Archive for the ‘Community’ Category


Do these people look like they want to help you? A customer support big phish story

You probably get loads of spam. And you probably have noticed that some of those mails try to trick you (phish) personal details, such as credit card numbers and personally identifiable details that could be used to scam you. And these phishers are getting smarter. Once happy to prey only on newbies and the truly […]

Do hoaxes and fear tactics have a place in social media?

We follow game communities and social media closely – it’s our area of greatest passion and expertise. So when GOG.com (aka Good Old Games) hinted that they were closing their virtual doors, we – along with many others we follow who have bought classic PC games from them – lamented the apparent loss. But it […]

Community manager and social media lessons from PAX Prime 2010

As a content creator/consultant who works in social media and is trying to get back into gaming community work, I attended two panels at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) Prime 2010 with great interest. The lessons shared from these panels transcend the gaming industry, which is leading the charge in both of these spaces – but other […]

Plaxo tapped Facebook to help me get linked in and invaded my personal space in the process

The number of social networking sites has exploded in the past few years, with truly social outlets such as Facebook learning to share MySpace with people who want to get LinkedIn on Plaxo. I constantly get invites from former colleagues, family and friends to join them online at one network or another. The latest social […]

I’m tweeting this: Twitter is this year’s hot marketing tool at San Diego Comicon

Based on media coverage alone, Twitter would appear to be mainstreaming to the tune of a MySpace or Facebook. In reality, the Twitterati remains a small but vocal segment of the Internet, identify trends and riding them for brief cycles. This week represents the motherload of all Twitter cycles, as the Twitterati descend upon San […]

TweetDeck gets all iPhone-y (and adds multiple accounts!)

Back in April, I deconstructed what I thought was wrong with TweetDeck. Now I only do this sort of exercise with products I think show real potential. I did the same on BusyGamerNation.com for the Nintendo Wii user interface and twice for the Xbox 360 (but never got around to the PS3). I critique because I […]

WordPress Plug-in Watch: iPhone theme, sharing, auto-Twitter and not-so-Simple Tags

After years grappling with Movable Type for our gaming site blog, I’ve recently come to really embrace WordPress’s simplicity and extensibility. One of the things that makes it so great these days is the ease with which you can add and update plug-ins used to improve the features of your blog. In most cases, you […]

Social Media Trend Watch: Facebook and Twitter go to the gamers

Normally I wouldn’t post gaming news to this site (that’s what BusyGamerNation.com is for) but the news flash that Facebook and Twitter are going to launch on Xbox 360 consoles this fall should interest everyone who works in social media and community. The game is about to change (again). It’s one thing to tweet and […]

Not-So-Stupid Marketing Tricks: Bruno vs. Eminem

How do you solve a problem like the “Bruno” movie? You let life imitate art. Sacha Baron Cohen pulled off one of the year’s great publicity stunts Sunday at the MTV Movie Awards, in the clip viewed round the world. Susan Boyle who? Between Sunday night and Monday, it was all about the backless chaps […]

Work Samples – Community newsletters

One of the services I provide (also a passion!) is planning and writing e-mail newsletters. My early career was in  journalism, but in the mid-’90s I fell in love with the Internet and this necessitated a jump to a technology publisher where I was one third of the gopher/Web team. (Jacqui was another third, but that’s another […]