links for 2009-03-26

"'Next-gen', for me, exists at two ends of a spectrum. At one end of the scale, it is 1080p at 60fps, complex shaders and normal mapping, realistic cities, licensed soundtracks, multi-million dollar marketing budgets. And at the other end, next-gen is empowerment. Making games is easier than ever before. And not just the programming part - the 'making games on your own computer' part of the equation. I mean making games that other people can play". I think this is an interesting emerging phenomena in more spheres than just games - for example future 3D hi-end TV kit and new HD channels are mushrooming, just as badly compressed mobile footage on YouTube also seems to be 'the official future of media(TM)'

"What happened was I went through my wallet looking at all the different loyalty cards and coffee shop stamp cards I have and I said I want to be able to manage all of this better and from my own perspective. Maybe the people listening understood better than I did. What I realised this implies is that we all have our own loyalty card (which somehow gets automagically updated from the cloud) which is accepted by and useful to every 'vendor' that we choose to allow access, no matter what the service". A proposal for a cloud-based inter-operable loyalty card. Provided it isn't being run by HMGov's IT, BT's Phorm or Facebook's Beacon, it sounds like a great idea.

"Shocking, I know. But, unless you ask, you could miss this golden opportunity. I usually say 'In closing, I have a small request. I'd really appreciate a link directly to Voices.com. If you can swing it, that would be great!' Consider adding this as a P.S., as if it was an afterthought and not your modus operandi. The lesson here is you'll never know unless you ask". Very good set of advice about building a relationship with a long view to getting that high PageRank value link.

"The other day I was asked for comment on whether Twitter is the new Google. My reply was that Facebook is the new Google because of its increasing ubiquity (it is also drawing more traffic to some sites now), and Twitter is the new Facebook because of its profile". But goddam it, what colour is the new black and who are the new Rediohead?

"The Nottingham Evening Post is continuing the expansion of its online presence with the addition of more hyper-local news portals. Its website www.thisisnottingham.co.uk now has 72 dedicated mini sites covering Nottinghamshire after the project was initially launched last August."

"The GuardianVoices Twitter stream means that moderators, journalists, subs and editors across the site can now bring attention to the interesting conversations, insightful (and/or witty!) comments, interactive events, curious questions and thorny threads they come across, including user-initiated topics in Guardian Talk as well as blogposts and articles in all corners of our content areas."

A great post explaining some of the benefits of using Open Source, and how businesses can contribute code back into the community.

By the standard of Digg-bait reporting here - the picture is of a person who has been cropped by the image joins - I must have picked up the ghost of a cyclist outside Aldwych's "spooky" abandoned station.