Nintendo pounds Sony and MS in sales - (37signals)
My Wii exposure has been fairly limited. I've only had a chance to play with one a few times, but it is truly a new approach to the console video game.
Nintendo took a risk, and it appears, that they have hit on something really big. First, the Wii something that the consumer seems to love. For years the industry has flirted with user feedback in gaming. It just never really caught on. Nintendo dropped the rules and tradition, and built something new from the ground up.
They also hit a home run in another area. They are actually making a profit on the units sold. For years, many of the game consoles have served as loss leaders because they knew that you would have to buy games and accessories, so they would make their money there. I understand the concept of the loss leader, but Nintendo took a different approach and they are reaping the rewards.
I think Nintendo's Purple Cow is they aren't selling video games, they are selling interaction with the game. No one else can really do that, and for sure, not the way they are doing it right now. They have discovered a way to make games more fun. In fact, from the ones I've played, the interaction and competition with your friends is more fun than the actual game. Its now about laughing at your friend's silly baseball swing or fearing his backhand.
Nintendo also has some great commercials showing people having fun instead of showing GAMES NOW AT 4857349847 pixels per millimeter or whatever else the other companies push. Imagine that–People having fun playing a game.
How long will Nintendo be able to ride this wave? Who knows. I'm sure that the next round of game consoles will try and incorporate some of the elements of the Wii into their system. But until then, Nintendo is once again, the king of video gaming coolness, and that's probably right where they belong.
After the accidental implosion of my site about a year ago, I was forced to start over with my site. This brings to mind a few things. First, if you value something, you should back it up, web folders included. Second, its hard sometimes to find a good portfolio solution when using Wordpress. Sure there are lots of options, but most of them are convoluted and require all the hoops aligning correctly and you jumping through them at the right trajectory.
I am happy to announce that my portfolio has returned to the web. I have several other pieces I need to add, but it is now here for your perusal. So when you have a chance, check it out.
Recently, I have asked myself this question several times. Google used to be a search engine. Thats what they were when I found them. Now Google is a search engine, mail service, calendar service, video service (Google Video AND YouTube), RSS feed distributor (Feedburner), news service, maps service and about 100 other things. So what is Google?
On the surface it seems like Google is shooting to be everything. Some of their offerings leave me scratching my head. Some say that the additional "tools" add the ever allusive stickiness that so many sites look for when building their stable of offerings. For me, I see Google as one thing, pure and simple. Google is now an advertising network. If you look at their expansion efforts, they are simply adding new advertising channels. All of the "stuff" they have either currently serves or will serve one of two purposes; to gather information for advertising or to display advertising. Go ahead, take a spin through their offerings and you can figure out which ones [will] belong to which group.
I'm not saying that this is a bad thing because I don't know that it is or isn't. The PPC model of advertising is quickly becoming the default method of internet monetization. I do think if this really is Google's big plan - to build a huge advertising network, they are playing a dangerous game. Building a business purely around an advertising model hasn't worked out so well for older industries (see the dismal newspaper industry for reference). I think the guys at Google are a little smarter at the game, but it wasn't too many years ago that ad based businesses like the newspapers thought they owned the game.
Good to great design is hard to find sometimes. One would think it would be easy. We have Google to guide us and a world full of people making great things. The reality is that it isn't that easy though. Sure there are great designers out there, but most designers stink at promoting themselves. So they sit around making really cool stuff that their mom and their dog sees.
Today I stumbled across a great site called ELSEWARES. They feature products designed by independent designers and help them get exposure while selling some really cool stuff.
For example, the watch you see here by Nooka is really interesting. Dots to tell the hour, a bar for the minutes, and a digital clock for the seconds. I know some would scream about usability and being able to tell time quickly, but its such a novel design it makes it worth the sacrifice.
If you are the type that you are usually looking for the stuff that most other people won't have and you love great design, swing by and check them out. Even if you aren't in the buying mood, you can get some serious inspiration there.
There are a handful of sites/services that have been added to my regular rotation. These aren't hot new sites, but they are some things that have made my life a little bit easier.
I've recently become a Bloglines addict. For a really long time, I've tried to use feed readers. I've demoed probably a half dozen or so. Some of them are really great and have really nice features (maybe even better than Bloglines) but there is one difference. All of the others I have tried were local based programs. For months I would scan duplicate content because I work from two different machines.
This happens no more. Thanks to Bloglines, everything is kept up to date no matter what machine I'm on. I can login and check my feeds and never deal with dupes. I think they could really improve the editing procedure, but other than that I'm thrilled.
One of my personal goals this year is to increase my "network". I'm good at meeting people and horrible at keeping track of who I meet (as demonstrated by my linked in account). So I'm trying to keep tabs on everyone through my linked in profile. Its been really cool to see who I can be linked to even though I haven't been able to get a lot of my contacts on there. If you feel like you should be linked in to me, click on my profile and let me know who you are and why we should be linked.
I've been a big fan of del.icio.us for a while now. There has always been a problem though that I could never get past. There hasn't been an easy way to integrate all the bookmark stuff together. Sure I can put a bookmarklet in your favorites bar and click on it to add a site to del.icio.us, but more often than not, I forget. I hit the shortcut and add it to my local bookmarks, which is a problem (like the RSS reader problem). Enter the del.icio.us plugin by Yahoo for firefox. I've tried some of the other plugins and they just never worked right for me. Some didn't work at all. This one has been flawless and completely replaces the local bookmarking tab, which is exactly what I wanted.
These days, work is all about speed and efficiency for me. I am always looking for ways to make things easier to digest and these are some of the tools that I'm using now.
Nintendo pounds Sony and MS in sales - (37signals)
My Wii exposure has been fairly limited. I've only had a chance to play with one a few times, but it is truly a new approach to the console video game.
Nintendo took a risk, and it appears, that they have hit on something really big. First, the Wii something that the consumer seems to love. For years the industry has flirted with user feedback in gaming. It just never really caught on. Nintendo dropped the rules and tradition, and built something new from the ground up.
They also hit a home run in another area. They are actually making a profit on the units sold. For years, many of the game consoles have served as loss leaders because they knew that you would have to buy games and accessories, so they would make their money there. I understand the concept of the loss leader, but Nintendo took a different approach and they are reaping the rewards.
I think Nintendo's Purple Cow is they aren't selling video games, they are selling interaction with the game. No one else can really do that, and for sure, not the way they are doing it right now. They have discovered a way to make games more fun. In fact, from the ones I've played, the interaction and competition with your friends is more fun than the actual game. Its now about laughing at your friend's silly baseball swing or fearing his backhand.
Nintendo also has some great commercials showing people having fun instead of showing GAMES NOW AT 4857349847 pixels per millimeter or whatever else the other companies push. Imagine that–People having fun playing a game.
How long will Nintendo be able to ride this wave? Who knows. I'm sure that the next round of game consoles will try and incorporate some of the elements of the Wii into their system. But until then, Nintendo is once again, the king of video gaming coolness, and that's probably right where they belong.
June 27, 2007
12:09 pm
I've recently become a 
One of my personal goals this year is to increase my "network". I'm good at meeting people and horrible at keeping track of who I meet (as demonstrated by my linked in account). So I'm trying to keep tabs on everyone through my linked in profile. Its been really cool to see who I can be linked to even though I haven't been able to get a lot of my contacts on there. If you feel like you should be linked in to me, click on my profile and let me know who you are and why we should be linked.
I've been a big fan of 
