In an internet that’s vastly expanding how do start-up companies attain a user base?
In 2005 Reddit had just been created. It was used, at that time, as a technology hub. It was a popular site for conversation about the programming language Lisp. The language that Reddit was originally coded in. At this time Digg was at the peak of its popularity, accumulating users like a magnet. It was the king of news-hubs.
By 2007 Reddit was gaining traction, creating what many now refer to as “Eternal September”. This buzz word was used to describe a point at which something begins to gain popularity exponentially, and never stops. This was fueled by the introduction of new sections of the community called ‘subreddits’.
Subreddits served the purpose of bringing a small community into one place to discuss a hobby, game, place, or anything else they may want to converse about. The homepage was no longer a cluster of everything. Reddit had evolved into a more user-friendly website.
Over the years Digg began to die. The content was more diluted then ever, and most users chose to join the pilgrimage over to reddit. Many consider this the beginning of the end for Reddit. What was once a hub safe for tech geeks and other breeds of nerd was now clogged with image macros and ‘reposts’. The raising popularity of reddit left little control to the original users, who were either kicked out or forced to blend into the evolving nature of the website.
Since the colonization of reddit by Digg users reddit has gotten farther from its roots every year. The website now hosts communities for books, video games, religions, and even pornography.
In a constantly changing climate websites have to evolve, or in reddits case devolve, towards its changing demographic. For many original users a more populous websites equates to less intelligent content. Time and time again the original point of a site has been killed in an attempt to garner more attention toward themselves. While Facebook was originally created as a small communication network for college students, it’s evolved into a corporate behemoth that hosts more than 700 millions users.
This creates the unfortunate problem of users unable to find new content. New websites will appear barren in comparison to populous sites. A website like YouTube is likely to never be dethroned. With billions of hours of content available YouTube’s death seems unlikely. Attempts to compete with their success have been futile. Vimeo and Dailymotion are unable to boast as large a user base as YouTube. Without a need for new video sharing websites YouTube’s created a monopoly on its industry. Competition is good for everyone, so why is it so hard to be successful when competing with a website as powerful as YouTube?
Without a worthy competitor YouTube is free to do whatever it wants with little risk towards itself. It’s unlikely we’ll see a site large enough to threaten YouTube in the foreseeable future, and without evolution of content the consumer loses.
While sitting on the throne is good for a corporation, it obstructs the evolution of the product. Without worthy competition in the market evolution of the industry dies, and the consumer loses.
Yes, that is the title of a song by the band “The Who.” If you don’t know who (ha) they are… stop reading this and listen to them. Immediately. That’s more important then this political blog, trust me.
Not to say that this post is filler, of course. Nope, this is actually sorta important.
See, I’ve had a realization. We are not currently experiencing the collapse of American society and power. No, we’re just in the middle of another tricky day. And a mild one at that. To get a better understanding of what I mean, I think that we should have a quick history lesson. I’m oversimplifying things to the extreme here to make my point, but you will get the idea.
All my meh.
A few hundred years ago, when America was first being settled, most villages and towns were created close to rivers. Communities need ways to quickly communicate between each other, and at that time the fastest ways were by boat or horse. Roads were scarce at that time, so most towns chose to adopt rivers and oceans instead.
Docks and harbors were important resources for food, clothing, and knowledge. News traveled through word of mouth, from traveler to traveler, and sometimes in small local newspapers. It could take almost six months for news to travel from the colonies to Europe.
Today knowledge is easily found in books, on the internet, and from the people around you. While much of the world still lives in ‘the suburbs’, a rising number is living in a city landscape.
Hundreds of years ago even the largest towns usually only held a few hundred to a few thousand people. Now we have cities with a population of five million or more. Cities are compact, and hold lots of people. They’re built up, rather than across. They consist of apartment buildings with tens of floors, hotels, businesses, and religious sanctuaries. New York City has more than 27,000 people per square mile, and houses a total population of more than eight million.
Cities created a new way to transport goods, services, and knowledge. They formed a new way for people to meet each other. They created communities so large that you could get lost in a sea of people right in front of your house.
Businesses, and rich men and women chose knowledge over space. While many could live in mansions on the countryside, they went for small apartments and big ideas.
The internet fits this description almost perfectly. It has grown from a communication tool to a database of information in a few short decades. It takes only a Google (or Bing, if you’re a hipster) search to find what you’re looking for. Millions of people are constantly consuming information through the internet. You can find news minutes after its happened. We can share things with people who are across the world. We can see each others faces, hear about each others struggles, and create communities with people from around the planet. There’s no telling what else is possible and coming in the near future.
The internet is the largest city in the world, and there are no signs of it becoming any smaller in the near future.
This is the second of multiple reviews in a long series of reviews. This game was available in the 4th Humble Bundle along with 11 other games. Sadly the sale is over and you’ll have to wait for the 5th Humble Bundle to get all these great deals again. The full review is after the break.
Music games have been done in every shape and form at this point. The Bit Trip series is one of the most unique in the genre. Runner is a platforming side scroller that is never ending in its punishment of the player. While some games try to challenge you, this game is down right abuse. It makes Super Meat Boy look like Sesame Street.
I haven’t been able to play the game for very long. I play it in bursts, completely spontaneously. It always ends in the same rage inducing, annoying levels. The game punishes you for touching the wrong ledge, or going down the wrong path. It doesn’t send you back to the last checkpoint, no, it sends you all the way back to the beginning of the level. I have no idea who has the patience to play this game. I’m one of the most patient (and modest, clearly) people I know and I can’t play this game for more than five minutes. I’d rather be getting destroyed in Battlefield than playing this pain simulator.
The game gets a 4/10 from me. The idea is unique, or as unique as a music game can be, but most gamers won’t be able to finish much of the game before quitting. The game is definitely a challenge. One that I foolishly chose to accept, and I played as I failed, foolishly.
