http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/internet/online-business/make-money-online-with-social-media-and-social-networking-websites.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/online-business/make-money-online-with-social-media-and-social-networking-websites.html Fri, 29 May 2009 13:07:54 -0500
According to Wikipedia social media is "activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction"; social networking is very similar stating "facilitates communication between a group of individuals or organizations....shared values." The most obvious word the two share is social; the goal of these websites is to bring people together in a relevant, organized fashion, to better transfer their knowledge and passions. They are not identical but the principles are the same: people sharing knowledge, organization, shared interests. We will use the term social media to represent both fields.

Chances are you have read somewhere to focus on niche marketing. While being in a niche is a solid business plan, understand that people are people, and like people, we all are more alike than dissimilar. Do not miss out on the opportunity to reach new audiences for fear of being different; people have broad interests, personalities, and "light bulbs" that go off when they see something alien to them. If you, like many marketers focus only on niches you will pigeon hole your own growth. Here is an example. I co-run GameFriends.com, a social network for all things video game related. The gamers in the community vary from hardcore, to casual, and every degree in between. Now, if we strictly marketed to known gamers we would have a finite pool (albeit enormous) but we would be missing out on people that did NOT actively know they wanted to play games until the opportunity arose. The idea works the same way as "impulse buying". Native Americans did not know Columbus came by boats because they did not "see" the boats; it wasn't in their realm of consciousness. It was only after they were exposed to them did they "see them". Marketing works the same way; let your product/service enter the minds of the masses and you will gain new audiences.

Now making money online is not all about you (scary isn't it?). You are in a relationship with the internet, the social media site you are utilizing, and the people within it. How would you like it if your girlfriend made you mow the lawn, cook her dinner and satisfy her needs and told you good night? You would feel used at the very least, and ready to explode (with anger ha). Now on the other hand if she cooked you dinner while you mowed the lawn and gave you a back massage you would both feel pretty good. Mutual benefit is the only way true relationships work. Never make the mistake of trying to get something out of someone for nothing. As Earl nightingale has taught us mutual benefit is the only real way for prosperity. When approaching a social medium, whether a forum, a bookmarking oriented site such as digg or reddit, or a large network such facebook, myspace or GameFriends you must enter with the mindset of contributing positively to the community. In fact, making money online is the last step to becoming successful. You will only make money online once you have become successful and contributing to others success.

Social media is not a place to drop as many links and spam as many people as possible. If you treat it as such you will be wasting your time. Behind social media are real life people like yourself. Just think how you would want to be treated. Keep in mind however this does not mean you can personally connect with each person. I love interacting with people but it is just not possible on a mass scale depending on your niche or product. To counteract this you must be as open and honest about your intentions and what you hope to bring to the community. An example of positively contributing to Digg would be to compile a list of the best of X, and truly taking your time to make it relevant to your product/service, or creating a Facebook group to raise awareness of your business with quality content. Yahoo Answers and GameFriends Ask a Gamer are great examples of researching and sharing knowledge and being rewarded with a link back to your website, as well as the quality article directories that distribute this.

Action. There are thousands of social media websites. To start you should sign up to about 5 of them and contribute your knowledge and add friends. If you contribute to each social medium (daily progress) you will have a great standing within the community in just 30 days. The more active you are the quicker the process becomes. Then after this time you will be able to let your friends know and others within the community about your shiny new red model cars for sale, or whatever you are selling. This isn't a guarantee of success, but if you sign up and tell everyone about your shiny new red model cars before some foreplay you will be kicked out of the metaphorical bed, aka social medium. If you are in the game industry you can read a more thorough article titled how to make money online with gamefriends (coming soon). Remember to utilize niche mediums but not to limit yourself, contribute your knowledge in a relevant way to expose your product, make friends, patience, passion, and determination. Not everyone has the budget to run a huge website but since the advent of blogger and other amazing services all you need is the willingness to share your passions and you can turn a "simple blog" into a powerhouse of informative content that other networks recognize for its professionalism and a trusted website backed by a real person.

--
Social network for gamers , Game Videos

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-hosting/guild-clan-website-hosting-benefits.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-hosting/guild-clan-website-hosting-benefits.html Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:42:14 -0600
Ever try to get a group of people together in real life at the same time? Chances are someone has not shown up or didn't RSVP. With video games the same is true; people need to be able to clearly see a guilds schedule of events on a calendar and be able to plan on attending or letting the guild leader know they can't make it. Without this virtual home on the internet, guilds and clans would be left to hope X amount of members show up for their newest raid, or event. Now with guild hosting a guild leader can assess if they have enough members to go forward with an event rather than canceling.

Guilds and Clans can take advantage of private forums through a guild hosting provider to air out their indifference or discuss latest strategies, events, and recruitment. Without these private forums guilds and clans would be forced to discuss private/personal issues with guild members over a generic forum where non-members could view this. This is not acceptable so the guild host provider gives the guild/clan privacy as well as their own personal space. Discussing family matters at Dunkin Donuts is analgous to discussing recruitment with non members.

With the new age of guild clan website hosting providers springing up such as CharacterPlanet, it is becoming easier to match Virtual Characters looking for Guilds and Guilds looking for Virtual Characters. By taking the approach of matching Virtual Characters to Guilds/Clans rather than Real Life people to Guilds/Clans CharacterPlanet gives its members ability to be virtually matched. Think E-harmony only for the Virtual Worlds. The ability to save hundreds of hours on recruitment is a greatly added benefit of guild clan hosting. When one views a guild site they can easily see what race/class level combinations the guild needs as well as what level equipment one should have or any stipulation such as, real life tournament experience for CounterStrike or Epic gear for World of Warcraft.

Hosting can also mean more notoriety within the gaming community. If you have a guild clan website it immediately gives your organization the credibility it deserves. This landing page for the curious, enviuous, and even your enemies will solidfy your position for that game or games. Fires of Heaven is a great example as their website received hundreds of thousands of hits. It is forming this buzz about ones guild that also leads to more recruits and of course more enemies.

Depending on what game one plays there are a myriad of guild website hosting templates and clan templates as well. A World of Warcraft guild website will certainly look different than a Halo or EverQuest site but the principles are the same. Whether you want to gain more credibility, become more organized as a leader, or create a sense of teamwork within your own guild/clan, guild clan website hosting is beneficial.

There are of course both paid and free hosting solutions. The paid services in the past have dominated but the free ones have made leaps and bounds to give the same services and better in some instances. Most of the paid providers lack a community wrapped around the hosting to make recruitment more tedious than necessary. Regardless of the route you choose, be sure to utilize the awesome power of immortalizing your Guild on the internet with a place you can call home.

--

free guild website hosting , guild hosting

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/mmorpg-gaming-versus-console-gaming.html http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/mmorpg-gaming-versus-console-gaming.html Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
One powerful trait both mmorpg gaming and console gaming share is that of escapism. Research has shown a strong connection between pain and anxiety. In fact, Nationwide Children's Hospital has put this into practice by helping burn victims. The children play in this virtual reality to distract them from the painful process of healing from burn wounds. Although most would assume a virtual world such as World of Warcraft would be more immersive there are also console games such as Fable which would beg to differ. Here we see a powerful tool of video games, escapism, which unchecked can lead to an unhealthy obsession with the virtual worlds.

A driving force of the mmorpg gaming industry is progression. Progression via game is slightly diffferent but most deal with ones virtual character leveling up skills, stats, and equipment referred to as gear. This progression leads to a deeper immersion associated with most console games that can usually be played for a day, turned off, and turned on a month later. With mmorpg games however, the world around you continues whether or not you are progressing. If you aren't progressing you are natually falling behind. This is a similar trait to a game we all play, life. An mmorpg is the highest form of capitalism and hard work pays off, whereas console games can be seen as a quicker escape with less progression goals. Console games have had single player forms of progression without the online aspect, also known as roleplaying games. Games such as Final Fantasy, Zelda, and even Super Mario. We see the ability for console games to have progression in the form of both virtual characters as seen in final fantasy and zelda, but only map progression in games like Mario wherein the character doesn't progress, just the maps do. The inability for console gamers to personify there virtual characters has led to the explosive growth of the online pc mmorpg industry. With the advent of online play however, console worlds are now becoming closer to their cousin PC or Mac. One can look at the success of Halo and John Madden football on the console systems. It is the ability for quick fun but also combined with an everchanging leaderboard system to progress, to become the best player. It is this hybridization that gives console games the appeal of casual gamers which the mmorpg industry scares away. If one wants to load up a game of Madden for an hour they can do so and turn it off without fear of Brian Urlacher losing 5 tackling. If one does the same in Warhammer they may find themselves logged in with inferior gear and guildless.

Guild Pressure! Guild pressure is just like peer pressure only it's intensified by players you mostly play with in your virtual world. In the past console gamers did not have to worry about letting someone down if they turned off final fantasy. Perhaps Cloud was secretly angry but he could never let you know. Today, not being able to attend a raid in World of Warcraft, or a PK run in Ultima Online can have social consequences within these heavily socially based virtual worlds. Turning down your guildmates can be difficult and even against your interest in the guild. In real life, if your boss asks you to do something because they rely on you, you would most likely help him/her out. The virtual worlds are no different. One's guild leader may ask you to help camp a spawn or partake in a hunt; if the answer is no all the time you will inevitably lose standing with the guild leader, if not the entire guild. Before the onset of online console play, you made all the decisions and had no one, except maybe your brother/sister nagging you to turn on the game and play. Now even Console gamers have this social dynamic seen with Clans. Clans are synonymous with guilds but the term is used for most console guilds. If you are a member of a Clan that is hardcore you better be sure to make the big clan matches. Let your clan down, you let everyone down. It is this mentality that is changing casual games to a more serious, hardcore feel that PC games had exclusively for the past decade. You are now a part of something larger than yourself. It can be incredbily satisfying to be in a guild or clan and help those you care about, but it can be equally as hard to say no to those very same friends.

Both mmorpg gamers and console gamers have considered themselves separate. The reality is both gamers enjoy aspects of progression, escapsim, friendships, and of course FUN! We forget at times the games are for fun. As a human species we are naturally hedonisitic so why not enjoy all forms of the video game industry? I'll see you in World of Warcraft and a game of Tetris later.

--
gaming, mmorpg

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/ultima-online-free-shards-versus-paid-production.html http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/ultima-online-free-shards-versus-paid-production.html Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600
When one talks about role playing games or mmorpg games, they are sure to have played or heard about ultima online. There have been many changes and time eras throughout Ultima Online with the player versus player combat experience being intensified around the Second Age. The Second Age is a time period of a few years, after Dread Lord Days and before AOS, but it's impact is everlasting.

The early years, the Dread Lord Days. As the name suggests the Dread Lord Days of Ultima Online were filled with "Dread Lords" that hued red. These were players that killed other player characters becoming feared throughout the land. The game consisted of mostly Heavy CrossBow wielding mages and dexers that would hunt their prety in packs. The era was limited to less skills until the birth of the Second Age.

The Second Age was the birth of the instant hit weapon hit. This created devasting combinations of large weapons and explosive magic. Explosion, Energy bolt, Hally Weapon hit would kill most players. Anatomy and Meditation were added to give the game more diversity. Archery, Dexers and Mages all coexisted in a well balanced time era of Ultima Online.

Ultima Online Renaissance gave birth to new lands, which were really a mirror image of the old lands. They would be split up with Felucca with the old ruleset and Trammel with the new, often referred to as carebear lands. PvP during this era remained decent but it was a step backwards for the SecondAge fans of the instant hit. Trammel doubled the world size, spreading the population increasingly thin.

Third Dawn would then come out, showing there ability to stay with the times Ultima Online released new lands Ilshenar. The client could then be played in both 2d or 3d. The 3d client was different but the polished timeless look of the 2d remained a staple of the game. Lord Blackthorn's Revenge would give rise to players constant need for tougher monsters as the artificial intelligence boost proved a good move.

With an ever growing population and less housing space available UO came out with Age of Shadows in which users could place more houses on Malas. The much anticipated release of the Paladin and Necromancer class would also come to fruition giving more diversity within the genre. With it came more item based dependency than ever as evident by item insurance. Resistance as well would become more specialized into 5 categories rather than one general in the previous eras.

Mages began to dominate even more than the SecondAge. The Samurai Expansion was born with two new classes, Samurai and Ninja along with new exploreable lands, Tokuno Islands. Deathstrike would add more effective combinations for player versus player combat. Shortly after Mondain's Legacy was released, adding a new playable race, Elves with spellweaving ability. Weapons could again be worn when casting spells. Nearly eight years earlier the same principle could be applied to Dread Lord Days. Kingdom Reborn came out and is still being polished.

Stygian Abyss which is expected to come out in 2009 will feature a new playable race, Gargoyles and improve upon the Kingdom Reborn expansion. Whichever time period you most enjoyed there have certainly been many changes to Ultima Online. No other game to date has been as nimble and willing to explore possible avenues of growth. Whether it's going from a 2d mmorpg game to a 3d client, or listening to it's playerbase, (Trammel), Ultima Online free servers offer an alternative to the game they once loved.



--
ultima online, ultima online freeshard

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/how-to-rule-your-guild-with-an-iron-fist.html http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/how-to-rule-your-guild-with-an-iron-fist.html Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Guild Goals and recruitment

A relatively simple concept, but often overlooked. Most people initially create guilds with no real goal or direction in mind, and haphazardly recruit as many people as possible for prestige. While guilds formed in this way are not necessarily doomed to failure, they will likely never reach any pinnacle. Creating or running a guild with a specific purpose, likely war or high level quest related, and recruiting only like minded players will go a long way to creating an environment that all your members will be content with. This is vital for avoiding defections or uprisings.

When to rule and when to delegate

As with many things in all aspects of life, it's important to have a nice moderation between the hands on running of your guild and delegating tasks or the running of some areas of your guild to others. Running your guild like a dictatorship by refusing to entrust others with duties, and not listening to their opinions or suggestions will only lead to animosity. Likewise, running your guild too loose by passing off all duties and decision making to others will limit your authority and make you appear lazy and uncommitted.

All major decisions regarding guild affairs should be openly discussed with all members. The decision making ultimately rests with you though. A balance where you retain authority, but respect and reward your members when deserved will lead to their respect and devotion.

Guild relations

The ways in which guilds can interact with each other varies with each game. In some games or server types, the success of your guild may depend heavily on allying with other guilds. In others it may not play much, if any importance. Similar to your personal guild goals, you should ally or be associated with guilds with similar leadership and goals. It can also be a good idea to have someone in your guild who is responsible for dealing with other guilds, or players in general, preferably someone charismatic, and well known/liked if possible.

Guild Extras

Running special guild events will increase the enjoyment of all your members, breaking up the sometimes monotonous regular game play activities, and make them feel proud to be involved with your guild. If you can, setting up a personal guild website is also advised. This will give your members another avenue to communicate with each other, and give your guild added prestige. If you have a member with some website design and maintenance experience, this would be the perfect task to give them.

These are just some of the many areas in which you can improve the leadership and quality of your guild. Running your guild with the utmost success is in your grasp. Be creative, strong and just, and your guild will surely blossom.


--
Matt Anton is an avid Online Gamer. He enjoys debating new Game Content and discussing it through a Game Blog ,. Matt has played the very first of online games at the start of Diablo and UO.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/gaming-continues-to-blur-virtual-and-real-life.html http://www.articletrader.com/computers/games/gaming-continues-to-blur-virtual-and-real-life.html Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0500 We are all taught at a young age what’s real and what isn’t, but what if the very foundation of this teaching was flawed? We know when Mufasa died or when Bambi’s mom died, that they weren’t “real” and we shouldn’t be upset, but why did these deaths invoke all these emotions. The “real” part was the emotion, and this is where ones reality lies. No longer able to say what is real and what isn’t by physical game content, virtual gaming has pushed the digital envelope. Our reality should not be based on the physical, but based on the emotional.

Burn your hand and you feel pain…get your virtual character killed and you feel pain, among other four letter expletives. Virtual characters long had the stigma of ‘time-sinks’ or ‘sunk-cost-fallacy’ wherein the person behind the character wastes his time in his virtual persona. However, the exact opposite should be preached; these virtual personas/characters allow individuals to express themselves outside a world of human physical limitation. Don’t let others pigeon hole your expression and continue taking pride in your online personas.

So How do you get started expressing your inner self that is constrained by the ‘real world’? First, try and decide what type of character you want to portray. Do you want to be the feared dark assassin, or the cute friendly dwarf that enjoys healing his friends? There are many sub-categories but most people are soloers, group oriented, damage dealing, healing, or supporting. If you like to deal damage a persona that resembles power and strength such as a wise wizard or a buff warrior. Not everyone is like the “complete badass” from South Park’s WoW episode, but playing a character helps you exaggerate your own personal characteristics, or perhaps experiment with others. Is that sexy night elf rogue a 50 year old male, and is that buff warrior a 15 year old girl? This is the beauty of Online Characters. Experiment, role-play, and spread your virtual wings.

Next, go out and download a free online/mmo/mmorpg game if you are new to the gaming scene. Choose a game that fits your interests. There are many genres available from fantasy with dragons and elves to sci-fi with laser guns and teleporters. If you aren’t ready to create a character/avatar, try an online gaming website where you can post a picture of your persona and role-play as he/she/it. With your new profile updated with pictures and perhaps a story behind your online persona, you are now ready to chat with the virtual world.

In conclusion you can express yourself in many ways through virtual reality/games, but it is not without responsibility. Role-play characters you feel comfortable with and accept the persona you have created. “You create your own reality” has never been truer. Have fun, test your role-playing, download a game or two, and join a virtual forum. Unleash the “insert your fantasy” within you!


--
Dan Anton is an avid Online Gamer. He enjoys debating new games and discussing it through a Game Blog ,. Dan has played the very first of online games at the start of Diablo and UO. He believes that virtual worlds are becoming Online Gaming Forums for people to express themselves.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>