Archive for July, 2008

1. Libel on Facebook costs ex-friend £22,000

   July 25, 2008

   Be very careful what you write on Facebook. A London man who created a set of ficititious, malicious entries about Mathew Firsht has just been ordered to pay £22,000 in damages. Grant Raphael fell out with his former school friend. The case centred around “a Facebook group titled “Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?” as [...]

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: facebook, libel, social networks, user generated content

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2. The cognitive surplus

   July 24, 2008

   I’ve just written a new article over at casualgaming.biz on the cognitive surplus. An enormous, untapped, and above all free, resource to create content, and potentially the biggest societal shift since the Industrial Revolution. Don’t believe me? Head over to casualgaming.biz to check it out.

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   Posted in: Sandbox

   Tagged with: casual games, cognitive surplus, starred, writing

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3. Eidos cuts it close to the wire with Tomb Raider, again

   July 23, 2008

   I made myself unpopular with the new Eidos management earlier this year with a couple of articles I wrote for MCV (see links below) on the trials and tribulations on the BritSoft champion. I’ve just been on holiday for two weeks and I’m feeling refreshed, so I’m going to risk doing it again. Setting the [...]

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   Posted in: Analysis, Featured

   Tagged with: eidos, slippage, starred, tomb raider

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4. Gamejacket offer new revenue model for casual games

   July 21, 2008

   Gamejacket is a new company that offer an innovative way for casual games developers to generate revenue. Developers upload the game to GameJacket and get back a wrapped file. That wrapped file is freely distributable and hosted on the GameJacket servers. When the game is played, GameJacket’s delivers ads around it (they are a little [...]

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   Posted in: Sales

   Tagged with: advertising, casual games, gamejacket, revenue

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5. Online advertising in decline?

   July 21, 2008

   A surprise profit’s warning from ValueClick, an online advertising network, and troubles at Ebay are the latest harbingers of difficult times ahead for the online advertising market. According to the Financial Times, ValueClick saw its share price fall 20% when it announced it was reducing its financial forecasts for the full year on the back [...]

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   Posted in: Sales

   Tagged with: advertising, online advertising, profits warning, valueclick

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6. Conflict developer Pivotal closes doors

   July 14, 2008

   Eidos has confirmed that it will be closing Conflict developer Pivotal. 95 staff have been made redundant immediately, 10-12 will be remaining in Bath to work on special projects. Added to the Job Loss Tracker.

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   Posted in: Finance

   Tagged with: closures, eidos, job loss tracker, layoffs, pivotal, redundancies

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7. Online privacy – Viacom drives a coach and horses through it

   July 4, 2008

   Viacom has just won a pivotal legal battle which may spell the end of anonymity on the web. In a landmark decision, a US judge in a federal court in New York has ruled that Google must hand over the logging records of every video ever watched on Youtube. The purpose is to help Viacom [...]

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   Posted in: Opinion

   Tagged with: copyright, google, infringement, privacy, viacom

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