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Jaime is the founder of Neologic, digital destinations so far include cornbreadapp and Poetry for Robots. Two completely inspirational concepts created in their lab!

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Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: So, Angela, today we’re going to interview Jaime, and she is–
ANGELA: Amazing.
PAIGE: Super amazing. She runs a digital advertising agency, and they have done lab work and they’re kind of producing these interesting futurist apps and we go down that awesome rabbit hole, and it’s a great interview.
ANGELA: And before we get into that, I just want to mention that you can support Women’s Tech Radio and the Jupiter Broadcasting Network by going to Patreon.com/today. There is no minimum donation, but if you want to donate like $3.00 a month, it’s available. If you want to donate more, that’s great too. But Women’s Tech Radio is funded that way, so go to Patreon.com/today.
PAIGE: We rely on you, the listeners, to make sure these awesome shows keep coming out. So check it out. And we get started today by asking Jaime to tell us a bit about her agency and what she’s up to.
JAIME: So, I run a company, it’s called Neologic, and we do digital marketing for all sorts of companies, but we also have a lab which is pretty common these days, but we’re an extremely small team, so for us, it’s challenging in the right way to keep the lab open. But in the lab, we’ve developed in-house app and also a website theory. I don’t really know how to describe it in two words. But yeah, we’re doing that in the lab and it’s been really exciting. We’re just hitting our year mark of being in business.
PAIGE: Awesome. Congratulations. So what is extremely small?
JAIME: Five employees, and then we stretch into contractors, but that’s the core.
PAIGE: Okay. That is extremely small. Do you participate in the lab with 20 percent time? Or do you have dedicated employees that are just lab employees?
JAIME: We’re not big enough to have fully dedicated people in the lab, but I would say the partners, we spend a lot of time doing labs projects. There is a lot of interesting marketing runoff that comes out of those projects too, so we kind of invest our time there. And then our team, I would say spends probably, yeah, about like ten to 20 percent of their un-billable time on labs work. And I’d like to increase it, obviously, but we need a few more people before we can do that.
PAIGE: So, for people who aren’t necessarily in the lingo, what does lab mean to you?
JAIME: So, a lab to us is where we, if you use like the scientific analogy, it’s where we really mix up our chemicals and try to figure out what’s going to explode without doing that at a client’s expense. We’re in digital, we’re trying to be innovative. There is much to learn, but also for a small company, research and development I feel like is critical to growing and to making sure that you fill the market gap appropriately and that you flex when you need to. So it’s really our research and development time. It’s also our team building time. So if we’re all a bunch of people who are going to go home and drink Mountain Dew and try to build apps in our own time, why not just build time into the work day when we’re not trying to juggle family and kids and schedules, why don’t we just build that time in because we all love spending time together and we love working on creative projects. And so that’s what we’re trying to do. And I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done in a short time in the lab. So the app that we released, it took us about four months to design and develop it, and then we did a soft launch and then we just did a bigger launch. We already have about 400 people using that app, and that’s pretty cool for something that was really a short term project.
PAIGE: You’re talking about Cornbread?
JAIME: We’re talking about Cornbread.
PAIGE: What is Cornbread?
JAIME: So, Cornbread is a geocaching, for lack of a better term, it uses geocaching technology, and we think of it as an art based app. So, it’s location based and social, but you don’t have to be friends with certain people to see what they’ve left behind. So imagine you have a friend who went to Rome, and they have this app with them and they’re walking through Rome and they’re leaving you messages like they would if they were very romantic and they were leaving you a sticky note at the Pantheon and they told you you have to look around the side of this corner and I stuck it on this piece of brick, and go see if it’s still there. So they’re doing that, but digitally. So they’re leaving you messages on a map. You go to Rome, they’ve tagged you so you know that they’re there. You can see them on the map, but the actual art asset won’t pop up on your phone unless you’re in that location exactly on the map.
PAIGE: Wow. So within what kind of distance?
JAIME: Right now it’s about 100. We’re trying to integrate Beacon technology so that we can hone that in a little closer. But right now it’s about 100 feet.
PAIGE: My gosh, that’s so cool. You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking that the road trip would have been a great place for viewers-
ANGELA: To Cornbread. That’s awesome.
JAIME: That’s exactly right, and so it’s been, name, people are like what? That’s a weird name. But the name is in homage to the original tagger. So there was this guy in the 60s, he was tagging his name all over the city in Philadelphia, which I happen to be from there.
PAIGE: Like spray paint tagging?
JAIME: Spray paint. He was like the original I’m going to tag my name on something, and why don’t I go to Philadelphia Zoo and tag my name on an elephant? So he was that guy. And so it’s kind of for people who followed graffiti at all or graffiti art, they know him and so they get it. Like we did our soft launch in New York and everyone knew the background. On the west coast it’s a little more underground. Not as prevalent. Not that the app is graffiti, but in a way, you’re leaving his piece of art on a wall potentially and anyone can find it. There’s no closure, only my friend or a friend of a friend can see this. It’s like I’m just leaving this here and if someone opens it and I see it on my phone that someone opened my little memento that I left in a part somewhere in Austria, which I just did that this summer. If someone opens that, I am going to be so excited! Like I don’t need to get a million likes, I just need one person to open that little thing that I left behind. And you can leave audio and video.
PAIGE: And multiple people can open it, right?
JAIME: Anyone can open it, yep.
PAIGE: But the person that originally left that digital art, they are notified? And not only notified that it was viewed, but also then could gain likes?
JAIME: Yes.
PAIGE: Wow. That’s really cool and comments, right?
JAIME: And comments, yep.
PAIGE: So it’s like a Facebook for travelers sort of–geo-based Instagram? It’s visual, right?
JAIME: It is visual.
PAIGE: We could argue about that one.
JAIME: You can’t lay in bed and look at people’s pictures. You can’t spy on people. It forces you to connect again-
PAIGE: And get out of the house!
JAIME: You have to get out of the house. If you leave crumbs in your house, trust me, I’ve done it because I’ve tested this app a lot, they’re really boring. And then you realize when you live in an urban area and people walk 100 feet from your house and they can see your crumbs, you’re like ah! Delete, delete, my crumbs need to be cool! So it forces you to really get out there and think about what you’re seeing and document it in a way that means something to you. It’s not caption-y. There’s no caption, hashtag, at symbol, there’s none of that long form text. You can just leave-
PAIGE: Is it not even allowed? Like you cannot use a hashtag?
JAIME: There’s a text box. Let’s just say it’s frowned upon. The whole goal is to leave sort of a whole list of assets. You don’t just have a photo, you click on the photo and you get to see the long poem that someone left with that photo and you get to hear the ambient sound when they took that photo. So it just enriches the moment that you’re standing in that space where that person was. And the best part is going to be in 20, 30 years when you’re like oh my God! Okay, maybe if this existed 100 years ago let’s say, there could be so many people that were like whoa, I just found Einstein’s crumb! This is amazing! He was sitting at this table writing out his algorithm on a napkin!
ANGELA: So let’s think about the future then. There is going to be a point where like, okay, everybody goes to the Eiffel Tower. Like a lot of people go there, and there’s going to be so many crumbs. Like how do you even differ? I’d be curious what the interface looks like. Is it just a list of all the different crumbs in the area? And do you have to like click on them kind of like an email? Is it like an inbox?
JAIME: So, what happens is you get a notification that says there are crumbs here, and then what it is is it’s just a scrolling box. So you just scroll through all the crumbs that are there and then when there is one that looks interesting, you tap on it and it expands to the whole crumb.
ANGELA: And how do you know if it’s interesting? Is that text based or visual?
JAIME: Visual typically. Or if you’re just like oh, this one got a million likes, what’s this one all about? But on the map, it is a problem that we’re going to have to solve, and I’m excited for that problem. But we call it crumb clutter, because on the map–we did a soft launch in New York. We just did another launch in Chicago, and once you’re in an urban area, crumbs start to crop up on the map and then there are so many you have to zoom in a lot to sort of specifically see where they are. If you just look at Chicago on the map, it’s just full of crumbs. You can’t see the word Chicago anymore. So it’s a good problem to have and a problem that’s definitely on the back burner of like new features to dive into, but we’re waiting for the problem to get a little bigger before we try to solve it.
ANGELA: Can you make private crumbs at all?
JAIME: You will be able to, also a version two. Our dreamy version is that you leave a love note for your person, and you go to a bridge and it’s 5:00 and you’re watching this amazing sunset, and you tell them that they have to come to the bridge during a sunset, so certain time of the day, certain kind of weather, only come with an umbrella when there is a light drizzle, and the app will be able to pull in the API from the weather app and pull from all these various things so that it knows that nope, sorry, you didn’t hit the requirement.
ANGELA: Right, but if you do, it unlocks the crumb?
JAIME: Yes.
ANGELA: Yeah, I could see proposals happening this way.
JAIME: Yes, it’s very romantic. I feel like it’s a very romantic app, and I met some people recently and they were talking about wow, it’s like you’re leaving ghosts. Like you walk into a place and you wonder like are there ghosts in this room? Are there crumbs in here that I could see and start to see this kind of alternate universe that’s happening in this space?
ANGELA: This is a whole new level of like– it reminds me of QR codes.
PAIGE: I feel like this is some of the bridge that we’re getting to with the fact that AR is right on the horizon. Imagine when people are walking around with the glasses and there’s a crumb and the crumb is actually an overlay on your world.
ANGELA: Wow, my mind is blown.
JAIME: Isn’t it fun? That’s why we want to have labs, because that’s stuff that we want to work on. That’s the stuff that blows our minds that we like to dream up and fantasize about and then just see if we can do it. and the story behind Cornbread that I just love, and it’s just so fun to me, like right around the time when we launched our business, so the developer and my other partner took a walk and they were standing by the skate park under the Burnside Bridge, and my partner Corey Pressman said, “You know, these guys are taking videos of themselves, but what happens to those videos? Like where are they? And if another skater comes here in an hour, what if he wants to see what that other guy just did and he can’t because it lives somewhere in that guy’s private phone, Cloud, private YouTube site or whatever-“
ANGELA: I have goosebumps. Goosebumps.
JAIME: Wouldn’t it just be cool if he could drop a video of himself here, and then someone else can come back and see it and be inspired by that and then they leave a bunch? And literally they came back, I was like let’s go get lunch, they came back, they’re like Jaime, we’ve got this idea! I’m like what? And I was like this is amazing! This is going to be amazing!
ANGELA: You could even then, there’s a whole other market there where you can pile the videos into short clips so that people could see like here’s our park, all the different people that have–you run into a TNCs is going to have to be pretty expansive to cover publicly releasing those videos. But wow.
JAIME: Yeah, super fun. And you know, at the end of the day, I’m kind of like the penny pincher project manager person in our business, and so I allocated a certain amount of hours and a certain amount of funds. We raised a little bit of seed money which was really exciting, and I was like you know, let’s just take it as far as we want to take it. Let’s just live with it in the state that it’s in. We don’t have to raise like $5 million. Let’s just let people use it. it’s free, people have all these ideas, and we get people coming up to us all the time with use case scenarios, and we’re like that is amazing! Do it. Like there’s nothing to stop you. Use it. Like go use it and see if it’s going to be great. We’re not in this like oh, we’re trying to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. We run an agency and we love running an agency and we love working with our clients and we love working together. We have an amazing team, and so we’re good. I’m like, you know what? This is such an amazing project to work on as a team. Whatever comes of it, it was a positive experience. So great. You know, like it’s so nice to not have the pressure of like this is the only thing we’re working on. Like we have a revenue stream for the business, so we don’t have to put all our time and effort and like blow out our 401Ks and put all or dice on this one project. It’s like that’s just one project. We might come up with another one that’s even better.
ANGELA: And you have, right? Not necessarily better, but you have another project called Poetry for Robots.
JAIME: That’s right.
ANGELA: And now that I read the, just the two questions that you have on the main page, it totally makes sense and it’s genius! So it says, “What if we used poetry and metaphor as metadata? Would a search for eyes return images of stars?”
JAIME: Yeah, so this is why it’s like a website theory.
ANGELA: Yeah, it absolutely it’s Poetry for Robots. It’s beating the inhuman aspect of technology in a sense. Writing poetry for technology to get it closer to-yeah, wow.
JAIME: Yeah, it’s fun. It’s trying to say rather than having all these interns at Getty Images putting these random tags on photos that are not–that have no metaphor, that have no poetry, they’re just like oh, tree, done. Tree.png, treewithsun.png. And so what we’re trying to experiment with is if we added more metaphor to the way we tagged things, can we train the robot, can we train the AI to give us a response that it’s not that we’re training them to be more human, we’re just training them to do what we do instead of trying to accommodate like some data push, okay, great, we have X number of hours to get these number of assets compiled and into this database, so we have to do it really fast. Like wait, just slow down for a minute. Like let’s think about the tags that we’re using because people could have more, and this is an interesting just overall search question, but people could potentially find what they’re looking for better because they’re searching for the terms rather than trying to conform the terms that they would search for if that makes any sense.
ANGELA: And for something that’s not so obvious as eyes, something like freedom. How do you find a picture of freedom? That would definitely work for something like that.
JAIME: Yeah, so we’ve collected over almost 2000 poems, and they are from all over the world. It’s amazing. Like we have used a lot of Google Translate to get through some Portuguese and German and Spanish and French. It’s amazing. I love that part, number one because again, it’s this kind of like romantic, it’s a bridging of romance and technology and I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic. So we have all these poems, and so we built this back end. It’s very simple. The technology behind this is very simple, but we built kind of just a janky search tool to see what would start coming up if we searched the poems. So if you go to the search, I’m not sure if I’m ready to make it public, but I could send it to you guys if you just want to play with it, but if you go into the search engine and you search for sorrow, you see all of the pictures that come up that use that word in the poem. And it’s incredible. And what’s really fun, I’ve searched for things like alone, and the things that come up are surprising. Like there are pictures of crowds or something like that where you start to see the way people interpret that word, and multiple people. It’s not that we have this huge cross cut of people, but I mean, 2000 is a good small little case study.
PAIGE: You have enough to be statistically significant.
JAIME: Yeah, right? And so anyway, so it’s just been really fun to see what comes up. And then the next version is that people are going to be able to submit their own photos, because right now we just have a lot of stock photos in there, things to unsplash. So, yeah, it will be interesting too when people have their own photos, and then other people are writing poems to other people’s photos. That’s going to be really fun.
PAIGE: Seriously, this blows my mind. I love it. It’s teaching search engines, you’re teaching them simile and metaphor.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: It’s almost impossible.
JAIME: In a totally community based way. Again, we’re not like oh, we’re going to run some ads and the more traffic we get to our website, which is what we do for our clients, right? We’re like let’s drive more traffic and we’re going to drive the traffic from here and there and then we’re going to follow the analytics it’s like we don’t care about that. This is all about romance. This is all about unbillable time that doesn’t matter because we have an awesome agency, and if we build a tool, this is what’s fun about it too. If we build this cool tool, we can go out and talk to clients that maybe we couldn’t talk to before and say you know what, this tool could be really effective in a fun way as you’re building a campaign, this might be a really interesting way to get people engaged with your content.
PAIGE: Wow, yeah.
JAIME: So, it’s fine. We don’t have to run ads or get people to go there and buy something. I’m so tired of that.
ANGELA: The end goal is not to like be a Getty Images competitor, right?
JAIME: Right.
ANGELA: But it is one venue or one option potentially for the tool.
JAIME: Yeah, for sure.
PAIGE: I think everybody who listens should totally go check this out. It’s Poetry4Robots.com, and it will be the show notes, but I’m definitely going to write a poem or two in my crappy poetry. It’s fascinating. Definitely very cool.
JAIME: And the poems are not crappy. That’s what’s so great.
PAIGE: You haven’t read mine yet.
ANGELA: I’ll reserve judgement, okay?
JAIME: I’ll go there tomorrow and then I’ll pull out the crappy ones. Some of them, you know, I mean, everyone’s got their own take on the way that they see the world, but they’re all really worth reading. I would love to figure out some way to get permission to make them a little more public, because I love the community side of it. I love that somebody from Brazil thought it would be cool to go on this website and write a poem to the same picture that someone in North Portland is writing a poem to. And how do those two different people see, so that’s the other, we’re adding geotagging to the pictures too so we can see where people are when they write the poem if they choose. We’re not doing that in any conspiratorial way. They have to enter their ZIP code if they want that. But that part’s fun too. Wow, two people looked at the same picture and had two totally different takes on it.
PAIGE: Very cool. You should put the public option in the same way you put the ZIP code in. Like can we make this public?
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: That would be awesome.
JAIME: Yeah.
PAIGE: Very cool. So, Jaime, how did you get into all of this? Like this is crazy all over the map. It sounds like you’re mostly into PM and being I would call you a futurist. How did you wind up here?
JAIME: Yeah, it’s been a long road. I’m not young. I had to make a lot of mistakes and change career paths a couple times to get where I was going. But ultimately, I’m a film maker and I don’t make films anymore, but I still like to call myself a film maker. So I have this brain that thinks about things and I love science fiction. So I think about things as a story, and I think about things as what would this look like if it was a movie, and I think that helps me wrap my head around technology, because I think of technology the same way I would build the pieces of a film. And luckily because I have a production background, I know that it takes the steps from A to B to make something happen. And so I’m not just like a person who’s like you know what would be cool? Let’s do this blah, blah, blah, I’m like well, actually, that’s not going to be possible. So let’s bring it back down to reality and figure out how we can actually build something that we could actually launch and actually get out to the public sphere. But yeah, I have a film degree. I went from film to the big Silicon Valley days. So right when I graduated from college was when the tech industry was going crazy, and so of course, I couldn’t find a job in film, but I very easily found a job in software development just through networking. So I ended up learning how to code right out of college, and I didn’t really care because I was in my 20s and I wasn’t like oh my God, I have to be a filmmaker. I was like whoa, I graduated college and I’m making money. This is amazing! And the people were great. It was my first, I’ve basically exclusively been with startups ever since then and it’s really hard, it’s a grind, but I get it. I think that’s why I’ve been able to run what I hope is a successful business for a year without any major pitfalls. But anyway, so these guys started this company, it was web based software, it was way before there were like log in sites where a client could log in and use their own software. It was really cutting edge for the time. So I built web based software, and I did that for a while, and that was in California. And then I had some friends move up to Portland and they were trying to get me to come and I didn’t know what I was going to do, and then that company let me actually work from home. And so that was huge. So I was working for this amazing startup company with great people. They were seeing a lot of growth, and then I was like whoa, what? I get to sit in my living room at home and do this with my dial up internet connection? No joke. And so I did, and that was kind of like my launching point with Portland, but when I was in Portland, I wanted to work in film because it was also burgeoning at that time and you could actually go on set and meet [indiscernible]. I’m like whoa, what? My brain is exploding. Like these people are here and you can just like go and work with them? That doesn’t happen in California. So anyway, so I started working at the film center and the Northwest Film Center is where I met every single person that’s been critical to my career path, every single person. And one of them works for me right now. And the other one hired me to work in mobile. So that community for whatever reason was where I needed to be and I got, I volunteered there so it got me out of my house. Eventually I started working there. I did marketing for the film center for a number of years. Got me back into the film community, but I was still really interested in technology. And so, on the side, I started teaching technology classes to kids because I just loved that, and then eventually I started teaching at a school, I was like their IT support, which that was really funny because if you’re coding–a lot of people don’t know this–but if you’re a coder, you’re not a systems administrator. But somehow they thought that if I could work on a website I could also work on their network system for the whole school. So I tried to do that which was fine.
PAIGE: Aren’t you one of those magical Devops unicorns?
JAIME: No, I’m not even a developer. I just like learned how to do HTML at a young age and got lucky. But I don’t even consider myself a developer coder. So anyway, yeah, I worked in the school which led me to working in summer camps which was amazing, and I also worked from home and I got to write technology curriculum for kids who wanted to learn coding and 3D game design and website design, and then there was this other opportunity to start a documentary film camp, so I started teaching kids how to do digital editing and after effects. So it’s like film and technology and that was a dream job. And then I met this guy, you know, age old story, met this guy and like started to get into fall in love and then career path didn’t seem as important. So I fell in love with this guy who happened to live in Europe, so I basically like quit my job and just moved to Europe and did that and just like taught and wrote and did that. And then when I came back, I got this amazing opportunity to work with a friend of mine from the film center helping grow her very small mobile agency, and it was called Night and Day Studios. And that was basically my MBA training, on the job training. That experience was so life changing and critical on every level. I just owe them everything. It was amazing. So, we built this amazing team, we grew from three people to 25 people in two years. We’ve opened an office in New York, we started working with very small companies, and at the end, we were working with Warner Brothers, Sesame Street, basically everyone like Thomas the Tank Engine, we were focused on kid’s media, and it was all education and all technology and bridging those two worlds of like what’s safe for kids, what do you want to release to kids and feel good about. And I got to combine everything that I had been doing my whole life like trying to work with kids. There was like this film component because there was animations and we had to do voice overs, and sometimes take like pieces of film and embed them in the apps, and it was exciting, super great. I guess part of that I probably shouldn’t talk about. So like all of the things I said I could talk about, there’s some details of that situation that I probably shouldn’t get into, but it was amazing! And then I went from that and went into advertising which was an interesting jump, but also same thing, I like owe that work so much. So I worked for Swift, and Swift is a digital marketing company. When I started there, they really were web focused, and during the time I was there they really shifted into focus on social only. But they did all the content creation, so they had a studio in house, they do videos, they do photography shoots, so it’s still tying into that, but I got to run the whole production team. So I got to really put my management chops to work, and see if that little tiny night and day studio thing was real. I could like test it in the real world working with more really big brands, really interesting work, and just fantastic people. The people that work at Swift are just amazing. I ran the producer team, and they got acquired and they just started growing really fast. And at that point, I was just thinking like I love that small team vibe. Like I love a startup thing where everyone gets to be a part of every decision. We get to collaborate, we get to dream up possibilities. We’re not in this like cranking out stuff that we may or may not feel good about, but everyone’s working like 13, 14 hours and we’re burning ourselves out and nobody gets to actually like use their creative energy because they’re using it all on stuff that isn’t really that creative. And I saw that grind and just knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do it for very long, so I decided to jump and I just jumped right into Neologic from there. And it was petrifying, very petrifying, but I had a lot of good support, and even people I worked with were so supportive. They’re like this is the right move for you, like this is where you need to be right now. And so yeah, so sorry, that was a long story, but that’s kind of the path.
PAIGE: That’s kind of the point and an awesome story. Your journey is really interesting and deep and it’s very cool to hear about it. I think we’ll have some links the show notes if you guys want to check out some more of that. I did have one last question for you, just because we kind of talked about it earlier. But if you could look down the pipe of what’s coming in technology, what do you think is either like the most exciting thing or the thing that you want to dig into the most?
JAIME: Interesting question. That’s so good. It’s interesting because we’re all trying to keep pace with what’s coming, and so much of it, because I was in advertising, so much of it is based on that. So oh, what’s happening in mobile advertising and what’s happening with new ways to get content in front of people. That stuff doesn’t interest me, and I think at some point people are going to get really burned out on it. And I think people are already really savvy I think as technology grows, the consumer gets more and more savvy. We already know that audiences have become more savvy, but it’s just getting more and more. And the whole like driving traffic to advertising thing, I mean, it works and there’s formulas that work. But anyway, I think that level of technology and what’s happening with the watch, that stuff doesn’t interest me. It’s really, and I don’t want to sound like I’m tooting my own horn, but I mean, it’s really the stuff that brings people back together that interests me most. So new apps that aren’t necessarily social networks, but integrate ways to communicate with each other. So I would even say like things like Uber or apps and websites like Etsy, that’s the technology that interests me. Like the fact that you can be sitting in your living room making a necklace and then put it on a website, and the next thing you know, you get to divert your career into that, I love that level of technology. I love Airbnb, I love Uber, I love that a guy could like get off work, come pick me up, drop me off at home, and then go back home to eat dinner with his family, like so that’s the level of technology that I am interested in, and I don’t know that, I can’t like predict that there is something new on the horizon, but I think the more of those sort of game changing applications come out, I think the more relevant and applicable to people it will be and hopefully the big brands will understand that all they have to do is come up with something that’s going to help people, and they won’t have to worry about advertising so much.
ANGELA: Did you hear about Amazon’s latest move? You can deliver Amazon packages.
PAIGE: Oh, no, I did not.
ANGELA: If I remember correctly, it pays like $15. To $18 an hour and you can just show up to the delivery center and bring the package to a destination. Like if you’re already going that direction, or if that’s just what you want to do, be your own boss and deliver packages, then do it.
PAIGE: It’s like post maids and ship and all these different things. I think yeah, it’s where technology is kind of taking this turn where we’re looking again at technology as a tool instead of as like technology for connection instead of technology for consumption.
ANGELA: Right.
JAIME: Exactly. That is a great way of fitting it. Exactly.
PAIGE: Very cool. Well, I am also excited about these things, and I will look forward to seeing what your studio puts out. Everybody should check out Cornbread, that’s super cool. I will definitely be trying to crumb.
ANGELA: Cornbreadapp.com.
PAIGE: Yeah, and Poetry for Robots.
ANGELA: And Neologic.co.
PAIGE: Yeah, awesome. Jaime, is there any way people can follow you? Are you a Tweeter or anything like that?
JAIME: Yes, I’m @JaimeGennaro.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Remember that the show notes are available at JupiterBroadcasting.com. There is also a contact form, or you can email us directly, WTR@Jupiterbroadcasting.com
PAIGE: You can also find us on iTunes, and if you have a minute, we would love to hear a review from you. You can also follow us on Twitter @heyWTR. Thanks for listening.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter | Transcription@cotterville.net

The post Technology For Connection | WTR 43 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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Rockin 2015 LinuxFest NW | LAS 362 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/81137/rockin-2015-linuxfest-nw-las-362/ Sun, 26 Apr 2015 16:33:19 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=81137 Live from the floor of LinuxFest Northwest​ 2015, we chat with Microsoft about their embrace of Linux and open source inside and outside, enjoy some familiar friends & take the pulse of the community. Plus an overview of the new Debian and Ubuntu releases! Thanks to: Get Paid to Write for DigitalOcean Direct Download: HD […]

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Live from the floor of LinuxFest Northwest​ 2015, we chat with Microsoft about their embrace of Linux and open source inside and outside, enjoy some familiar friends & take the pulse of the community.

Plus an overview of the new Debian and Ubuntu releases!

Thanks to:


DigitalOcean


Ting

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Foo

— Show Notes: —


System76

Brought to you by: System76

Mark Hill VP Of Open Source Sales and Marketing at Microsoft

Join the Microsoft Openness team to celebrate Debian 8 at LinuxFest Northwest

In the sugar-fueled session, Welcome Debian 8: Aptly Cloud Aptitude, Jose Miguel will discuss what’s new with Debian 8 and how the Microsoft Azure cloud can help bring Debian projects to hyperscale.


— PICKS —

Runs Linux

The Linux Action Show Live Video Production, Runs Linux

Open Broadcaster Software is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Supported features include:

  • Encoding using H264 (x264) and AAC.
  • Support for Intel Quick Sync Video (QSV) and NVENC.
  • Unlimited number of scenes and sources.
  • Live RTMP streaming to Twitch, YouTube, DailyMotion, Hitbox and more.
  • File output to MP4 or FLV.
  • GPU-based game capture for high performance game streaming.
  • DirectShow capture device support (webcams, capture cards, etc).
  • Windows 8 high speed monitor capture support.
  • Bilinear or lanczos3 resampling.

Desktop App Pick

Irssi – The client of the future

Irssi is a terminal based IRC client for UNIX systems. It also
supports SILC and ICB protocols via plugins.

Weekly Spotlight

OpenRA – Release 20150424

New Spring 2015 release of OpenRA, the Open Source classic Command & Conquer game engine

OpenRA is a Libre/Free Real Time Strategy project that recreates the classic Command & Conquer titles.

We include recreations of C&C (Tiberian Dawn), C&C: Red Alert, and Dune 2000. These are not intended to be perfect copies, but instead combine the classic gameplay of the originals with modern improvements such as unit veterancy and the fog of war.

OpenRA’s primary focus is cross-platform multiplayer between Windows, OS X, and Linux; however, we include a number of single-player missions, and also support skirmish games against AI bots.

Jupiter Broadcasting Meetup

Our Past Picks

These are the weekly picks provided by the Jupiter Broadcasting podcast, the Linux Action Show.

This site includes a separate picks lists for the “Runs Linux”, Desktop Apps, Spotlight Picks, Android Picks, and Distro Picks.


— NEWS —

Debian 8.0 Jessie Released – Phoronix

As expected, Debian 8.0 “Jessie” was officially released today after being in development for two years.
Over at Debian.org you can read the official release announcement for Jessie. Among the changes in Debian 8.0 are improved UEFI support, defaulting to systemd as the init system, and a whole ton of package updates.

Ubuntu 15.04 Flavors Now Available for Download

Arriving with the final stable release of Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet are downloads for a colorful array of official community flavors.

And this year there’s an extra spin in motion.

Ubuntu MATE (pronounced Maah-tay) wasformally welcomed into the official Ubuntu flavors club earlier this year.

Ubuntu MATE ships with a fork of the older GNOME 2 desktop called MATE and is well suited to both lower-end hardware.

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 was released today, this being the first version as an official member of the Ubuntu family. Compared to the previous releases, when the distro was an unofficial flavor, there are numerous changes, including new default applications, a built-in panel layout switcher, new default theme and much more.


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Yemen has Fallen | Unfilter 131 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/76442/yemen-has-fallen-unfilter-131/ Wed, 28 Jan 2015 23:15:13 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=76442 Yemen instability reveals limits of U.S. counterterrorism strategy & the warhawks are calling for boots on the ground. We report on the entire mess. Plus the conflict in Ukraine heats back up, with leaked videos reportedly showing American’s in the field. Then the ISIS videos get debunked by a “Fox expert”, a new kind of […]

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Yemen instability reveals limits of U.S. counterterrorism strategy & the warhawks are calling for boots on the ground. We report on the entire mess. Plus the conflict in Ukraine heats back up, with leaked videos reportedly showing American’s in the field.

Then the ISIS videos get debunked by a “Fox expert”, a new kind of High-Note & more!

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Foo

Show Notes:

News

Experts say ISIS ransom clip faked as deadline for Japanese hostages passes | Fox News

The hostage video showing the hostages wearing orange jump suits and kneeling before a masked, black-clad jihadist may have been faked, experts said. New analysis of the video appears to reveal the message was shot indoors using a “green screen,” and a phony backdrop, according to Veryan Khan, editorial director for the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium. She told The Associated Press the light source on the men in the latest videos appears to be coming from two different directions — as opposed to one bright sun, and said if the video was made outdoors in natural light, the shadows behind them should be going in one direction. Instead, they converge.

“The hostages are visibly bothered by” the bright light, she said.

Meet Loretta Lynch

Loretta Lynch Favorite Suit

Loretta Lynch__, President Obama’s nominee for attorney general, pledged on Wednesday to bolster the Justice Department’s cybersecurity work if she is confirmed by the Senate.

“All of us are struck by the prevalence of cyber issues in every type of case we prosecute now,” Lynch said during her confirmation hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Yemen Houthi Coup

Where is Yemen

“We have got to have boots on the ground. We have got to have training capability,” said McCain. “We need more boots on the ground. I know that’s a tough thing to say, and a tough thing for Americans to swallow, but it doesn’t mean the 82nd airborne.”


Feinstein said Obama is in a difficult position because “the American people don’t want another war.”

“Where McCain is right, is that we need some special operations in these countries, on the ground, more than just advisors,” she said.

The Obama administration has been forced to suspend certain counterterrorism operations with Yemen in the aftermath of the collapse of its government, according to U.S. officials, a move that eases pressure on al-Qaeda’s most dangerous franchise.

Yet the collapse of the Yemeni government Thursday has raised doubts about the efficacy of a “light footprint” counterterrorism strategy, in no small part because the power vacuum creates an opening for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Gulf-based Islamic militant group that has been behind plots in the U.S. and other Western nations.

January – The Houthis reject the draft of a new constitution proposed by the government. They seize state TV and clash with troops in the capital, in what the government called a coup attempt.

President Hadi and his government resign in protest at the takeover by Houthi rebels of the capital.

US “FIGHTING”TERROR GROUP WITH FICTIONAL LEADERS

al-Baghdadi

In 2007, the New York Times revealed that long-vilified “Islamic State” leader Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi did not exist, and that the creation of this fictional character was a ruse to obfuscate the role of foreigners in the creation and perpetuation of “Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

Ukraine

Ukraine Pipline Map

After Brief Respite, Conflict In Ukraine Flares Back Up

The war in eastern Ukraine seems to have restarted. Russian-backed militias have launched an offensive on several fronts. NATO says that Russian troops are now openly taking part in the assault, providing heavy weapons and advanced technology to the militias. President Obama says the U.S. is considering all options short of military action, and the European Union has called a meeting of its foreign ministers. We’ve been speaking with NPR’s Corey Flintoff in Kyiv. I asked him about the situation on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

High Note:

Submitted by lowfatty in the Unfilter subreddit

A small minority have covertly engineered a partial solution by pooling funds to create a private network of more than 9,000 computers with small, inexpensive but powerful hidden Wi-Fi antennas and Ethernet cables strung over streets and rooftops spanning the entire city. Disconnected from the real Internet, the network is limited, local and built with equipment commercially available around the world, with no help from any outside government, organizers say.

Hundreds are online at any moment pretending to be orcs or U.S. soldiers in multiplayer online games such as “World of Warcraft” or “Call of Duty.” They trade jokes and photos in chat rooms and organize real-world events like house parties or trips to the beach.

“We really need Internet because there’s so much information online, but at least this satisfies you a little bit because you feel like, `I’m connected with a bunch of people, talking to them, sharing files,” said Rafael Antonio Broche Moreno, a 22-year-old electrical engineer who helped build the network known as SNet, short for streetnet.

The post Yemen has Fallen | Unfilter 131 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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Is Bitcoin Bombing? | PlanFaux 163 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/51242/is-bitcoin-bombing-planfaux-163/ Sat, 08 Feb 2014 12:11:23 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=51242 Angela and Chris cover the latest news about bitcoin’s bad week, new places that accept bitcoin, and so much more!

The post Is Bitcoin Bombing? | PlanFaux 163 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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Angela and Chris cover the latest news about bitcoin’s bad week, new places that accept bitcoin, and so much more!

Plus an interactive mailsack!

Thanks to:


\"iXsystems\"

Direct Download:

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RSS Feeds:

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— Show Notes: —

Bitcoin Sites:

https://bitcoinity.org/markets

https://buttcoin.org/the-sound-of-buttcoin

https://coinmarketcap.com/

Apple removes BTC App: https://money.cnn.com/2014/02/06/technology/apple-bitcoin/

Russia bans BTC: https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/07/russia-bans-bitcoin/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/top/

https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/7/5386222/a-string-of-thefts-hit-coinbase-bitcoins-most-reputable-wallet-service

https://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/02/07/mt-gox-pauses-all-bitcoin-withdrawals-due-to-technical-issues/#!uHfTZ

Tiger Direct: https://www.tigerdirect.com/bitcoin/indexus.asp

Scan: https://www.scan.co.uk/

Overstock: https://www.overstock.com/bitcoin

10 places in the UK https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10558191/Ten-places-where-you-can-spend-your-bitcoins-in-the-UK.html

Forbes 10 places: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/05/24/top-10-bitcoin-merchant-sites/

https://www.weusecoins.com/en/

Throwing out your bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2013/11/30/from-treasure-to-trash-man-tosses-out-bitcoin-wallet-on-hard-drive-worth-9-million/
https://www.bitcoinx.com/

Mail Sack:

Physical Mail Sack!

Find FauxShow!

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The post Is Bitcoin Bombing? | PlanFaux 163 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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GIF me root | TechSNAP 101 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/33641/gif-me-root-techsnap-101/ Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:07:36 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=33641 We’ll explain the MiniDuke malware and the extremely clever way to slipped it’s way into victims systems, and the Google two-factor bypass flaw.

The post GIF me root | TechSNAP 101 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We’ll explain the MiniDuke malware and the extremely clever way to slipped it’s way into victims systems.

Researchers discovered a way to bypass google two-factor authentication, we’ll explain the details, and we look back at 25 years of software vulnerabilities.

Plug a big batch of your questions, our answers, and so much more on this week’s TechSNAP!

Thanks to:

Use our code hostdeal4 to score economy hosting for $1 a month, for one year.

35% off your ENTIRE order just use our code go35off4 until the end of the month!

 

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Show Notes:

Get TechSNAP on your Android:

Browser Affiliate Extension:

  • Jupiter Broadcasting Affiliate Extensions for Chrome and Firefox
  • [asa]B0095ZMMCK[/asa]

    Grab it at Audible.com

    Miniduke malware used against European goverments

    • A new attack against many european governments has been detected using a new malware called Miniduke
    • The malware exploits a sandbox-bypass in Adobe Reader
    • The malware targeted a very small (59) but specific number of people from 23 different countries mostly in Europe
    • The spear phishing attacks were perpetrated using well crafted PDF files purporting to be NATO membership plans, Ukrainian foreign policy documents or a seminar on human rights
    • The malware allowed the attackers to copy and move files from the infected machines to their own servers, as well as kill other processes (like security software) and install additional malware
    • The attack was unique because of the unusual nature of the backdoor that was used and how specific and narrow the targets were
    • The backdoor contained components written in assembly, a relative rarity in viruses and vulnerabilities
    • The malware also used twitter as a command and control system, following specific users and looking for tweets containing encrypted commands prefixed with uri!
    • The malware also used .gif files as an update and distribution method, the gif files had regular images (like the RSS icon) but also contained malware binaries embedded in the image using steganography
    • The backdoor also gathered system specific information and used it to encrypt communications back and forth with the attacker’s servers (likely to avoid IDS and other forms to detection)
    • This system specific information was also used as part of the attack, many parts of the malware that were subsequently loaded on the machines, contained code to make them only work on that specific machine, making the job of the security analysts much more difficult, as they could not run the malware on controlled virtual machines or their own machines in order to analyze it
    • The researchers say the style and methods of the attack are reminiscent of attackers from the 90s
    • The attack pattern and programming style are reminiscent of hacking group that was thought to have been long disbanded
    • The group, called 29A (666 in hex) published their first malware magazine in December of 1996 and were active until February 2008, when the last standing member announced the group’s dismissal
    • Digital Underground Podcast – Intricacies of Miniduke
    • Full PDF with details

    Researchers discovered a way to bypass google two-factor authentication

    • For the last 7 months, researchers from DuoSecurity and any attackers with knowledge of the vulnerability have been able to bypass Google’s two-factor authentication system, even for Google services such as Gmail
    • An attacker who managed to steal or guess a user’s application-specific password could then exploit the Android auto-login feature to take over full control of a user’s entire Google profile, without having to enter the result of the secondary authentication mechanism
    • Once they have access to the profile, they could then reset the master password and disable two-factor authentication entirely, allowing them to completely steal the account
    • Application specific passwords are a feature created by Google to allow you to use your Google account to authenticate to applications and services that do not support two-step login
    • This allows you to use your existing authentication to google to access other apps that do not support web based login (like IMAP/SMTP, Chat and Calendar apps)
    • “if a user has linked their Android device to their Google account, the Chrome browser will use local-device authentication to override Google’s two-factor authentication”
    • This is a classic case of trading the stronger security that two-factor authentication and strong passwords provide, for the higher convenience factor
    • The scary part is that this mechanism allowed an attacker to access the Google ‘Account Settings’ portal, where you can change your backup email address, the phone number linked to your google account, and other other settings that are extremely sensitive and important to the security of your account
    • Researchers clarify that the only way for this vulnerability to affect users in a desktop environment, is when their mobile authentication is compromised and used to seize their entire account
    • Google patched the vulnerability before it was announced last week
    • Researchers Post

    Google introduces new compression algorithm

    • A key feature of Zopfli, is that the compression is deflate compatible, meaning the compressed data can be decompressed using the libraries already built into nearly all existing web browsers
    • Zopfli has a compression gain of 3–8% over zlib, but takes 2–3 orders of magnitude longer to compress, making it only really useful for compression of static data, rather than compressing dynamic data for HTTP streams
    • For example, to compress a 100mb sample of the english wikipedia, gzip takes 5.6 seconds, 7-zip takes 128 seconds, and zopfli takes 454 seconds
    • All three compressed files can be decompressed in under 1 second
    • Google’s goal is to save bandwidth and battery life by reducing the size of text and images transmitted to mobile devices
    • The research started as an offshoot of the WebP project (advanced lossy and lossless image compression)
    • Google has open sourced the code as a C library under the business friendly Apache 2.0 license
    • PDF Paper on the compression savings
    • Additional Coverage

    VRT profiles 25 years of software vulnerabilities

    • VRT, the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team, dug through the CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) database and NIST NVD (National Vulnerability Database)
    • 2012 was the first year since 2007 where the number of new vulnerability was greater than the previous year
    • However the number of vulnerabilities with a score over 7 (out of a possible 10) was still down each year since 2007
    • However 2012 had a record high number of vulnerabilities with scores of 10/10
    • The top types of vulnerabilities over the last 25 years have been buffer errors (buffer overflow etc), Cross Site Scripting, Access control, SQL Injection, Code Injection and Input Validation
    • Top Vendors with high severity vulnerabilities: Mozilla, Apple, Cisco, Sun, Adobe, IBM, Mozilla, HP, Google, and Oracle
    • Mobile Vulnerability Share: iPhone: 81%, Android: 9%, Windows: 6%, Blackberry: 4%
    • Full PDF

    Feedback:

    +What is the value of a hacked PC?
    + Steal your username/passwords (banking, games, web servers, skype)
    + Steal your CD keys (windows, office, games, etc)
    + Use your computer as a web server (host spam, malware, etc)
    + Join a botnet (click fraud, send spam, launch ddos)
    + Reputation hijacking (using your facebook account to ‘like’ businesses etc that pay the malware author)

    Conference Round Up:

    The post GIF me root | TechSNAP 101 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

    ]]> SWTOR Backlash | MMOrgue 11 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/10792/swtor-backlash-mmorgue-11/ Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:56:42 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=10792 A recap of the Comic Con drama from a limited supply of pre-orders, overseas distribution errors, lack of communication, and general panic!

    The post SWTOR Backlash | MMOrgue 11 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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    In this week’s MMOrgue, we cover the biggest MMO news to have scurried out from beneath the latex masks of San Diego Comic Con. Of course, the only real news on everyone’s mind has been the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s pre-orders, and the resulting DRAMA that unfolded from various distribution issues and a lack of product availability.

    Before we get into the meat of that subject, we’ll also briefly cover NCSoft’s presence at SDCC, and DCUO’s Green Lantern “Power Ring” powerset announcements.

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    Show Notes:

    T-Shirt: Available at ThinkGeek!

    Amazon Link: “Chaotic Evil” T-shirt

    Thank for MMO music submissions! Added some to personal playlists. Keep ‘em coming!

    Today was going to be SDCC recap, but only ONE story: SWTOR

    Before we dive into that, let me tell you about a few others.

    NCSoft held court, showing off Guild Wars 2 a bit.
    But most of GW2 stuff will probably come out when ArenaNet attends PAX Prime this year.

    NCSoft primarily focused on hyping up COH’s impending metamorphosis into a F2P game
    New Trailer, new powersets!

    Not to be outdone by their superpowered rivals
    SOE announced the release of DCUO’s Green Lantern themed power sets
    Nothing to say on powers, but the announcement deserves a minute

    DCUO – Fight for the Light

    First – this announcement missed the window of launching alongside the movie
    Critically-panned, but blockbuster success nonetheless
    DCUO has a history of missing real-world tie-ins…
    Valentine’s Day almost a full month late, St. Patrick’s Day several weeks late.
    If you cannot launch on time, don’t plan your content around RL events
    It comes across as broken promises, and no fan will forgive you forever

    Themed content isn’t sole failing point.
    Prior to launch, promised monthly patches. To date, no two patches have come within <4 weeks of eachother.
    Also promised free content, since the game is subscription based.

    Well, how much does it feel like getting the big FINGER, when SOE announced that this new content patch will cost subscribers a fee of $10 to download and use?
    They even had the BALLS to call it a DLC. A DLC! FOR AN MMO!
    What are those monthly subscriptions going toward, if they won’t fuel the continued development and content release for the game?!

    Expansions, OK… but THIS?!
    It is so big a fail, I don’t really know how to quantify it.
    I guess it’s just more fail on top of the pile that SOE continues to prove themselves to be.
    Every time I start to feel like they’re redeeming themselves, they go and mismanage yet another project.

    I guess there’s always hope for PlanetsideNEXT, right? hahaha

    TORqued: The Pre-Order Saga

    The biggest news from SDCC in the world of gaming, was easily Star Wars Old Republic’s pre-order availability, and the subsequent drama that unfolded over the few days following.

    In this segment I’ll be walking you thru the events that unfolded and sharing my commentary along each step of this unfortunate series of events, as well as generally looking at the game’s future.

    When the pre-orders were announced, this was the first time we heard the pricing of the Collector’s Edition… a whopping $150! Considering the fact that prior CEs of MMOs typically run for only between $80 and $100, this is a pretty significant leap in monetary investment. I’ve heard people saying you could potentially auction off the figurine on eBay if you wanted to recoup some of the cost, but let’s face it – that ain’t happening. The type of person that’ll buy a CE will keep that figurine and display it proudly, so the argument is moot.

    But as it turns out, so, too, was the cost. You see, within 12 hours or so of opening pre-orders to the public, almost every major online retailer had completely SOLD OUT. A Q&A with Bioware at SDCC claimed they were NOT sold out, but retailers were singing a different tune. More units were eventually released for purchase the next morning, but by that time the damage was already done – Bioware’s precious hype had just suffered one of its first instances of public backlash, as angry fans found themselves unable to spend their money on the product Bioware had gotten them so excited about.

    And unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. You see, the limited supply of pre-orders was only a factor here in the States. In the rest of the world, matters were even more complicated… In addition to only being available from an extremely limited number of retailers, some of those retailers (notably GAME.co.uk) are delaying the release of pre-order registration keys to customers that purchased the game. This isn’t usually a big deal with an MMO since a registration key is pretty much have one, or don’t. But with TOR’s launch, they are employing a tiered release schedule. Details are scarce, but it involves offering pre-launch access on a first-come/first-serve basis, based solely on the order in which your pre-order keys are registered. In other words, these retailers’ inability to supply those precious pre-order keys will prevent those customers from being among the first to enjoy the game, despite being among the first to PAY for it.

    And it only adds insult to injury that some international markets actually do not have pre-orders available at all. Australia most notably. And although Bioware has confirmed that there will be no IP blocks based on region, allowing players in those regions to purchase a copy from overseas, playing on an overseas server is almost guaranteed to be a lag-infested experience. Particularly on launch day when so many people will be attempting to access the same pipelines and backbones.

    All of this – the limited supply of pre-orders, the international delays, unavailability of units in certain regions – has only been made even worse by the sore lack of information coming out on the subject. Sure, Bioware devs have posted responses reassuring us that it’ll all be OK, but these issues are beyond their control. This is an EA issue – this is a publisher issue. The distribution of retail units, availability of pre-order keys, even the box cost itself. These are all items way above the pay grade of the folks creating the game that everybody is so eager to get their hands on.

    And it fuels a very real, larger concern I have for the game in general.

    The launch of SWTOR could potentially be the biggest MMO launch, ever. Bigger than WOW, bigger than AOC or WARhammer. By current estimations, we’re looking at millions of day-one adopters. EA and Bioware are NOT MMO companies, yet. And despite being able to learn quite a bit thru observation and second-hand accounts, there really is no substitute for hands-on experience. And I think this pre-order fiasco is proof of that matter.

    It worries me. And not because I’m a fan of TOR, but because this game is going to become a benchmark for the industry. It’s broken the hype barrier and managed to become what most MMO enthusiasts are coming to refer to as the “Next Big Thing.” But not like AoC or RIFT were… this time it could be real, because there are professional reputations, huge budgets and ground-breaking development revolutions at play here. If anything marrs the launch of this game, it could leave a mark on the industry as a whole for years to come. MMOs already have the unfortunate reputation for launching as buggy, unplayable messes, and it is the big launches of the past that have given it that reputation. The more hype that preceeds a particular game’s launch, the more keenly those day-one disappointments are felt, and the louder the resonate throughout the media and gamer communities across the world. And let’s face it, there has never been another MMO with this level of hype steamrolling it onward. Every speed bump, every unexplained outage, every lag spike, exploit or imbalancing “I win” button… these will initially be complained about TOR’s communities, but the sheer volume of their negativity could quickly spill over to the rest of the MMO industry, and even into gaming in general.

    We’re all in this together, and I don’t think that EA or Bioware understand that. Because they are not MMO companies. Yet.

    And there WILL be issues. No matter how incredibly skilled Bioware’s QA department may be, there will be situations that only arise when you get tens or hundreds of thousands of players or more, are all accessing the same servers from locations all around the world, at the same time.

    So what can be done at this point? Sadly, not much. As I said previously, TOR has broken the hype barrier… it’s a beast with a life of its own, and nothing at this point will reduce the fevered pitch of anticipation that’s been built into MMO gamers around the world.

    My fears may be unfounded, and I’m hoping that they are. TOR will begin beta testing weekends in September, and I’m hopeful that these are stress tests. That Bioware will really run their servers thru the wringers and weed out every last glitch and bug before it’s opened up to the general public later this year. But even then, there’s no way you can prepare yourself for MILLIONS of players to hammer on your front door the day the game finally goes live.

    Can You Run It?

    SDCC Videos for SWTOR:

    TEASE OF THE WEEK

    More of a follow-up to a previous story…

    Several episodes ago, I mentioned that XLGames and 2KGames had partnered up to create an MMO based on one of 2kGames successful franchises.

    Well, we now have a confirmation, and unfortunately it’s not the Borderlands MMOFPS that I was hoping for…

    XLGames announced Civilization Online

    I think… I just stopped caring.

    I’m sorry, I SHOULD be excited about another strategy game entering the MMO market, but I’ve just been so underwhelmed to date. Age of Empires Online was yawnworthy, and I’m hearing reviews of End of Nations sit squarely between “meh” and “BARF.” I just don’t know that this subgenre is destined for success in the MMO market. And now a traditionally turn-based strategy game is attempting to break into the market? Color me skeptical.

    The post SWTOR Backlash | MMOrgue 11 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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