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New Media News Every Morning

ESRB To Begin Rating Mobile Games

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The Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB is an organization that gamers know quite well. It is the main organization that provides ratings for games in the United States. The ESRB’s domain has always been limited to video games that come out on game consoles, PCs and gaming handhelds. But the organization is now setting its sights on the fastest growing gaming niche in the market today, mobile devices.

The ESRB, along wth the CTIA Wireless Trade Association, is planning to release a new rating system that is aimed solely at mobile games. The unveiling is reportedly scheduled on November 29. The ESRB’s presentation will be held in Washington DC at an event that will be hosted by ESRB President Patricia Vance and CTIA President Steve Largent. The event is going to have some political flavor with US Senators Kelly Ayotte and Mark Pryor attending as well. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 22, 2011 @ 5:39 pm

Political Unrest in Egypt and Social Media’s Role

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It looks like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be looking for a new job soon.  But first he’ll have to repair his image.  He might want to look into an SEO campaign from the guys at Banc Media to put a positive scene on his presidency. Though we’re not sure that’s possible.

As political unrest grows in Egypt, I think it’s fair to say the tipping point was the government’s concerted effort to block citizens from using the Internet and disrupting cell phone service.  People will tolerate a lot of abuse, but take away their ability to surf freely, and watch them lash out.  Mubarak, who has survived six assassination attempts, will likely be taken down – not by sniper – but by social media.  The 82-year-old former Lieutenant General for the Egyptian Air Force probably never saw it coming. [Read more…]

Originally posted on February 1, 2011 @ 6:44 am

Wall Street Journal Offers $17.89 Monthly Subscription for iPad Owners

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Wall Street Journal is also diving into the iPad frenzy with a not-so-hard to reject offer for iPad owners. A monthly subscription to the Wall Street Journal delivered to your iPad for a whooping $17.89 monthly fee.

So what do you get after paying that amount? In addition to the freely available WSJ content such as top articles and market data, the paid subscription model to WSJ will also give you access to subscriber-only content including Business and Markets, access to 7-day downloadable archive, personalization and saving features.

Sounds good, right?  Indeed, it is if you’re daily news fare rely heavily on the Wall Street Journal. But as Engadget noted, it may not seem to be cheaper offer though. This is because of the fact that it would only cost you $11.65 to subscribe to both print and online versions of WSJ.

Still, if you don’t mind spending that much for the rightful access to Wall Street Journal Premium content delivered to your brand new iPad, the WSJ iPad subscription seems like a good offer.  I mean, can you just imagine the envy of your colleagues as you read the WSJ from your iPad while waiting for the board meeting to start? You’re earning more than enough anyway so that extra cost shouldn’t matter.

So, what are you waiting for, subscribe to the Wall Street Journal via the iPad now. Click this link to get you started.

Originally posted on April 2, 2010 @ 5:57 pm

Surprise! Folks Don’t Go to Twitter for Breaking News, Facebook Wins Again

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Following their report that Facebook has just beaten Google again as the U.S. most visited site, Hitwise is now reporting another Facebook triumph. This time is has something to do with where people go to if they want to know the latest and most breaking news. Opsie! Sorry folks, you’re wrong, not from Twitter but from Facebook.

According to Hitwise, Twitter is only at the no.39 of the list of which sites people go for breaking news. And you’ve guessed it right, Facebook is almost at the lead, landing at the no. 3 spot. It even beat Google which is at eleventh place.

Additionally, Facebook drives 3.64% traffic to news and media sites, followed by Google  with 1.27% and Twitter accounting for only 0.14% of traffic driven to those sites.

Now, here’s a rather interesting point raised by Hitwise’s data. Twitter visits may have more than doubled and yet where could these visitors go to right after they’ve gone through Twitter.com? According to the report, majority of those visitors go to social networking and entertainment sites.

But wait, how come then that Twitter is hailed as the new media news source if it doesn’t even comes close to Facebook as leader in driving traffic to news sites. Venture Beat has an interesting analysis. According to VB, those news posted on Twitter timeline came from variety of sources. And most often than not those tweets do not link back to the “traditional media” source of news. Another reason is the fact that most of the news reported by Twitter users are based on their experiences and were not yet reported by news media sites.

There you go folks, it looks like we need to call Facebook as the new king of new media news source and take the title away from Twitter now.

Originally posted on March 16, 2010 @ 5:00 pm

Google Reader Play is a Cool Way of Viewing Your Feeds, Almost

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Perhaps hoping to revive interest to its aging feed reader, Google has just launched Google Reader Play.  In essence this experimental product is an attempt to make the most interesting stuff in Google Reader more accessible for everyone while providing a new way of viewing feeds.

Google Reader Play is currently an experimental product. But you don’t need to set-up anything to try it out. All you have to do is visit google.com/reader/play and you’re good to go.

Basically, Google Reader Play presents feed items one at a time through a big display and in full-screen view. After viewing an item, you can simply click on the next arrow to move to the next item. Or you can jump into specific items by clicking on the filmstrip located at the lower part of the screen. Clicking on a specific item will bring you to its source.

Now here’s the best part, when Google Reader display videos and images, these are automatically displayed in enlarged mode or full-screen. You don’t need to click anything to make this happen.

Another notable feature of Google Reader Play is the fact that it adapts to your browsing preferences. So while browsing, you can click on the “like” button and Google will use it to give you more items that might interest you. In addition, you can also choose to display items based on categories.

Google Reader Play does not require you to login to your Google Account to view the featured feed items. But if you would like to “like” an item, you need to sign in. Once you’ve signed in to your Google account, anything that you do in Google Reader Play will be reflected to your regular Google Reader account.

This only shows that Google does not intend to replace Google Reader with Reader Play.  The later is just another way of viewing Reader feeds.

Google Reader Play is a pretty sleek interface. But since, the feed items are randomly selected, you just won’t  know when you’d get to view items that would really interest you. But of course, it opens up another avenue for Google to deliver ads.

Originally posted on March 11, 2010 @ 9:03 am