Let's play Foursquare!

It goes without saying that a majority of people that use social networks online love to let people know what they're doing, how they are, among other things. We like it when people pay attention to us, and it's becoming easier by the day to let people know what's going on in your life. This is one of the main reasons why social media is the monster that it is.

Lately I've seen enough people starting to use Foursquare that I took a look into it myself. For those of you who don't know what Foursquare is about, it's a web/mobile application that allows users to connect with friends (as usual) and "check in", updating your Foursquare with your current location. The more you use Foursquare, the more the application rewards you through awards such as becoming the "mayor" of some venues, among other little tidbits. Foursquare started off small in 2009, and by March of this year it's managed to gather up 500,000 users, all pinging the site, letting them know where they are.

The good that comes from Foursquare, is that like with other social networks, businesses are getting involved. The company has several commercial partnerships with companies like Bravo and The New York Times to name a couple. With these partnerships, users of Foursquare have access to specials, badges, and tips for nearby locations. People using Foursquare can leave tips about the locations that you're around, telling you insider info on where to check out that may be relevant to your interests, or what you may want to avoid ordering when you go out to eat. Foursquare is also open to its users developing new apps for it. There are plenty of things like games, ways to talk to singles, and music check ins, just to name a few.

The dark side to Foursquare, is pretty much the same darkside to social networking. Having your face, real name, and birthdate all in the same place isn't ever going to be a safe bet. Foursquare has connectivity to other social networking sites, and depending on who you have as part of your network, it can take cyber-stalking and easily turn it into real stalking, if you're checking in all the time, and essentially laying out a trail of breadcrumbs to where you've been. That being said, you can avoid such things with responsible use of the internet. Though it is something to be careful with as far as use of the app goes, Foursquare can definitely grow into something more, and I'm interested in keeping an eye on it's development as it becomes more and more popular.

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Evolution Championship Series 2010: Aftermath

As many of you may have known, I spent the last three days immersed in great fighting game competition. Evolution Championship Series 2010 held up to every promise that it was going to be a great event to watch, and aside from a few hiccups here and there the people at Level Up provided quite the stream. It seems that with each passing year, EVO just keeps outdoing itself.

The event was such a huge milestone for not just the fighting game community, but gaming as a whole. The massive amount of growth from the peak of last year's EVO to this year's blew my mind. Last year the list of sponsors was quite impressive. The support came companies like Capcom, Bandai-Namco, and Sony for example. Companies showing support to the fans of their games for putting such a large event together built completely on volunteer work, built for the gamers, by the gamers. It was the first year that the event was streamed live on the internet for all to see, rather than have the fans that couldn't make the trip out to vegas have to wait to buy a DVD, or look to YouTube to see the level of play, to see the magic that happened over the weekend. Due to this fact people got to have a first look at Tekken 6 before it made it's way to the shelves, to see the game that had largely been missed out on in action.

From yesteryear, to this past weekend, we saw many upgrades. The event was held in the ballroom of Caesar's Palace, one of the most well-known hotels on the strip. Last year's collaboration with IGN.com was one-upped by the collaboration with G4. Adam Sessler was present to co-host alongside Seth Killian to provide commentary on not only the top 8 competition, but also the world's first look at Marvel vs. Capcom 3 since it was revealed at E3. Madcats stepped up from just revealing the second round of its famed Tournament Edition arcade sticks, to giving away several "gold edition" models to the top competitors of Super Street Fighter 4, and also a few lucky winners that were attending the tournament, or watching the stream.

If you mist out, there's no reason to worry too much, as G4 isn't done with EVO yet. There will be a special on G4 covering the history of EVO airing July 20th, so if you're still interested in getting into a bit of this action, and the already avilable footage on YouTube isn't enough for you, then definitely tune in and check the show out.

Now the reason why I say that this was a huge milestone for gaming in general, rather than just for the fighting game community, is that it's clear and obvious through the Evolution Championship Series proves that if the community gets behind their games enough, that other people will get involved. Streaming game sessions is becoming a popular thing, and I'm sure that hardcore fans of other huge multiplayer games are more than likely interested in seeing the best players of the game do their thing. We already have huge followings on sites like MLG, so I see no reason not to believe that something just as huge as EVO can be started for other games. I urge you gamers of the world that are truly passionate about what you do to get behind your passion and support it in any way and every way that you can.

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Hey readers, just wanted to slide a quick update in while I lose my mind over the Evolution Champion Series 2010 stream. (http://stickam.com/evo2k)

Just wanted to call to your attention, that if you haven't been checking the dequeue link at the end of every post, that you should start. It's not always a link to me on a social networking site, often times it's s link to some extended reading on the subject matter.

That being said, join me in watching the stream, and watch what professional fighting game play looks like.

Best Buy "turns a 180".

Just the other day I touched on the issues that Brian Maupin was having with Best Buy in the wake of his (hilarious) video about the average iPhone consumer. After the video got viral, Best Buy got upset over...something, and suspended him, with firing him completely in mind. Now just a couple days later, Best Buy's reaction to the video is just as viral as the video itself, and suddenly a few days later the company seems to have "pulled a 180" and Maupin is clear to come on back to work.

“I don’t know if it’s because the media got involved or maybe because they took a step back and saw that it was just a funny thing not intended to be mean,” -Maupin

“We have completed our investigation into the videos created and posted by Brian Maupin, the aspiring filmmaker and Best Buy employee. This is an important situation for us because it involved balancing our social media guidelines with a commitment to creating a supportive environment for our employees. It's important to note that our investigation involved three videos that were posted in late June because they were openly disparaging of our employees, our customers and our vendor partners. Our investigation is over, and these videos are no longer on the web. Contrary to rumors, Brian has not been fired and is scheduled to return to his job at Best Buy this Friday.” -Best Buy

I've had my own share of experiences with corporations. None that ever gotten me such notariety, or nearly lost me my job like this particular case, but it's clear and obvious that corporations can and will throw the little guy under the bus in order to keep themselves safe, or save money, and this case is exactly the same. Keep in mind that if Best Buy hadn't gone out of their way to persecute Maupin, then practically no one would have known that he worked at Best Buy at all. On top of that, Best Buy suddenly claiming that the issue was centered around the other videos that he'd taken down, videos that weren't viral at all, is classic cover-your-ass strategy. I find it hard to believe that they would have known about the videos that got removed at all with out this "investigation" that they've done.

Maupin says he's not sure that he's going to return to work. Can you blame the guy? If I'd gone through this sort of thing I'd want to leave Best Buy behind, too.

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Unveiling YouTube Leanback.

Just throwing this out there, I know I'm not the only person that noticed the blurred out Apple logo, and then MacBook Pro clear as day not even 10 seconds later. What exactly was the point of blurring out the Apple logo, YouTube?

All tom foolery aside, YouTube Leanback is apparently the next evolution of YouTube. I remember saying a long time ago, back when YouTube was fairly new that it is the new television, and YouTube Leanback's new take on watching videos is just the next step in the evolution. Cutting out some of the middleman does seem a bit appealing, but at the same time, it's YouTube dude. We already have playlists, and it's not exactly hard to watch what you want to.

The application of YouTube Leanback lies moreso in apps. I can see this being useful due to its compatibility with home theater PCs, and Google TV. There's not too much utility in a dumbed down YouTube if you're using your desktop/laptop, most of the time it would be more useful to track down videos or playlists with precision. But with watching videos on your television, the idea of seamless video after video with easy navigation to get past what you don't want to watch can be appealing.

I wonder what will happen to Cable TV? With Hulu Plus, Netflix, and now this, I wonder if people are going to even bother with paying for digital cable service anymore. Time will tell what new technology will come around the corner to put the final nail in the coffin.

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More words of wisdom from Bobby Kotick.

Be forewarned gamers, for Bobby Kotick really wants to find more ways to slide his hands into your wallets. The CEO of Activision-Blizzard is in the news yet again, making some more claims that rub a lot of people the wrong way. This time he stirs up controversy by expressing how he really feels about Microsoft's online business model.

"We’ve heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft’s] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty."

Okay, Kotick slow your roll right there captain. I'm not entirely sure where he's getting his figures from. I will admit that there are a lot of Call of Duty heads out there, it's one of the best selling games on XBOX; that much is undeniable. But to pretend like 60 percent of XBOX live subcribers are paying $50 USD a year because of Call of Duty is laughable. Oh XBOX live, where were you before Modern Warfare? Oh right, it was doing just fine.

"We don’t really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it’s not our network."

Nevermind the fact that you're putting out map packs with a chunk of old content, and buggy new content and still slapping a $15 USD on them. Nevermind the fact that your other console franchises like Guitar Hero, and Tony Hawk come with the cost of an arm and a leg due to the fact that you need to pay for the game-specific controller to play the game. Nevermind the fact that you have World of Warcraft, where you have millions of users shelling out $15 USD a month in order to continue playing the game. Yes, the regulations that Microsoft places on game developers in regards to downloadable content can be dissapointing at times, and often times they'd rather charge you money for some things that should pretty much be free, but the answer to this is absolutely not letting a different corporation come in and nickel-and-dime the gamers. If anybody should be complaining about XBL's income stream, its the gamers, not the CEO of one of the biggest developers in the business.

""Mr Kotick sees an opportunity to break the consoles’ “walled gardens with new gamer-friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television."

Gamer friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television huh? Oh, you mean CONSOLES, right? I mean, a console is essentially a gamer-friendly PC that's designed to be plugged into the television. The thing that keeps consoles from being as advanced as PCs is that you can buy a PC and change the insides to make them stronger all you want to. Consoles aren't optimized so that you can upgrade the hardware inside. That being said, a good bet for the next step in consoles should be hardware that's readily upgradeable. As much as I'd love to see that link between console and PC gamers, I would hate to see such a good thing exploited by greedy people who seem to just want to charge you a monthly fee to play Call of Duty. This is what's wrong with the industry today.

"Mr Kotick is excited by Microsoft’s motion-sensing controller. XBOX Kinect dispenses with the hand-held joystick in favour of a camera and microphone. He hopes Kinect will help revive the peripherals market along the lines of Activision’s Guitar Hero and DJ Hero."

Right after calling consoles "walled gardens" he goes on to talk about how excited he is about finding a way to make you pay a lot of money to play with the Kinect. Way to make it clear and obvious that all you care about is greenbacks, Kotick. For someone who just said not to long ago that PC is responsible for about 70 percent of Activision-Blizzard's income, Kotick sure does seem interested in finding some way to exploit the console gamers, seeing as how he doesn't feel like he's getting a "fair share" out of Microsoft's XBOX live profits. This is another scenario between developers and Microsoft that could afford to see some change, but again, letting someone else in to nickel-and-dime the gamers is not the answer.

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Haywire!

Happy belated 4th of July, readers! Hopefully all of your festivities went off without a hitch, as naturally with every year, some people get a little too happy with their fireworks. Yesterday, among all the celebration, I saw a lot of news about the internet practically going haywire. Apparently hackers have been having a field day right under our noses and giving a lot of us even more reason to be paranoid about just what we put out there. So naturally, some good wholesome fun would have been a good change of pace for those of us who were on the bad end of a financial attack, or some well placed trolling.

Good old YouTube was the victim of some severe trolling. Naturally most of the news is laying the blame squarely on 4chan. I've also heard some sparce mention of ebaumsworld as well, though it was 4chan that's practically declared cultural war on Justin Bieber, and most of the YouTube shenanigans were Bieber-related. What seems to have happened is a net-savvy user happened upon a vulnerability in the comment system. The bug allowed users to bypass the HTML restrictions in place on the comment box. Now letting a prankster that's decent at HTML practically run wild on YouTube is like opening Pandora's box, especially when it's anon getting involved. People were logging on expecting to see what they intended to see and things were happening ranging from popups, to shock site redirects. To alleviate the situation Google temporarily disabled comments until they could isolate and fix the bug. In the meantime, I'm sure 4chan is cooking up their next plot to "shake the foundation of the internet." Gotta love these crazy kids.

There's been a lot of drama surrounding Apple lately as well and with this recent bit of news, it's only looking worse. When YouTube got hacked, it was all fun and games. When the AppStore gets hacked, it's time for users to get worried. A rouge developer found an exploit that blows the door to your iTunes account wide open for the commencement of a field day. What was first thought to just be the entity known as "Thuat Nguyen", turns out to be several people practically farming money out of accounts worldwide. People have been reporting having lost anywhere between $100 to over $1,000 on apps that they didn't buy. This isn't only harming the consumer, as these apps in question are shooting to the top of the charts, taking the limelight away from developers that deserve to be recognized. Apple's response to the problem thus far? "Change your password." For something that seems to have been happening for a month, there needs to be more action taken out. I personally removed my credit card from my iTunes account, and do not plan on making any more purchases until a little something more has been done to safeguard my information. In the meantime, all one can do is stay educated on the situation. One thing is for sure, Apple's got a LOT of face-saving to do in the wake of all this.

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