(iverson's) currentbuzz

WoW grew quickly at first, from one million subscribers in February 2005, to five million subscribers by December 2005, then eight million by January 2007, and 12 million by January 2009. And that was the peak: since then WoW seems to be holding steady at roughly 11-12 million subscribers around the world — a small fraction compared to Facebook, which currently has a global audience upwards of 475 million. At a time when any social network with less than double-digit growth in users is deemed a failure, one might conclude that WoW had run its course. But oh, one would be wrong.

Because WoW’s user base is highly engaged, completing some 16.6 million quests and bidding in 3.5 million online auctions every day. And WoW subscribers actually pay to play, ponying up a monthly fee of $14.95, month after month, year after year, to fight those orcs or elves or what have you. According to the company, 4.5 million subscribers in Europe and North America alone produced $800 million in revenue in 2009. Meanwhile, server costs come to about $140,000 per day, or just over $50 million a year, and I can’t imagine other expenses come to much more than another $50 million… so that leaves $700 million of gravy.

via MediaPost Publications WoW Reaping Quiet Bonanza 07/02/2010.

Map: Where Americans Are Moving – Forbes.com.

Here is a social network that is shows economic and social information in a glance. I wish you could look at inward migration separate from out migration. You can roll over the lines and see the exact numbers for various paths.

Here is Chicago‘s map:

A real map of social networking from Forbes

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This new feature is a nice fillip on Twitter, but it could be better. If it automatically located you, so you always got what was happening around you instead of what you said your home city was, it might be a very valuable ad-hoc guide to wherever you're opening your laptop. That would require the browser return you location. HTML 5 has geolocation reporting, but support for HTML 5 is only beginning to roll out. Fortunately, some mobile Twitter apps, like TweetDeck, already allow you to see Tweets that are geo-tagged as near you. Also, Twitter would be wise to put this feature on the Twitter.com pre-sign-in home page, to make it more clear to new users what Twitter has to offer them.

via Twitter adds local trends to Web site | Webware – CNET.

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What mainly goes up, therefore, is not the core network but the number of casual contacts that people track more passively. This corroborates Dr Marsden’s ideas about core networks, since even those Facebook users with the most friends communicate only with a relatively small number of them.

Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.

via The size of social networks | Primates on Facebook | The Economist.

Just can’t escape our hardwiring….

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Facebook has a new look which changes the way the social networking program works in some significant ways. One person said, “Why is facebook trying to be twitter?” A word to the wise– take a look at what you are sharing and the controls you have over who you share content with, before you send the funny friend photo to your bosses, or whatever.