My year of blogging 2011

A look back at my blogs from 2011. Interesting to see me slowly switching focus from Social Media and Technology to nearly all Gamification!

New Year – What could it Bring

Posted on December 31, 2011Well, in a few hours it will be 2012. Now, sadly we are not traveling in flying cars though luckily it doesn’t look like the world is going to end. So what is going to happen in 2012? I think it is pretty certain that a gajillion new social media related jobs will be created. That said, I have to wonder how long that can last. More…Posted in Opinion

Confessions, Klout and Contradictions

Posted on December 30, 2011In my third set of musings around social influence and indexing tools such as Klout, I feel it is time to confess a few things. But first, you may have noticed from my previous posts – I am not a fan of the importance being put on the afore mentioned tools in the industry.More…Posted in Opinion, Social Media, Technology

Apple – Sponsored by Microsoft Pie.

Posted on December 14, 2011Of course that isn’t true, but it could be. In the last few days Microsoft has released some very well received apps for iOS. It started with My Xbox Live and has seen Kinectimals and SkyDrive follow. Microsoft have had other products on the platform. Photosynth, Tag and the very popular OneNote, which has also had a big update. More…Posted in Opinion, Technology

Should we be talking about Rewardification and Gamification?

Posted on November 28, 2011I have written a little about Gamification. I love the concept and have just been doing a little bit of it on my website – www.yars.co.uk. I have implemented very simple ideas like Achievements and Experience points for participation. I talk to many people about such things and they often come back with the same comments. Where is the game in that? Is that not just More…Posted in Gamification, Technology

Whilst Innovation may not be Dead, where is the Courage in the Games Industry?

Posted on November 14, 2011People often ask where the innovation has gone in the games industry. I have been guilty of it on the past. In fact, this article was going to be titled with that exact question. However, the more I drafted the piece and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that innovation is… More…Posted in Gaming, Opinion, Rants

If anyone can set up a website and review games, is the traditional games press doomed?

Posted on November 5, 2011The Internet is saturated with sites and blogs that publish games news and reviews at a phenomenal rate. Within seconds of press releases being sent out, they appear on the Internet in a dozen different ways. Technologies such as Twitter and Facebook allow us to release snippets of information without even needing to write a… More…Posted in Gaming, Opinion

Google Just Don’t get Social

Posted on November 1, 2011Google have been playing with social networking for a while now. Wave, buzz and now Google+. Up until now they have failed to make any kind of impact, proving each time they just don’t understand what people want from social networking. However, with the launch of Google+ it seems that they have gotten a bit… More…Posted in Rants, Social Media, Technology

Treating the Klout

Posted on October 26, 2011Just recently, Klout changed something in their scoring algorithm. This something changed quite a few people’s scores. Some for the better and some for the worse. Now you see this proves the point I was making in Catching the Klout. Chasing numbers is, in many ways, pointless when it comes to social networking. Using arbitrary… More…Posted in Social Media, Technology

Why can’t I dislike something?

Posted on October 12, 2011When I was a school, we had a simple merit / demerit system to help improve behaviour. Each child in the school was a member of a house (I was Owls), and good deeds or work earned you merit points, bad behaviour earned demerits for the house total. At the end of each term, the… More…Posted in Gamification, Opinion, Rants, Social Media

Gamification: Learning from our kids that the Task can be the Reward

Posted on October 10, 2011Let me just start by saying, I am not an expert in the subject of gamification nor am I trying to be. These ramblings are just my opinion. This opinion is based on the following experience. 10 years in the IT industry, a life time of playing games, running a games review website, writing about… More…Posted in Gamification, Opinion, Technology

Can the UK keep up with demand for the Cloud

Posted on October 5, 2011Data. Not the chap from Star Trek the Next Generation. No, I am talking about that invisible stream of information that we all rely on day to day. It lets us browse the web, check our emails, watch films and much, much more. However, are we coming to the point where our need for data…More…Posted in Opinion, Technology

Social Nugget Management

Posted on September 29, 2011Social platforms are taking over, both in the casual world and the business world, which is great! People are able to ask each other questions rather than having to trawl through pages and pages of archived information in Intranets or websites. Living in the now, they can instantly find what they need. However, when those… More…Posted in Social Media, Technology

If the Internet came to an end tomorrow…

Posted on September 19, 2011What if, the Internet came to an end tomorrow? What would you do? I keep in contact with lots of remote friends via email, twitter, forums and messenger. If the Internet ended, I would have to actually talk to these people over the phone. I would be limited to just dealing with people one at… More…Posted in Opinion, Technology

Positively negative.

Posted on September 8, 2011A negative comment is only really negative if no one learns from it. People will always be more likely to point out what you are doing wrong than what you are doing right. It is human nature to seek the errors in others. For some this is because they truly feel they are being helpful… More…Posted in Opinion, Social Media

Stop trying to sell me stuff and just talk to me

Posted on September 5, 2011It amazes me how humans seem to have this need to turn any new form of communication into a sales and marketing tool. Okay, so I suppose I know why, money. We all want to make money. When post was invented, we got junk letters. When the phone was invented we got cold calls. Fax…More…Posted in Opinion, Rants, Social Media, Technology

Weight loss success and Social Media engagment

Posted on August 31, 2011For me to lose weight and for increased social media engagment, there are certain things that need to be done. Reduce a few things, increase a few and add a few others. In the case of me and weight loss; I need to reduce the fatty foods I eat, increase the amount of healthy stuff… More…Posted in Opinion, Social Media, Technology

HP Touchpad – what can the industry learn?

Posted on August 23, 2011Unless you have no interest in technology (then why are you reading this?), you will have seen that HP have given up on the Touchpad and WebOS already. I think it was something like 49 days it lasted, one more than the Microsoft Kin. FHKVPNJZ8Q2H This has prompted them to instigate a kind of Fire… More…Posted in Technology

Catching the Klout

Posted on August 10, 2011The other day, I made a funny. Mark Schaefer even re-tweeted it to a decent response. Based on his comment about the Social Media metric site, Klout, I suggested that it kind of sounded like an STD. [blackbirdpie id=”101035197780336640″] On reflection, it occurred that this was not so far from the truth. Klout is a… More…Posted in Opinion

Reviews – Resetting the Value baseline

Posted on August 3, 2011[dc]A[/dc]s a person who runs a games review site, I am extremely fortunate and get to try out not just games, but gaming related hardware. Anyone who has seen my site will know there are quite a few headset reviews as well as reviews of gaming mice. Just recently though, I have had a slight… More…Posted in Gaming, Opinion

Think old school to promote the new.

Posted on August 1, 2011Got a new Social Media project to promote? Try thinking old school! If you want to tell people about your company’s new Twitter account, don’t just rely on Twitter. You can’t guarantee they are using yet, but your new account may be the perfect excuse they need to start. Same with Facebook, Google+ etc. Just… More…Posted in Opinion

Sell yourself with Confidence and a bit of Ego – but leave the arrogance at the door.

Posted on July 26, 2011Professional life is all about selling yourself. Every day you need to sell yourself to others to make them believe that you can do the job they are asking of you. To sell yourself you need to have an ego and you need to be confident. Ego shows you have pride in yourself. Confidence shows… More…Posted in Opinion

Meet the distracted, multi tasking and gamified workforce of the future.

Posted on July 21, 2011Recently I was lucky enough to be given an hour to chat with a group of 16 and 17 year olds about Social Media and technology in general. [dc]I[/dc]t started with a general chat about how we communicate in day-to-day life. I was amazed that the first answer I got was “Facebook”. I had twitter,… More…Posted in Gaming, Opinion, Technology

Google+ app: Plus Cut Down To Size

Posted on July 20, 2011Google+ is hot property right now. Technology bloggers the world over are writing thousands of words a day about it (myself included). Sitting in a kind of partway space between the simplicity of Twitter and the do a bit of everything nature of Facebook, it is a technology that is still finding its true place… More…Posted in Opinion, Social Media, Technology

After sales care is just as important as pre sales if you want repeat business.

Posted on July 14, 2011I have just been trying to fix an issue with a delivery of a new PC, from a very large manufacturer, for my Father. I bought it online last week. It was a great experience. I spoke to a very helpful online assistant, who helped me answer all my questions and it went very smoothly… More…Posted in Rants

Bath time blogging and walking on the moon.

Posted on July 13, 2011Despite the title, this is actually about how amazing technology is and how much we take it for granted! Right now, I am lying in my bath, typing this up on my iPhone. When I am finished, I will press publish on the WordPress app and moments later these words will become available to millions… More…Posted in Opinion, Technology

Social Media without the social is just media.

Posted on July 12, 2011Having a Twitter account or a Facebook page for your company or brand, does not mean you have a Social Media strategy. Many companies seem to still forget that the key word in Social Media is “social”. Without customer interaction all you have is media, you may as well just use RSS! Whilst static feeds… More…Posted in Opinion, Social Media, Technology

Combat School, retro games, imagination and broken bones.

Posted on July 11, 2011I suppose I could call this the “Realification of Games”, but I won’t! “When I were a lad, games were better”. That is often an opening gambit of any retro game lover. Of course it is not precisely true for all retro games. It would be more accurate to say; “when I were a lad,… More…Posted in Gaming

Google+ circling the drain or a great place to hangout?

Posted on July 3, 2011For those who don’t yet know, Google+ is Google’s latest entry into the world of social networking. After Wave and Buzz, you have to wonder why – but more on the question why later. Here are some thoughts based on a few days usage. The Basics. Upon registering you are asked to fill in a… More…Posted in Social Media, Technology

Online Gaming. A positive and enjoyable past time.

Posted on July 2, 2011A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… oh wait wrong story. A few years ago, in a town somewhere in Cardiff, before I was a father or even married (I was at University), I got my first taste of online gaming. More specifically, clan gaming. The game in question was Starship Troopers… More…Posted in Gaming, Rants

He who shouts loudest isn’t always the most knowledgeable.

Posted on June 30, 2011Rant alert! The more blogs, articles, and tweets I read, the more I am seeing people described as experts. Often this is self-proclaimed, but not always. The Oxford Dictionary describes an expert as: “a person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area” Some of these people are legitimately experts. They know… More…Posted in Rants

Gamification: what is it, why is it important?

Posted on June 24, 2011Just as a thought, as a tag line – Gamification: why you have been doing it since you were a small child. Gamification is another one of those words that seems to be getting a lot of use at the moment, a little bit like Cloud. If you look at the Internet for a description… More…Posted in Gaming, Opinion, Technology

Clouds in the sky – what is the cloud?

Posted on June 23, 2011Cloud computing. It seems that whenever I hear talk about a new technology, the word Cloud is never that far from the description. From the humble, yet devastatingly handy Dropbox to the mysterious iCloud. The question that I keep asking is, what is the Cloud? It seems to be a question that no two people… More…Posted in Rants, Technology

Why am I not an axe murderer even though I play video games?

Posted on February 10, 2011First off, if you don’t want to read a rant about how stupid people are when it comes to their views on computer games being the root of all evil, back away now. I often post about this kind of thing. I get so angry at idiots who seem to blame computer games for everything.…More…Posted in Gaming, Rants

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