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The Future Of Paywalls: Microtransactions, Buy-Ins, And Content Wars

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 05:00 PM PST


A few nights ago, I was discussing with a friend the practicability of putting content behind a paywall. He felt it was an outdated notion and that advertising or some other method would pay. I disagree. Despite recent setbacks, like the decimation of the Times UK’s readership during their paywall experiment, I think that the paywall will eventually succeed, and even thrive — but the advances and sacrifices necessary to make that happen aren’t likely to happen for at least a few years.

Consumers are wary, for good reason, of paying for content online, for the obvious reason that it’s usually available elsewhere for free. Even “exclusive” items are usually duplicated shortly being made available. Publishers and content providers are scrambling for ways to retain their status as news-breakers and innovators — things worth paying for. But miserly consumers and new rules of distribution mean that things must change. The way I see it, the future may be free, but somebody still has to pay for it.

What first needs to be established is a reliable, secure, and convenient electronic wallet system. The big wireless carriers in the US are working on a mobile one called Isis, but the web is a different story and PayPal isn’t cutting it any more. Whether PayPal or Apple will slim down and make themselves more ubiquitous, or an upstart will arrive and send the incumbents sprawling, we don’t know any better than a coin flip right now. What is certain is that in a couple years, we’re going to have single-click secure payment systems with low enough overhead that you can safely charge a nickel, and people will gladly pay it. How that will change the web is a whole other story, but one that depends too much upon unknown particulars to go into at this juncture.

There is also the question of a continuous database of what you own: an electronic bookcase or locker. How will it be maintained? Who will have access to it? Nobody knows, but its existence is a no-brainer in a few years, because people will not like it if they can’t go back to articles they bought a year ago.

The important thing, at any rate, is that this simple pay structure gets established. Because that’s when real studies of consumer behavior on the web will take off. Our studies today are like the dirty backroom fumblings of 15th-century naturalists trying to determine the nature of light.

Hypothesis: People will pay for our content
Experiment: Make entire site pay-only for a month
Result: People didn’t pay for our content
Hypothesis rejected

That seriously is the level of rigor we’re applying to this problem. And it’s partially because, like those medieval forbears of our modern scientists, we don’t have the right tools. How are you going to study the habits of consumers when at the moment, consumers have to break every habit they have when taking part in online commerce? Our methods simply are inadequate.

So: once the tools are available, the big publishing companies (and of course, websites like this one) will experiment. Some will try to charge a small amount per article. But difficulties arise there as people don’t like paying so frequently, even trivial amounts. Then, maybe some charge for daily access. But people will find content they don’t like and complain that they could have paid for just the articles they wanted to on that other site. Yes, it’s ridiculous, but remember, people are ridiculous. Still others will try the monthly route, or even yearly, but what’s the right price? You can’t jack it up and down to counter movement in the market — subscribers will reject that kind of uncertainty. And even if you think your content is worth $20 a month, many consumers will opt for a cheaper subscription, even if it’s of lower quality. How to convince them?

Difficulties, difficulties! And unfortunately, I’m not a seer, so I can’t say where the prices and payment contracts will land, exactly. But I can say that the trick is to offer all of them, and make each one a valid value proposition, each one saving money over the other to the eyes of the consumer segment being targeted. The prices will be low, but not absurdly low. Nobody would buy an article for a penny. If I had to guess, I’d ballpark the figures thusly:

Single-article purchase: 10¢ – 50¢
For popular columns, features that attract wide readership (columns by famous authors, etc), and exclusives. The price must be low enough that someone feels they’re only paying for the privilege of reading the original. Essentially, you’re selling the delta between what I write about an exclusive, and the exclusive itself. Of course, with longer articles and more affluent demographics, you can jack that up a bit; I’d gladly have paid $0.50 each for a lot of the best New Yorker-type articles I’ve read.

Daily pass: 50¢ – $1
In years to come, I suspect people will be loath to pay more than a dollar for an issue of almost anything. Sure, there will be exceptions, and sadly enough a dollar ain’t what it used to be, but the fact remains that it’s a dollar, and other online outlets (iTunes for instance) have popularized that price point as a simple and reasonable price for… almost anything. Today, you often pay far more than this for a paper, and magazines are of course absurdly expensive (printing ads gets expensive). The value proposition here is that it’s not much more than just buying an article, but when stacked, more expensive than (see below) a monthly purchase. It’s an easy sell since there’s lots of content, and you make it up on volume. This is the equivalent of the newspaper stands on the street — people who don’t subscribe pick one up when they feel like it, because it’s there and the price is right. Some outlets, like USA Today, will go for a lower price like 50¢ because… well, you know.

Monthly pass: $1 – $10
What, a monthly pass starting at $1? Crazy talk. No, actually, it’s not — but that sort of monthly pass, at the low end, is something that might be collected into a single yearly fee, or even a one-time entry fee, like Metafilter. More on this later. And despite some sites already attempting to price monthly subscriptions at far higher than $10, I wonder if $10 is still too much. It’s a decent ballpark, anyway, and it’s a great deal for the consumer. They save a ton, the content creators get guaranteed income. Additional perks at this level might be warranted; more on that later as well.

“Regular” news articles: Free
These will always be provided as “editor’s choice” or “front page,” since most publications want to bill themselves as being a reliable source for all kinds of information. This makes the paywall into more of a payfence.

A natural objection might be that this pricing scheme I’ve suggested will not provide enough income for a publication to function. At current readership levels, yes. But the fact is that there are going to be more ways to consume Wired or the New York Times than simply picking up a paid-for physical object or going to a free website. The reach of publications will be far greater, and their costs for distribution far less, and although there may be some stumbles and buyouts along the way, the old ink-and-paper media companies will metamorphose into something new, interesting, and successful.

And it goes without saying (yet here I am saying it — another unnecessary thing to say, which I am also saying, etc) that there will be exceptions. Premium content will of course be able to command premium prices, and there will be bargains, special deals, licensing issues, extra microtransactions within the paper, and so on. And, as I outlined a year ago in my article The Ad Supported World, rich content will make targeting and selling to your readers unbelievably easy and effective. If your reader only reads the sports and leisure sections, and buys daily, that says a lot about him as a consumer; right there you’ve narrowed down potential ads and purchases by 80%, and can charge considerably more for these more targeted ads. That’s part of the revolution in advertising that will take place — not to mention instant sponsored purchases of songs by highlighted artists playing in the city, or referral setups to buy tickets to the next showing of the movie you just read a review of, and so on. Indirect monetization will allow content providers to print money in a few years, if they’ll only commit.

But I digress. Let’s see what else the future holds.

The Great Paywall Of… Yahoo

It’s all well and good for me to imagine all these publications working these things out individually and promoting themselves with good content and fair prices. And a chicken in every pot, right? The truth is there are ruthless media companies for whom these publications are just marionettes, and things won’t be that easy. Fortunately, this is my article, and I’m going to skip over the part where the big media holdings companies stonewall progress and sink a few of their own ships in the process by insisting on DRM, outrageous pricing, premature launches, and plain bad content. That’ll happen, in fact is happening already, but that period of strife is uninteresting. We know where they’ll end up, just like how we knew in 2002 where the RIAA would end up. That entity is still kicking and streaming, of course, but these things take time. Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.

After the dust settles, I envision the paid internet as a sort of collection of walled towns, or city-states. Inside one, all the holdings of News Corp. In another, Warner. In another, Aol. Because the internet is about sharing, connectivity, cross-references, and of course the occasional backroom deal.

At first it will be between related sites owned by the same overlords. So in our case, just for the sake of illustration, a subscription to the TechCrunch network (a bargain at any price) will allow you to purchase a similar subscription to TMZ at a discounted price, or maybe you get a month for free. Simple stuff, right? And natural. It’s the kind of share-the-halo business strategy that’s been at work for years in tons of other contexts. So that’s a guarantee.

What I’m interested in, however, is more independent city-states. Ones anyone can move to — for a price. I haven’t fleshed this idea out completely in my head, but I think we’re going to see establishments arise that have no purpose other than to arbitrate access to a set of websites. Think of it this way: You pay amount X for access to sites A, B, and C, maybe a few non-corporate gaming sites or something (call it ABC). That amount is distributed among those sites. Why don’t they just become one site? Well, it’s not quite like you pays your money, you gets your site. The payment system and benefits would encompass these sites, but would be the limit of their affiliation.

But say site D wants to join in. They want to be part of the network. I think there will be a new business model (probably not new, actually, despite my thinking it up, just adapted) by which access to a readership is given in response for a buy-in amount. They would then share the earnings proportionate to how much traffic they drive, or how many new subscriptions, or maybe just a fixed rate. On the other hand, ABC might want to “acquire” site E for exclusivity behind their paywall, and will of course offer revenue sharing, promotions, and all kinds of other things.

It’s still pretty woolly, but I do think that a new class of payment arbitration business will show up once that kind of funding for a site becomes more common. After all, we have large ad networks managing and serving the ads on our sites, it’s only natural to outsource this kind of thing. These days, there are the modular, the vertically integrated, and the dead. If you’re not big enough to be vertically integrated, you better modularize.

And will the larger entities, like News Corp, allow for things like buy-ins? I think we may be surprised at what they’re capable once they abandon their outdated ideas of how traffic and income work, but that’s as much as I’m willing to commit to at this point. Anyway, if this portion of the article was unconvincing, just be glad I didn’t go with my original idea of an entire post extending the “city-state” metaphor to its breaking point.

Providing for your flock

Reader retention (and its equivalent with other types of media) will increase in importance as more of a site or network’s income is directly derived from readers. Indirect advertisement deals, like monthly rates for a certain-size banner ad, are going to nosedive, since they’re trivial to block or ignore and everyone hates them. As I said before, this change from indirect to direct income from readers is a change with great risks and great opportunities. There will be a reckoning a few years from now, when traditional advertisement returns are flagging, and only those suited for life in the harsh new climate will survive.

In addition to the things I suggested earlier in the article, there will be some serious content wars in order to differentiate coverage and provide flavor to a site or network. This will be complicated by the fact that almost any content can be copied by a subscriber and pasted to his or her personal blog, or torrented, or spread by any number of alternate means of distribution. The value, then, can’t simply lie in the content, but also in the container.

That’s pretty scary to me — I’ve always espoused the view that if you have good content, the people will come, and hopefully that will stay true to an extent (it will remain my philosophy regardless). I am, however, comforted by the fact that a truly convenient payment system combined with truly reasonable prices will obsolete casual piracy. Serious piracy and hacking will, of course, remain, but I seriously doubt it will be easier for an end user to pirate/sideload an exclusive article or video than to pay a quarter and have constant legal access to it. The law here (DMCA, COICA and beyond) will make a difference too, but in the end, I think people won’t mind parting with pocket change.

Community and discussion, too, may provide another carrot for consumers. I mentioned Metafilter; it’s one of my favorite sites because the paltry $5 entry fee is, for the carrion eaters and rank trolls of the internet, an insurmountable barrier, or rather one they don’t care to penetrate. The question is whether it will remain so when payments like that become more ubiquitous. I personally believe it will: only being able to comment or vote on articles you’ve paid for (as at Metafilter, you pay for all ahead of time) is a powerful filter, and it will make user input much more valuable and relevant to all concerned. When I see articles with four or five thousand comments on the Huffington Post or some mainstream news site, I sometimes feel physically ill from contemplating the signal to noise ratio therein.

Paying for something also means that you are being a part of something others pay for, and there are responsibilities that follow. Etiquette and standards will shift as money and exclusivity enter into the equation. “Excuse me, sir, but other people have paid for the privilege of using this site, too — so we’re banning you.” And I won’t lie, subscription and payment options are also ways for sites to gain a level of control over their users via EULAs. The balance of power between content providers and readers will be hotly contested, especially when it’s clear that the readers so directly fund the providers. But that’s one of those disputes that’s likely been going on for several centuries, and will continue for several more. Let’s pretend I didn’t mention it.

Caveat

The trouble with this great house of cards I’ve stuck together with anecdote, chewing gum, and speculation, is that when you step back and look at it, it just appears too complicated. That’s my main objection to my own theory here. It reminds me of the way TV is being diced up and served piecemeal to consumers online now. It takes a meta-service like Google TV to make the 10 different network sites and accounts palatable to the average consumer, and as we’ve seen, it’s not being welcomed by the powers that be, and even if it were, it’s not yet up to the task.

The overlapping nation-states of multi-site paywalls and microtransaction systems is going to be too much for the average webgoer — the hundreds of millions of people who google Facebook every time they want to log in, and who are still suspicious of Amazon, to say nothing of electronic wallets. I don’t mean to demean them (well, maybe a little), and it’s partially the fault of computers and the web being inaccessible for many that this population is so important. But as much as I’d like to think that in five years there won’t be people googling Facebook, I seriously doubt we’ll have advanced that far.

At the same time, I doubt there will be an “extended cable” style version of the internet that provides access to all or most paid content. And of course, there is the issue of net neutrality mixed in there, too. I’m going to just go ahead and say that I have no idea how it’s going to work, and I’m okay with that. There certainly will be systems and allegiances like those I’ve described, but there will be major differences as well, and those I can’t predict. I welcome your input, and remember, since the keys to this magical kingdom of paying customers are tools we don’t yet have, we’ve got plenty of time to think on it before it becomes reality.

Gran Turismo 5 To Take Up Over 6GB On PS3 Hard Drive?

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 04:48 PM PST


We love Gran Turismo 5. So much so we have a whole tag for it. We even interviewed its creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, at CES. But damn, son, that is a lot of gigs to be taking up!

The game is a beast, clearly, but a 40-50 minute install time and 6.4GB of data to put on your drive makes for an unhappy gamer. I mean, it’s really not that big of a deal, go get lunch or something while it installs, but seriously, they must really be pushing at the limits of the system if all that stuff has to be stored locally.

Either way, it’s going to be a badass game, and I’m looking forward to playing it… in like five years, when I’ve saved up enough to buy a new game system. Just remember to check that you’ve got enough space before you start that craziness up.

Roku Hits 100 Channels As It Adds Crackle

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 04:27 PM PST

You may want to sit down for this one. Roku, streaming video box in extraordinary, has hit its 100th channel — Crackle, the thrilling channel for the introduction of which we got to interview Penn Gillette, and were hounded by Mormons. True story.

They only hit 50 a few months back, so this shows some solid growth. Congrats to Roku, and to Roku owners, who now can watch whatever it is they show on Crackle these days.

CrunchDeals: Get A Boxee Box For $180

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 02:00 PM PST


The Boxee Box is about the hottest media streamer ever made. It has issues, but it’s still really impressive and most of the bugs should be squashed soon. Anyway, Dell is hawking the Boxee Box for $200 like everyone else, but with the right coupon code, — V69?N67T203R2H — you can get it for $180 with free shipping. Yep, we love you. [via Dealnews]

Common Sense Prevails: Pilots Now Exempt From Enhanced Security Pat-Downs

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 01:30 PM PST

Finally, some common sense when it comes to airline security. Pilots will henceforth be exempt from security screenings at airports. This includes those highly invasive enhanced pat-downs that have been used post-ink toner plot.

Does this eliminate the utter stupidity of patting down infants and silver-haired grandmothers. No, clearly it doesn't, but maybe it shows that the TSA isn't completely unmovable with its positions.

The Pilots' association said, bluntly, "Pilots are not the threat here; we’re the target."

Yes. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how that wasn't an accepted truth from Day One.

And just as a heads-up, John Tyner, the man whose videos of the TSA acting all TSA-y, has posted a new post on his blog. He's quite articulate with his views, not some lunatic with an agenda.


RIAA Once Again Upset At LimeWire Over Limewire Pirate Edition

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 01:00 PM PST

The RIAA, still fighting the good fight. LimeWire as you knew it was shut down a few weeks ago because of an RIAA-secured court order. So LimeWire says, "OK, we'll alter the application so that it complies with your wished, RIAA." Today we've learnt that a new LimeWire has started to circle around the Internet, and now the RIAA is having another fit. Again: let's just ban music altogether. It's the best solution to this mess.

A site had popped up called Meta Pirate (ugh, grow up, people) that had started offering a new version of LimeWire, called LimeWire Pirate Edition. It's this edition that has the RIAA all bent out of shape, saying that someone connected to LimeWire is behind the site, and that someone needs to be held accountable.

LimeWire, of course, has denied any involvement with LimeWire Pirate Edition, and that it is fully complying with the previous court order.

Companies, If Your CSRs Aren’t Empowered, You’re Doing It Wrong

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 12:20 PM PST

So you call a company with a problem, right? After navigating a series of voice prompts, you eventually get to a live person. You think, alright, great someone can help me. Well, not really because this person often cannot do anything but take your contact information and run through a series of basic troubleshooting steps that generally starts with power cycling. Everything else needs to be approved by a supervisor or handled by someone else, which causes the already irritated customer to be placed on hold or worse yet, told someone will call them later. This begs the question of why is it this way? Why aren’t these front line people empowered?

Most companies fall into this bucket I’ve found. TiVo is one of them as I’ve discovered over the last week — horrible customer experience that’s going to cost them my account but that’s all I’m going to say. Instead, a few companies have surprised me lately and deserve a small shootout from this rather short soapbox of mine. D-Link nailed Customer Service 101 when I had issues with the Boxee Box this week. Logitech keeps the line of communication open even after the phone call ends through follow up emails and such. But one poor experience can taint a person’s perspective forever. Hear that, TiVo?

The Boxee Box launched late last week and I finally got our review model on Monday. Hooking up a gadget for the first time is magically and the Boxee Box didn’t disappoint — until it died. Well, until it died, came back to life, and died again. So I sunk down in my chair and called D-Link.

*Bbb-ring* *Bbbb-ring* “Thank you for calling D-Link, how may I help you.”

Me, in my head, “What the hey? This is a live person.” I hung up. I was convinced that I dialed the wrong number. There was no voice prompt, just a live person after a few short rings and I didn’t expect that. I checked the number and called back. Sure enough, I had the right number and this dude asked what I was having trouble with. I told him my Boxee Box was shutting off randomly and he went in full-on troubleshooting mode. Amazing, I thought. The guy that answered the phone is the guy that’s going to help me.

D-Link put the right person with the right credentials and knowledge on the front line. Now a couple times he had to consult other agents concerning my issue, but that’s fine. The Boxee Box is very new and people should ask for help when they don’t know the answer. From start to finish, D-Link did a great job.

Logitech is known for their service after the sale. Sure, sometimes incidents are escalated up to another level of techs which often extends the issue another day or two, but the constant emails from the reps are reassuring. It’s almost like they’re saying your issue isn’t forgotten; that it’s not lost in some queue somewhere. This is what sets them apart. That, and they don’t seem to mind replacing items years after the warranty expires.

Some companies make customer service a priority and so do not. Often the fails are the only ones that are talked about because they’re sensational headlines. There’s a clear trend lacing through all the success stories: the customer service person has the knowledge and ability to actually help the troubled soul. If escalation needs to happen, communication is timely and prompt. All people want is to reach someone that knows what they’re doing and can help. Make that happen, companies. If not, you’ll probably end up in a headline next to the phrase Epic Fail.

John Biggs Vs. Four Loko (The Short Version)

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 12:00 PM PST

In the event that you don’t have time to watch the full hour recap of John’s “research study” into the potentially unnecessary banning of a ridiculously unnecessary beverage, I have provided this 1 minute 30 second recap that basically documents what went on. Unnecessary background audio provided by yours truly. Don’t try this at home…er, actually, don’t try this anywhere. Ever. (video below)

What Actually Goes On In Your Microwave? Find Out In This Insane Video

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 11:30 AM PST


We all have microwaves, and we all use them from time to time, and we all are baffled now and again by how one spot on the nachos can be practically vaporizing while another is as cold as death. This video shows a little bit of what’s going on in there, and it’s not just a bunch of wavy lines, the way I usually see microwaves explained.

See, microwaves excite anything conductive, usually the water in your food, and if you attach conductive wires to neon bulbs in an array, like this guy did, the waves will excite them in patterns you can see.

I notice this one is really blowing up along the side, there. Good job, microwave manufacturers! I’m guessing that one of the differences between microwave brands (and prices) is the “accuracy” of the microwaves, and that you’d see different distributions on this board in different devices. Uhh, I’ll just wait for the guy in the video to do that, because I don’t have the know-how to craft a bulb array in acrylic.

[via Make]

Vintage Video: Gaming Systems Of The Past Confront PSP-Kefka In Final Fantasy VI Showdown

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 11:00 AM PST

I humbly ask that you watch this video. There’s a small problem: it’s split up into six parts, and is 30 minutes in length in total. But it’s great, so consider it an investment.

Yeah, this is like 800 years old, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be new to more than a few of you.

My favorite line? The Dreamcast saying "The people who accept me just the way I am."

Remember that geek quiz from the other day? Yeah, if you don’t like this video you might as well turn in your geek card.

The whole video is here. Go, now.

Video Review: The Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 09:45 AM PST

Oh, Microsoft. You just can’t seem to help but be the last one to every party you attend. You launched the Kin just as messenger phones began to die, then you launched Windows Phone 7 when the smartphone wars were so far underway that most folks had already declared an allegiance.

And now you’ve got your motion gaming platform, the Kinect, hitting the shelves years after the Nintendo Wii and months after the Playstation Move. I’ve spent the last week living with a Kinect in my life. How does it fare? Find out after the jump.

Short Version:

The Kinect isn’t bad. Not at all. It also, however, is not great.. yet. Of the six launch titles I tested, there’s only one that I’d whole-heartedly recommend and proves to me that the platform might be worthwhile. A few of the others are worthwhile rentals — and unlike the PS3 Move’s “KungFu Rider”, none of them made me want to throw the whole thing into a fire.

Oh — and if one of your primary interests in the Kinect is using it to navigate through the 360 interface, you’ll want to hold off. Kinect support on the dashboard is currently pretty slow, and pretty clunky.

Long Version

As they do with just about any company we’ve ever written about ever, a few of our commenters make it a daily routine to claim we’ve got some sort of collective anti-Microsoft bias here. As someone who has burned thousands more hours with the 360 than he has with any other recent console and who’s been more excited about the Kinect than any of the other motion platforms, I can probably say that’s a bunch of nonsense.

With that said, I would not recommend the Kinect — not to everyone, anyway, and not just yet. Like every motion system that came before it, the Kinect launches on the wrong side of a steep battle. Microsoft has to convince buyers that it’s more than just a dust-gathering gimmick; more importantly, they’ve got to convince developers — not just to make games for it, mind you, but to make games that use the Kinect as a means of blowing minds.

How It Works:

Each motion system has its own approach for getting the job done. The Wii blasts out a pair of infrared lights, which are picked up and tracked by a camera in the Wii remote. The Move takes the opposite route, placing a camera below the TV which tracks a glowing orb on the end of the player’s controller.

The Kinect is perhaps the most radical, foregoing controllers entirely. Instead, the Kinect sits below your TV, blasting a massive number of itty-bitty invisible (and yes, Mom, totally harmless) infrared dots into your living room. Two cameras built right into the unit track those dots to build a 3D map of sorts — throw in a depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and a pinch of Sci-Fi voodoo, and you’ve got a device capable of voice recognition, face recognition, and tracking motion in 3D. With the Kinect, as Microsoft puts it, “you are the controller.”

User Interface — Turns out, I’m not the best controller:

I’m a geek. I’ve got no shame in admitting that. I was perhaps more interested in seeing how the Kinect allowed the user to navigate the interface sans controller than I was interested in its gaming aspect. Alas, this is the thing I walked away most disappointed by.

Ever since Minority Report came along, the idea of waving your hands about to control an interface has been firmly implanted on every geek’s wishlist (right above a ride on Marty McFly’s hoverboard and below a one-week vacation on the TARDIS.) The Kinect is the first thing to really take a stab at it.. and, well, it’s not so great.

You see, we’re quite accustomed to two types of interface interaction methods: pointers (like mice), or touch (like the iPhone). The Kinect’s system exists on a level somewhere between the two — your hand is the “mouse”, and the air in front of you is the “touchscreen”. And yet, it comes without the strengths of either. Gone is the precision of a mouse on a desk, and, without any actual clicking going on, gone is the speed of a touchscreen.

Interacting with the 360′s UI through the Kinect is, at best, a bit clunky. After the Kinect does a 10-second-or-so bootup dance, you wave at it to get its attention. Oh, you’re sitting? Sorry, it’s probably not going to see you waving if you’re sitting. So then you stand up and wave, and out slides the Kinect menu. You find the thing you want, and hold your hand in the air over its relative location for around 2 and a half seconds. If your hand slips off — which it often will — the timer restarts. So now you’re standing, and you’re waving, and you’re waiting, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Damn. I probably should’ve just used the controller for this.” (Especially given that the controller is likely nearby, as you probably used the controller to turn the console on. You can’t turn it on or off via the Kinect, after all. Oh, it’s not nearby? Well, you’re standing anyway, might as well go grab it.)

There’s also a voice-based navigation system, and it’s quite accurate — but it’s just as limited and just as slow. “Xbox. [wait] Kinect! [wait] Xbox. [wait] Play disc. [wait]“.

Microsoft’s pretty good about pushing out updates for the 360 dashboard every few months. I’m really hoping that overhauling Kinect support in the UI is pretty high on their to-do list, right after implementing a feature that allows you to send a transcript of any kid’s Xbox Live voicechat to their Mom.

Navigating interfaces in games is an entirely different topic, and one I could probably wax on for a few paragraphs. In the end, though, it all boils down to this: Microsoft seemingly didn’t set any sort of standard for how developers should build interfaces, so just about everyone did it differently. Some games have you reach forward; others have you reach to the right or left. Some have you tap and hold; others have you grab and swipe. In a world where many are still getting used to the idea of right-clicking, standards are a must.

Space Requirements:

If you’re on the fence as to whether or not your living room is big enough for the Kinect, it probably isn’t.

The Kinect requires a lot of space. A lot. Microsoft recommends at least 6 feet in front of your TV. That’s probably about right for hobbits; for anyone else, you’re really going to need at least 7 or 8 feet. I’ve got a bit over 6 feet of space between my couch and my TV, and the couch had to be pushed out of the way each time we played.

Between colleagues and friends, I know around 10 people who have Kinects. Of those, one feels like their living room is really set up for the Kinect. Take that as you will.

The Games:

There are currently somewhere around 15 games for the Kinect, and we checked out 6 of the ones that Microsoft is really pushing to sell the platform at launch.

As with my PS3 Move review, I’m not going to touch on things like plot, graphics, or sound for any of the games here. This review is intended as a look at how the Kinect itself performs, so those things would be a bit irrelevant.

Anyway, lets dive on in:

Kinect Adventures:

This is the game that comes bundled with the Kinect, which is a bit unfortunate; compared to the Wii or PS3′s bundled games (Wii Sports and Sports Champion, respectively), Kinect Adventures is just rather… shallow. The whole point of a bundle game (besides the value add, of course) is to show off just how fun your new purchase can be. Kinect Adventures mostly just feels tedious.

The Kinect does have a slight lag, and Kinect Adventures was one of the only games I tested where the gameplay suffered from it.

There are 5 mini-games here:

  • 20,000 leaks: You mend cracks in a big underwater glass cube by covering them with your hands, feet, and, erm, face (just like real life!). Fish swim up, crack the glass, and you contort your body to fit over the cracks. Rinse and repeat.
  • Rally Ball: One part breakout, one part handball. Big rubber balls fly at you down a hallway, and you smack’em back to try and smash blocks on the other end.
  • River Rush: You’re on a raft, floating down a river, attempting to collect tokens along the way by shuffling left or right. If you jump, the raft jumps (just like real life!)
  • Reflex Ridge: You’re standing on a platform as it moves along a track, ducking under, jumping over, and sliding past obstacles as they zoom past you. You can jump to speed up the platform (just like real life!). This one is pretty fun, but really highlights the Kinect’s lag. You have to be in position well before an obstacle passes you.
  • Space Pop: You’re in a zero-gravity room, trying to pop bubbles by “swimming” through the air. The whole thing feels a bit detached; swimming up is easy (too easy, perhaps — it kept shooting me into the air when I wasn’t trying), but going in any of the other directions are painfully slow.

When you perform well, you earn “Living Statues”, which are little characters for which you can record little gestures/voice tracks. They’re adorable, but the games just weren’t catchy enough to keep me coming back.

Kinect JoyRide:

The idea of being able to zoom around a racing game simply by sticking your hands out as if you’re holding a steering wheel was one of those that really sold folks on the idea of the Kinect. I’m really, really hoping that JoyRide isn’t as good as the implementation of that idea can get.

This game is, in a word, bad. Steering is really, really insensitive. To charge boost, you “pull back” the steering wheel, then jut forward — an action which works maybe half the time. I had folks over to check out the Kinect 4 or 5 times leading up this review; each time, JoyRide stayed in for all of 10 minutes. Do not buy.

Kinect Sports

Given that both the Wii and the PS3 Move came bundled with Sports titles, you might figure that Microsoft would follow suit. Nope — and it sort of makes sense that they didn’t.

You see, the similarity between Kinect Sports and Wii Sports/Sports Champions sort of just highlights the shortcomings of the whole no-controller thing. Without a controller’s trigger to release when you’re throwing (as with the Wii), bowling feels weiiiird. Without a controller’s gyroscope providing ridiculously accurate insight into the angle of your hand (as with the PS3 Move), table tennis is less about aiming and more about putting your hand in the right place.

Don’t get me wrong; Kinect Sports isn’t a bad game. If it had come before the Wii or the PS3′s equivalent games, it would have absolutely rocked my world. Coming so far after though, it’s just impossible not to compare — and in comparison, it falls short.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

It’s hard to rave about an exercise game — but as far as exercise games go, Your Shape is pretty dang good. I’d take it over the Wii Fit/balance board any day. With the Kinect providing knowledge of where all your limbs are, Your Shape is able to throw a much wider variety of exercises at you while focusing on your actual form and rhythm, rather than just yelling at you for putting half a pound more weight on one foot.

Kinectimals:

Hot damn, is this game adorable. It’s very much for a younger audience, though; the pacing is pretty slow, and there are a good number of cutscenes that can’t be skipped.

Kinectimals is, in a sense, a 2010 version (and considerably more expensive) Tomagatchi. You pick a cub (Tiger, Leopard, Panther, Cheetah, or Lion), then play mini-games with it to progress.

The quality of the Kinect implementation in Kinectimals ranges from “Wow, this is neat!” to “WAIT NO OH GOD THATS NOT WHAT IM TRYING TO DO AT ALL”, but it’s usually pretty good. Right off the bat, the game has you go nuts petting your new cub (something which, by the way, gets my dog barking like mad at the TV), and that was one of the first times I really felt immersed in a Kinect game.

Dance Central:

You might want to take a seat before reading this one.

You ready?

Dance Central is, by far, the best game on the Kinect right now.

Remember when I mentioned that I’ve had a bunch of people over to check out the Kinect? Yeah. Every single time, we ended up playing Dance Central until we were all covered in sweat and too sore to move. Giggity

As you might have assumed, Dance Central is all about … dancing. There’s no arrow stomping here though, folks — you’re actually doing some good ol’ fashion rump shaking. A list of dance moves scrolls up the right side of the screen, while a dancer on the left acts them out. You do what they do, and any limbs you’ve got in the wrong place will be highlighted in red on the dancer.

The sensor does a pretty fantastic job of gauging where your limbs are. The higher you crank the difficulty, the more sensitive it’ll be. On easy, you just need to be doing roughly the same thing as the dancer; on hard, if the dancer’s hands are right up near their shoulders, your hands damn well better be up near your shoulders.

This is one of the games where you absolutely need a ton of space — not only to keep you from tripping over something and cracking your dome, but more so because the game has you lifting your arms up in the air just about every other move. If you’re too close to the TV, the Kinect won’t be able to see your arms; if it can’t see your arms, it doesn’t think they’re up in the air. BAM, combo broken, points lost, highscore ruined.

Conclusion:

The Kinect has potential, but it’s juuuust barely showing it right now. This is the case for every gaming console/accessory ever made, though — things are always going to be rough in the beginning, if only because developers haven’t really figured things out yet.

Outside of Dance Central, none of the five other games I checked out would really lead me to suggest picking one up, unless most of the players in your house are of a younger age. If you’ve got $200 to burn and aren’t too shy to dance around your living room like a fool, however, Dance Central is a must-have. If you don’t, give it a few months to make sure they can crank out a few more worthwhile titles.

Microsoft really needs to flesh out the 360 Dashboard’s Kinect integration, as well as conjure up some sort of standard for developers to follow in their own menus.

Honestly though, at this point, Kinect is pretty much just a means for me to play Dance Central.

T-Mobile Galaxy Tab hacked to make phone calls

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 09:38 AM PST

For some crazy reason, Samsung removed the ability to make phone calls from all U.S. Galaxy Tab units. Sure, Europeans get to hold a big ol’ 7″ dinner plate to their face and talk to their friends all they want. U.S folks? No way, Yankee Doodle.

This is 2010, though, an age where no misdeed goes unhacked.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

GameStop: We’re Seeing Wii-like Levels Of Demand For Kinect

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 09:15 AM PST

Kinect hasn’t even been out for more than a few days now, but word is that it’s selling out at retailers across this great land of ours. GameStop said yesterday that it’s having a heck of a time trying to keep Kinect in stock, with an executive vice-president saying that demand may well equal that of the Wii during that system’s launch.

The exact words of Tony Bartel were:

I think you are going to have the exact same thing with new controllers and with the Kinect Bundle that goes out. I think you are going to have consumers following the UPS truck to our stores to pick up that product as soon as they can find it.

To be fair to the other big motion controller, GameStop said that they expect both the Kinect and Move to be pretty darn successful.

Dance Central could be the big, breakout success, as a quick search on YouTube will verify.

The Toyota RAV4 EV Is Back! This Time Powered By Tesla

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 08:49 AM PST

The Toyota RAV4 EV just debuted at the LA Auto show. It’s not much of a surprise, really. It’s been known for a while that Toyota and Tesla were working together on the CUV EV. Tesla was tasked with the developing the power train, battery, electronics, electric motor, gearbox and software — pretty much the heart of the vehicle. The first crop are already on the road and seeing a 100 mile range but engineers are working on improving that for the 2012 model.

Exact shipping estimates and such haven’t been announced, but there’s clearly a bigger market for the EV this time than when the first generation hit the streets in 1997. Consumers are aware of the technology, gas is dramatically more expensive, and the nerd stigma was replaced by an eco-hip look. The infrastructure still isn’t where it needs to be for mass adaption but Toyota should have no problem moving more than the 1,484 that it did back in the ’90s.

This Is Something You Put On Your iPhone

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 08:25 AM PST


I shildn’t of had those four loks.

Product Page


Amazon Adds EA, Sega & Other Big Publishers To Its Downloadable Game Store

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 08:15 AM PST

Amazon has had a fairly big download-only indie video game store for a little while, but as of today has added several big name publishers to the service. "Big names?" Yes, the likes of EA, Sega, Ubisoft, and Atari. And, since today is the big launch day for the new publishers, Amazon’s running a little sale to help you start your collection.

Amazon splits the games between core gamers and casual games. I don’t think I need to explain the difference between the two to you guys.

The new core games include Medal of Honor, Dragon Age, Need For Speed Shift, Assassin’s Creed 2, and The Sims 3.

Particular deals include Need For Speed Underground for $6.60 (down from $9.99), Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 for $15.00 (down from $29.99), Dead Space for $11.53 (down from $19.99), and, probably the best deal of them all, The Witcher for $6.00 (down from $19.99).

You’ll recall that The Witcher 2′s release date was announced yesterday: May 17, 2011. That’s The Witcher up there, obv.

Bottom line, amigos, is that you have another download store to choose from, and there’s nothing wrong with additional choices.

Kyocera’s Solar Cycle Station: Eco-Friendly Stand For Charging E-Bikes

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 07:25 AM PST

Sure, in many cases electric bikes are much more eco-friendly than cars, but even e-bikes need to be charged in some way or the other – most of the time, the power doesn’t come from eco-friendly sources. Kyocera, however, yesterday announced [JP] an alternative: the so-called “Solar Cycle Station”, which is essentially some kind of a bike stand that allows owners to charge their e-bikes through solar power.

In its standard version, the bike stand comes with a total of three solar modules and reaches a maximum output of 79.8V (operating current: 7.84A). Kyocera estimates that facing south, each station can produce up to 1.14kWh per day. The stand is designed for use with six e-bikes simultaneously.

Kyocera says that e-bike sales in Japan grew by over 50% in the last 5 years and that demand will grow even faster in the future, especially driven by e-bike rental services. But costing $23,000, their bike stand isn’t exactly cheap (it became available in Japan yesterday).

Watch John Biggs Get Blasted On Four Loko Live

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 07:15 AM PST

Yeah, he’s dumb. Update: It’s over. Hope you didn’t miss it.

Real White iPhone 4s Float Into The Chinese Grey Market

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 06:48 AM PST

As far as anyone can tell, what you see here is a real white iPhone 4 for Apple internal use only being sold in China for about $899. According to GizChina you can buy these in the Shenzhen markets and they apparently fell off a truck on the way out of Foxconn.


It’s On: 10am Is Four Loko Time

Posted: 19 Nov 2010 06:31 AM PST

Here it comes! The Swill-Drinking Event of the Season! I will drink, over the course of an hour not one but two Four Lokos. You can watch me here or pop over to the main page to chat. I’ll also show off the Galaxy Tab and the NookColor while I do it, but those are ancillary to our goals.

Why am I doing this? Partially because it’s funny and partially to express outrage at the potential FDA ban as well as outrage at Four Loko for releasing this junk into the wild. But then again, who am I to judge? I used to drink far worse in my college days and I worry that my aged carapace will shutter and fall in onto my emaciated, jerky-tough body like the Skeksis in Dark Crystal

Basically, we’ll spend about an hour discussing the various states of inebriation I pass through and I’ll try to post a few things as well to test, you know, my brain. Considering I have stuff to do this afternoon, I’m not looking forward to 11am.

UPDATE – We’re all fine here. We have a very bad aftertaste. We shouldn’t have had drinks at 10am.
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