There was a reason to celebrate as just 6 months ago all the Sea Lions disappeared over night (below my photo from 23rd of December 2009). Disappearance got people puzzled. No one seemed to know the reason and the most worrisome were certain that this was a sign of the BIG earthquake.

Interestingly enough the Pier 39 Sea Lions are not the only urban flock of animals around North Beach, but there are also the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. No one really knows where the parrots came from, but they have been living on the hill even longer than the Sea Lions on the Pier 39. There is a great documentary about the parrots: The wild parrots of Telegraph Hill.

More about Sea Lions:
20th year celebration (SF Gate)
Disappearance (Wired)

More about Telegraph Hill Parrots:
Mark Bittner’s “Parrot Man” website

Despite the lack of visual cues MUDs were able to create extremely vivid game worlds that become alive in the players minds. Similarly as books tend to feel much better on paper than on the IMAX screen, the MUDs felt more alive than other video games of the 90′s. What really made MUDs distinctive from the other games was the social interaction. 80 percent of the playtime was done in groups of 2-9 people. And the epic memories are based on 20 hour EQ-runs where 9 players went around the world solving the greatest puzzles and killing the meanest bosses.

MUDs were not only about the play and lore, but for many players MUDs functioned as an online meeting place where you checked in and out multiple times a day. You were able to save our status for others to see while you were offline – think Facebook today. It was also possible to send private messages for other users and MUDs also offered multiple different solutions for chatting. Pimping your character from equipment to castles where you lived was of course one of the more important elements of the whole MUD experience.

For me MUDs acted as a five year long degree in game design, virtual economies and social interaction. While studying I conducted couple of survey around social interaction and the virtual economy of MUDs. In my research on the value of online social interaction I found out that at least two couples had met in BatMud, married virtually and later married in real life. My other research project was based on virtual economy. I started to sell gold, equipment and services within BatMUD to test how people would react. And the outcome was way beyond my expectations. After couple of months I was able to make enough money to pay for my next European roundtrip. This was 1996 and the game had  less than 2500 active players.

Among the MUD players it was common to joke about how addictive the MUDs would become after the ANSI graphics would turn into rich real 3D worlds. Luckily it turned out that not many of the people on the list ended up spending the same 200+ days of real life on Ultima Online or WOW. For the original MUD players the graphically challenged world will always feel richer than the 3D world that leaves little room for imagination.

Read more about BatMUD
Read more about MUDs

Print media industry, has stated that smartphones are going to save them. This might be true, but in reality the savior is further away. When the ebook described above hits your pocket, the industry might be saved, but it will look very different from what we have today.

Kindle, Nook and other offer decent experience, but you are bind to propriety system with all the limitations. The mechanical design doesn’t come even near of a real book or magazine in your hands. Today’s experience is black and white and so reminds too much of TV in the 70′s.

Future ebook will enable new business models for authors and journalists. There will be huge number of channels which provide high quality content to match your needs. The great advance of always having something to read will be important, but not all. The future ebook will turn the lonely experience of reading into social.

Below you can watch Times Inc’s take on the Sports Illustrated Magazine in ebook form. Interesting, even compelling, but still there is something missing.

Being mediocre is not an option in today’s entertainment market where more products are being created than ever before. Affordable production technologies and internet as democratic publishing channel have opened the market. As internet offers an endless flow of obscure propositions for niche markets the global hits dominate the entertainment market sales. The almost-hits are selling less than before while the real hits are getting even bigger.

Why do hits dominate the entertainment space more than ever before?

1. People want something to talk about in coffee table and hits offers a safe common topic.
2. Consumer review skew towards hits. Hits are reviewed by more people who consume less entertainment and are so less critical to quality compared to niche products which are consumed by more critical aficionados.
3. Risk of failing to capitalize on the to-be hit makes studios, labels and publishers invest more and more on marketing of the products they have selected to be hits.

Read more about the topic from great article “A world of hits” on Economist:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14959982

Why did I become the Swedish hero? Check the full film:

http://www.tackfilm.se/?id=1258955512933RA63

Bay area public transportation is decent in American standard, but it still takes two hours to move your body between Mt. View and SF. Although Caltrains are often late and there is no way to continue your journey from the SF Caltrain station, it still beats driving hands down.

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