Comments (2)By Ahson Rafiq in Webware on 12th January 2008
This was quite unexpected, Reps from Gizmondo pulled an odd stunt at CES 2008 where they closed all the flat screen displays on all shows using a TV-B-Gone IR remote, which was kinda funny but mostly just mean and wasted so many people’s time and for this the CEA has banned them. For some reason all of this to me seems like a big publicity stunt for TV-B-Gone.
The conference was held by CEA and they took action against Gizmondo by banning them from further conferences and sent the following statement to the people at CNET:
We have been informed of inappropriate behavior on the show floor by a credentialed media attendee from the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media. Specifically, the Gizmodo staffer interfered with the exhibitor booth operations of numerous companies, including disrupting at least one press event. The Gizmodo staffer violated the terms of CES media credentials and caused harm to CES exhibitors. This Gizmodo staffer has been identified and will be barred from attending any future CES events. Additional sanctions against Gizmodo and Gawker Media are under discussion.
More coverage on this:
Comments (5)By TimK in News, Webware on 10th January 2008
Second Life (no thanks, it already feels like I’m trying to live more than my fair share of lives) suffers from the credit crunch. OK the global economy is in trouble, money is pouring out of the investing markets and the banks have stopped lending to each other, on top of all this the US sub-prime mortgage sector is collapsing having massive knock on effects around the world (The collapse and subsequent underwriting of the Northern Rock group in the UK, by the government has cost each man woman and child in the UK £1000, around $1900 dollars, so far.) And as a great man once said ‘As Above, So Below.’ Second Life has been in the news a great deal for everything from taking the sensible action of banning virtual bestiality (there is a joke about a Trojan Horse here somewhere) but now it seems as if the bottom has dropped out of the Linden Dollar.
Writing on the second life blog (http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/01/08/new-policy-regarding-in-world-banks), Ken Linden states that Linden labs is unable to protect users of virtual banking services in Second Life, and that there are serious questions about the legality of such institutions. Institutions providing banking services on Second Life have braced for a run on funds as the ban comes into place, the above screen shot is of financier, JT Financial virtual bank on second life, brings a whole new meaning to the phrase virtually bankrupt.
Comments (4)By TimK in Webware on 7th January 2008
Viral, viral, viral. First we get a monkey drumming along to Phil Collins, which, it has to be said was pretty cool, but the latest viral to hit the browsers comes from a far more interesting source, and could have far wider reaching consequences from the legal department at Microsoft. Mozilla, the creators of Firefox have begun a (not so subtle) assault on Internet Explorer in their new marketing campaign. The site, The Fight Against Boredom comprises the usual links and such like, but they have also produced a Talk Show clip and Song which is available for download. All well and good, but the controversy is sure to mount with Mozilla’s inclusion of certain statistics based on users lifestyles.
For example, a Firefox user is 21% less likely to be a sales representative or agent at their current place of business, 66% more likely to have viewed or listened to audio or video about politics or public affairs news within the last 30 days. The association, by default, is that IE users are more likely to be a rep, or that they do not watch the news, and Microsoft are not going to like it. Firefox has been gaining ground against IE for a long time and this kind of clever marketing has been known to bring in massive amounts of new custom to web browsers before. Furthermore if these statistics are true (and you know that the legal boys at Mozilla have done their work on this one) it’s going to be interesting what response Microsoft will have for this campaign. The ensuing legal battle may provide more publicity than the viral, is this the dawn of a new age of marketing? Provoke the big boys into suing the butts off you for publicity. I can’t see it catching on. Still it makes for good viewing, the songs pretty naff though.
