Rupert, my son had a simple request. “Daddy, can we watch last week’s episode of The Simpsons?” No, son, we can’t. You can blame Rupert Murdoch for that.

Rupert, I know you’re all upset about all those SOPA & PIPA protests last week. Why, without them, how will you keep all your shows from being accessible to people who just want to pirate them for free through things like Google TV.

Here’s the thing. Go look in a mirror. See that guy looking back at you? Put a big dose of the blame on him. Because he makes people like me, who are already paying you three times to watch The Simpsons, to end up thinking maybe you just really want us to watch pirated content instead.

Pay You Three Times, Shame On Me

That’s right. I pay you three times for The Simpsons. First, I get it broadcast over the air. That’s me paying you for it, because the airwaves are mine — not yours. You’re simply allowed to lease them from the public. You’re getting a piece of that spectrum from me. In return, I expect you to deliver me valuable content through it. Well done with The Simpsons.

But you know, it’s easy to miss things broadcast live over the air. Also, my signal is pretty bad. So I pay a second time, to DirecTV, to get exactly the same content you send over the air to me through satellite TV. I get a better picture. I get the ability to DVR episodes to watch later. And I pay something like $125 per month for my subscription, some of which goes into your pocket.

That brings me to my third way of paying: Hulu Plus. I don’t DVR everything. Somehow, I missed The Simpsons when it started up again this fall. But Hulu Plus has turned into a lifesaver in these cases. It has let me catch-up on programs. It’s been well worth the $7 per month I pay for it, some of which, again, goes directly into your pocket.

The Simpsons: Web Only?

And now to tonight. My son fired up Hulu Plus, so we could watch The Simpsons, as we have in the past. But no luck — he got a “web only” message. Turns out, I discovered after doing a little searching with your least favorite search engine, last year you started limited next-day episodes.

Whatever you did, it’s clearly gotten worse. Apparently, I can’t watch it on Hulu at all through my TV:

Despite paying for Hulu Plus, I cannot watch The Simpson on any device like my Roku player that is designed to play The Simpsons direct to my TV.

I gather this is because you don’t want me to buy Hulu Plus and stop paying for DirecTV, right? I get that. But it’s not like I have the same option to watch archived episodes on DirecTV, If they’re offered on demand, they are impossible to find.

I can’t even authorize my Hulu account to know that I’m paying DirecTV already, as I apparently could if I had a Dish account. Why not? Who knows. You or DirecTV or Hulu are all probably fighting with each other over rights issues.

But hey, it’s not like I can get HBO GO on my Hulu, either. Despite paying for HBO through DirecTV, they don’t let me enable my Roku with it, either.

Lesson? Search For TV On The Web

Now what have you taught my 13 year old, who wants to watch last week’s episode? That he should fire up his computer, because if he does that — and sits through the 2 minute load time for The Simpsons web site, you’ll give him the episode for free.

Why would you do this? Think. What’s a teenager like him likely to do, if they’re looking for The Simpsons, if you don’t offer it through easy, safe, direct-to-TV options like my Roku? He’ll search for it through things like Google and perhaps find it, in this case. But if you don’t offer it, since you’ve driven him and other kids to think they should search, maybe they’ll keep searching until they find some place that does offer it.

Now, if I really wanted to watch last week’s episode, on my TV and without firing up my laptop and digging out the HDMI cable, I could buy it from Amazon or Apple iTunes. But don’t you think paying four times for the same content is a bit much?

Blocking TV Devices Promotes The Piracy You Hate

Let me end with Google TV. Remember at CES? How upset you were to learn (you’re just learning this?), that if someone searches for video content on Google TV, they might reach pirated content?

Hey, I’ve used Google TV from the beginning, from before you and the other networks blocked it. Before you did this, the Google TV search results sent me directly to your web site, where I could watch your content directly from you, exactly as I could if I wanted to hook-up my computer to my TV. That’s because, after all, Google TV is really just a really small computer.

Thanks to your blocking, they don’t even bother to list your site, because why do it? It’s not like it works for those who use it. Instead, it pretty much searches the web — which lists things you might not like.

It’s not right, Rupert. Finding the TV content I want shouldn’t be this complicated, especially for someone who is actually paying you. Fix it.

This might be the last year I renew with ZoneAlarm. I like the security software and have used it for years. But they crazy and somewhat misleading renewal process is making me feel less than valued.

My subscription was nearing its end, so I got this warning telling me to renew. Clicking through, the price was $60. Now that’s about double what I paid initially. It was also $15 more than I could buy the service new.

I know from experience that if you don’t renew, you get offered a substantial discount. But I didn’t want to play games. I just wanted to renew then and there at the lowest price I knew they’d offer me.

I hit the web site looking for a contact form. They don’t have one. Everything is through chat. That’s it.

OK, I chatted. Told the rep the situation. Was told there was nothing that could be done. They couldn’t even extend my current subscription at a new price.

So, when subscription did expire, I purchased a new one for $45. I thought about waiting, but my ZoneAlarm software icon kept displaying an image giving the impression it wasn’t really working. It does, thought anti-virus definitions will slowly get outdated.

Still, being paranoid, I renewed. And then an hour later, in case a 60% off request to renew.

Sigh.

I replied to the email, since the address looked like it actually might go to something other than an auto-responder. Nope.

That meant it was back to chat. Told the person I was looking for credit. They asked for my account number. Gave it. He issued a refund.

What?

Yeah, refunded the whole amount. The solution, you see, was that I needed to again go buy the software.

What a giant waste of time. But at least now, since I’ll be using the renewal code I was sent, I’ll no longer get the daily email reminders from Zone Alarm that I need to renew my subscription.

Oh, and thanks but no thanks for the Extended Download Service that’s absolutely unnecessary, Zone Alarm, since the latest software is always offered for current customers.

Want to see what a mess AT&T has made by calling its HSPA+ network 4G? Look at my two “4G” AT&T phones below, one the iPhone 4S, the other the Galaxy S II Skyrocket:

The iPhone is reporting 3G speed, even though it’s getting what AT&T would have you believe is its first “layer” of 4G speed, through the HSPA+ network.

The Galaxy II is reporting 4G speed, even though it’s getting exactly the same HSPA+ connection that the iPhone 4S.

The Galaxy II is also reporting 4G speed even though it is NOT getting the much faster speed it would get if AT&T’s 4G LTE network was live in my area. My understanding is that if I did get this speed, it would say 4G LTE.

Crazy.

Apple apparently has prevented AT&T from forcing it to show a 4G indicator for HSPA+ connections — and good for Apple.

Meanwhile, AT&T’s decision to call HSPA+ “4G” means that on what I’d consider the first 4G phone I’ve actually owned from AT&T, that 4G indicator is meaningless unless it says 4G LTE.

For the record, I’ve also got a 4G LTE phone from Verizon, a Droid Charge. Whatever claims AT&T wants to make about HSPA+, my Droid Charge’s speed leaves the iPhone 4S in the dust.

Let me ask you this. If last year was all about Google’s war on thin content, does taking a bulletpoint list of 20 items and turning it into a 22 page slideshow make each individual page too thin? I’d say so, so maybe Google could turn its attention to penalizing the Huffington Post?

I follow the Huffington Post on Twitter and saw this tweet just now:

Interesting story, “A tale of two worlds: The highest and lowest unemployment rates in America.” OK, I’ll bite. I headed over:

Two arrows. Let’s focus on the lower one first. The story promised me the cities with the highest and lowest unemployment rates in America. But it’s not actually delivering that. None of the three paragraphs of the story actually tell me what these cities are.

Instead, to discover this, I have to start clicking to open up one of the 22 parts in all that this story is made of. To get to the cities with the highest unemployment rate, that’s 10 additional clicks:

All that, just so I can find underneath the giant photo the answer to one of the questions the story purported to provide: “Unemployment Rate: 27.2 Percent.” And to get the other city I was promised, that with the lowest unemployment, it’s another 10 clicks:

Again, all this just to get the short text: “Unemployment Rate: 2.8 percent.”

Basically, this is a single page article that could have been done with two sets of bulletpoints, one listing the ten cities with the highest unemployment in the US, the other listing those with the lowest. But the Huffington Post craptastially turns it into this unnecessary slideshow because that generates plenty of page views.

The Huffington Post is far from the only publication to do this. Business Insider is also in love with slideshows in this way. But at least BI always makes sure to provide a single-page view, so that at most, it’s only causing two clicks.

Not the Huffington Post. If there’s an option for this, I’m completely missing it. That first arrow points to a print-only version, but that only shows what’s on your current page, not the entire “article” all at once.

But hey, why stop when you still get rewarded like this:

There’s the Huffington Post article, top ranked on Google for a search on “highest unemployment.” Are those searchers really being best served by being routed into an article with a misleading headline, misleading in the sense that the only way you get the answer to your question is if you perform 20 additional clicks?

Boost Mobile is Sprint’s pay-as-you-go sister company. I kind of doubted they’d let me activate my Sprint Nexus S phone on the Boot network. After an hour of transfers with both Boost and Sprint, turns out that was sadly a correct assumption.

I got my Nexus S earlier this year, purchased from Sprint so that I could test out Google Wallet. Google took so long rolling out Google Wallet that I ended up canceling my Sprint account. Even though it was a business expense, I never used it. I found the network to be poor. I resented the “unlimited” pitch that wants to charge extra for certain phones and even further if you want to use a hotspot with them.

By canceling, I ended up paying the full termination fee, which should mean my phone was free and clear to use elsewhere. Of course, unlike GSM-based phones, you can’t just slot in a SIM card from another carrier. It has to all be done online or with a phone rep.

At first, it seemed hopeful. Boost has a great daily plan, where you pay only $2 for unlimited use. When you use up your money, the phone just stops working until you reactivate it. I though this would be perfect for my occasional use needs.

The Boost rep got me through the initial sign-up process, but when they tried to activate the phone, it turned out that Sprint was still reporting it as active and tied to its network.

That was annoying. I’d canceled ages ago, been charged an early termination fee, and Sprint was still effectively locking it to their network?

Calling Sprint was a nightmare. The rep there was incredibly polite, but it took ages to figure out that I just needed this phone unlocked or somehow disconnected from Sprint.

In the end, a Boost supervisor got merged into our call. She explained that unfortunately, Boost couldn’t support my device for the “technical troubleshooting” that would come up, especially since it was a Sprint phone.

That’s probably what annoyed me the most. It’s not a Sprint phone. It’s a Google phone. It’s a pure Google Android device that’s designed to use the frequency of the Sprint network. It should totally work through Boost. The only reason it can’t work is because, my guess is, Sprint won’t allow Boost to do so.

That makes sense from Sprint’s point-of-view. You don’t want your sister company undercutting your overpriced cell phone options by letting them support high-end phones. And for most people, it’s probably fine. If you’re going to use Boost, you’re probably not looking to pay that much for a handset, either.

But still, Sprint — you made plenty of money selling me this phone. Lighten up. Let me or anyone who wants to use an Android phone on Boost, if it supports Android phones — as it does.

This is no surprise to many, but it underscores just how much the US cell phone industry sucks. Last year, I walked off a plane in London, bought a pay-as-you-go SIM card from 3 and slotted it into my Nexus One. I had full web and phone access. No problem. I did the same thing this year in Australia, with Vodafone. No problem.

But in the US, we’re screwed, and it’s not just an Android issue. My several old iPhones — fully paid for — still remain locked to AT&T.

By they way, Virgin Mobile — which uses Sprint — won’t activate anything other than a Virgin phone either. But hey, “it’s the perfect excuse to get a new phone,” it says.

No, it’s not. Not if you have perfectly good phone.

Meanwhile, the whole point of this exercise was to try again with Google Wallet. You know, the mobile payment system that Google is advertising on buses all over New York, I saw earlier this month, but which still works with exactly one phone, the Sprint Nexus S?

I at least got Google Wallet running on the Nexus S, after dusting it off — only to discover that despite having a Google Wallet account already through the web — and with that account synced to the Google Wallet app on my phone — the phone still wanted me to enter the details for the same credit card I’d already registered.

Yeah, Google Wallet’s going to be a winner.

Related Articles

• How To Give Your Old iPhone To Your Kids, Cheaply
• How Google & Apple Sold Out The Cell Phone Revolution
• Review: Real Life With The Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 Smartphone

I’m drowning in Cyber Monday emails — mostly from merchants I’ve already done business with and so far, simply suggesting that my previous business with them isn’t that worthwhile. I’ll pick on TomTom and 24 Hour Fitness, in this post.

TomTom emailed me this:

Hmm. That Go Live Top Gear edition? Yeah, I just bought that at the beginning of the month for the full $270 price. Now they’ve dropped the price $70. I’m supposed to appreciate that?

No, what I’d have appreciated was if I’d been given the credit, instead. I sure would have appreciated when I called to ask about getting some credit, if the TomTom rep hadn’t made me think I was insane to find this strange.

Meanwhile, 24 Hour Fitness emailed “Cyber Monday Specials” to me today. I thought — good timing. My existing membership is about to expire, and this promised some pretty good savings. I headed over to the site, and here’s what I got:

Click on that Join Online Today button, and you have to enter your ZIP code to find clubs near you. Then after you pick a club, you land on the club page, which pitches the Thanksgiving Holiday Specials page, which sends you on a circular loop:

Instead, you have to ignore the most prominent pitch and instead select the “See Prices/Join” option off to the right. Do that, and you can get the offer as shown — but only if you selected a “Sport” level club or lower.

I actually want this membership because it promises access to the higher level “Super Sport” gyms. My existing 24 Hour Fitness gym is a cesspool. And now it’s finally being renovated, which means closure for a month next month.

Directly across the street is a new Super Sport gym that the Sport members aren’t allowed to use, during the renovation. Thanks, 24 Hour Fitness, classy move. But if I can upgrade my membership to use the new, nice gym for the same price I pay now or less, that’s a bargain! Sign me up!

Unfortunately, if you select a Super Sport gym, this offer isn’t available for purchase. That’s odd, because Super Sport gyms aren’t excluded, only the Ultra Sports are:

“Excludes Ultra-Sport level clubs,” you can see — no mention of Super Sport being excluded.

Now, if you click on the “Click for details” link shown, it simply takes you over main “How To Join” page that offers no further specifics. Are Super Sport gyms included or not. I had to call to find out. The phone reps said no (naturally) even though the ad didn’t make this clear.

I could do without the specials, thanks. They aren’t making me feel very special.

With the Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle Fire among the hot gifts for families this year, it’s pretty sad that neither device has any concept of “family” baked into it. Used by plenty of children, these devices ironically aren’t intended for them.

Crazy, right? I mean, who hasn’t seen kids taking to an iPad like a duck to water. Why, several parents I know have their iPads or other iOS devices like the iPhone loaded with apps that entertain and educate their children.

iTunes Isn’t For Kids

That’s the problem. To load those apps for their kids, parents have to use their own accounts. The kids, they can’t have their own.

My wife desperately wishes she didn’t have all our kids’ apps cluttering her account. A friend of hers was recently telling me the exact same wish, how she didn’t want all these apps on her phone.

How can they transfer them to their kids? They can’t. The iTunes Store, you see, isn’t designed for kids. Hit the web page about the store, and down at the bottom, you’ll find this disclaimer:

The iTunes Store is available only to persons age 13 or older in the U.S.

If your kid can’t have an iTunes Store account, then they can’t buy apps for themselves. They have to glom on to an adult to get their apps, probably one of their parents.

The Apps You Leave Behind

Oh, you can get around this. I recently made one of my sons a virtual year older than he really is just so I could get him going with his own iTunes account, so that his purchases would no longer clutter up my wife’s account.

Of course, he had to leave behind all the old apps he used to play on her account. The really important ones, well, I suppose they might get purchased again. Fortunately, they’re generally cheap enough. But it kinds of sucks that a parent who bought an app for their child can’t transfer that app to them formally.

Get Your Family Going On Kindle…

Then there’s the Kindle. Having used it since the beginning of this year, I’ve learned to love the device.

I’ve gotten over the fact that I’m often paying the same price for a book as the print edition despite their being no shipping or printing costs involved. I find reading on the Kindle to be easier, especially for non-fiction, when I like to highlight and make notes.

My kids wanted nothing to do with the Kindle, when I suggested they might try it. They wanted “real” books. My wife was dubious, as well.

And Watch Kindle Kill The Idea Of Family Book Lending

Now my wife loves it, especially how she can catch up on a book through her iPhone. In fact, when I mentioned I’d read something interesting in the Steve Jobs biography that I purchased for my Kindle, she said she’d like to read it when I was done.

Oops, no can do. Unlike a real book (around $18 from Amazon right now), the Kindle edition I purchased for $15 can’t be lent to her.

Sure, some Amazon books can be lent to others. But so far, only one of the nine Kindle books I currently own have this option. As for the one that I can lend, I can do that once. After that, no more lending, to my understanding.

Lending is entirely up to the publishers, and the publishers, despite charging real book prices aren’t providing real book benefits, such as the ability to send the book to whomever you want, much less resell the book.

Meanwhile, my youngest son just started his first Kindle book. Not having an Amazon account of his own, my wife bought it through her account. And so the clutter of child purchases in parent accounts begins.

Where’s The Family Account?

To be fair, as far as I can tell, Amazon accounts have no age restriction. If we want our children to have their own virtual libraries, we can create accounts for both of them. But I’d still argue that the Kindle still isn’t designed for kids, and it certainly isn’t family friendly.

Our children, like those in many families, are close in age and like to share books. Given that most Kindle books don’t appear to be lendable, that’s a big strike against traditional family lending.

A workaround solution is to have one account that everyone in a family uses to share books. Then, siblings and spouses can all easily share books with each other. Of course, this also means children have pretty easy access to adult books, and that’s something that parents might not want.

Where’s The Sign-In For Tablets?

Somewhat related, our growingly tablet-oriented world hasn’t caught up with what computer-based world has long allowed, the concept of separate sign-ins.

Both Windows and the Mac allow for the same computer to be used by different people, each with their own account. A family can share the same computer without stepping on each others settings.

But what if a mother wants to let her child use her iPad? There’s no way to “sign-out” and sign the child in, to view their own menus and apps (trust me, plenty of parents would kill for this feature).

Similarly, what if a Kindle is being shared by a family, but each family member has their own Amazon account? You have to deregister the Kindle from the current account and then reregister it to the new one.

That’s a pain, and one that just gets worse when you’re dealing with the Kindle Fire that does more than just books, because now you’re losing settings for email and other non-Amazon accounts that might be linked to installed apps.

Allow Transfers Or Family Lending, Please

My headline is exaggerated. I don’t really think Amazon or Apple hate families. I also know they struggle with some absurd restrictions that content owners impose.

But still, it shouldn’t be this hard. Kith and Kindle from O’Reilly Radar was talking about the need for a “Friends & Family” plan for the Kindle back in 2007. Here we are in 2011, and the situation hasn’t improved.

The ideal solution is that if you buy an app or an ebook, you also buy the right to permanently transfer that purchase to someone else. That’s how things work in the real world; in the digital world, where the physical costs are less, why shouldn’t the same rights apply?

At the very least, I wish Apple and Amazon would think more about the concept of family accounts, so that a purchase could be delivered or registered to one of several designated “family” devices, especially for when you’re dealing with younger children.

Right now, Wikipedia is busy asking for donations to stay afloat. Here’s a thought. If it wants donations, maybe open things up so that outsiders feel like they can contribute expert knowledge without wasting their time.

A Debate Over Notability

Here’s a case in point. About two weeks ago, Jessie Stricchiola let me know that her Wikipedia page had been deleted. Apparently, she wasn’t notable enough.

That’s absurd — this is the woman who was the pioneer in fighting click fraud, along with other accomplishments.

I cruised over to take a look. At the time, the page (well, the discussion to delete the page) looked like this, with this message at the top:

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article’s talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. As far as I can tell, the numbers are split about 7-6 in favour of delete. That’s not normally going to lead to a consensus to delete unless there are unusual circumstances, such as one side having significantly stronger arguments than the other, so much as that can be ascertained objectively. In this case, the final three unchallenged delete !votes—DGG, ItsZippy and Metropolitan90—demonstrate such strength.

At The Tone (If You Can Find It), Please Leave A Detailed Message

Already, I’m annoyed. As usual, trying to contribute to Wikipedia means that you’ve got to know what a “talk page” is or where to find a “deletion review.”

Because the page was already deleted, it had no talk page. And the deletion review, who knows where that it. I assumed it was the page I’d headed to. So, I ignored the instructions and shoved a big message at the top, detailing all the reasons why Jessie was notable:

I’m modifying this page despite the big warning not to modify it because, as the article was already deleted with a “consensus” of 7 against 6, there’s no way to add further comments on the original talk page.

I’m a notable person on Wikipedia, as well as an expert in search marketing. So for what it’s worth, you’re seriously questioning whether Jessie should have her own page? That’s just crazy.

The page should be restored, and immediately. She’s clearly notable.

First, I don’t see how Mkativerata starts off saying that 7-6 is not a consensus, but then concludes that it is. Clearly, it is not. When in doubt, err on caution.

Jessie was a founding member (not just a board member) and driving force behind the creation of the SEMPO organization, the search marketing industry’s largest trade group. That alone should make her notable. This is an easily verified fact: http://www.sempo.org/?page=pr_20030820

Here’s what I wrote about the group when it was founded in 2003, where Jessie is cited at the beginning: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2064338/SEMPO-Search-Engine-Marketing-Professional-Organization-Opens-To-Members

“I think a testimonial at the SEMPO launch meeting last month by one of SEMPO’s board members Jessie Chase-Stricchiola put it best: ‘When I tell people that I’m a search engine marketer, I want them to know what that means,” she said — or words similar to that effect’.”

Jessie was one of the first search marketers that highlighted the issue of click fraud. She was a pioneer in that space, and would be notable for her teachings and writings on that subject alone.

I don’t know anyone who spoke on this topic before her in 2002 — her pitch to cover it was one of the reasons I invited her in 2002 to participate in what became the first of many conference appearances: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2065421/Perfecting-Paid-Search-Engine-Listings

I’m hard pressed to think if there was anyone else with near her stature in this area, from as far back.

As I wrote in 2006: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2048086/The-Latest-Click-Fraud-Roundup

“Alchemist is headed up by Jessie Stricchiola, one of our long time SES speakers on the subject and a true pioneer in raising alarm over the issue”

That was referencing a BusinessWeek article that was also citing her company and work it did on research in the area with Fair Issac. Got it? When the credit card fraud spotting people wanted to understand click fraud better, they turned to Jessie:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060227_930506.htm

Jessie was an expert witness in a landmark case about click fraud that was settled with with Google. Wikipedia itself finds it notable to cite her for this on its own click fraud page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud

As a long-standing leader in the search marketing space, she also co-authored a popular book on the topic. But wait, WorldCat only shows 12 copies holding in libraries or whatever.

Perhaps being #7 in the internet searching category on Amazon helps? Or #22 in web services? http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/69771/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_5_last http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/377886011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_4_last

Reading some of the debate on this is laughable. You want to figure out what makes a search marketer notable based on what you think makes an astrophysicist notable? In the search marketing space, speaking at conferences is indeed one way that search marketers are validated — it’s a type of peer review, because if you’re a bad speaker, you don’t get called back. Being referenced by other SEOs is a huge measure of respect, because marketers can be loathe to point people to other marketers.

Someone should restore this page. Moreover, you ought to expand it and do Wikipedia’s proper job of documenting notable people like Jessie, rather than relying on guesswork and whatever you think you can discover by just by searching the web for information on subjects you’re not expert in.

I am a subject expert in the field of search marketing. A notable one — after all, Wikipedia says so. But my type of first-hand assertion isn’t enough. Wikipedia would rather find third-party mainstream media resources that quote people, as if that is somehow better than first-party information.

Thanks For Your Message; We (Don’t) Care About Your Feedback

Having left my message, I moved on. But yesterday, I got an email from Wikipedia:

The Wikipedia page “User talk:Dannysullivan” has been changed on

23 November 2011 by Metropolitan90, with the edit summary: deletion review

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dannysullivan&diff=0&oldid=207042508

for all changes since your last visit. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dannysullivan for the current revision.

To contact the editor, visit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Metropolitan90

Note that additional changes to the page “User talk:Dannysullivan” will not result in any further notifications, until you have logged in and visited the page.

Your friendly Wikipedia notification system

To Hear Your Messages, Push % On Your Keypad

I love that last part — “your friendly Wikipedia notification system.” It’s anything but. I cruise back over to Wikipedia to see what my message is:

OMG, my message is a revision comparison of what’s been added to the user talk page that I barely even know that I have? Who creates this type of mess? Who tolerates this as an effective working environment?

My message tells me this:

In regard to your comments on this page, please note that one reason not to post additional comments to a closed AfD page is that, within a few days after closing, hardly anyone is likely to see those comments and thus posting there does not attract attention. I just happened to see your comments there today. If you want to challenge the deletion of [[Jessie Stricchiola]], you can follow the procedure at [[Wikipedia:Deletion review]]. –[[User:Metropolitan90|Metropolitan90]] [[User talk:Metropolitan90|(talk)]] 04:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

To Contact An Editor, Please Contact An Editor

No. No. No. So much wrongness here. So much so, that I cruised over to explain with a message to the editor on Wikipedia who left me this. I used the link in that email I got, the one that specifically said: “To contact the editor, visit” along with this link.

The page I arrived at told me this:

Oh, don’t post messages on the page I was specifically told to go to in order to contact the editor. Nice, Wikipedia. Instead, I should go to a different page, which I did.

Now look at this page I was sent to, and see if you can spot the helpful friendly way to send a message:

Yeah, there’s nothing like that. If you’re leaving a message about an article that was deleted, assuming you even know how to leave a message, you’re also informed to do it with an “appropriate red link” with instructions on how to make links red, except that leads to a page that doesn’t explain this, and OMG, did my head just explode over all this bureaucracy?

RTFM & If You Don’t Know What That Means RTFM

I hope it didn’t, because there’s more to come. In the end, I vent. Sorry Metropolitan90, I was mainly venting at the absurdity that is Wikipedia, but yeah, I’d had it:

Hey Metropolitan90, thanks for cruising by and leaving me this message: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dannysullivan&diff=0&oldid=207042508

Telling me that by golly, I left a message on a close AfD page (huh, what, can you just speak plain language?) and that hardly anyone will see those comments there (even though you did) and that if I want to challenge a deletion of something, I should use some arcane cryptic obscure Wikipedia deletion review process.

Here’s a little acronym for you. WTF?

Look, somehow in the insane closed little world of Wikipedia editors, where non-specialist editors pretend to be experts on what’s notable, you decided that this person wasn’t. You know, because you all couldn’t find enough references, in part because you don’t know the subject enough to even know how to find the right references — but even if you had, since you’re not subject experts, they mean nothing to you.

So, despite my general feeling that contributing anything to Wikipedia is a big giant waste of time, I actually left you all some pretty detailed references. At the very least, I’d think you’d have though hmm, maybe there’s enough there that this should be put up for re-review. And since you’re actually an expert on Wikipedia procedures — why didn’t you just do it?

What’s the point here? To have an accurate crowd-sourced encyclopedia, or to only have it be as accurate as the incredibly tiny few number of people who care to play in the high priesthood of Wikipedia editing allow it to be.

If it’s the latter, well, job well done. If it’s the former, well, you know what to do.

Geez, just to leave you a response, in the email I got, I was told to go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Metropolitan90

Which then told me at the top that actually, to contact you, I should come to this page. Which in turn, you know, isn’t particularly user friendly.

If you skipped all that, it highlights my frustration over all the acronyms and procedures that make Wikipedia, in my view, a closed little society that actually excludes subject experts from wanting to participate in it.

To Request A Review, Push The 10 Button On Your Keypad

But wait, there’s more. Remember, I was told the proper procedure was to follow the Deletion Review process. Let’s look at that page:

Hey, all I want is a form where I can submit some comments to someone with enough common sense to say “hmm, maybe we should reconsider this.” Instead, it’s like a novel — I’m only showing the first two of five major sections.

Oh — and it’s not even the right page that I was pointed at. That’s because, as best I can tell, this process is for pages that are being considered for deletion. I’m talking about a page that was deleted. Which means, yes, that’s right, a different page:

I wish my head hadn’t exploded before, because now it really would. This looks deceptively like what I want, a simple form. Enter the page title to get it undeleted. However — hey, how do you know the title of a deleted page? I suppose you can guess, but given how bureaucratic everything else is on Wikipedia, I have little faith.

Don’t Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate

More important, this process is only for pages that were “uncontroversially” deleted. What’s that mean? Well, say they were deleted through CSD G6. Whaaaat? Or if there was little to no debate.

How much debate is debate? Who knows. And what if there was debate? Go back to that first page that I said seems designed only to help pages that are being considered for deletion, not after they’ve been deleted.

Walls That Protect Also Divide

It’s insane. It really is. And with respect to the many hardworking people who have created a generally useful resource, it’s not a friendly resource. It doesn’t have systems, as far as I can tell, designed to help it improve. It has walls, walls you believe (with many good reasons) are designed to protect it from being vandalized. But those walls themselves are their own type of vandalization of the very resource you’re trying to protect.

Subject Experts Need Not Apply

Bottom line — I’ve gotten no indication that anyone at Wikipedia actually cares what a subject expert has to say on, well, a subject they’re an expert in. Instead, you drown in a morass of bureaucracy. It shouldn’t be this way.

By the way, comments are closed. It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I wanted this off my chest while I was dealing with it now, but I don’t have time to response to comments that might come up. I’ll reopen them after the weekend. If you really care to comment, come back then. If you agree, well, use all those share, like, +1 and tweet buttons.

Still don’t know Minecraft? Well, if you use iTunes, the block-building virtual world game is giving you a wake-up call. The game is now the top grossing app on iTunes and settling between the top third and fourth paid app overall.

Minecraft Pocket Edition was released on November 17 and formally announced yesterday at MineCon, the first official event for the game happening in Las Vegas right now (see my write-up below).

Currently within iTunes, Minecraft shows as the top most grossing app and number four for paid apps overall:

It actually made the top grossing chart yesterday, after only one day and before the official announcement, Mojang (the company that makes Minecraft) said yesterday.

But the iTunes Charts area on the web (rather than within iTunes), shows Minecraft is the third most popular paid app:

That puts it just behind Angry Birds, which leads to my post from yesterday about MineCon and the Minecraft phenomenon: Move Over Angry Birds, It’s The Minecraft Coming Out Party.

Angry Birds? That’s so 2010. The hot game you might not have heard of yet, but chances are your kids know, is Minecraft. And 5,000 Minecrafters have descended upon Las Vegas for MineCon, the first-ever event for Minecraft.

During today’s keynote, Markus Persson — Notch — the creator of Minecraft officially took Minecraft out of beta status. Minecraft also gained a version for iOS, and a new version was announced for Xbox 360, to be released in Spring 2012.

What’s Minecraft?

I’m one of the hundreds of slightly confused parents who have accompanied their kids to MineCon. “What’s that,” you can ask many adults here with kids, and the response will be, “I don’t know, you have to ask my kid.” Seriously, I could start a support group.

But Minecraft, a virtual world game that’s popular despite its retro blocky-graphics look, isn’t just for kids. There are plenty of adults who enjoy the game, as well, and a thriving industry of gamers who share what they’ve built and how to play on YouTube.

Seriously, YouTube is big with Minecrafters. There are Minecraft YouTube stars wandering around MineCon, and they’re getting mobbed.

Below, my live blogging of today’s keynote and the news that came out of it.

Warming Up The Audience

The audience has come into the room, with the stage set complete with an “Activate Minecraft” lever:

The auditorium has darkened, and a video begins, talking about how Minecraft has evolved. A deep voice narrates the changes. Lava! Multiplayer versions.

Notch wanted a more challenging game. Survival. Zombies, skeletons, sheep and pigs — and creepers. Minecraft gained a “classic” version with a new version started that added more tweeks and improvements, like infinite terrain.

Then, the first major version of the game was released. “Not like released released but available?” says a second voice on the video. It’s been making snarky jokes all along along about everything the main narrator says.

Then the Nether was introduced (the crowd is now screaming about this). “The game hit beta” says the main voice. Weather. Snow. Lightning storms and rain. And now the main game is here.

The Minecraft Community

A woman with pink hair that rivals Hayley Williams is up welcoming us:

She’s Lydia Winters — MinecraftChick — director of fun for Mojang (the company that makes Minecraft).

Now CaptainSparklez, a big YouTuber, is welcomed to the stage. His Revenge parody song of Usher’s DJ’s Got Us Fallin’ In Love is playing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lydia is back, talking about how that’s just one of hundreds of thousands of Minecraft-related videos on YouTube.

She’s talking more about community, a teacher using Minecraft in the classroom is here. “I’m sorry kids, but you can learn while playing Minecraft,” she jokes. In Sweden, one project is using the game to help build real life structures.

There are 16 million registered users now worldwide, and all the families coming together, a mom told her how she plays with her child and his grandmother. “A teenage guy with his mom at a convention, that’s really super cool,” she says.

Minecraft For Xbox 360

Stuart Platt from Microsoft now talking about the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft. He says Microsoft is excited about the game, “it’s become a part of our culture,” he says.

Now the big news: “I’m very proud to say we have the first playable version of Minecraft for the 360 that you can play today here.”

He’s now showing a funny trailer Microsoft made about the news. Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

By the way, here’s a look at the Xbox Live Minecraft booth at the show:

That Minecraft-skinned Xbox? Not a retail unit, and apparently no plans to make one. But you never know. Here’s how the controls operate on Xbox:

Minecraft For iOS

Now we’re getting a short update on the iOS version of Minecraft.

Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iTouch) devices has been released. (Here are some reviews). After being released yesterday, without a formal announcement, it already made the top grossing charts.

NOTE: See my follow-up post, After Two Days, Minecraft Is Topping Grossing App In iTunes.

By the way, there is a version for Android — but it’s still only a demo, with limited features.

Enter Notch

Now Lydia is doing a history of Mojang, explaining all the hires over time, calling each person up on stage, to much applause from each entrances by the audience.

Now Notch is welcomed on stage. Many people are standing to applaud. One person yells that she loves him. “Thank you mom,” he jokes.

How did Minecraft get started? He says he was a game developer who started to do it just for himself. Then started talking about it on various forums, then it grew from there.

The Minecraft 1.0 Launch Video

Now the team from Mega64 comes up to talk about the launch video they’ve made for Minecraft, starring Notch himself. It’s pretty funny. Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is also apparently the official launch trailer made by Hat Films (it wasn’t shown during the keynote but is now posted on YouTube):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Activate Minecraft!

Now the team is called up, and Notch moves to the big switch to officially launch Minecraft, gives it a pull and confetti comes raining down:

That’s it, keynote done. Here’s the whole thing, for those who weren’t there, as recorded by IGN:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Postscript: See After Two Days, Minecraft Is Topping Grossing App In iTunes.