Now this is a conference I wish I had attended, fortunately there are various notes available online…
Daniel James (of Three Rings fame) dropped a few numbers, some of which start to explain the lavish decor of the company’s new offices: $350k/month in revenues, $250k of which is from virtual goods. As a recovering Puzzle Pirates addict, I can tell you that their product is top notch and I am pleased as punch that they are doing so well. It’s not due to me, however, because aside from an initial virtual currency purchase of $20 I have made far more Pieces of Eight than I have spent. My pirate is many times a millionaire, with nearly everything the game can buy, but I have witnessed the other side of this virtual coin. The secret to their success seems to be retaining casual players and rolling out new features approximately monthly to provide constant stimulation to the game economy. Many players, especially the younger ones, will therefore spend at least the normal subscription rate ($12/month) to keep up with the Joneses.
John Vars, CEO of Dogster, had a few comments on extending virtual gifts to the real world. On his social network it is possible to send a virtual bone to a dog-friend, and for a little more have a real bone arrive in the mail as well. I imagine we will see some similar feature on Facebook in a few weeks or months, as Hot or Not already facilitates flower deliveries to prospective dates…
After living near Davis Square for almost two years, I finally went to the Somerville Theater for a movie. Why now? Because I just found out about their $5 matinée tickets! That’s about half the going rate around Boston, so it’s quite a deal. Funky little place — similar to the Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton in many ways. Their claim to fame (which I did not partake in, this being mid-afternoon) is that they serve beer at the theater. Good play in a college town!
Two comic-book movies in one weekend is going to make me seem like quite the fanboy, but I assure you that it is mere coincidence. The movie itself was decent, but somebody tried to cram too many villains into one flick. Other than that my only comment is that it’s a crime Tobey Maguire wasn’t cast as a Hobbit for the Lord of the Rings — he’s the right height, has disproportionately large feet, and in this movie he proved his ability to weep for a significant portion of two and a half hours.
A tight schedule and an even tighter wallet make me the perfect Netflix customer. I didn’t read comic books growing up, so I’m not exactly sure where my interest in superheroes comes from (Star Wars, maybe?), but I usually enjoy Hollywood’s take. Perhaps it is simply because I never read the originals that I don’t have heightened expectations going in.
Anyway, “Superman Returns” was pretty good — Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor was fantastic, absolutely my favorite part. My one complaint: I didn’t know Superman’s tag-line was so lame:
Lois: “Will we see you around?”
Superman:Â “I’m always around…”
Superman just became as creepy as Santa Claus!
A few days ago, Jimmy Guterman over at O’Reilly Radar put up a last appeal to drop the word “user” from the internet business vernacular. It seems that as an editor he had been discouraging the use of the term, but got hung up rewriting the phrase “user-generated content.” Responding to his appeal for alternatives, most of the comments on his post indicate that the rest of us are complacent with our “user” label. Here are my reactions to the proposed substitutions:
- “Member” : to me, a member is someone who paid a membership fee. I have a Google account, but I’m not a Google Member, whereas the $100 I send to the MFA every year makes me a Member.
- “Viewer” : TV has already claimed this, so why stretch it to the internet.
- “Visitor”, “Guest” : this holds the connotation of not having a username at the site, and in that context it works well.
- “Student”, “Photographer”, etc : to label your users based on your site content seems intuitive, but that only really works with your “pro” users. The casual ones often don’t deserve the term: I have a Flickr account, but I’m no photographer.
- “Customer”, “Consumer”, “Client” : at a retail site this makes a lot of sense, but to be honest I think “Consumer” has exactly the same ugly-word feel that “User” does.
- “Participant”, “Contributor” : I “use” YouTube, but I’ve never uploaded a video, so I don’t feel I deserve this label either.
- “Author, “Artist”, etc : again, this applies to content creators which make up a very slim slice of a site’s user-base.
- “Person” : too blasé, but as general as User, I suppose. This seemed to have the largest following among commenters, although I’m not sure I agree. We all know we are people, so why point it out with the label? And it doesn’t verb well, either.
- “Patron” : too old-school for the internet.
- “Tester” : nice pun for sites in perpetual beta, but (like most wisecracks) falls short in the long run.
- “Actor” : I’m not too excited by this one either, although I don’t have much experience in building use cases. “Use” cases, hmm.
Plurals
- “People” : see Person.
- “Community” : true, although many sites are not communities. “Community-generated content” does have a nice ring to it, though.
My vote? Stick with “User” and if you need to differentiate within that, “Guest”, “Member”, and “Contributor” represent fairly wide coverage. The word fits on so many levels, and for those of us who don’t associate it with drug-culture or try to pre-pend the letter “L” its not too objectionable. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the objectors by age, too, because I suspect there is a generational disconnect with the term.
Valleywag (and others) have commented on the launch of StartupSearch, a new directory site tracking people, money, and traffic in relation to Web 2.0 startups. Interestingly the site has been “sponsored” by a VC firm through June (its future unknown after that), so it does not need to index itself yet.
Their definition of “startup” seems to include just professionally funded companies, although it seems advantageous to get your company on their ASAP for the exposure. When we have a logo and a better “coming soon” homepage I will put Common Kitchen in there and see what happens.
