Technical Tidbits™

Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ Category

[Warning: Strong Language Content in Quoted Material]

My friends and family who are game addicts on Facebook are always upset with me because I block or ignore requests to join games on the social networking site.  (Now Mafia Wars on Myspace is a whole nuther story!)

But I reserve my Facebook account for professional connections and my MySpace is reserved from more personal connections and fun.

Well, thanks to an article by Techcrunch, I’ve finally got a reason to point to for this separation!

According to the Techcrunch article, 

Last spring, though, he [Zynga's CEO, Mark Pincus]  gave a much clearer explanation to an audience at a Startup@Berkeley mixer, admitting that scamming users was part of Zynga’s business model from the start. And it was all caught on video. I think everyone sort of knew that this was exactly Zynga’s gameplan. But to hear it said so directly is just shocking.

The full 30ish minute video is here. We’ve taken the relevant section of the video, roughly starting at around the 10:40 mark, and embed it below. From the video:

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

Now do you see why I don’t trust any of these companies?

There have been comments in the past on this blog where folks have accused me of being a conspiracy theorist, believing in the ‘boogie man’, and other such lame remarks.

But here it is in plain language from one of the CEO’s of one of these companies! I don’t make this kind of crap up, nor am I a conspiracy theorist.

Will I stop playing Mafia Wars on MySpace? NO! But I don’t download any of their toolbars nor do I participate in their partner programs. If I want to buy Godfather (reward) points, I buy them outright.

I’ve included the YouTube video below and the full link to the Techcrunch article.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues”.

My Gmail account has been empty as of late. No shouts from my Digg friends.

In fact, except for a few direct e-mails from a few of my Digg friends, I hardly ever visit there anymore.

Which leads me to the question of the day – has Digg dug its grave?

Several weeks, maybe even a month ago, Digg removed the ability to shout a post to your Digg friends. I vaguely remember that they also said they would give us a replacement for it, but I’ve yet to see a new solution.

The shouts were what I believed made Digg so user friendly and easy to maintain. Now, it’s tedious to remember to go back to Digg daily and see what’s going on.

Now, the only option is to share the article via e-mail, twitter, or Facebook.

Excuse me Digg, but I’m not going to take the time to purposely login to your site just to post to my twitter account and Facebook. Did you think you would just be able to ride the coattails of popular social networking sites without doing your own work?

Today in fact, except for a @mashable entry on the Top 5 Funniest Fake Facebook Pages, there’s not the same level of activity I’ve seen in the past.

Maybe it’s just me?

What’s your feelings about the removal of shouts in Digg? Do you think they dug their grave? Comments welcome!

Have a great week! I’m off to write this weeks Security Digest!

Debbie