I'm a smidgen skeptical of this rumor, if only because it seems so darn obvious: TechCrunch reported on Tuesday morning that Time Warner's AOL may have found a use for its Wow.com domain, which it acquired in 1998 as part of the offal of what had once been CompuServe.
The source's big scoop? Wow.com has been transferred to the AOL Games division and will become a World of Warcraft social network. If this turns out to be true, expect plenty of level-28 half-elf mages to be typing "Wow.com" into their browsers soon.
It does indeed make sense for the newly Gothamized AOL to use the domain in such a way. Maybe even too much sense, considering some of the company's faux pas in recent years.
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington aptly points out, however, that there are plenty of other World of Warcraft social networks out there--then there's also the fact that the wildly popular online role-playing game from Blizzard, famously lampooned in South Park, is really sort of a social network in its own right.
But you've got to admit that there are some much more heavily clogged niches that AOL could've chosen to dive into with a hot domain name like that. You know, like social news.
A few weeks ago we took a look at Chorebuster (review), a complex, yet very powerful chore management tool. Today, one that's been making the rounds around the office is Chore Wars, a seemingly ridiculous concept that attempts to make repetitive tasks like washing the dishes and vacuuming worthwhile for things besides sanitation. Did we mention this is set in a magical universe with monsters, treasure and certain peril?
The concept is simple: users band together in guilds, and give household chores various reward levels. Those rewards translate into character upgrades, in a Web based MMORPG that you play with your friends, family, or roommates. Consider it like a very stripped-down version of World of Warcraft, where leveling up requires some real-life elbow grease.
Pick from a variety of user-created chores. Each gets its own experience point denomination.
(Credit: CNET Networks)While it doesn't play like a video game, Chore Wars has a simplified Web interface that lets members of your party create and claim chores. The actual chore creation process is a joy, with a simple Web form that lets you fill in the name of the chore, along with values for gained experience points, gold, and various character attributes. The real fun, however, is thinking up treasure and monsters, which you have the potential to run into every time you claim to have done a chore. This opens up a dialog where you can find out if you've managed the task unscathed, or run into perils you or others have dreamed up.
The real nitty-gritty of Chore Wars is its management system, which lets users easily claim chores using a drop-down menu, or by picking one from the "adventure" page. You can keep track of the chores each user has claimed, as each one gets its own status update (a la Twitter), along with a time stamp to let you know when it was taken care of. What might be the only dampener here, is that as group administrator, there isn't a way to dole out chores to other users, or separate chores that are individual from those that are communal. In this sense, Chore Wars fails. However, if you have kids or roommates who are honest about taking care of things, this honor system works.
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- BBC to broadcast in 'Second Life'. BBC's show The Money Programme will broadcast on Friday both on regular television and in the MMORPG Second Life. This episode of The Money Programme deals with with the economies that have sprung up as a result of these micropayment-filled virtual currency markets, including World of Warcraft, Lord of the RingsOnline, and Second Life. The social network has played host to several other real-life events in the past, including concerts and business meetings.
- Warner to put ad-supported video archive online. Warner music is putting together a platform to deliver music videos and other music-related content for free. Users will also be able to purchase digital copies with an integrated marketplace that will be made available on mobile phones as well.
- Yahoo's chief technology officer resigns. Farzad Nazem, who had resided as Yahoo's CTO since 1996 has left his post at the Internet media company. His interim replacement will be Jerry Yang, who co-founded the company in 1994.
- Mass deletion sparks LiveJournal revolt. Popular publishing platform LiveJournal is currently experiencing a user revolt due to their deletion of hundreds of blogs the company deemed inappropriate. The service, which hosts approximately 13 million journals, has been deleting selected journals containing content that promotes pedophilia, or other topics or items that violate the terms of service. Many users who have had the content deleted are up in arms over LifeJournal's "delete first, ask questions later" approach.
[All stories via CNET News.com]
Photobucket members will discover a new option when logging in this morning. The company has partnered with Meez, the 3-D avatar service to give Photobucket members a place to store and host their 3-D avatars. We don't normally cover personal avatar services, but when they partner with sites with over 40 million users, it's worth noting. Meez has approximately a million users (which in and of itself is no small feat), and the service has apparently seen quite a bit of growth in the last few months.
This is our Webware/Photobucket Meez character.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Users can pick from a ton of options to make their own virtual avatar, and spit it out to their Photobucket account. Meez gives each user seven variations of their Meez avatar, including two sizes of animated GIFs (one of which we've embedded to the left).
If you're wondering how Meez stays afloat offering this service, they have partnerships with a number of musicians and clothing companies to offer virtual promotional items, something that's been done in Second Life and the upcoming PlaystationHome. Users can dress their virtual selves in free clothing, but some of the promotional items fetch a small price in virtual currency called 'coinz.' Before scoffing too much, keep in mind the online micropayment market has created its own economy between World of Warcraft and the XBOX Live Marketplace in the last few years, and profits are going nowhere but up.
Previous coverage of Meez can be found here.
Auction giant eBay has disallowed the buying and selling of World of Warcraft currency. But if you want to buy your way into the upper echelons of the game, you still can: Head over to Sparter, an online exchange for WoW gold (and also currency in EverQuest and Eve).
Sparter is not an auction site like eBay is. Sparter enables the trade of just one type of item (so far), and prices vary depending on lot size (how many golds) and how quickly you want them delivered to your account. Sparter escrows the transactions, so you're not charged until the currency is delivered to your account. Like eBay, however, there is a reputation score that gets attached to sellers.
Here at CNET, dedicated MMORPG players have mixed opinions about the concept. While the Sparter market looks to be more gamer-friendly than IGE, the very concept of enabling players to buy virtual goods rankles more than a few people. World of Warcraft terms of service prohibit the "real-world" sale of in-game items, and many gamers think it'd be better if real-world transactions were more actively quashed. For more, see the News.com story, eBay bans auction of virtual goods.
Currency in Second Life, by the way, remains for sale on eBay and is not for sale on Sparter.
Sparter's gold exchange
(Credit: CNET Networks)
>> Senator to propose surveillance of illegal images. John McCain wants to give surveillance duty to your Internet service provider and to Web sites to crack down on child pornography. All questionable images would be flagged and sent to the authorities with your IP address. (CNET News.com)
>> Flip launches. Conde Nast's answer to MySpace and other social networks. The service, aimed at teenage girls, lets you create a scrapbook of sorts in the form of a flip book. Your flip book can then be shared on other services. (Mashable)
>> Gmail leaves beta. Lately Google products leaving beta have gotten some bad press, but Gmail seems to have weathered the storm nicely. Gmail launched in April, 2004 with a groundbreaking 1GB of storage, and now offers nearly three times that much. The service has also lifted its "by invitation only" means of joining, a policy that spurned Web sites where people could trade invites for all sorts of things with eager Gmail hopefuls. (CNET News.com)
>> Amazon Unbox video downloads coming to TiVo. First you got podcasts; now, you can watch movies on your TiVo using Amazon's Unbox movie download service. Like purchasing TV shows on Microsoft's movie service for the Xbox 360, media can be re-downloaded an unlimited number of times if you wish to clear some of that valuable hard-drive space. (Crave)
>> Real-world success with virtual goods. Sony says that selling virtual goods for actual currency is a good thing--as long as it's done through an official, regulated store. Sony set-up its own store on several Everquest II game servers to allow transactions for virtual goods. The store earned Sony over $250,000 dollars. (CNET News.com)
>> Antivirus expert: 'Ransomware' on the rise. Gone are the days of simple Trojans and viruses. The next generation of malware is called "Ransomware," and it works when crafty hackers hijack your data, encrypt it, and hold it hostage for a fee. Once aimed at large companies, normal folks like you and me will be the new targets for this attack. (CNET News.com)
>> Vodafone in deal to access MySpace via mobiles. It's been done through Cingular, Helio and probably any other phone with a mobile browser, but Vodafone is joining the fray by shipping phones with the MySpace mobile application pre-installed. (CNET News.com)
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