Category: New Media (Page 5 of 23)

      Proliferation of daily fantasy sports games

      September 30, 2013 /

      Brandon Weeden_IMG_8207

      Did you capitalize on Brian Hoyer starting for the Cleveland Browns once Brandon Weeden got hurt? Or have you been riding Peyton Manning’s incredible performances so far this season. You might think I’m referring to typical conversations for fantasy football, but with the explosion of daily fantasy sports games, millions of dollars are legally changing hands as websites and now even apps try to capitalize on these games of skill. This has completely changed the landscape of sports betting as players now have the option of risking cash on daily fantasy games as opposed to the traditional method of picking games against the spread. Now with SideDraft being added to the Apple app store we might see the games become even more popular.

      The key revolves around the notion that picking lineups in a fantasy game makes these games “skill” games that are not prohibited by various state and federal laws. With the popularity of fantasy football and other sports, these new sites just add the cash element and suddenly we have a new niche exploding around the web. The key difference from a game point of view is that you pick different players each week, so you’re not stuck with a crappy like regular fantasy football if you have a bad draft or have key injuries on your roster.

      Most of these games have salary cap of course, so you’ll pay a price for using Manning or someone like Adrian Peterson. The key is finding cheap bargains who can have big games, like Hoyer of course. Even veterans like Philip Rivers of the San Diego Chargers can help you win, as he’s having a huge year but wasn’t in great demand in typical fantasy leagues.

      These games can be just as addicting as regular gambling or regular fantasy football, so the popularity isn’t surprising. I am surprised however that some lawmakers have tried to stop everyone from having so much fun.

      Apps, Entrepreneurs, Gadgets, Games, Mobile, New Media

      Twitter keeps screwing with my email notification settings

      July 8, 2013 /

      Twitter email notification abuse screen shot

      I hate it when awesome social media services like Twitter get so big that they become desperate to drive more growth. It’s one thing to keep improving the user experience, but it’s quite another to manipulate settings in a lame attempt to drive more engagement.

      Twitter keeps messing with my email notifications across my various business accounts. I don’t want my email inbox flooded with useless email notifications from Twitter, so I shut them all off. But the folks at Twitter keep adding more reasons to send you an email, like “Someone shares a Tweet with me” and “Someone from my address book joins Twitter.” Naturally, their default option is to have the box checked, so even if you wipe all the email options clean in your settings, Twitter keeps adding new reasons and then checking them so you get more emails.

      Enough. Please stop. This is just ridiculous. Please add an option at the top that let’s me tell you I never want to receive any emails from Twitter.

      New Media

      Adobe pisses off more customers with Photoshop CC subscription mandate

      July 5, 2013 /

      If you want to use Photoshop CC, you have to purchase a monthly or yearly subscription. The days of the perpetual license are ending at Adobe, and that has left many customers furious, as these letters to the NYT reviewer make clear.

      I have mixed feelings on this. I don’t have a huge problem with Adobe’s strategy, but I think they’re pricing it too high. The same goes for Dreamweaver. David Pogue points out that GIMP is a free competitor to Photoshop, and while Adobe will make out big in the short run, perhaps by pricing it too high they risk losing serious market share over time.

      We’ll see how it plays out.

      New Media, Software

      Quality vs quantity in online publishing

      July 1, 2013 /

      woman napping at work

      If you’re an online publisher without a huge staff, trying to keep up with the big boys can be exhausting.

      This article explains how publications like Huffington Post and even old, traditional publishers like Forbes are playing the page view game, trying to generate as much content for the lowest possible cost. Too many companies are trying to play this game.

      On the other side of the spectrum, publications like Salon have abandoned this losing game and instead focused on quality and long-form articles that will have an impact. Fortunately it’s working for them.

      New Media

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