Fond Memories! Revisiting 'Zork': What We Lost in the Transition to Visual Games - Excerpt via The Atlantic

by Philip Bump

What we forget, what was lost with the transition to visual games, is how literary the experience was. A quick catalog of words I learned from text adventures -- mostly from Infocom, the granddaddy of the genre: menhir, footpad, topiary, lapis lazuli. The games were written as much as they were designed; tantalizing adjectives to create a sense of the world, sometimes-obscure nouns to describe things which may not exist in real-life. They sampled from literature as well: one game, A Mind Forever Voyaging, used an excerpt from "The Raven" as an interlude.

Managing Pottermore: Maximizing a Competitive Advantage | Transmythology

Managing Pottermore: Maximizing a Competitive Advantage

As I noted in my “initial observations” posting, Pottermore’s main competitive advantage over Harry Potter fan sites, and indeed other forms of diversion for its target audience, is its direct relationship with J.K. Rowling. Managing that connection is going to prove critical if the endeavor is going to succeed.

It strikes me that there are at least three kinds of engagement at play with Pottermore. There is (a) interaction with the site’s basic elements, including the ebook content and gamified rewards; (b) interaction with other users; and (c) interaction with and around new content from Rowling. The last one comprises by far the lowest proportion of time and content on the site, but its most important asset. Its value and influence must be maximized....

Read the full post on transmythology.com

Online Games and Interest-Driven Learning are Transformative for Today's Young Learners - DML Research Hub

2 months ago 2 months ago: Wed, Apr 20, 2011 4:23pm EST (Eastern Standard Time)

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Constance Steinkuhler, a games and learning scholar, discusses her firsthand experiences in seeing how youth-centered learning and online gaming leads to compelling turnarounds in youth engagement.

Really Really Scary: Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges | via The Guardian

Excerpt

"...Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her foetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."

She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."

Women's rights campaigners see the creeping criminalisation of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs' case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi's highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion...."

Overhead Bin - Virtual lovemaking may be reality in hotel room of 2030 (excerpt via overheadbin.msnbc.com)

Q: You also suggest it’ll be possible to share those dreams. How would that work?

A: If you’re watching the same video, you’re incorporating the same experiences. It can become a fully interactive experience — it’s almost as good as being there. It almost comes down to the ability to make love to someone across a dream. All the components needed to do it will exist and be in a mature state by 2030.

Q: Hmmm, sounds like a formula for virtual infidelity ...

A: It all comes down to the quality of your relationship. Do you want to be with your real partner or someone else? You could use this in the context of a stable relationship or you could be a cad and play around. It’s no different than the Internet — you could send love notes to your wife or hang out in chat rooms with everybody else.

Always Smart Simon Pulman on Pottermore: Initial Observations | Transmythology (excerpt)

Excerpt:

"Sustained Engagement – Making it Last

Pottermore does not face a challenge in attracting attention. It is virtually guaranteed to attract several million signups in its first few days. The biggest struggle will lie with avoiding the ultimate fate of most “official” fan communities. Because IP owners are used to working in release cycles and focusing on return on investment, official communities tend to be focused around major releases. They launch with fanfare and users migrate to check out the initial content… before gradually returning to the fan sites from whence they came, frustrated by lack of updates and more oppressive monitoring of what they can say and do.

In order to succeed as a community, Pottermore will have to be more like Facebook than the typical movie website. It needs to focus on nurturing a community in the long run, and it must maintain momentum after the initial hype and ebook sales have died down. Fans, within reason, should not feel restricted or censored. Moreover, it cannot let its competitive advantage – direct contact with Rowling – lapse. While Rowling should maintain a degree of distance and mystery, she must pop up now and again at unexpected times to keep the community energized. New story content needs to be released incrementally and, ideally, should be substantial.

Moreover, “Potter whisperers” – full time employees – need to be on hand 24/7 to stoke the fires, fuel discussion and drop tidbits. All of this needs to be done within the context of a safe, secure, nurturing environment. It’s a genuine challenge...."

Facebook To Launch Crowdsourced Ad Format Next Week | Fast Company

Excerpt:

"But next week Facebook will launch a new kind of unit that’s innovative not just for its format, but for how it was conceived. That’s because Facebook didn’t come up with the idea itself--it crowdsourced it.

The new unit is called the “Comment” ad. It will appear in the right-hand column, like other ads. But it will be formatted like a conversation (or, as Facebook calls them, “a story”). The brand will make a statement or pose a question, and below that will be a comment box where the user can enter a response (see top right).

If the user does enter a response, the conversation then appears in the user’s News Feed, where the brand starts to reap “earned” impressions among that user’s friends. And if some of the user’s friends comment themselves, those comments can be turned into Sponsored Stories (see bottom right).

In other words, it’s the ad that keeps on giving...."