Marketing

While waiting for the coffee to brew this morning I glanced at Twitter and the first post on my screen read “Wordpress 2.7 “Coltrane” released…” (props to ijafri for being first on my radar with the news). As the song playing in an endless loop in nearly every store in New York says, “It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas.”

Seriously, references to obnoxious holiday music aside, I’ve been waiting for v2.7 ever since I met the founding developer of WordPress Matthew Mullenweg who tipped his hand to what was in store and I’m excited it’s finally here.

The most obvious change is the redesigned Dashboard, which is almost endlessly customizable to your way of seeing and doing things. In the process, this reduces the number of clicks needed to do anything: post, edit, illustrate, prioritize, upgrade, moderate comments or assassinate comment spam… one click and it’s done right from the Dashboard. Nearly every other screen can also be customized to your liking, too. How cool is that? Here’s a video that shows what I’m talking about:

You can find out more about version 2.7 from Matt’s post on the WordPress.org blog.

If you’re running WordPress give me a shout about upgrading. And if you choose to do it yourself please make a backup of the database and all the files before you go for it. Though WP code has been thoroughly vetted by our global user community some elements of your site, particularly if its older or you haven’t upgraded in a while, may not be fully compatible. We can address these issues pretty easily but it will be a lot less stressful if we’re not working under the influence of a broken site.

Is it safer “on the edge” in economically turbulent times like these?

In his recent blog post Innovate or Wither - Personal Strategy for Times of Change, my colleague Lee Wilson asserts that in times of rapid change and market disruption, “…the cutting edge is the safest place to be.”

Although he was talking specifically about educational publishing and technology, I think the underlying truth can be applied widely. Lee writes,

If there is rapid change the inclination of most people is to circle the wagons around the familiar. But, when the market is moving, breaking camp and moving forward is actually a lower risk approach. If you are taking risks in your job and trying to invent the future you are actually in a safer position than those who cling to the status quo.

Several weeks back I posted a video clip from the Dow Jones’ Media & Money conference where several media and marketing executives argued that now is a great time to start a new business. It may sound counter-intuitive but this was echoed by venture fund partner I know who feels the risk profile of digital media services and content compares more favorably to brand-name investments than it has in years.

Everyone running for cover means there is more opportunity on the edge these days. And while your 401K may have dwindled to a dot-401 remember it’s all a matter of your perception and confidence, and those are things you can control.

In this video from the 2008 Dust or Magic Institute, Warren Buckleitner talks about how children’s portable computing devices are changing childhood and comes to some insightful conclusions.

Born the same year as BF Skinner’s teaching machine (1958), Warren Buckleitner has been reviewing children’s technology products now for over half of his life. After five years in the classroom and ten years at the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, he established Children’s Technology Review earning him SIIA’s First Journalism Codie Award for “Best Software Reviewer.”

Warren is an advisor to Consumer Reports WebWatch and teaches both at NYU and the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times Circuits page, and writes for Parents, PARADE, Disney Family, Scholastic Parent & Child and others. Warren founded the Dust or Magic Institute (www.dustormagic.com) and the Mediatech Foundation (www.mediatech.org). He likes to try to IM with his two teenage daughters, who are his best teachers.

For more information about Warren and booking speaking engagements and workshops, visit his media links page.

WordPress — the open-source content management system that runs this site and millions of others around the world — is almost infinitely extensible, which was the intention of the development team from the beginning.

One of the core philosophies of WordPress is to keep the core code as light and fast as possible but to provide a rich framework for the huge community to expand what WordPress can do, limited only by their imagination. Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine…

But there are more than 3,000 WordPress plugins to choose from so if you’re new to this, where do you start? After building several dozen WordPress sites, from simple one-page blogs to complex web-zines, we’re finding these 10 plugins among the most useful:

Akismet	Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.
All-in-one SEO Pack	Automatically optimizes your page titles for search engines (SEO). Generates META tags automatically andavoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs.You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want, and can fine-tune everything to your hearts content.
Contact Form 7	Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Google XML Sitemaps	This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.
Lock-out	This plugin will allow you to put your website into Lock Out mode to prevent access while you preform upgrades or maintenance. Includes the ability to upload a pre-made html file for use as a placeholder page while in lock out mode or build your own online. The login page is still accessible and will allow only the user role you set to view the site normally while in lock out mode.
Reveal ID’s	With WordPress 2.5 and later the IDs on all admin pages have been removed, probably due to the fact that the common user don’t need them. However, for advanced WordPress Users/ developers those IDs are quite useful. This plugin makes them easy to find.
Stat Press	We love Google Analytics but their reports lag 24 hours and sometimes you want to see what’s happening right now. For that you need Stat Press. This real-time plugin is dedicated to the management of statistics about. It collects information about visitors, spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers etc. and reports them as they happen. Think your site is slow because traffic is spiking? Here’s how to find out.
WP Polls	What do your visitors think? Ask them with WP-Polls which is extremely customizable via templates and css styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you wanted. It now supports multiple selection of answers.
WP Super Cache	This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.
WP Automatic Upgrade	WordPress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade their installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org in 5 steps that include complete site and database backups, deactivation and re-activation of plug-ins.

Don’t see what you need? Search the Plugins Directory or learn to write one yourself.

I began playing World of Warcraft when I was a suit for Pearson. Though I worked my way up to a L20-something Paladin, the daily 4 hours as a commuter and on the phone, and 10 hours at the computer and on the phone killed my interest in grinding higher. Still, WoW was compelling and deep, and I acknowledge was my gateway drug to playing and working with the new - and next - generation of MMORPGs and virtual worlds.

From the beginning I saw beyond games’ entertainment value to their high potential to be used as teaching and learning simulations. That led me to the first several Serious Game Summits that were held in Crystal City, MD just across from the Pentagon. From the spook-to-wonk ratio of attendees there, it was clear the military-industrial complex was on to the potential of games to train, too. In a Presidential season with both sides all puffed up about their ability to defend the country, the constitution and the borders, Wired reports today that:

American military and intelligence communities are increasingly worried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, to plan a real-life attack. But the spies haven’t given many details, about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out how such a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House.

There’s been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous. They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just like the U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worry that the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gather plotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds are nerve-wracking to spies because they’re so hard to monitor. The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon is thick. And most of the spy agencies’ employees aren’t exactly level-70 shamans. Continues here >>>

At first I rolled my eyes thinking here’s more fodder for the haters to bash all video games. But all that palaver about terrorists training in WoW got me to wondering: which Presidential or VP candidate can see WoW’s nefarious underworld better from their home state: Obama-Biden or McBush-Impalin?

More importantly does saying you can see something — Russia, polar bears thriving in the melt, or World of Warcraft — mean you understand its subtleties and nuance, or is that only maya, the dangerous illusion?

A shout out to Lee Wilson at the Education Business Blog who wrote A Contrarian View of Social Media, adding another perspective to my recent rants and SIIA panel discussion about social networking.

Lee quotes Bob Hoffman over at Copyblogger whose post A Cranky, Skeptical Loudmouth Looks at Social Media Marketing bottom lines the distaff view:

You and I are web geeks. We spend way more time than we should looking at computer screens. We are not normal. Especially you. The biggest mistake any marketer can make is marketing to himself, i.e. assuming his customer is just like him. They’re not and they never will be.

No disagreements there, any more than saying all my readers and clients know to walk right and ride left when crossing the Brooklyn Bridge going east, and walk left ride right going west to Manhattan. So social media has taken off, immersive environments are sticky, games can teach and inspire, but neither are any of these necessarily the answer or solution. That takes analysis, and that’s something we can help you with.

A shout out to Eliane Alhadeff for her recent post Search as a Serious Game which highlights a seriously cool search interface from SearchMe.com. A picture says a thousand words so file this under User Experience and go take it for a spin to see what web search + gamer centered design might look looks like. For more visit the SearchMe blog.

Having lived through the first Internet bubble I see as many differences with “Web 2.0″ as similarities to the madness of the ’90s. Still, this video from nextNY.org is too funny and timely not to share. So enjoy your tiny bubbles tonight, let’s avoid making another big one, and see you next year!

I decided to publish a readers “best-of-2007″ list for my final post of the year based on a Google Analytics site report. Here are a dozen plus two of the best stories on this blog in 2007 (click on the title to go to that post) ranked by number of visits:

Games Meet the Social Web

A handful of US and European developers have been working in stealth mode on game engines and frameworks with low barriers of entry: inexpensive or free, browser based, pre-built components and code. Now that these products are beginning to come into view it’s notable that most are using social media as an integral part of their business model and banking on users to build a good deal of the content.

Sony Eyes Club Penquin

You may have liked my original post but boy was I all wet on this one! I seized on a news story and wrote, “Bringing new meaning to the phrase global warming Sony is in talks to acquire Club Penguin, the virtual world for kids from British Columbia. Sale price is rumored to be in the range of $450m, a 7.5 multiple of Club Penguin’s reported $60m sales… a healthy increment and further evidence of the rapidly growing interest in mmogs and virtual worlds appealing to young kids, a market that includes the educational and social Whyville, purely social worlds like Habbo Hotel and Nicktropolis among others.” As we know now it was Disney and not Sony that ate the Penquin. Still, according to Lane Merrifield who I met at Dust or Magic, it’s all going down quite smoothly.

IBM Gets Torqued

It’s no secret that IBM has been experimenting with Second Life and other virtual world platforms for some time. More recently the “desire to have a more secure intranet environment where we can meet and explore the potential technology and social implications” has prompted the addition of Garage Games’ low-cost Torque engine to their arsenal, according to the eightbar blog this week.

Games, Learning & Society

In his opening keynote at the Game, Learning & Society 3.0 conference in Madison, WI last week, Professor James Gee set the stage for the year’s most substantive conference on learning games and simulations. Among other points made in his opening remarks, Gee observed that:

> The game business has managed to profit from selling products that present extremely challenging learning experiences which players willingly master — the stuff that’s extremely difficult to get kids to do in school.

> Games encourage performance before competency, the opposite of the dominant pedagogy in today’s schools that stress the ability to recite facts in order to pass the test before actually demonstrating competence in a particular domain.

> Games are problem-solving spaces that cultivate a culture of learning, and learning complexity is an altogether legal drug that humans can’t get enough of. The gamers attitude to failure is “fail early, fail often” if it is in the service of learning something critical to success.

> Gamers learn to look past the eye candy to solve the underlying puzzle of the quest or mission that they’re on — just the kind of discriminatory abilities that are core 21 Century skills.

> Games, particularly MMOGs, are highly social systems where players are driven by a common passion or agenda, just as they must be on the cross-functional teams that are cornerstones of today’s globalized businesses.

Serious Game Engine Shootout

Serious games and educational simulations are an unique product category with functional requirements that are different from platform and casual games, MMOGs, and drill-n-skill learning games. The gameplay itself is only the tip of the iceberg: hidden out of sight is an engine the player doesn’t see. As an emerging market, however, little has been written about the best engines for building serious games. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for publishers to choose development partners, and for developers to scope new projects. My article “Serious Game Engine Shootout: a comparative analysis of technology for serious game development” and panel discussion on March 6th at the Serious Games Summit is intended to help address this deficiency. For more on the topic visit my new Resources page.

Web 2.0 Deconstructed [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Gamer-Centered Design

I’ve championed user centered design for years and in part that’s behind the argument for using educational games and simulations for teaching: meeting and engaging students on their own terms. Now I’m seeing a gamer-centered design aesthetic begin to emerge in some surprising places, like business software, where you might least expect games to have an influence.

Web 2.0 Mindmap

This is an amazing illumination of the Web 2.0 space that’s worth downloading (8920kb) and spending some time with. One caveat: there are links out to many of the influences he mentions so exploring this could keep you busy for a while.

Moodle Mashup

If you combine the open source Moodle.org learning management system with lesson plans that use Linden Lab’s Second Life you get something like Sloodle.com, a vision of how to use virtual worlds in the classroom. Besides, talking about Moodles and Sloodles turns heads so it’s a great conversation starter
Investing in Education

Part one of three reports on the SIIA’s Ed Tech Business Forum, the leading business and finance conference for the K-12 and postsecondary education technology market that wrapped up a few days ago in New York. This annual event attracts senior management from education software companies, platform technology firms, solution providers, publishers, private equity firms and venture capitalists.

The keynote speaker for this years conference was John Martinson, Managing Partner of the Edison Venture Fund. With 31 years of venture capital experience, including 8 investments for Edison from $3-10M and 12 investments from $250K-12M as an individual, Martinson has significant experience and a unique perspective on investing in the educational technology market.

Kerpoof: 3 Seconds to Fun

Krista Marks has a bold vision to change the way kids interact with the computer and learn about creativity, and her new site Kerpoof is a giant leap forward in that direction. A unique blend of Web 2.0 goodness, user-generated content and social media savvy combined with brilliant design and some of the best Flash programming around, Krista and her team have created a place where fun is not separate from learning but integral to it, where kids can create art, write their own stories, create their own movies, and share them. True to her educational intentions the site offers teacher resources and lesson plans as well. Krista shared her vision in this videotaped presentation at Dust or Magic. For more, visit Kerpoof’s website and see for yourself, or read what TechCrunch and Colorado Startups had to say.

Easy Coding for Kids

Scratch is a new programming language developed at the MIT Media Lab that’s aimed at kids from 8-up. According to the BBC story and video out earlier this week Scratch “does not require prior knowledge of complex computer languages. Instead, it uses a simple graphical interface that allows programs to be assembled like building blocks.”

A Taxonomy of Serious Games

Ben Sawyer’s presentation of a serious games taxonomy at the Annenberg Workshop on Learning Games was picked up on by the Serious Games Blog and 360 Kid’s Scott Traylor, who writes in his post, “Ben began the presentation with a very fitting poem by John Godfrey Saxe about six blind men who went to see an elephant. Each blind man found a part of the elephant — its sturdy side by one, a tusk by another, an ear by yet another, and so on. Each blind man thought they had come to understand the true meaning of what an elephant is. Each person was partially right about what they thought was an elephant, yet all of them were wrong in their understanding.” Though the finished version won’t be published until mid-year Ben will present the latest working draft at the 2008 Serious Games Summit this winter.

Children’s Technology Trends in 2008

Robin has been translating technology into consumer friendly terms for more than 25 years. Today, as a writer, new media consultant, and speaker she spends a great deal of her time focusing on family life in a digital world. Currently she’s featured as a columnist on Yahoo! Tech. She’s been the Editor in Chief of FamilyPC, editor of PC Magazine, and columnist for USA Today Online and the Gannett News Service, winning numerous prizes for her coverage of technology. Robin has authored 6 books about parenting in the digital age for publishers including Random House, Simon and Schuster and Hyperion. Visit Robin’s website to learn more.

I’m betting that like me, most of you didn’t attend Nokia World last month where Chris Anderson gave the keynote and a preview of his next book, Free.

For those who don’t know him, Chris Anderson is the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine as well as the author of The Long Tail (book, blog) on niche marketing. He’s also worked at The Economist, has served as an editor at the premier science journals, Science and Nature, and he qualifies as wicked smart in my book.

I stumbled across a video of his Nokia keynote and thought it was as important as his earlier work — if not more so — so am shouting it out here. You can view or download high quality QuickTime and mp3 audio files here. Load it up on your iPod or iPhone and have a listen — ideally before finishing your next product pricing plan.