Computer Support Blog

Online gaming has taken a few major turns in recent years, especially in terms of type of players and company business models. Until recently, most games on the Internet were for hardcore gamers. Now, anyone can find a game online that he or she will enjoy playing.

Social networking games have created a window into the gaming world for casual players by creating thousands of games that are free and very easy to play. These games come with a revolutionary business model that other types of games are slowly adopting.

Massively Multiplayer Online games, known as MMOs, are a type of game in which players from all over the world can play the game together in an online world. MMOs can be any type of game, but Role Playing Games (or RPGs) are the most popular. These MMORPGs, like the well-known World of Warcraft game, are beginning to change.

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If you play games on Facebook, you know about Farmville. No matter your opinion on the game itself, there is no denying that Farmville is a huge success. As is Zynga, the company that created Farmville.

Zynga currently has four of the past year’s top ten games on Facebook, according to Gameinformer. These games, of which Farmville was not one, were ranked based on how highly players recommended the games.

Zynga’s Farmville remains a very popular game, even if it did not make that list. How and why is it so popular? Why do people play a game where they have to run a farm? How does Zynga make money from these free Facebook games?

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The popularity of Glee has made the music term “mash-up” a household phrase.  In case, however, you aren’t into that trend, a mash-up is when a music producer combines two songs that are not inherently alike, but share a similar characteristic either musically or thematically.  In the entertainment and corporate worlds, mergers often act like mash-ups and they have been occurring with increasing frequency over the last decade.  One of the most peculiar mergers came when Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment in 2009.  Marvel Entertainment is the parent company that oversees Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios and Marvel Digital Enterprises.  Since the buyout, Disney has been making a lot of money off Marvel, especially through summer blockbuster films like Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The First Avenger.

But fans of Marvel Entertainment’s projects have been waiting for something substantive and new to come out of the Disney buyout for years.  Marvel Studios, for example, had all subsequent projects through this summer’s The Avengers in pre-production when Disney bought Marvel Entertainment.  Finally, the results are evident and Avengers Alliance embodies just what the buyout might mean for Marvel fans.  Avengers Alliance is a new video game for Facebook produced by Playdom.

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Over the past few years, online social networking sites have caused more and more of our social interactions to happen online. They have also changed the way we interact with our friends, even changing the definition of the word ‘friend’, but they have not changed basic human nature.

There have always been people who do not understand that their friends and acquaintances have no interest in all the tiny things they do in a day. There have also always been people who never share huge life events with their friends. Both of these types of people are still present on the Internet. Look at your Facebook feed sometime and you will notice exactly that – some people over-share and others never share. Thankfully, there are also plenty of people in the middle range who know what and how much their friends really want to know.

Soon, Facebook will allow those over-sharing people to post everything they do on other websites onto their profiles. This new release is not as widely supported as Facebook might wish. Pandora, the hugely popular Internet radio website, is one of the sites that are hesitating to allow Facebook to automatically publish every song a user listens to, onto the user’s profile. Pandora is reacting the same way that the majority of people would react: “My friends do not need to know every song I hear.” Pandora does publish on Facebook already, but the site does not want to publish everything automatically.

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Internet social networks are still a relatively new phenomenon and as a result, programmers, businesspeople and the public do not yet fully understand the nature and impact of them.  For sure, Myspace, Facebook, and Google+ have all grown and attracted people to them, but there are few people who understand why.  To unravel this great mystery of why people use Internet social networks and how to retain users, there is Paul Adams.

Paul Adams is fascinated by sociology and studied social media on the Internet as it developed.  Adams holds a Bachelor’s degree in Design in Industrial Design and he earned his M.S. in Interactive Media.  Armed with those credentials, he initially entered the workforce as an industrial designer.  As a free agent, Paul Adams designed car interiors for Faurecia and he designed the vacuum that became Dyson’s best-selling vacuum in Japan!

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If you have seen The Social Network, you know the Hollywood version of the history of the creation of Facebook.  In the movie, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook for the programming challenge and the status of creating the “next big thing.”  When Sean Parker comes into the mix, the priority with “The Facebook” is keeping the site cool and hip, as opposed to monetizing it.  This is actually one of the details from the film that jives with reality.  However, there came a time for Facebook to monetize and when it did, it was Sheryl Sandberg who made the cool Facebook into a multibillion dollar advertising platform.

Sheryl Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook.  Sandberg arrived at Facebook in 2008 after being wooed away from a potential job at Google.  That hiring was seen as a real coup for the Facebook team and shortly after joining the company, Sandberg initiated the advertising program that changed Facebook from a potential cash cow into a multibillion dollar moneymaker.  By 2010, Facebook was showing a profit, which was virtually unheard of in Internet social networks.

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Despite its faults with repeatedly recommending the same hundred people to be your friend, Facebook remains a very cool social network.  Facebook is a social network where you can communicate with friends far and near and even people you just wish were your friends, all at once.  The social network that Mark Zuckerberg founded on the concept of exclusivity is now a universally-recognized facet of United States popular culture.  One of the nice elements of Facebook is that it serves as a platform for applications that do not take Facebook all that seriously.  Two of the coolest such applications are Face-Invaders and the Photo Booth Friends video slot machine.

Face-Invaders is a very simple application for Facebook.  The Face-Invaders game is a recreation of the classic 1980s video game Space Invaders.  The difference, though, is that instead of generic aliens, the creatures descending from the sky are made up of Facebook photos of your Facebook friends!  You use your own Facebook photo in Face-Invaders as the defensive weapon to save the world.

The game is very simple to play, just as Space Invaders was.  As your friends float down from the sky, you shoot them until the rows of friends are all gone.  Moving your avatar is easy, as you simply tilt your tablet computer or smartphone in the direction you want to go. To fire your weapon, you simply tap your portable device’s screen.  Face-Invaders can be a nice cathartic tool when people you are friends with on Facebook have annoyed you in real life!

For a more positive spin on using your Facebook friends’ photos, the DoubleDown Casino application on Facebook has Photo Booth Friends.  Photo Booth Friends is a standard video slot machine on Facebook, except that all of the symbols are profile photos from your Facebook friends.  Photo Booth Friends is a cool application in that you may let the program choose which friends it represents in the game or you may associate specific friends with different winning values.  Suddenly, your loved one may help you win big at the virtual casino!

Photo Booth Friends is otherwise a very typical video slot machine on the DoubleDown Casino platform.  Photo Booth Friends is a twenty-line video slot machine with eleven different symbols, including Bonus Game and Scatter symbols.  The bonus game for Photo Booth Friends is the aptly-named “snapshot bonus” that makes further use out of your friends’ Facebook photos.

Facebook profile photos can be fun or troubling, but with applications like Face-Invaders and Photo Booth Friends, you can see a lot more of your friends while gaming on Facebook!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

The very popular film The Social Network chronicled the rise of Facebook, but because the movie is concerned with the origins of Facebook, many people associated with the company were not featured in the film.  One notable person who joined the Facebook family well after the events depicted in The Social Network was Otilia Otlacan.

Otilia Otlacan worked for Facebook for one year at Facebook’s Dublin offices.  As an Advertising Operations Associate, Otlacan was intimately involved with effectively branding Facebook for the UK marketplace.  Equally important, Otlacan was responsible for positioning brands like Kellogg’s, Sony, Visa and Chevrolet on Facebook in Europe.  At a time of financial instability worldwide, Otilia Otlacan was developing and executing advertising campaigns on Facebook for some of the world’s biggest companies!  As an Advertising Operations Associate, Otlacan ran advertising campaigns for Facebook that impacted markets in twenty-five counties and fifteen different languages!

How did Otilia Otlacan become such an advertising powerhouse when she only received her Master’s degree in marketing in 2003 (at age twenty-six!)?  Otlacan is a very talented professional, who seemed destined for success when she first received her certification as a Programming Languages Analyst from the Romanian Ministry Of Education.  From there, she focused her attentions on marketing throughout Europe.  For a few years, she worked for local computer and marketing companies in Romania, Athens and Dublin.

Her big break came when Google discovered Otilia Otlacan.  In 2006, Otlacan became an Advertising Account Associate for Google in Dublin.  There, she was responsible for creating the Google AdSense market for the UK.  Primarily responsible for promoting Google AdSense across the countries in Europe that had not been exposed to – or successfully integrated – Google Ads, Otlacan made Google advertisements a powerful tool for many European businesses.  Her success with Google made her very attractive to other businesses in Europe that saw how successful she was with promoting the Google advertising platform in the UK.  Otlacan left Google to help smaller companies like muzu.tv and Jolt Online Gaming improve their revenue streams through more effective advertising.  She was so effective as Jolt’s Online Marketing Manager that Facebook wooed her when they needed an Advertising Operations Associate in Dublin!

Now, Otilia Otlacan is a marketing manager for Innova Systems & Technologies and she runs her own business.  In 2008, Otlacan and Andrea Franco formed RightFit Media, which they run together.  RightFit Media is a consulting firm that helps companies effectively advertise on the Internet.  Otlacan also runs a very popular blog on online advertising, sharing her expertise with the world!

Otilia Otlacan is smart, stylish and has experience sought after by multi-billion dollar companies like Facebook and Google; but now that she is striking out on her own, her experience can help your company, too!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Facebook has many challenges to it, both technological and commercial.  While Facebook should better monitor the applications it allows to run on its platform, some of the issues with Facebook are internal and systemic.  One of the most significant problems with Facebook is that it has an annoying persistence.  Have you ever noticed how Facebook continues to recommend the same people to you?  Have you ever noticed that the Facebook recommendation for friends just keep coming back?  What is it that Facebook doesn’t get when you click the little “X” next to their recommendation to simply not friend the people they recommend?!

The Facebook system works on the principle that there are very few degrees of separation between people.  As a result, when you add someone as a friend on Facebook, the Facebook program suggests friends of your friend be added as your friend.  From pretty much the moment you friend anyone new, you will begin to see on your sidebar, people that Facebook recommends you add as a friend.  A great way to test this is to add someone you do not know well at all as a Facebook friend.  After you add an acquaintance watch how Facebook suggests all sorts of people you don’t know from your new “friend’s” friend list.

Who cares?  Why is this an issue?  Unlike friend requests that you can deny and they go away, Facebook insists you consider their recommendation.  If you have ever gone to the complete list of people Facebook recommends you “friend” and painstakingly gone through the list to clear the (often) hundreds of people Facebook wants you to friend, you will discover your time was completely wasted.  Go back there now and you will see!  You can go through your entire list, remove everyone that Facebook recommends and the next time you log in, their recommendations will be back.

Facebook: “No means no!”  When you inform Facebook by clicking on the “no” button – indicating you do not want to add their suggestion to your friend list – Facebook ought to listen.  The Facebook program not only wants to connect people, it is persistent in a troubling way.

Facebook needs to simply be programmed to respect our wishes and stop making the same mistake.  Whether you have one of your ex’s friends and do not want the whole barrage of their other associates or have left a real social situation where you only want to retain a relationship with one person from that group through Facebook, there are millions of situations where you might want one person as a friend, but not everyone with whom they are associated.

Forget the Timeline, forget the “dislike” button, all you really need is a Facebook that listens and provides a way to permanently stop suggesting a person once you have indicated you do not want the Facebook-suggested individual as a friend.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

We’ve searched the web for articles, blogs, and lengthy school policies on how professors should use Facebook and created a condensed version of the multitude of those tips. Here are the Rescuecom Ten Commandments of Facebook for College Professors (violate them at your own risk):

1)   Thou shalt never, ever, send a friend request to an undergraduate student still enrolled at your institution. Almost every online resource that provides information of Facebook ethics for academics insists on this point. It’s by far the most important rule, so please abide by it.

2)   Thou shalt accept student friend requests consistently. That is to say, either accept all requests from your students or accept none. Picking and choosing is a blatant display of favoritism, not to mention an easy way to get a zero on the “Instructor is impartial” question on your evaluation. (Nota bene, this doesn’t apply to students who have graduated. Once they’re out, feel free to reject and accept as you please.)

3)   Thou shalt not comment on your students’ photos, especially embarrassing ones. Remember that you need to maintain formality, even when Facebook tries to do away with whatever formality is left.

4)   Thou shalt not poke your students. No one likes pokes. They’re annoying and awkward. Imagine how awkward they are when they come from a professor.

5)   Thou shalt be friendly and encouraging—albeit proper—when students share links with you or write on your wall.

6)   Thou shalt not post anything you wouldn’t share with your students in person. Make sure you adjust your Facebook Internet security settings to limit what students can see.

7)   Thou shalt not use your students’ profiles against them. When a student emails you with an excuse for missing class, don’t snoop around his or her profile to check the claim. That’s just creepy and cumbersome.

8)   Thou shalt maintain an academic and professional tone to your Facebook—be an example to your students.

9)   Thou shalt not post class material, syllabi, grades, or announcements on Facebook. Even if you are Facebook friends with every single one of your students, Facebook is still not a reliable way to make announcements because it lacks formality. Also, do you really want to give your students yet another excuse to be on Facebook.

10)  Thou shalt not use social network services like Facebook in place of email communication. Email correspondence, once again, is infinitely more formal than Facebook correspondence—and you want to keep communication serious and academic. Besides, email can provide you with official records of correspondence if you ever need them. Imagine how odd it would look if you were to use Facebook transcripts in a plagiarism hearing, for instance.

It may be unfair to place so many restrictions on how professors and educators use Facebook, but it’s just another job hazard. Sorry, professors.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com