In the world of video games, especially in the worlds depicted in first person shooters like Halo, normal is actually pretty exceptional.

In general, FPS games come in two flavors: 1) you’re an over-the-top hero, with skills and weapons normal plebs can only dream about or 2) you’re a trained military soldier, typically fighting for the Allies in WWII, which is apparently the favorite time period of 80% of all FPS game designers.  The more fantastical the world, the further it deviates from WWII norms, the more powerful the protagonist becomes.  There are some exceptions here and there (Valve’s Half-Life and to a limited extent Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare), but overall the FPS genre is built around superior skills/technology and a rather adolescent fantasy that the fate of the world rests on your shoulders (aliens will destroy Earth, Hitler will win, demons from Hell will flood into our world, etc.).   While the first three Halo games did much to innovate design expectations for the FPS genre, they did not vary much from this basic narrative formula.

This is what makes the release of ODST so exciting for those of us interested in both the potential of video games as an entertainment medium and the power of interactive story-telling.  ODST tells a very different type of story, one far more character-driven and far less all-or-nothing in its scope.  The Rookie is the central character, but his story takes place after most of the events of the game.  A drop gone bad into New Mombasa, a fictional African metropolis, leaves the Rookie unconscious for six hours, while the other characters in the game – Buck, Mickey, Romeo, and so on) go about trying to figure out why they were sent on the drop in the first place and trying to regroup and escape what has become very hostile territory.  The Rookie, by contrast,  wanders the streets of New Mombasa in the dark of night, trying to carefully search the city for clues regarding what happened in the six hours he was unconscious, all the while trying to avoid too open confrontation with the superior alien forces.  As clues are found, the story of what happened before plays out in a quasi-linear fashion, with the player engaging a playable flashback wherein they step into the shoes of one of the other characters in the story.  The daytime action is more frenetic and intense, more typical of traditional Halo play, and has the rousing and award winning scoring that has made the Halo games famous.  When the flashback ends, the player returns to the night streets of New Mombasa, back in the role of the Rookie, where they must search for more clues.  The score here is dominated by lonely jazzy notes, and the contrast between the different story-telling modes is exceptionally gripping.  By the time the Rookie has pieced together what happened over the last six hours, he has caught up to the action and the game proceeds to its final bits of exploration and a few climactic battles.

In addition, another fascinating detail has been woven into the story.  New Mombasa is run by an AI named Virgil whose coder/curator is father to a girl named Sadie.  As the player explores the streets, they can come across kiosks that store audio and photo files taken by Virgil’s surveillance equipment that tell the story of Sadie’s struggle to survive during the advent of the alien attack.  The story is strangely compelling, made more so by the piecemeal flashbacks and the fact that the player must actively search for the kiosks, thus producing more affective involvement with the Sadie plot.

ODST isn’t a perfect game, but it is a big leap forward in demonstrating the narrative potential of video games in general, and FPS games in particular.  As such, it is well worth exploring for those in the MCDM interested in new forms of digital story-telling.

Bonus bit: Included in the Venn diagrams of geeky goodness are these three circles: those that love Joss Whedon, those that love Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, Castle), and those that love video games.  I sit securely at the intersection of all three groups, so imagine how happy I was to hear some time back that the character of Buck is voiced by Fillion (who is also a big Halo player, and by all accounts a pretty good one, and who, along with other Firefly alums, did some voice work as random soldiers for Halo 3), and that this character (and his quips) are available for the new multiplayer mode Firefight, where you and your friends fight wave after wave of alien forces to see how long you can survive.  There are few things more satisfying than head-shotting grunts while Fillion exclaims: “How do you like me now? and ” Or my personal favorite, upon the arrival of the heavily armored hunters and their deadly cannons, is Fillion’s voice muttering: “Turn around so I can shoot you in the back.”  Now that’s good gaming.

Ken Rufo can be found on XBL under the handle HankFourteen.

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• November 29, 2009 — Foursquare, the next big social media thing? (17)
• November 17, 2009 — Social Networks and Video Games (16)

Heavensfield Retreat Center, home of the reSTART program, outside Redmond. (Image courtesy of reSTART)

A new addiction treatment program unlike any other in the country opened recently outside Redmond. This new program, reSTART, aims to heal a malady created by the digital age: Internet addiction. Though similar centers exist in Asia and online, reSTART is the first of its kind in the United States. Patients pay $14,500 to live at Heavensfield Retreat Center for 45 days. They participate in individual and group counseling, outdoor activities, life coaching and a variety of other programs.

So how do you distinguish between healthy Internet use and an addiction? According to an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry by Jerald Block, a Portland psychiatrist who specializes in this field, symptoms of Internet addiction include excessive use; feelings of anger or discomfort when away from a computer or portable device; the urge to increasingly buy better software or technology or to expand usage; and negative impact on quality of life; including sleep deprivation, poor performance at work or in school and lying about how much time one spends online. Internet addiction generally falls into three categories: gaming, sexual content and email or text messaging.

Internet addiction is becoming more prevalent in the United States. In a 2006 Stanford University study, 14 percent of American adults reported finding it difficult to be disconnected for several days; 9 percent said they hide certain aspects of their Internet use from family and friends; and 8 percent said they use the Internet to escape reality. The American Psychiatric Association is currently debating whether to add Internet addiction to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), due for release in 2012. Inclusion in the DSM would mean both the possibility of insurance coverage for treatment and wider acceptance of sufferers’ hardships. But critics of the term “Internet addiction” say that labeling extreme Internet use as deviant is merely an older generation trying to quantify behavior they do not understand.

It’s not just “World of Warcraft” gamers and online poker players who are affected by this addiction. CNN reports that stay-at-home moms, particularly young ones, are especially vulnerable. New mothers often spend a great deal of time at home with no other adults to talk to. Blogs, message boards and Second Life become natural outlets for social interaction.

Internet addiction is perhaps an even more serious problem in China, South Korea and Taiwan. The Christian Science Monitor estimates that 17 million of China’s 300 million Internet users can be classified as addicts, meaning they spend more than six hours of leisure time online every day. South Korea considers Internet addiction to be a top concern after a number of deaths in Internet cafes, including 10 cardiopulmonary-related fatalities and one homicide.

Given the widespread nature of the problem, it’s no surprise that these Asian countries already treat people for Internet addiction. As Internet use has exploded in China, particularly among the country’s teens, parents have turned to hundreds of training camps to cure their kids of their addictive Internet behaviors, CNN reports.

Although some treatment centers have been successful, others have recently come under scrutiny for extreme behaviors, such as electroshock therapy and military-style drills. In August, a teenage boy died from physical abuse at an Internet addiction camp; at another camp, a boy was beaten, leaving him in critical condition.

The effectiveness of treatment for Internet addiction is still up for debate. Internet addiction has a relatively high rate of co-morbidity, the simultaneous presence of two of more illnesses in a patient. Among Internet addicts, 86 percent also suffer from some other psychiatric problem. Co-morbidity is common in many forms of addiction, but it does raise the argument that treatment for Internet addiction is merely addressing a symptom and not the cause. Is an executive who obsessively checks his e-mail on his Blackberry an Internet addict or a workaholic? How does compulsive gambling online differ from compulsive gambling in a casino? If a new mom spends all her time visiting a message board to alleviate her postpartum depression, should she be treated for depression, addiction or both?

Regardless, in an increasingly digital reality, excessive Internet use is likely to become more common. If someone is hiding time online from a loved one or missing important deadlines because he’s immersed in an online activity, he may be afflicted. ReSTART offers an online diagnostic test to help identify one’s risk.

Helen Pitlick has been a student in the MCDM program since spring 2009. She works with social media as an intern at Foodista.com, and in her spare time she reviews craft beer.

Most Commented Posts

• November 21, 2008 — Crowdsourcing: Name the New MCDM Center! (37)
• November 9, 2009 — An Ode to Contemplation (32)
• February 25, 2008 — Flip Video Vlog: Codecs and You! (25)
• November 29, 2009 — Foursquare, the next big social media thing? (17)
• November 17, 2009 — Social Networks and Video Games (16)

What: Reception and Orientation to MCDM program and UW Media Space

Who: All new MCDM students
All second year MCDMers are strongly encouraged to come
MCDM alums
Bring your family and kids!
MCDM faculty, director, associate director, and staff
MCDM business and community partners
Prospective students

Where: UW Waterfront Activities Center (Parking is free)

When: Sunday, September 27
3:30-4:30 New and continuing Student Orientation
(Prospective students may attend as space allows)
4:30 on: picnic dinner, socializing and family fun (boating and rock climbing wall available). If weather is inclement, we’ll raise tents.

Most Commented Posts

• November 21, 2008 — Crowdsourcing: Name the New MCDM Center! (37)
• November 9, 2009 — An Ode to Contemplation (32)
• February 25, 2008 — Flip Video Vlog: Codecs and You! (25)
• November 29, 2009 — Foursquare, the next big social media thing? (17)
• November 17, 2009 — Social Networks and Video Games (16)

With respect to this trend, I say Netflix should take Best in Show.

Netflix has posted its entire quasi-employee handbook titled, “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture.” It promotes everything you’d want to read in an employee handbook – freedom, flexibility and fun. Even if this was published as a marketing ploy, it’s a darn good one.

Most impressive is Netflix’s vacation policy. According to the middle pages of the vast document, there is no vacation limit for Netflix employees.

Wow, I know.

You may be asking, “What does this have to do with social media?”

Everything.

Social media is about conversation. Most companies worry about maintaining social media channels and branding more than they do contributing quality content to the conversation. Here, Netflix has set itself up to be a conversation piece for social media enthusiasts. Search Netflix on Twitter and you can see that the publishing the guidelines have worked.

Intel gave Netflix some good competition last week by embracing transparency and sharing its social media guidelines publicly (See Intel social media guidelines.) Best Buy, too, started from the foundation and crowdsourced the requirements for its new Sr. Manager, Emerging Media Markets position, which spread like wild fire across Twitter. (Full disclosure: I used to work at Best Buy in college. I can alphabetize DVDs like a mofo.)

On the losing end, ESPN dug its own digital grave this week by telling employees they can only Tweet if it serves ESPN. (See Ric Bucher’s Tweet and the Mashable article.) Da-da-da. Da-da-dumb.

Netflix is a clear winner because it managed to create so much buzz with (what appears to be) so little effort, simply by telling people want they want to hear. Leave it to the direct-to-you movie service to make an indirect social media move.

Netflix has created advocates through this simple effort and let them do the talking. That’s a best social media practice that I give two thumbs up.

Paolo Mottola is a UWMCDM student and digital comms extraordinaire at PR firm Weber Shandwick. This article was originally posted at his personal blog, Word Is Born.

Most Commented Posts

• November 21, 2008 — Crowdsourcing: Name the New MCDM Center! (37)
• November 9, 2009 — An Ode to Contemplation (32)
• February 25, 2008 — Flip Video Vlog: Codecs and You! (25)
• November 29, 2009 — Foursquare, the next big social media thing? (17)
• November 17, 2009 — Social Networks and Video Games (16)

gdgt appears to be a church for gadget geeks, so it’s no wonder why the site came to a halt due to traffic shortly after its launch this morning. As proven by the success of their previous personal technology news sites, the gadget audience is lively and loyal.

Rojas and Block are going back to the well with gdgt, and this time they’re connecting the dots between gadget news and reviews, community and social media. Unlike Engadget and Gizmodo, where readers are limited to commenting on news posts, gdgt lets readers  create their own identities around the gadgets they own, have owned or would like to own. The profile qualities play perfectly to early adopters of gadgets who already consider themselves to be defined by their gadgets.

On Engadget and Gizmodo, enthusiastic users often write their own reviews and impressions as comments on product review posts. Often these additional reviews offer as much substance as the original reviews. On gdgt, everyone can be a Scrooge and visit their ghosts of personal technology past, present and future through a gadget search database and share reviews. This more glorified reviews section gives the amateur reviewers more legitimate voices and without the constraints and limitations of comment forms. gdgt populated some of the newest product pages with recent reviews from the Mossbergs and Pogues of the personal technology world, but it’s difficult to tell if this was just an early tactic to populate content for the site or if gdgt will also service product review aggregation. For those pressing conversations outside gadgets (if that’s possible), gdgt also hosts discussion boards.

In the spirit of social media, gdgt provides a plethora of widgets so that you can proudly display your gdgt profile anywhere you can embed html, with automated links for blog publishing sites like Blogger and Live Spaces (No widget for WordPress yet.) Of course, this is also a wise move by gdgt to provide symbiotic mechanisms for promotion.

To connect the community, Rojas and Block took a page from Twitter’s book. If you like a gdgt member’s review or personal list of gdgts, you can follow them. If they follow you, you’re friends. You can send your friends messages. All too familiar, right?

I can see how gdgt is set up for success, and so long as Rojas and Block steer the ship, success is likely. Manufacturers of gadgets lust after the attractive community of early adopters who will likely flock to gdgt. As the community grows and rates devices, those ratings will begin to impact sales. And thus advertising sales will likely climb. I immediately saw an attractive ad on the site to buy a Blackberry Storm as I looked at the iPhone 3Gs review.

gdgt’s biggest challenge is the same that Vista faced: Are the changes enough to make people want to upgrade? Gizmodo and Engadget are dominant blogs with loyal, energized fanbases. According to the 80-20 rule or 90-9-1 rule, or whatever other Internet audience rule you want to apply, not everyone wants to participate – most just want to read. Unless gdgt employs the constant news stream that Gizmodo and Endgadet supply, gdgt may be too passive a site to garner the same traffic as its older brothers. New gadgets don’t come out as frequently as gadget leaks, which drive the nearly constant news cycles that keep Engadget and Gizmodo readers engaged.

I don’t think gdgt intends to compete with Gizmodo or Engadget because it serves more as a reviews repository and community than a news stream. But if Rojas and Block intend to see the same success in gdgt, their big bet is growing the community and growing it big.

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The class, taught by @kegill,

“explores the impact of Twitter on how organizations communicate (internally and externally) — from facilitating knowledge sharing to bypassing traditional communication gatekeepers, from social network impacts on content creation to new methods of conversational marketing.”

Students will research how Twitter is used in selected industries and compile their reflections in an ebook or print book.

As is the custom at MCDM, students will be using Twitter during class. Follow their tweets in real-time at #uwtwitbook, every Tuesday night from 6-10pm (PDT) through August 11, 2009.

Update: The hashtag for the class has been changed to #uwtwtrbook.

Update, August 17: TwitterBook OpenHouse at University of Washington (CMU126) and on uStream.tv

Students will be giving five minute presentations on the “best of the best” uses of Twitter in their study area—including airlines, hospitals, food banks, politicians, government, Latin America, news media, food service, visual communication, and the military.

Twitter account holders, RSVP at http://twtvite.com/3df62z

Presentations will be shared at http://twitter09.wordpress.com/students/final-presentations/

Note: The uStream link will be added.

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• February 4, 2010 — Online Media Democracy Is Still Under Construction, or Why Engadget Had to Flip the Switch on Comments (14)
• November 9, 2009 — An Ode to Contemplation (32)

On June 3, 2009, Bing was introduced to the public.  Many call it a new search engine, however José Piñero, Microsoft Manager, stated that Bing is a decision engine to help people to make decisions faster, especially in the areas of shopping, travel and health.

Last Tuesday,  Piñero introduced Bing to the Hispanic community here in Seattle through a Spanish News Program (KUNS/UNIVISION). Bing is available in the Spanish language and currently Bing is investing in different languages in all parts of the world.  This multilingual section not only includes the languange, but local feature development that addresses the user habits and the user needs, in other words an engine with cultural competence.

Using the term decision engine when referring to Bing, will distinguished Bing from other search engines that do not offer the same feature as Bing does.  Innovation will continue in this area as more business get that there is a global market out there.  My question is, what would be next?

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According to Digitalmediawire, Facebook suprpassed the US Web traffic for the first time during the month of May.  Facebook had 70.278 million unique visitors vs. MySpace with 70.255 million.

It seems that Facebook is getting a worldwide attention. For example, in Chile, Facebook is the most used social media platform with 4,069,520 users, placing the South American country among the ten countries in the world the use Facebook the most. (Knol, 2008). According to O’Reilly Radar, among the other ten countries are, UK in second place after the United States, Canada in third, Turkey in fouth, Australia, Colombia, France, Norway, and Sweden.

This shows the power of the Facebook community, however this social media platform has not had the same results all over the world. This does not mean that it won’t in the future, but there is always the possibility that other countries will not follow the Facebook path. Only time will tell…

Side Note: Facebook overtook MySpace in worldwide unique visitors in April 2008. (Digitalmediawire, 2009).

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• June 4, 2009 — YouTweetFace (1)