E3 thoughts:The big stuff

Well, E3 has come and gone, and some big things where dropped. I'm gonna do my personal run down on each one and then an overall. I figure if you want the hard numbers then you can go to any one of the ten bajillion sites with all of that. So here we go.

1.Playstation Move: The Playstation move... I'm starting here so I can get my hatred out early. This thing to me is utterly ridiculous. Microsoft took the idea of motion control and gave it a shot of steroids, Sony literally carbon copied nintendos plan. The problem with the wii to me is the imprecision, and I'm sorry if I don't believe this is a step forward. Sony wants to refine the hardware, sure, but to me this isn't it. The wii thrives on the casual. The games make use of the motion in a way that makes it accesible to average consumers, not gamers. Sony with the ps3 was feeding into the "gamer" market and it did pretty well in recent months with price drops in hardware. This to me they are trying to setup a casual market that nintendo has LOCKED down. The Wii is only gonna get cheaper, and the ps3 isn't gonna be able to win the price race. For casual gamers the decision is going to be based solely on price. The move to me is going to not move units, and therefore it won't have any supported games. I won't be owning one, so in future months don't expect me to review playstation:move based games.

2.The kinectic- Now, as i said above microsoft is taking the idea and improving the tech behind it. This to me has huge potential. Taking away the control from this idea, the motion control idea, is HUGE step forward. We all remember from movies and t.v. the idea of virtual reality and such, and this tech is moving in that direction for home use. The games I'm excited about with motion control implementation (i.e. children of eden) are gonna use this tech in ridiculous ways. This does NOT include all the stuff on the backend side. Navigating menus in the xbox experience stuff looks literally straight out of the Bourne Identity. To me this is a step in the right direction and I'm waiting to see how developers push this for the gamers. Again, xbox costs more then Wii and if developers remember they are developing for GAMERS and not for the casual market I think kinectic will win the war between these two technologys.

3.Lastly the biggest thing out of e3 was DEFINETLY my favorite. The nintendo 3DS. Now this is what excites me the most, but has me the most worried. The nintendo 3ds is the new handheld coming out of the house the shigeru miyamoto built. The top screen is a 3d screen that makes use of.... well and there is the magic folks to be honest. Nintendo is keeping a tight lid on how the top screen works becuase it is the first 3d technology to not require glasses. Thats right folks, a 3d experience without anything between you and the screen. I haven't held it, but everyone that came out of the tech demos agree that it looks sharp and spot on. Now the scary part:the gimmick of 3d. It could be used in very inventive ways that we can't even think of yet (anyone remember when Paper Mario for the wii did the 3d flipping thing? simple yet brilliant), but it could also be used as just another cool thing (most of the Wii at this point rides the gimmick for the gimmicks sake). I am very excited as I always am about nintendo products but.... the Wii bit me hard cause of that so we shall see...

Sorry this came a little late folks, didn't realize I had left it on the editing floor. Soon I'll have my thoughts on some of the games of e3 which you have probably heard tons about already, and also my thoughts on MMOS and the recent Hi-Rez switch for Global Agenda. Stay tuned.

5 Ways Twitter Can Make Money

Twitter is a great site, the problem is they are working off venture capital, and no real funds. They have started to do promoted trending topics but they could be doing so much more to make money. These are 5 ways I believe twitter could make money.

1. a Paid service called "twitter analytics" which gives business owners on twitter the ability to see the age range of followers, location data, and gender, so they can see how to market themselves on the website. This is just like Google's insight, except for twitter and it will cost money. A valuable market research tool like this could go anywhere from $50 a year to $500, because companies love knowing who to market to.

2. Emoticon pack, this is real simple allow people to have access to a wide range of emoticons for the low one time fee of $4.99. These emoticons could be anything from smiley faces, to hearts, even company logos (like lets say pepsi, sponsored emoticons ching ching).

3. Paid Verification, lets say your a band who has 4000 followers on twitter, and then theres a twitter use pretending to be you that has 10,000 followers, but your not notable enough for twitter to verify. Well today is your lucky day because for the low low price of $100 USD you can have the verified badge for your band's twitter page. Everyone will know that you are the real Monkey Scrotum Sniffers from Mars, not those other retards! Or maybe your an internet personality with a million youtube subscribers and nearly as many fake accounts, now everyone will know YOU are the real xxxJackxxxMasterxxxx30x not that xjackxmasterx30 guy!

4. Send out a sponsored tweet to everyone on twitter every 5 hours. Every 5 hours a diffrent company gets a chance to spot light themselves to millions of twitter users, this tweet could help promote their website or business WHAT EVER, and any company would pay a hefty price for exposure like that!

5. Sell off data. This isn't necessarily a concept Twitter hasn't tried, bake in the olden days twitter sold data off all the time, what were the most used words, where are a majority of people from, when is twitter most active, age ranges etc. etc. etc.. Well now that they have an estimated 30 million user base maybe this would be the time to re-implement that strategy, companies would probably pay millions of dollars a year to get information on .5% of the population.

If twitter used this stuff they'd probably pay back all their venture capital in 2 years, and start making money after that!

Irrational Fear of Vevo

This isn't going to be my normal blog where I am relaxed, no this is me angry because these little idiots that harbor this Vevophobia really REALLY bother me! It seems like the cool thing on youtube now is to hate on Vevo, the music video distribution platform that Google, Universal, and, Sony created. Why do these people feel the need to hate Vevo, because they play Ads on the videos, and the ads cause the videos to pause themselves after their done, if you have adblock, and all you have to do to fix it is press THE PLAY BUTTON.

This disregard for all common logic these Vevo haters bring to the table is ridiculous their argument being usually "Fuck Vevo, Vevo Sucks, VEVO FAILS". These, insignificant parasites think Vevo fails because of the previously stated technical issue that requires one mouse movement. However others hate Vevo because, they believe that everything corporate is BAD, or because their video using, unauthorized copyrighted music got taken down.

This anti corporatism that goes on, on youtube is sickening. Vevo brought us THOUSANDS of music videos that were already on youtube, but they were re-uploaded in higher quality, sorted to be easier to find, and the stream on a different server that allows for better up-time as apposed to youtube's normal server. Yes because all those things Vevo does ARE EVIL, and BAD and you shouldn't use Vevo because you got your video, FEATURING COPYRIGHTED MUSIC TAKEN DOWN, that if you truly believed it was unfairly taken down you could just file a DMCA counter notice, and claim fair use.

This is one of the most annoying things on youtube when I am trying to watch a music video, and then I scroll down and see some retard type the words "Fuck Vevo" and not talk about the amazing music that is around. These people forgot about the reasons why the hate Vevo, and forgot why they liked the music that is playing. While, I don't think Vevo is perfect ITS NOTHING NOTHING to lose your mind over.

In Soviet Russia, game plays you!

Well, the leader of this here blog said he wanted a gaming section but he wasn't a hardcore enough gamer. I on the other hand am an avid gamer. First round up not really news really, but more an intro to myself so you readers can get an idea of who I am.

My name is Drew. In guild wars I'm known as Cilero or Drewsipher depending on who you talk to. World of Warcraft same thing. Warhammer I'm Golrik. Xbox Live I'm Cilero again. I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember. I was an avid NES gamer, and loved me some DOOM and Duke Nukem. I in my teens have gotten even MORE into gaming. I'm the kind of guy that will track his favorite developers (:cough bioware cough:) and will pre-order games before the pre-order is advertised (hello Guild Wars 2). I consider my love hardcore, my playing hardcore, and my seriousness... not so much.

My belief system in games is easy to figure out. They are for one thing:Fun. If you can't have fun playing it, why bother? Because of that my reviews of specific games will come in different sections. Also I'd like to cover gaming news as well. After this I will be re-reading all the e3 news and giving a breakdown. After that I will be probably purchasing a new game or two specifically to review on here. Also, I'd love to give indie games credit as well so I'll be on the lookout for those as well. All of these avenues to me are what anyone should be looking for in a review.

Also, I'm a kind of.... eccentric guy. I have a love of odd ball humor and will sometimes love games for that. Team Fortress 2 is a great example of that. But my reviews will hopefully be understandable enough for you to get the idea. I'll try to format in an easy to read fashion. I have never done a long form blog such as this so I'll have a slight learning curve but I'm willing to try anything once. E3 thoughts and concerns coming in the next two days.

My Interview with youtuber CravedTutorials

Podcast Review: Tell Em Steve Dave

View Askew's, demon sons, Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson weren't household names until their solo podcast launched, now they have one of the most downloaded podcasts on the web. Do they deserve this title? To put it simply yes!

The best way to describe this is, what would happen if Dante and Randal (or Banky and Holden, or Brodie and TC doesn't matter just one of the duos from the Jersey Trilogy) had a podcast, well that question gets answered with "Tell Em Steve Dave". The basic way TSD works is, you have Bryan Johnson a happy go lucky, liberal, pot smoking, Teflon man talking for 1 to 2 hours with his worry wart, conservative, straight edge, glue trap friend, about politics, religion, news, and moving sofa's.

This is by all means a comedic podcast for the most part, even when scenarios of what would happen if one of their friends started raping their little asian webmaster (Ming Chen) . This is a fun podcast definitely not for anyone under the age of 13 depending on mental state. It's a very slice of life podcast if you enjoy people who are like your friends you grew up with talking about stuff your friends you grew up with probably talked about, you'll love this.

The supporting roles of the podcast are filled by the occasional customer walking into; Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash 35 Broad Street Red Bank, NJ, the sound board operator Brian (tech) Quinn, and on rare occasions webmaster (and source of all problems in the universe) Ming Chen.

Over all this is a funny podcast, and for those of you who have heard it you would see the numerous references to the podcast I have put in this review. Some episodes can be a little long, and this is definitely not something to listen to with small children in the room. I give Tell Em Steve Dave a 5/5!

http://www.smodcast.com/stevedave

Cage the Elephant Was A Religious Experince at the Reno Knitting Factory

Cage the Elephant tore up the Knitting Factory last night. Their high energy million mile an hour joy ride through the small venue was amazing enough that I still don't know how to describe the events that transpired.

The show began with Auto Vaughn, a small time band with a lot of heart. Their set was good a lot of energy, it was sad that they were the first opener, I don't think the crowd gave them the appropriate amount of energy. Their set was awesome you guys should really check them out (links at the bottom).

After Auto Vaughn came the 22-20's, they were awesome performers but I don't think they got the crowd amped up enough for Cage the Elephant. The British indie rockers were awesome on stage, and had a good presence I just don't think it was suited for being the second opener for Cage The Elephant.

Now we get what I REALLY want to talk about Cage the Elephant. These guys were amazing, every second between when the 22-20's got off stage to the sound check all you heard from the crowd was CAGE CAGE CAGE, or ELEPHANT ELEPHANT, the massive amount of excitement that was building coupled with a drunken and happy crowd, prepared me for THE BEST show of my life.

When the first song started to play the crowd all ran to the front, with about 500 people on the floor, we ended up getting 4 rows of people all smashed together in a three foot area. I was right in the middle of the action managing to only have a row of people between me and the crowd barrier.

When they finally started playing it was loud and it was fast, it was like they were going a million miles an hour. The lead singer Matthew Shultz stage dived during the first song, the first of five times during the show he would do that. They played all of the album except James Brown, Lotus, and Cover me Again. Saving "In One Ear" and "Ain't No Rest for The Wicked" for the end of the show. Matthew had such a stage presence he controlled the crowd like we were his puppets, the more amped up he got the more violent and quickening the crowd got.

There is only one way I can describe Cage The Elephants live performance and I know many people will get upset by it but, their live show was like how people described Nirvana's early live shows. Full of energy and rage. Something that can never be forgotten. If someone were to ask me if I would recommend seeing them live I would say HELL YES!!!!!!