I’m a fan of David Pogue. I like his podcast as he covers some cool gadgets and service in a bit of a no-nonsense way. I saw his site today and saw his ‘pledge’ followed by my eye glancing at what I consider ads. Evidently David doesn’t consider self promotion of goods and sale words like ‘half-price’ or product placement words advertising.
One of probably the coolest casual ‘games’ I’ve ever seen is Line Rider. It’s a fun game, but really gets exciting when you have an artist behind it. Basically it’s a blank canvas for you to draw a route for the main character to hop on his sled and ride. Sound lame? Not when you see what some have come up with. For example, here’s a very popular ‘ride’ on YouTube.
Well, the Line Rider team has recently modified their beta version and implemented in Silverlight 2! They’ve also added some social networking integration using Live Messenger and the ability to send your rides to your contacts, etc. The team was a group of developers and designers from the Line Rider team from InXile Entertainment as well as the crew from Cynergy Systems. The Line Rider game was also used in a creative McDonald’s television campaign as well – McDonald’s gettin’ all involved with the interwebs…cool.
In addition to the Silverlight version, InXile has announced console versions for XBOX 360, Wii, and PS3. I think that will definitely a must get console game for myself and for the kids. This Silverlight version really demonstrates some great things in Silverlight 2 and shows that the platform is a great one for casual games and how creative you can be with what version 2 has to offer.
Congratulations to the Line Rider teams!
I suspect we’ll be seeing more of these efforts for Silverlight and I love it. In fact, INETA will be sponsoring the 2008 INETA Silverlight Challenge soon, so you should sign up for more information about that as well. But until then…
But until then, check out what some of the community MVPs and leaders are doing on their own! They’ve started the Silverlight Control Builder Contest ‘08. Two main organizers (Page Brooks and Dave Campbell) have put some time and thought into how they can get the community excited about developing solutions for the community and alas this idea came out of that! These two have done some research, sought guidance, solicited some sponsors and did this on their own. They built the contest site which is very detailed providing all the rules, prizes, and an FAQ. Please be sure to read the rules. One key thing is that this contest is open to US residents (over 18) only. Please note that Pete/Dave answer why in their FAQ and please also realize this is completely a community-driven effort from these two guys. I applaud them for their efforts and can tell you that they indeed researched the effort to make it an internationally available contest, but simply didn’t have the resources to do so…but hey, there is nothing preventing you in your local community from using this same idea :-).
Additionally, there are some additional tidbits in the rules, so read them carefully…I picked out some highlights only:
The prizes are pretty great as well, including a 1-year MSDN Premium subscription provided by the organizers of the contest!
So get your mind working and submit your entry by 11 AUG 2008. Since only 1 entry allowed per contestant, make sure you put some good thought into it!
Zappos – a company that seemingly ‘gets it’ with regard to customer service, doing the right thing, and providing the best products at the best prices. They have not paid/asked me for this comment. When I find a company willing to provide the best service and put the customer first, I’m so impressed.
I just ordered a new pair of shoes this afternoon (about 11:00 GMT –7). I just received this email (emphasis mine) in my inbox (13:50 GMT –7):
Although you originally ordered Standard (4 to 5 business days) shipping and handling, we have given your order special priority processing in our warehouse and are upgrading the shipping and delivery time frame for your order. Your order will ship out Monday, June 30th 2008 and be given a special priority shipping status so that you can receive your order even faster than we originally promised!
Please note that this is being done at no additional cost to you. It is simply our way of saying thank you for being our customer.
Now that is how to treat your customers. I wrote a quick post earlier this year about how I felt they were innovating in advertising as well. Seems to be a very creative company…and they are watching on Twitter as well! I see that their catalog has expanded well beyond shoes and that is the only thing that worries me. I hope that their commitment to excellence and return policies will apply when you buy that digital camera from them. I’m not convinced that their expanding catalog is the best business move, but I’m not behind their doors.
Until then, can’t wait for my shoes (oh and btw, if they are the wrong ones or don’t fit, they pay for return shipping too). Thanks Zappos!
Are you poking around with the latest ASP.NET MVC (Model-View-Controller) bits? If so, hopefully you are already aware of the resources available to you and the fact that Phil Haack is one of the program manager’s leading those efforts, and Scott Hanselman has been providing the community with some resources to jump start your learning.
Well, another member has just joined the ranks on the team I work for. Stephen Walther, pictured here in his best book-cover pose ;-), has joined the team. He actually joined earlier this month, but I’m just now getting around to welcoming him to our team and checking out the stuff he’s been doing. He’s been on a great clip lately and I’ve been reading his latest 11 tips on ASP.NET MVC on his blog. I’m really glad to have him on our team as I think we’ve got some great resources for ASP.NET, AJAX, MVC, Silverlight and Windows Client.
If you are messing around with the ASP.NET MVC framework, check out his site and subscribe. We’ll be seeing a lot more of Stephen soon and I’m sure your ideas will be welcome to him as well!