-drop functionality onto a page and watch it go, and premier vender (Microsoft / Visual Studio / MSDN) support. But it's difficult to optimize, difficult to templatize, difficult to abstract away from business logic layers (if at least difficult in that it requires intentional discipline), and puts way too much emphasis on the lifecycle of the page hit and postback. Look around at the ASP.NET web forms solutions out there. Web Forms is crusty like Visual Basic is crusty. It was created for, and is mostly used for, corporate grunts who use B2B (business-to-business) or internal apps. The rest of the web sites who use ASP.NET Web Forms suffer greatly from the painful code bloat of the ASP.NET Web Forms coding model and the horrible end-user costs of page bloat and round-trip navigation.
Kudos to Guthrie, et al, who developed Web Forms, it is a neat technology, but it is absolutely NOT a one-size-fits-all platform any more than my winter coat from Minnesota is. So congratulations to Microsoft for picking up the ball and working on ASP.NET MVC.
3. Use callbacks, not postbacks. Sometimes a single little control, like a textbox that behaves like an auto-suggest combobox, just needs a dedicated URL to perform an AJAX query against. But also, in ASP.NET space, I envision the return of multiple should *always* have an onsubmit handler that returns false but runs an AJAX-driven post. The page should *optionally* redirect, but more likely only the area of the form or a region of the page (a containing DIV perhaps) should be replaced with the results of the post. Retain your header and sidebar in the user experience, and don't even let the content area go white for a split second. Buffer the HTML and display it when ready.
ASP.NET AJAX has region refreshes already, but still supports only (limit 1), and the code-behind model of ASP.NET AJAX remains the same. Without discipline of changing from postback to callback behavior, it is difficult to isolate page posts from componentized view behavior. Further, should be considered deprecated and obsolete. Theoretically, if you *must* have ViewState information you can drive it all with Javascript and client-side controllers assigned to each form.
ASP.NET MVC can manage callbacks uniformly by defining a REST URL suffix, prefix, or querystring, and then assigning a JSON handler view to that URL, for example ~/employee/profile/jsmith?view=json might return the Javascript object that represents employee Joe Smith's profile. You can then use Javascript to pump HTML generated at the client into view based on the results of the AJAX request.
4. By default, allow users to log in without accessing a log in page. A slight tangent (or so it would seem), this is a UI design constraint, something that has been a pet peeve of mine ever since I realized that it's totally unnecessary to have a login page. If you don't want to put ugly Username/Password fields on the header or sidebar, use AJAX.
Why? Because if a user visits your site and sees something interesting and clicks on a link, but membership is required, the entire user experience is inturrupted by the disruption of a login screen. Instead, fade out to 60%, show a DHTML pop-up login, and fade in and continue forward. The user never leaves the page before seeing the link or functionality being accessed.
Imagine if Microsoft Windows' UAC, OS X's keyring, or GNOME's sudo auth, did a total clear-screen and ignored your action whenever it needed an Administrator password. Thankfully it doesn't work that way; the flow is paused with a small dialogue box, not flat out inturrupted.
5. Abandon the Internet Explorer "standard". This goes to corporate folks who target IE. I am not saying this as an anti-IE bigot. In fact, I'm saying this in Internet Explorer's favor. Internet Explorer 8 (currently not yet released, still in beta) introduces better web standards support than previous versions of Internet Explorer, and it's not nearly as far behind the trail of Firefox and WebKit (Safari, Chrome) as Internet Explorer 7 is. With this reality, web developers can finally and safely build W3C-compliant web applications without worrying too much about which browser vendor the user is using, and instead ask the user to get the latest version.
Why? Supporting multiple different browsers typically means writing more than one version of a view. This means developer productivity is lost. That means that features get stripped out due to time constraints. That means that your web site is crappier. That means users will be upset because they're not getting as much of what they want. That means less users will come. And that means less money. So take on the "Write once, run anywhere" mantra (which was once Java's slogan back in the mid-90s) by writing W3C-compliant code, and leave behind only those users who refuse to update their favorite browsers, and you'll get a lot more done while reaching a broader market, if not now then very soon, such as perhaps 1/2 yr after IE 8 is released. Use Javascript libraries like jQuery to handle most of the browser differences that are left over, while at the same time being empowered to add a lot of UI functionality without postbacks. (Did I mention that postbacks are evil?)
6. When hiring, favor HTML+CSS+Javascript gurus who have talent and an eye for good UIX (User Interface/eXperience) over ASP.NET+database gurus. Yeah! I just said that!
Why? Because the web runs on the web! Surprisingly, most employers don't have any idea and have this all upside down. They favor database gurus as gods and look down upon UIX developers as children. But the fact is I've seen more ASP.NET+SQL guys who halfway know that stuff and know little of HTML+Javascript than I have seen AJAX pros, and honestly pretty much every AJAX pro is bright enough and smart enough to get down and dirty with BLL and SQL when the time comes. Personally, I can see why HTML+CSS+Javascript roles are paid less (sometimes a lot less) than the server-oriented developers--any script kiddie can learn HTML!--but when it comes to professional web development they are ignored WAY too much because of only that. The web's top sites require extremely brilliant front-end expertise, including Facebook, Hotmail, Gmail, Flickr, YouTube, MSNBC--even Amazon.com which most prominently features server-generated content but yet also reveals a significant amount of client-side expertise.
I've blogged it before and I'll mention it again, the one, first, and most recent time I ever had to personally fire a co-worker (due to my boss being out of town and my having authority, and my boss requesting it of me over the phone) was when I was working with an "imported" contractor who had a master's degree and full Microsoft certification, but could not copy two simple hyperlinks with revised URLs within less than 5-10 minutes while I watched. The whole office was in a gossipping frenzy, "What? Couldn't create a hyperlink? Who doesn't know HTML?! How could anyone not know HTML?!", but I realized that the core fundamentals have been taken for granted by us as technologists to such an extent that we've forgotten how important it is to value it in our hiring processes.
7. ADO.NET direct SQL code or ORM. Pick one. Don't just use data layers. Learn OOP fundamentals. The ActiveRecord pattern is nice. Alternatively, if it's a really lightweight web solution, just go back to wring plain Jane SQL with ADO.NET. If you're using C# 3.0, which of course you are in the context of this blog entry, then use LINQ-to-SQL or LINQ-to-Entities. On the ORM side, however, I'm losing favor with some of them because they often cater to a particular crowd. I'm slow to say "enterprise" because, frankly, too many people assume the word "enterprise" for their solutions when they are anything but. Even web sites running at tens of thousands of hits a day and generating hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue every month don't necessarily mean "enterprise". The term "enterprise" is more of a people management inference than a stability or quality effort. It's about getting many people on your team using the same patterns and not having loose and abrupt access to thrash the database. For that matter, the corporate slacks-and-tie crowd of ASP.NET "Morts" often can relate to "enterprise", and not even realize it. But for a very small team (10 or less) and especially for a micro ISV (developers numbering 5 or less) with a casual and agile attitude, take the word "enterprise" with a grain of salt. You don't need a gajillion layers of red tape. For that matter, though, smaller teams are usually small because of tighter budgets, and that usually means tighter deadlines, and that means developer productivity must reign right there alongside stability and performance. So find an ORM solution that emphasizes productivity (minimal maintenance and easily adaptable) and don't you dare trade routine refactoring for task-oriented focus as you'll end up just wasting everyone's time in the long run. Always include refactoring to simplicity in your maintenance schedule.
Why? Why go raw with ADO.NET direct SQL or choose an ORM? Because some people take the data layer WAY too far. Focus on what matters; take the effort to avoid the effort of fussing with the data tier. Data management is less important than most teams seem to think. The developer's focus should be on the UIX (User Interface/eXperience) and the application functionality, not how to store the data. There are three areas where the typical emphasis on data management is agreeably important: stability, performance (both of which are why we choose SQL Server over, oh, I dunno, XML files?) and queryability. The latter is important both for the application and for decision makers. But a fourth requirement is routinely overlooked, and that is the emphasis on being able to establish a lightweight developer workflow of working with data so that you can create features quickly and adapt existing code easily. Again, this is why a proper understanding of OOP, how to apply it, when to use it, etc, is emphasized all the time, by yours truly. Learn the value of abstraction and inheritence and of encapsulating interfaces (resulting in polymorphism). Your business objects should not be much more than POCO objects with application-realized properties. Adding a new simple data-persisted object, or modifying an existing one with, say, a new column, should not take more than a minute of one's time. Spend the rest of that time instead on how best to impress the user with a snappy, responsive user interface.
8. Callback-driven content should derive equally easily from your server, your partner's site, or some strange web service all the way in la-la land. We're aspiring for Web 3.0 now, but what happened to Web 2.0? We're building on top of it! Web 2.0 brought us mashups, single sign-ons, and cross-site social networking. FaceBook Applications are a classic demonstration of an excelling student of Web 2.0 now graduating and turning into a Web 3.0 student. Problem is, keeping the momentum going, who's driving this rig? If it's not you, you're missing out on the 3.0 vision.
Why? Because now you can. Hopefully by now you've already shifted the bulk of the view logic over to the client. And you've empowered your developers to focus on the front-end UIX. Now, though, the client view is empowered to do more. It still has to derive content from you, but in a callback-driven architecture, the content is URL-defined. As long as security implications are resolved, you now have the entire web at your [visitors'] disposal! Now turn it around to yourself and make your site benefit from it!
If you're already invoking web services, get that stuff off your servers! Web services queried from the server cost bandwidth and add significant time overhead before the page is released from the buffer to the client. The whole time you're fetching the results of a web service you're querying, the client is sitting there looking at a busy animation or a blank screen. Don't let that happen! Throw the client a bone and let it fetch the external resources on its own.
9. Pay attention to the UIX design styles of the non-ASP.NET Web 2.0/3.0 communities. There is such a thing as a "Web 2.0 look", whether we like to admit it or not; we web developers evolved and came up with innovations worth standardizing on, why can't designers evolve and come up with visual innovations worth standardizing on? If the end user's happiness is our goal, how are features and stable and performant code more important than aesthetics and ease of use? The problem is, one perspective of what "the Web 2.0 look" actually looks like is likely very different from another's or my own. I'm not speaking of heavy gloss or diagonal lines. I most certainly am not talking about the "bubble gum" look. (I jokingly mutter "Let's redesign that with diagonal lines and beveled corners!" now and then, but when I said that to my previous boss and co-worker, both of whom already looked down on me WAY more than they deserved to do, neither of them understood that I was joking. Or, at least, they didn't laugh or even smile.) No, but I am talking about the use of artistic elements, font choices and font styles, and layout characteristics that make a web site stand out from the crowd as being highly usable and engaging.
Let's demonstrate, shall we? Here are some sites and solutions that deserve some praise. None of them are ASP.NET-oriented.
* http://www.javascriptmvc.com/ (ugly colors but otherwise nice layout and "flow"; all functionality driven by Javascript; be sure to click on the "tabs")
* http://www.deskaway.com/ (ignore the ugly logo but otherwise take in the beauty of the design and workflow; elegant font choice)
* http://www.mosso.com/ (I really admire the visual layout of this JavaServer Pages driven site; fortunately I love the fact that they support ASP.NET on their product)
* http://www.feedburner.com/ (these guys did a redesign not too terribly long ago; I really admire their selective use of background patterns, large-font textboxes, hover effects, and overall aesthetic flow)
* http://www.phpbb.com/ (stunning layout, rock solid functionality, universal acceptance)
* http://www.joomla.org/ (a beautiful and powerful open source CMS)
* http://goplan.org/ (I don't like the color scheme but I do like the sheer simplicity
* .. for that matter I also love the design and simplicity of http://www.curdbee.com/)
Now here are some ASP.NET-oriented sites. They are some of the most popular ASP.NET-driven sites and solutions, but their design characteristics, frankly, feel like the late 90s.
* http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ (one of the most popular CMS/portal options in the open source ASP.NET community .. and, frankly, I hate it)
* http://www.officelive.com/ (sign in and discover a lot of features with a "smart client" feel, but somehow it looks and feels slow, kludgy, and unrefined; I think it's because Microsoft doesn't get out much)
* http://communityserver.com/ (it looks like a step in the right direction, but there's an awful lot of smoke and mirrors; follow the Community link and you'll see the best of what the ASP.NET community has to offer in the way of forums .. which frankly doesn't impress me as much as phpBB)
* http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/ (my blog uses this, I like it well enough, but it's just one niche, and that's straight-and-simple blogs
* http://subsonicproject.com/ (the ORM technology is very nice, but the site design is only "not bad", and the web site starter kit leave me shrugging with a shiver)
Let's face it, the ASP.NET community is not driven by designers.
Why? Why do I ramble on about such fluffy things? Because at my current job (see the intro text) the site design is a dump of one feature hastilly slapped on after another, and although the web app has a lot of features and plenty of AJAX to empower it here and there, it is, for the most part, an ugly and disgusting piece of cow dung in the area of UIX (User Interface/eXperience). AJAX functionality is based on third party components that "magically just work" while gobs and gobs of gobblygook code on the back end attempts to wire everything together, and what AJAX is there is both rare and slow, encumbered by page bloat and server bloat. The front-end appearance is amateurish, and I'm disheartened as a web developer to work with it.
Such seems to be the makeup of way too many ASP.NET solutions that I've seen.
10. Componentize the client. Use "controls" on the client in the same way you might use .ASCX controls on the server, and in the process of doing this, implement a lifecycle and communications subsystem on the client. This is what I want to do, and again I'm thinking of coming up with a framework to pursue it to compliment Microsoft's and others' efforts. If someone else (i.e. Microsoft) beats me to it, fine. I just hope theirs is better than mine.
Why? Well if you're going to emphasize the client, you need to be able to have a manageable development workflow.
ASP.NET thrives on the workflows of quick-tagging (
On the competitive front, take a look at http://www.wavemaker.com/. Talk about drag-and-drop coding for smart client-side applications, driven by a rich server back-end (Java). This is some serious competition indeed.
11. RESTful URIs, not postback or Javascript inline resets of entire pages. Too many developers of AJAX-driven smart client web apps are bragging about how the user never leaves the page. This is actually not ideal.
Why? Every time the primary section of content changes, in my opinion, it should have a URI, and that should be reflected (somehow) in the browser's Address field. Even if it's going to be impossible to make the URL SEO-friendly (because there are no predictable hyperlinks that are spiderable), the user should be able to return to the same view later, without stepping through a number of steps of logging in and clicking around. This is partly the very definition of the World Wide Web: All around the world, content is reflected with a URL.
12. Glean from the others. Learn CakePHP. Build a simple symfony or Code Igniter site. Watch the Ruby On Rails screencasts and consider diving in. And have you seen Jaxer lately?!
And absolutely, without hesitation, learn jQuery, which Microsoft will be supporting from here on out in Visual Studio and ASP.NET. Discover the plug-ins and try to figure out how you can leverage them in an ASP.NET environment.
Why? Because you've lived in a box for too long. You need to get out and smell the fresh air. Look at the people as they pass you by. You are a free human being. Dare yourself to think outside the box. Innovate. Did you know that most innovations are gleaning from other people's imaginative ideas and implemenations, and reapplying them in your own world, using your own tools? Why should Ruby on Rails have a coding workflow that's better than ASP.NET? Why should PHP be a significantly more popular platform on the public web than ASP.NET, what makes it so special besides being completely free of Redmondite ties? Can you interoperate with it? Have you tried? How can the innovations of Jaxer be applied to the IIS 7 and ASP.NET scenario, what can you do to see something as earth-shattering inside this Mortian realm? How can you leverage jQuery to make your web site do things you wouldn't have dreamed of trying to do otherwise? Or at least, how can you apply it to make your web application more responsive and interactive than the typical junk you've been pumping out?
You can be a much more productive developer. The whole world is at your fingertips, you only need to pay attention to it and learn how to leverage it to your advantage.
And these things, I believe, are what is going to drive the Web 1.0 Morts in the direction of Web 3.0, building on the hard work of yesteryear's progress and making the most of the most powerful, flexible, stable, and comprehensive server and web development technology currently in existence--ASP.NET and Visual Studio--by breaking out of their molds and entering into the new frontier.
Why? Because despite the fact that client-side debugging tools are less evolved than on the server (no edit-and-continue in VS, for example, and FireBug is itself buggy), the overhead of managing presentation logic in a (server) context that doesn't relate to the user's runtime is just too much to deal with sometimes. Server code often takes time to recompile, whereas scripts don't typically require compilation at all. While in theory there is plenty of control on the server to debug what's needed while you have control of it in your own predictable environment, in practice there are just too many stop-edit-retry cycles going on in server-oriented view management.
And here's why that is. The big reason to move view to the client is because developers are just writing WAY too much view, business, and data mangling logic in the same scope and context. Client-driven view management nearly forces the developer to isolate view logic from data. In ASP.NET Web Forms, your 3 tiers are database, data+view mangling on the server, and finally whatever poor and unlucky little animal (browser) has to suffer with the resulting HTML. ASP.NET MVC changes that to essentially five tiers: the database, the models, the controller, the server-side view template,and finally whatever poor and unlucky little animal has to suffer with the resulting HTML. (Okay, Microsoft might be changing that with adopting jQuery and promising a client solution, we'll see.)
Most importantly, client-driven views make for a much richer, more interactive UIX (User Interface/eXperience); you can, for example reveal/hide or enable/disable a set of sub-questions depending on if the user checks a checkbox, with instant gratification. The ASP.NET Web Forms model would have it automatically perform a form post to refresh the page with the area enabled/disabled/revealed/hidden depending on the checked state. The difference is profound--a millisecond or two versus an entire second or two.
2. Abandon ASP.NET Web Forms. RoR implements a good model, try gleaning from that. ASP.NET MVC might be the way of the future. But frankly, most of the insanely popular web solutions on the Internet are PHP-driven these days, and I'm betting that's because PHP is on a similar coding model as ASP classic. No MVC stubs. No code-behinds. All that stuff can be tailored into a site as a matter of discipline (one of the reasons why PHP added OOP), but you're not forced into a one-size-fits-all paradigm, you just write your HTML templates and go.
Why? Web Forms is a bear. Its only two advantages are the ability to drag-and-drop functionality onto a page and watch it go, and premier vender (Microsoft / Visual Studio / MSDN) support. But it's difficult to optimize, difficult to templatize, difficult to abstract away from business logic layers (if at least difficult in that it requires intentional discipline), and puts way too much emphasis on the lifecycle of the page hit and postback. Look around at the ASP.NET web forms solutions out there. Web Forms is crusty like Visual Basic is crusty. It was created for, and is mostly used for, corporate grunts who use B2B (business-to-business) or internal apps. The rest of the web sites who use ASP.NET Web Forms suffer greatly from the painful code bloat of the ASP.NET Web Forms coding model and the horrible end-user costs of page bloat and round-trip navigation.
Kudos to Guthrie, et al, who developed Web Forms, it is a neat technology, but it is absolutely NOT a one-size-fits-all platform any more than my winter coat from Minnesota is. So congratulations to Microsoft for picking up the ball and working on ASP.NET MVC.
3. Use callbacks, not postbacks. Sometimes a single little control, like a textbox that behaves like an auto-suggest combobox, just needs a dedicated URL to perform an AJAX query against. But also, in ASP.NET space, I envision the return of multiple should *always* have an onsubmit handler that returns false but runs an AJAX-driven post. The page should *optionally* redirect, but more likely only the area of the form or a region of the page (a containing DIV perhaps) should be replaced with the results of the post. Retain your header and sidebar in the user experience, and don't even let the content area go white for a split second. Buffer the HTML and display it when ready.
ASP.NET AJAX has region refreshes already, but still supports only (limit 1), and the code-behind model of ASP.NET AJAX remains the same. Without discipline of changing from postback to callback behavior, it is difficult to isolate page posts from componentized view behavior. Further, should be considered deprecated and obsolete. Theoretically, if you *must* have ViewState information you can drive it all with Javascript and client-side controllers assigned to each form.
ASP.NET MVC can manage callbacks uniformly by defining a REST URL suffix, prefix, or querystring, and then assigning a JSON handler view to that URL, for example ~/employee/profile/jsmith?view=json might return the Javascript object that represents employee Joe Smith's profile. You can then use Javascript to pump HTML generated at the client into view based on the results of the AJAX request.
4. By default, allow users to log in without accessing a log in page. A slight tangent (or so it would seem), this is a UI design constraint, something that has been a pet peeve of mine ever since I realized that it's totally unnecessary to have a login page. If you don't want to put ugly Username/Password fields on the header or sidebar, use AJAX.
Why? Because if a user visits your site and sees something interesting and clicks on a link, but membership is required, the entire user experience is inturrupted by the disruption of a login screen. Instead, fade out to 60%, show a DHTML pop-up login, and fade in and continue forward. The user never leaves the page before seeing the link or functionality being accessed.
Imagine if Microsoft Windows' UAC, OS X's keyring, or GNOME's sudo auth, did a total clear-screen and ignored your action whenever it needed an Administrator password. Thankfully it doesn't work that way; the flow is paused with a small dialogue box, not flat out inturrupted.
5. Abandon the Internet Explorer "standard". This goes to corporate folks who target IE. I am not saying this as an anti-IE bigot. In fact, I'm saying this in Internet Explorer's favor. Internet Explorer 8 (currently not yet released, still in beta) introduces better web standards support than previous versions of Internet Explorer, and it's not nearly as far behind the trail of Firefox and WebKit (Safari, Chrome) as Internet Explorer 7 is. With this reality, web developers can finally and safely build W3C-compliant web applications without worrying too much about which browser vendor the user is using, and instead ask the user to get the latest version.
Why? Supporting multiple different browsers typically means writing more than one version of a view. This means developer productivity is lost. That means that features get stripped out due to time constraints. That means that your web site is crappier. That means users will be upset because they're not getting as much of what they want. That means less users will come. And that means less money. So take on the "Write once, run anywhere" mantra (which was once Java's slogan back in the mid-90s) by writing W3C-compliant code, and leave behind only those users who refuse to update their favorite browsers, and you'll get a lot more done while reaching a broader market, if not now then very soon, such as perhaps 1/2 yr after IE 8 is released. Use Javascript libraries like jQuery to handle most of the browser differences that are left over, while at the same time being empowered to add a lot of UI functionality without postbacks. (Did I mention that postbacks are evil?)
6. When hiring, favor HTML+CSS+Javascript gurus who have talent and an eye for good UIX (User Interface/eXperience) over ASP.NET+database gurus. Yeah! I just said that!
Why? Because the web runs on the web! Surprisingly, most employers don't have any idea and have this all upside down. They favor database gurus as gods and look down upon UIX developers as children. But the fact is I've seen more ASP.NET+SQL guys who halfway know that stuff and know little of HTML+Javascript than I have seen AJAX pros, and honestly pretty much every AJAX pro is bright enough and smart enough to get down and dirty with BLL and SQL when the time comes. Personally, I can see why HTML+CSS+Javascript roles are paid less (sometimes a lot less) than the server-oriented developers--any script kiddie can learn HTML!--but when it comes to professional web development they are ignored WAY too much because of only that. The web's top sites require extremely brilliant front-end expertise, including Facebook, Hotmail, Gmail, Flickr, YouTube, MSNBC--even Amazon.com which most prominently features server-generated content but yet also reveals a significant amount of client-side expertise.
I've blogged it before and I'll mention it again, the one, first, and most recent time I ever had to personally fire a co-worker (due to my boss being out of town and my having authority, and my boss requesting it of me over the phone) was when I was working with an "imported" contractor who had a master's degree and full Microsoft certification, but could not copy two simple hyperlinks with revised URLs within less than 5-10 minutes while I watched. The whole office was in a gossipping frenzy, "What? Couldn't create a hyperlink? Who doesn't know HTML?! How could anyone not know HTML?!", but I realized that the core fundamentals have been taken for granted by us as technologists to such an extent that we've forgotten how important it is to value it in our hiring processes.
7. ADO.NET direct SQL code or ORM. Pick one. Don't just use data layers. Learn OOP fundamentals. The ActiveRecord pattern is nice. Alternatively, if it's a really lightweight web solution, just go back to wring plain Jane SQL with ADO.NET. If you're using C# 3.0, which of course you are in the context of this blog entry, then use LINQ-to-SQL or LINQ-to-Entities. On the ORM side, however, I'm losing favor with some of them because they often cater to a particular crowd. I'm slow to say "enterprise" because, frankly, too many people assume the word "enterprise" for their solutions when they are anything but. Even web sites running at tens of thousands of hits a day and generating hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue every month don't necessarily mean "enterprise". The term "enterprise" is more of a people management inference than a stability or quality effort. It's about getting many people on your team using the same patterns and not having loose and abrupt access to thrash the database. For that matter, the corporate slacks-and-tie crowd of ASP.NET "Morts" often can relate to "enterprise", and not even realize it. But for a very small team (10 or less) and especially for a micro ISV (developers numbering 5 or less) with a casual and agile attitude, take the word "enterprise" with a grain of salt. You don't need a gajillion layers of red tape. For that matter, though, smaller teams are usually small because of tighter budgets, and that usually means tighter deadlines, and that means developer productivity must reign right there alongside stability and performance. So find an ORM solution that emphasizes productivity (minimal maintenance and easily adaptable) and don't you dare trade routine refactoring for task-oriented focus as you'll end up just wasting everyone's time in the long run. Always include refactoring to simplicity in your maintenance schedule.
Why? Why go raw with ADO.NET direct SQL or choose an ORM? Because some people take the data layer WAY too far. Focus on what matters; take the effort to avoid the effort of fussing with the data tier. Data management is less important than most teams seem to think. The developer's focus should be on the UIX (User Interface/eXperience) and the application functionality, not how to store the data. There are three areas where the typical emphasis on data management is agreeably important: stability, performance (both of which are why we choose SQL Server over, oh, I dunno, XML files?) and queryability. The latter is important both for the application and for decision makers. But a fourth requirement is routinely overlooked, and that is the emphasis on being able to establish a lightweight developer workflow of working with data so that you can create features quickly and adapt existing code easily. Again, this is why a proper understanding of OOP, how to apply it, when to use it, etc, is emphasized all the time, by yours truly. Learn the value of abstraction and inheritence and of encapsulating interfaces (resulting in polymorphism). Your business objects should not be much more than POCO objects with application-realized properties. Adding a new simple data-persisted object, or modifying an existing one with, say, a new column, should not take more than a minute of one's time. Spend the rest of that time instead on how best to impress the user with a snappy, responsive user interface.
8. Callback-driven content should derive equally easily from your server, your partner's site, or some strange web service all the way in la-la land. We're aspiring for Web 3.0 now, but what happened to Web 2.0? We're building on top of it! Web 2.0 brought us mashups, single sign-ons, and cross-site social networking. FaceBook Applications are a classic demonstration of an excelling student of Web 2.0 now graduating and turning into a Web 3.0 student. Problem is, keeping the momentum going, who's driving this rig? If it's not you, you're missing out on the 3.0 vision.
Why? Because now you can. Hopefully by now you've already shifted the bulk of the view logic over to the client. And you've empowered your developers to focus on the front-end UIX. Now, though, the client view is empowered to do more. It still has to derive content from you, but in a callback-driven architecture, the content is URL-defined. As long as security implications are resolved, you now have the entire web at your [visitors'] disposal! Now turn it around to yourself and make your site benefit from it!
If you're already invoking web services, get that stuff off your servers! Web services queried from the server cost bandwidth and add significant time overhead before the page is released from the buffer to the client. The whole time you're fetching the results of a web service you're querying, the client is sitting there looking at a busy animation or a blank screen. Don't let that happen! Throw the client a bone and let it fetch the external resources on its own.
9. Pay attention to the UIX design styles of the non-ASP.NET Web 2.0/3.0 communities. There is such a thing as a "Web 2.0 look", whether we like to admit it or not; we web developers evolved and came up with innovations worth standardizing on, why can't designers evolve and come up with visual innovations worth standardizing on? If the end user's happiness is our goal, how are features and stable and performant code more important than aesthetics and ease of use? The problem is, one perspective of what "the Web 2.0 look" actually looks like is likely very different from another's or my own. I'm not speaking of heavy gloss or diagonal lines. I most certainly am not talking about the "bubble gum" look. (I jokingly mutter "Let's redesign that with diagonal lines and beveled corners!" now and then, but when I said that to my previous boss and co-worker, both of whom already looked down on me WAY more than they deserved to do, neither of them understood that I was joking. Or, at least, they didn't laugh or even smile.) No, but I am talking about the use of artistic elements, font choices and font styles, and layout characteristics that make a web site stand out from the crowd as being highly usable and engaging.
Let's demonstrate, shall we? Here are some sites and solutions that deserve some praise. None of them are ASP.NET-oriented.
* http://www.javascriptmvc.com/ (ugly colors but otherwise nice layout and "flow"; all functionality driven by Javascript; be sure to click on the "tabs")
* http://www.deskaway.com/ (ignore the ugly logo but otherwise take in the beauty of the design and workflow; elegant font choice)
* http://www.mosso.com/ (I really admire the visual layout of this JavaServer Pages driven site; fortunately I love the fact that they support ASP.NET on their product)
* http://www.feedburner.com/ (these guys did a redesign not too terribly long ago; I really admire their selective use of background patterns, large-font textboxes, hover effects, and overall aesthetic flow)
* http://www.phpbb.com/ (stunning layout, rock solid functionality, universal acceptance)
* http://www.joomla.org/ (a beautiful and powerful open source CMS)
* http://goplan.org/ (I don't like the color scheme but I do like the sheer simplicity
* .. for that matter I also love the design and simplicity of http://www.curdbee.com/)
Now here are some ASP.NET-oriented sites. They are some of the most popular ASP.NET-driven sites and solutions, but their design characteristics, frankly, feel like the late 90s.
* http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ (one of the most popular CMS/portal options in the open source ASP.NET community .. and, frankly, I hate it)
* http://www.officelive.com/ (sign in and discover a lot of features with a "smart client" feel, but somehow it looks and feels slow, kludgy, and unrefined; I think it's because Microsoft doesn't get out much)
* http://communityserver.com/ (it looks like a step in the right direction, but there's an awful lot of smoke and mirrors; follow the Community link and you'll see the best of what the ASP.NET community has to offer in the way of forums .. which frankly doesn't impress me as much as phpBB)
* http://www.dotnetblogengine.net/ (my blog uses this, I like it well enough, but it's just one niche, and that's straight-and-simple blogs
* http://subsonicproject.com/ (the ORM technology is very nice, but the site design is only "not bad", and the web site starter kit leave me shrugging with a shiver)
Let's face it, the ASP.NET community is not driven by designers.
Why? Why do I ramble on about such fluffy things? Because at my current job (see the intro text) the site design is a dump of one feature hastilly slapped on after another, and although the web app has a lot of features and plenty of AJAX to empower it here and there, it is, for the most part, an ugly and disgusting piece of cow dung in the area of UIX (User Interface/eXperience). AJAX functionality is based on third party components that "magically just work" while gobs and gobs of gobblygook code on the back end attempts to wire everything together, and what AJAX is there is both rare and slow, encumbered by page bloat and server bloat. The front-end appearance is amateurish, and I'm disheartened as a web developer to work with it.
Such seems to be the makeup of way too many ASP.NET solutions that I've seen.
10. Componentize the client. Use "controls" on the client in the same way you might use .ASCX controls on the server, and in the process of doing this, implement a lifecycle and communications subsystem on the client. This is what I want to do, and again I'm thinking of coming up with a framework to pursue it to compliment Microsoft's and others' efforts. If someone else (i.e. Microsoft) beats me to it, fine. I just hope theirs is better than mine.
Why? Well if you're going to emphasize the client, you need to be able to have a manageable development workflow.
ASP.NET thrives on the workflows of quick-tagging (
On the competitive front, take a look at http://www.wavemaker.com/. Talk about drag-and-drop coding for smart client-side applications, driven by a rich server back-end (Java). This is some serious competition indeed.
11. RESTful URIs, not postback or Javascript inline resets of entire pages. Too many developers of AJAX-driven smart client web apps are bragging about how the user never leaves the page. This is actually not ideal.
Why? Every time the primary section of content changes, in my opinion, it should have a URI, and that should be reflected (somehow) in the browser's Address field. Even if it's going to be impossible to make the URL SEO-friendly (because there are no predictable hyperlinks that are spiderable), the user should be able to return to the same view later, without stepping through a number of steps of logging in and clicking around. This is partly the very definition of the World Wide Web: All around the world, content is reflected with a URL.
12. Glean from the others. Learn CakePHP. Build a simple symfony or Code Igniter site. Watch the Ruby On Rails screencasts and consider diving in. And have you seen Jaxer lately?!
And absolutely, without hesitation, learn jQuery, which Microsoft will be supporting from here on out in Visual Studio and ASP.NET. Discover the plug-ins and try to figure out how you can leverage them in an ASP.NET environment.
Why? Because you've lived in a box for too long. You need to get out and smell the fresh air. Look at the people as they pass you by. You are a free human being. Dare yourself to think outside the box. Innovate. Did you know that most innovations are gleaning from other people's imaginative ideas and implemenations, and reapplying them in your own world, using your own tools? Why should Ruby on Rails have a coding workflow that's better than ASP.NET? Why should PHP be a significantly more popular platform on the public web than ASP.NET, what makes it so special besides being completely free of Redmondite ties? Can you interoperate with it? Have you tried? How can the innovations of Jaxer be applied to the IIS 7 and ASP.NET scenario, what can you do to see something as earth-shattering inside this Mortian realm? How can you leverage jQuery to make your web site do things you wouldn't have dreamed of trying to do otherwise? Or at least, how can you apply it to make your web application more responsive and interactive than the typical junk you've been pumping out?
You can be a much more productive developer. The whole world is at your fingertips, you only need to pay attention to it and learn how to leverage it to your advantage.
And these things, I believe, are what is going to drive the Web 1.0 Morts in the direction of Web 3.0, building on the hard work of yesteryear's progress and making the most of the most powerful, flexible, stable, and comprehensive server and web development technology currently in existence--ASP.NET and Visual Studio--by breaking out of their molds and entering into the new frontier.
What is the LLC Charging Order for the Limited Liability Company?
Most business owners create a limited liability company for their business in order to protect their personal selves and their personal assets from the liabilities and obligations of the business.
However, another liability concern relates to what is known as “reverse” liability. If a business owner is sued in his personal capacity for something totally unrelated to his LLC business, is the LLC business protected from being taken over by the person who obtains a judgment against the business owner personally?
The LLC laws of most states contain a “charging order” provision in them which is a great benefit of owning a business through a limited liability company.
The charging order provisions generally state that a creditor of a member of an LLC can only seize the economic rights of the LLC ownership interest held by that member. In other words, the creditor can never get the full ownership and never have voting or management control over the LLC business. What does this mean?
It means that you, as an LLC owner, will continue to be able to run the LLC business as before, and you, as a manager (along with other managers) can decide not to pay out any profits distributions related to ownership interests. This would result in the creditor not receiving any money for foreclosing on the LLC ownership interest AND actually being liable for the tax related to profits of the LLC business that were retained in the company.
Given this, most creditors will not look to take any LLC ownership interests because the potential result could be that the creditor will have to pay taxes on profits he never gets.
LIMITATIONS OF CHARGING ORDER PROTECTION
While charging order protection provisions are found in most state LLC statutes, an important bankruptcy case held that charging order protection would not apply to single member LLCs. This is because the reason for the charging order is to protect other members of your LLC business and the LLC business itself from business interruption related to the personal liabilities of one of its members. With a multi-member LLC, the interests of a personal creditor of one member should not take precedence over the LLC and the other innocent members.
However, if the LLC is owned only by one member and it is that member who is personally liable to a creditor, then in bankruptcy, the law will ignore the charging order protection and could allow the creditor to foreclose on the entire LLC ownership interest and business. To be safe, practitioners are advising that charging order protection should not be relied upon in any single member LLC situations either within or outside of bankruptcy.
This article discusses charging orders generally, but each state has its own scope and details for charging order protection so if this is an important issue to you, please check with your local attorney to receive specific advice for your jurisdiction and circumstances.
Money Contributed to a Limited Liability Company- How is is Categorized?
A new business will always need some capital or access to capital to start a business. Even an ongoing business may need funds from time to time as it deals with cash flow deficiencies or expansion.
While a limited liability company has the right to borrow money, the most common method of getting initial capital is by having the initial members contribute capital to the LLC in exchange for their membership interests.
However, a member can also loan money to an LLC even if he or she is a member.
When a member contributes money to an LLC, it is very important that the transaction categorized as either a capital contribution or a loan and that the transaction be documented in sufficient written documents.
When money sent is a capital contribution, the amount is credited to the member’s capital account but it is not a loan that the LLC is required to pay back. No debtor-creditor relationship exists. If that member is later distributed profits back, it will be credited against the capital contribution amounts of the member.
When money sent is a loan, a debtor- creditor relationship is formed. The LLC owes the member the money back. The terms of the loan (amount, interest rate, repayment terms, default provisions) should be documented in a written loan agreement or promissory note between the member and the LLC.
If there are other members, the loan transaction should be approved by the LLC membership because it is called a “interested transaction” (one between the LLC and one of its own members). It is really important that the loan transaction be fair and equitable to the LLC to avoid any unfair transactions benefitting the lender member.
So, in summary, the LLC and the member can agree on how money sent from the member to the LLC is to be categorized. The categorization of a member capital contribution or a member loan results in a different transaction and different treatment of the transaction by both the LLC and the member. In order to avoid later disagreements, this categorization should be agreed upon and sufficiently set forth in writing signed by the LLC and the member . . . and if applicable, the proper governance vote should take place with all members to approve the transaction.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Modeling The Real Market Value Of Social Networks
Is MySpace worth $3 billion, or $20 billion? It depends on how you value a user.
It’s time to start comparing the big global social networks on something other than unique visitors and page views. I believe an effective way to value a particular user is based on the average Internet advertising spend per person in the country they live in. The higher the spend, the more value the social network can get out of the user by serving them advertising and other products. That means that, for now, users in a handful of key countries are worth far more in terms of revenue potential than those in the rest of the world.
We’ve begun to build out a model that looks at social network usage by country/region and compares that to available data on total Internet advertising spend in each of those countries. The model is then able to turn an apples-to-oranges comparison into an apples-to-apples comparison. The early results are surprising.
The ultimate financial value of any asset is, ultimately, what the market will pay for it. We have only a few data points to help us: Facebook
, Bebo and LinkedIn are worth $15 billion, $850 million and $1 billion, respectively, based on relatively recent valuations (although only Bebo was actually sold completely; Facebook and LinkedIn raised investments at those valuations). The last valuation of MySpace was just $580 million, back in 2005 when it was acquired by News Corp.
Which valuation is most “correct?” It’s hard to say based on the data that’s been available to date, which is mostly just aggregate page view and unique visitor numbers from Comscore and other services. Based on worldwide unique visitors, for example, Facebook recently overtook MySpace to become the “largest” social network.
According to raw worldwide user number, the biggest social networks are Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut and Bebo, in that order. But when you apply the model that we’ve created below, which takes into account where users live, the rankings change substantially. MySpace is by far the most valuable social network based on available data. A competitor like Orkut is worth only 1/20th of MySpace, even though it has nearly 1/4 the number of users.
Properly Ranking Social Networks
Our model takes Comscore data for available countries and regions. We’ve graphed each of 26 well known social networks with the data we have been able to collect. We’ve then calculated the average advertising spend (estimated by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in a recent report) for each person online in each of those countries. For example, in the U.S., the total 2008 estimated Internet advertising spend is $25.2 billion. We’ve divided that by the number of people online in the U.S. according to Comscore (191 million), to get an average Internet spend per person of $132. View the raw data and calculations here.
The U.S., by the way, is only the 4th most valuable market per Internet user, trailing The UK ($213), Australia ($148) and Denmark ($144).
We’ve then multiplied the average Internet spend per user in each market with the number of unique users each social network has in that market, essentially creating a “weighted average” based on the advertising dollars chasing users. If a social network has more users in the U.S., Japan, the UK, Germany, Australia, and other bigger advertising networks, they will have a higher weighted average valuation.
We believe this model is an effective way to rank various competing social networks. It bumps down networks like Orkut and Friendster who have tens of millions of users in markets with very little advertising spend, and bumps up networks with lots of users in higher value markets.
Based on this model, MySpace is by far the most valuable social network. Second place Facebook has just 75% of the value of MySpace (even though it now has more users), followed by Bebo (26% of MySpace value), Hi5 and Amebio. LinkedIn comes in at no. 11, at 6% of MySpace’s value.
Valuation Ranges
The real-world revenue numbers being reported for the big networks supports this approach to valuation and shows a direct tie between monetization efforts and where a network’s users are. MySpace is estimated to have generated $755 million in revenue over the last year. The (now) larger Facebook, with a far higher percentage of users in less lucrative markets, will generate just $255 million this year:
EMarketer estimates that MySpace will post $755 million in revenue in the fiscal year ending June 30. MySpace would not comment on the estimate. About a third of the revenue is expected to come from the Google ad pact. For the year, Facebook is estimated to earn $265 million in ad revenue.
Since we have three recent data points valuing social networks (Facebook at $15 billion, Bebo at $850 million, LinkedIn at $1 billion), we can start to apply valuation ranges based on the model. Facebook’s 10.2 million value points and $15 billion valuation puts a $1,467 value on each value point. LinkedIn is valued very similarly, at $1,325 per value point. Bebo, with lots of users in the rich UK market, appears to have been undervalued at only $241 per value point.
Based on these three publicly available data points we’ve created value ranges for each of the top 25 worldwide social networks. There is a very wide disparity (MySpace, for example, is worth between $3.3 billion and $20 billion, based on which comparable you look at). But it does yield very interesting data. For example, If Facebook and LinkedIn were valued similarly to Bebo, they would be worth just $2.5 billion and $182 million, respectively, far less than what their investors recently paid for a piece of them.
Interestingly, the recent sale of Polish social network Nasza-klasa for $92 million appears to be right in sync with Bebo’s price. The model estimates its value at $91 million based on Bebo’s valuation metrics.
There are some big flaws with the model and analysis in its current state. First, LinkedIn may be in a different class of network, given that all of its users are business focused (no super-poking going on there). As a result, it may be able to monetize users far better than its competitors, no matter what geographic market is being looked at. Still, we’ve decided to leave it in as a data point, with that caveat.
The model itself needs more data. The user numbers are based on April Comscore. We will shortly revise it with the May numbers, although the absolute rankings probably won’t change. More importantly, some big markets are not included yet. The Chinese Internet advertising market, for example, is estimated to be $2 billion in 2008, yet they are not included (mostly because I can’t find data on user numbers for the networks). Also, the Philippines isn’t broken out separately, again due to data availability issues (although the total Internet advertising market in the Philippines is just $3 million this year, so it won’t affect the rankings materially even though Friendster is so strong there). Finally, Russia is currently grouped with “the rest of Europe,” and needs to be separately broken out - it has a large and growing online advertising market and lots of users, so that update may affect the mid-level network rankings.
The advertising spend model is just an estimate and from a single source. I’m less concerned with this data since it doesn’t matter to the model if the estimates are absolutely correct. If the estimates are wrong by different rates in different countries, however, the model will break. If we find better relative data between countries, we’ll update the model with that data. But for now, the PriceWaterhouseCoopers data seems to be pretty good.
Finally, this model doesn’t take into account execution at the company level. Two very similar networks may monetize vastly differently based on methods of advertising and even the brute effort and passion of the employees. This model obviously doesn’t take that into account.
I also note Andrew Chen’s analysis last week which takes a similar approach to this using Google Trends data instead of Comscore. The Google data isn’t granular enough to really dig in to relative values, however, and he was lacking current and deep data on average Internet spend. Still, I agree with his methodology.
As I wrote at the very end of this post, you have to consider the current monetization value of users when comparing social networks. Raw user numbers are pointless without it.
Kids and teens have pushed at least 6 immersive online worlds to over 2m UU/mth in the US
Wagner James Au has a great post on GigaOm about Gaia. Gaia is a casual immersive MMORPG that describes itself as:
“The world’s fastest growing online world hangout for teens.”
In an interview with Gaia’s CEO, Craig Sherman, he quotes that Gaia has gone from 0.5m unique users/month midway through last year to 2.5m UU/mth last month. (nb Comscore only has them at 700k UU/mth in March). Furthermore, he claims 300k users log in each day for an average of 2 hours per session, and in their forums area they are getting an average of 1m posts per day for a total of over 1 billion posts so far. And its mostly (85%) US traffic. Impressive stats. Gaia has been pretty quiet about its growth until recently, but Susan Wu was finally able to get them to break their silence by getting Craig to speak at her panel at Web2.0 Expo last week.
Casual immersive worlds have not previously been as popular in the US as they have been in Europe (Habbo Hotel) or Asia (Cyworld). ( I draw a distinction between casual immersive worlds and games such as Runescape and World of Warcraft). Even press darling Second Life, currently reporting 1.7m log-ins in the last 60 days, is lagging Gaia’s usage.
Interestingly enough, Gaia isn’t the only casual immersive world that is getting meaningful usage in the US. The original casual immersive world, Neopets, is still going strong, with 4.2m UU/mth in March according to Comscore.
Neopets® is the greatest Virtual Pet Site on the Internet. With your help, we have built a community of over 70 million virtual pet owners across the world! Neopets has many things to offer including over 160 games, trading, auctions, greetings, messaging, and much much more. Best of all, it’s completely FREE!
Club Penguin, who Susan also got to speak for the first time on her panel at web2.0 expo, is also growing like crazy - 4.1m UU/mth in March.
Club Penguin is a kid-friendly virtual world where children can play games, have fun and interact with each other.
* Kid-friendly chat
* Lots of fun games
* Nothing to download
* Lots more!
Webkinz, who I mentioned last week as one of the few sites getting their users to visit more than 10 times per month, is also at 4.1m UU/mth.
Webkinz pets are lovable plush pets that each come with a unique Secret Code. With it, you enter Webkinz World where you care for your virtual pet, answer trivia, earn KinzCash, and play the best kids games on the net!
And a dark horse entrant that I was unaware of until recently - Millsberry, run by General Mills (the manufacturer of cereals), is getting 2.2m UU/mth.
Millsberry is a fun virtual city for you to explore. You create a citizen of the city and discover Millsberry through his eyes. You’ll need to make sure he takes care of himself, so you’ll need to get food (from the shopping area) and make sure he exercises (by playing games), but you’ll also get to go on adventures, solve mysteries and have all kinds of fun while visiting Millsberry!
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Even Lego has announced its plans to release a casual immersive world in 2008
These worlds are all exploring different business models. Some are mainly ad supported (Neopets, and effectively Millsberry), others rely on subscriptions (Club Penguin) that deliver certain privileges, and others rely on transactions, either in the real world (Webkinz) or for digital goods (Habbo Hotel, Gaia.
Its worth noting that all of these are websites with no download required. This has likely helped them grow more quickly than other casual immersive worlds such as Second Life and IMVU, which are also growing fast, but not as fast.
One can’t help but notice that all of these immersive online worlds are targeted at kids and teens. If demographics are destiny, then we can expect more and more people to interact with each other in casual immersive worlds over the next few years. Susan Wu thinks so too, and her prediction about web 3.0 (are we there already?) is that it will be:
continuing down this path of improving the user experience of living and socializing online. This story is about human context, social proximity, and a sense of place.
I think she is right. What are your thoughts?
UPDATE, April 26th, 2007: Barbie is now also getting in on the action with Barbie Girls.
UPDATE, April 29th, 2007: Techcrunch reports that IAC’s Zwinky is also launching a casual immersive world. In this case, they are also employing a different business model than the other virtual worlds as the toolbar that enables much of the functionality includes a search box and will be usable both when the user is and is not “in world”. Note that the search box occurs to the LEFT of the URL box… This tactic worked great for previous IAC products such as Smiley Central and Cursor Mania.
Successful MMOGs can see $1-2 in monthly ARPU
There are not many publicly available statistics on the free-to-play industry in the western world. Here is what I found on the web for some of the popular virtual worlds and MMOGs:
Second Life
Second Life’s economic statistics are reported monthly. In May 2007, Second Life reported:
$165m Linden dollars sold by Linden Lab through the Linden Exchange in May
$127m Linden dollars paid via weekly stipends in May
860k residents logged in over the last 30 days
Since Linden pays $300 Linden dollars in weekly stipends to premium members, there are around (127m/300/ 4 weeks=) 100k premium subscribers paying $6-10/mth. Lets call that $800k in monthly revenue from premium subscribers.
Linden dollars currently exchange at 264 Lindens to the USD, so Linden Labs made $165m/264 = $625k in currency sales.
These are the two primary sources of Linden dollars into Second Life’s economy, so Linden Labs made at least $1.4m in revenue from the 860k residents that logged in over the last 30 days, or roughly $1.70/active user.
UPDATE: Several comments note that I have ignored the bulk of Second Life’s revenue which is derived from land maintenance. An updated analysis is here.
Club Penguin
When Club Penguin was bought by Disney in August 2007, it was reported to have 12m registered users and 700k paying users. As the monthly charge for paying subscribers is $6, this suggests monthly revenues of around $4.2m. Compete reported 2.6m UU to Club Penguin in that month. Dividing these two numbers we get around $1.62/active user (where an active user is defined as a unique user in that month).
Habbo Hotel
At AGDC in September of 2007, Habbo Hotel’s lead designer, Sulka Haro gave some statistics on Habbo Hotel’s usage:
Habbo Hotel has approximately 7.5m unique players per month globally — nipping at the heels of World of Warcraft. In the seven years since the game launched, 80 million accounts have been created. Globally, the game typically has 100,000 concurrent users playing at one time.
Furthermore, Habbo was estimated to do $77m in revenue in 2006. In the middle of 2006, Habbo had around 53m accounts. Assuming a similar ratio of monthly players to total accounts in mid 2006 to what Habbo has today, that suggests that there were around 5m unique players per month at that time. Dividing $77m by 12 months by 5m unique players suggests about $1.30 in revenue per active users.
Runescape
Finally, Jagex’s Runescape claimed 1m players paying $5/mth in May 2007 and 6m players per month in October 2007. That suggest $5m/mth in revenues from 6m players, or around $0.84 in revenue per active user.
In summary then we have:
Second Life: $1.70/mthly user/mth UPDATE: Should be $9.30/mthly user/mth
Club Penguin: $1.62/mthly user/mth
Habbo: $1.30/mthly user/mth
Runescape: $0.84/mthly user/mth
The average across these four is $1.40/mthly user/mth*. UPDATE: excluding Second Life, should be $1.25/mthly user/mth.
Having spoken to many other MMOGs and virtual worlds on a private basis, this estimate seems to be a good gauge for what a well performing MMOG can aspire to from a free to play business model.
Do readers have any datapoints that they can add to this survey?
* Note that this is based on monthly users. Many MMOGs calcuate their average revenue per user (ARPU) based on Peak Concurrent Users. On this basis, ARPU can be more than an order of magnitude higher than the $1.40 guideline.
What games work best on Facebook?
Three good blog posts recently about games on Facebook.
Brian Green talks to a developer with two games, one casual and one hardcore, and based on that concludes that hardcore games do better:
I suspect the reason is because people still enjoy a good game, even if it has “hardcore” aspects like direct, zero-sum competition. Even though the party game was less confrontational, it probably didn’t include as many engaging elements as the first game. So, more people played and stuck with the game.
What he is really saying though seems to be that good games are better than bad games. Matt Mihaly checks the list of Facebook games with most daily users and finds that the top ten are all casual games, and notes that:
…good games on FB are as much about communication and/or self-expression as they are about gameplay.
I completely agree. As Matt notes in his post, there have been two paths to success for Facebook games. One has been to build lightweight “proto-games” that spread virally on the back of self expression or communicaiton. The other has been to build true games with complex and engaging game dynamics. These games do not grow as rapidly, but they do draw much higher daily engagement rates.
Nabeel Hyatt extends the analysis to compare multiplayer games to singleplayer games on Facebook.
He finds that:
Multiplayer social games such as Warbook and Scrabulous average 11.4% active daily users, a good 30% higher than the average top Facebook app (8.01%). I’m sure if we could actually get engagement, attention, and retention metrics we’d see the same trend. This combined with the relatively high percentage of games represented in the top 25 applications (7 games) would suggest that there is simply a lack of quality, socially-focused games on Facebook.
I wholeheartedly agree with Matt and Nabeel. I think that over the next few months there will be a number of exciting social, multiplayer casual games with good gameplay dynamics built on Facebook and the other social networks as they open up. Teams comprising of experienced game designers and experienced social media/viral marketing experts will be best positioned to create these games. I am actively interested in hearing from such teams.
Gaming Subscription Site in Top 10 Websites
March’s Comscore numbers just came out. I took a look at the top 2000 web domains, but this time I ranked them by number of visits per month. The results were a little surprising. Here are the 41 sites that were visited 10 times or more on average by US internet users in the month of March 2007:
The next category on the list is gaming, with four sites; World Of Warcraft, Pogo, Webkinz and Runescape. I’m sure most readers will be familiar with WoW, Pogo and Runescape. Webkinz is a very interesting offline toy - online game hybrid launched by Ganz in late 2005. Ganz has been making plush toys for years, but with Webkinz they gave each toy a unique secret code that allows kids to take care of their pet/toy online and play games with it. It has gone from nothing to over 4m UU/mth since then. Webkinz is part of a very interesting trend towards offline-online hybrid services that I will explore more in a later post.
Web 2.0 Salaries based on location
"venture backed" $84,000 | |
startup in Spartanburg, SC 29301 $57,000 | |
"early stage" $89,000 | |
"sequoia capital" $95,000 | |
"benchmark capital" $43,000 | |
"fortune 500" $48,000 |
Related Web 2.0 News
Web 2.0 Start-Up Field Guide - Idris Mootee
From: imootee, 2 years ago
This talks to how to getrVC funding and many other issues typically face by the entrepreneur.
SlideShare Link
Management Team
Over 100 Years of Combined Gaming and Professional Experience
Eric Whiteside, Manager
Mr. Whiteside has been working his entire business career in with small business environment. Working for others in the traditional business world in his early career, he was often challenged to correct specific issues and problems within small business. His areas of concentration in area commercial credit training, financial strategic placement, company structuring and project management. The rewards of these challenges and the successes that followed, led to the passion for a transition to a full-time, independent small-business advisor, management consultant, and change agent. The last 11 years have been spent as a change agent, implementing change management in a wide-variety of business environments, including family businesses and closely held companies; working exclusively with business owners and principals. He is a member of Project Management Institute, Risk Management Association and National Credit Management Association. He has received executive education training at the following institutions: Harvard Executive Education Program on Negotiations 1998, Columbia University 1997, and Massachusetts institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management 2002, Duke University Fuqua School of Business Executive Education Program on Financial Reporting for non Financial Managers 2002, and American Management Association Advanced Leadership Program 2004 and Project Management Training at Midland Technical College 2007.
DBLCLAN an online gaming community was established in 2003 by Mr. Whiteside and co founders Wayne Hayton, John Lewis, Don Johnson and Larry Clark. The purpose was recruit mature gamers that all had a common goal of mentoring to the youth that played online. The initial member age range was 28-38 years old and the goal was simple have fun in playing on XBOX Live and provide positive reinforcement for youth exposed to online. Mr. Whiteside personal goal is to provide mentorship to online gamers through positive goal directed online communities with a purpose.
Wayne Hayton, Manager
Charlie B. Williams III, Manager
Mr. Williams is the youngest out the group but is a prime example of the type of leadership qualities that DBL brings out in today's youth. Charlie B Williams III (27) is a creative professional in the Gaming entertainment industry and is quickly making a name for himself in his chosen field of profession. Charlie Graduated from the Illinois Institute of Art in Schaumburg IL. Upon Graduating in 2004 he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Arts and Animation. This Eventually lead him to land his first Job with Electronic Arts where he had a pivotal role in creating assets for numerous titles thus having credits with Some of EA' s Biggest titles such as EA sports Fight Night Round 3 For XBOX 360 play station 2 Xbox and also being Credit on other block buster titles like EA DEF Jam Icon for the Xbox 360 Play station 3. After Charlie time at Electronic Arts-Chicago he then moved on to his current position at Independent studios by the name of High voltage Software and there sister company Red Eye Studios where he is Now a Lead Environment Artist.. Being a well round artist allows him to do to everything from corporate identity to brand management, as well as graphic and web design. Charlie brings over 6 plus years of artistic and technical knowhow to the DBL brand.
Van E. Staggs Jr, Manager
Mr. Van E. Staggs Jr., is vice president of Public Relations for Delta Beta Lambda Fraternity, the first online video gaming fraternity that provides mentoring and full academic scholarships in the fields of video game design and technology to disadvantaged and deserving youths throughout the United States and abroad. At an early age growing up in Norwalk Connecticut, Mr. Staggs found the love for video gaming. He and his friends would meet every morning at the local arcade before classes, after school, and on weekends; not to mention playing at home on the Atari 2600. Twenty-five years later, he still has the same love for video gaming.
Mr. Staggs is a cum laude graduate of Benedict College where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. While at Benedict, Mr. Staggs was active in Benedict's upward bound program whose activities were to all designed to provide holistic experiences to enhance academic, social, and cultural development while establishing and cultivating partnerships and relations within the community. Over the past 12 years, he has held various upper management positions in several corporations. He is very active within his community volunteering his time to various social service organizations. He has also been very successful in the field of Real Estate as an investor and Commercial Real Estate consultant. Prior to his current position, he was employed as a loan officer with SunTrust Bank and Blue Ridge Savings Bank respectfully. He is the loving husband of Michele and decided father of two girls Abriella 5 years, and Aavyn 1year.
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