Some geeky fun for a Friday afternoon.
Tufte: "Clutter and overload are not an attribute of information, they are a failure of design."
(Thanks Kristine for the link!)
Friday, January 25, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Winning and losing
One of last year's stickiest, fastest-growing, most thought-provoking, and purely enjoyable online gaming properties was Bogglific -- the homegrown, free, networked version of Boggle on Facebook.
There are many creative ways that Hasbro could have handled its intellectual property concerns without alienating the thousands of passionate users who used Bogglific every day.
Sadly, as of today, they went with a plain ol' cease and desist.
From the Bogglific home page:
Bogglific to Close Down :-(
Hasbro, Inc. has sent a DMCA notification notice to Facebook regarding Bogglific. They claim it violates their trademark, and violates copyright over the Boggle rules.
I'm no lawyer, and can't see how it violates copyright. But I have neither the time nor the money to fight this, and Facebook has given me a grace period of 48 hours to shut the application down voluntarily.
You might be interested to know Scrabulous is in the same boat, but they have the resources to fight their battle. Hopefully they will be successful.
Sorry, guys. It was great fun while it lasted. You're a fantastic bunch, and it's a pity that Hasbro doesn't realise that Bogglific helped its Boggle sales by introducing all your Facebook friends to the game, not hindered it. That is sadly how the litigious US works.
Note that the Bogglific forum will be deleted by Facebook, so you may wish to post further discussions to the Bogglific Addicts group (which is not run by me.)
There are many creative ways that Hasbro could have handled its intellectual property concerns without alienating the thousands of passionate users who used Bogglific every day.
Sadly, as of today, they went with a plain ol' cease and desist.
From the Bogglific home page:
Bogglific to Close Down :-(
Hasbro, Inc. has sent a DMCA notification notice to Facebook regarding Bogglific. They claim it violates their trademark, and violates copyright over the Boggle rules.
I'm no lawyer, and can't see how it violates copyright. But I have neither the time nor the money to fight this, and Facebook has given me a grace period of 48 hours to shut the application down voluntarily.
You might be interested to know Scrabulous is in the same boat, but they have the resources to fight their battle. Hopefully they will be successful.
Sorry, guys. It was great fun while it lasted. You're a fantastic bunch, and it's a pity that Hasbro doesn't realise that Bogglific helped its Boggle sales by introducing all your Facebook friends to the game, not hindered it. That is sadly how the litigious US works.
Note that the Bogglific forum will be deleted by Facebook, so you may wish to post further discussions to the Bogglific Addicts group (which is not run by me.)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Where do Bearitos come from?
A great map showing the corporate parents of many of today's popular organic food brands. From Phil Howard at Michigan State University. (Thanks to Roxie for the link!)
The culting of brands
I blogged recently about wanting to write a book comparing cults, built-to-last corporate cultures, and wildly successful consumer brands. As I secretly hoped, someone has already written such a book, and it's phenomenal.If Jim Collins described the optimum corporate culture for the late 20th century, then Douglas Atkin in "The Culting of Brands" has intuited the human relationship model behind the most powerful business innovations, and grassroots social, technological, and religious movements of the new century.
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