Let’s compare AdSense and PayPerPost: 

AdSense examines the text/topics on your posts and attempts (sometimes pretty poorly) to display ads that match the text/topics.  The blogger has not “blessed” or approved each of these ads, and they do not endorse them, but they are happy to receive money from someone clicking on one on their site.  If the reader happens to have a bad experience buying or visiting the site from this paid link, they may or may not attribute some ill will to the blogger who showed them the link.

PayPerPost pays bloggers who write a post that matches the requirements of the advertiser.  From looking at the site right now, about half of the opportunities are for only positive reviews/links, while a little less than half simply want a link with any thoughts (positive or negative).  It is still up to the blogger whether to accept an opportunity or not, and any blogger that writes a positive review of a horrible site/service/product is sure to lose creditability with their readers.  Is this really any differently than say CNET?  Cnet, as do many other sites, receives a small payment anytime someone who buys a product after clicking on a link on one of the site’s reviews.  People still visit and trust CNET because they give their honest opinion of products and disclose that they may receive a payment from time to time.  Why should this opportunity only be left for big corporations? 

I haven’t signed up for PayPerPost yet, but it looks like it could be another good souce of revenue for a blogger that only accepts PayPerPost opportunities that do not interfere with his/her ethics (i.e. only give something a positive review if you like the site/product/service).

Household spending on entertainment has outpaced overall expenditures over the past 10 years, by more than doubling during this time. Household earning more than $77,000 per year in pretax income, which is 20% of U.S. households, spends approximately $4,500 per year on entertainment. This also varies some depending on where the household is located within the country, as households of all income levels on the west coast spend about 20% more on entertainment than the national average.

How much do you spend on entertainment? Probably more than you think. Add your subscription services together, such as digital cable, HBO, upgrade for high-definition, Netflix or renting movies, TiVo, high speed internet and in some cases satellite radio or internet streaming music, and the total will shoot above $200 per month ($2,400 per year). Next, let’s look at the variable costs like movie theatres, video games, print or electronic books, and the number quickly jumps several thousand dollars more. If you consider “food away from home”, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers a separate category but often overlaps with entertainment, the number grows even further.

The study asked 2500 mobile phone users across the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) “under which of the following circumstances they would use data services like wireless internet and mobile TV – if it were free, if the price were right or not interested at all”.

Brazilians had the highest interest in mobile data but only if these services were provided for free. Are we surprised this? Business and consumer customers across the world always show much higher interest in data, content, applications and games when there is no charge for them.

The more in-depth areas of the study examine those subscribers willing to pay “if the price were right”. Russians are willing to pay an average of $4.23 USD per month for mobile data, while those in Brazil and China would pay an average of $4.00 USD per month. Indian subscribers show the least willingness to pay with $1.50 USD per month, where only 20% of respondents showed an interest in mobile data applications.

The study has been conducted eight times since 2000 and uses a sample of 4000 mobile phone users in 21 countries. A few of the most interesting results from this most recent report includes:

• More than half of consumers say they are able to access multimedia services on their mobile devices
• Individuals with newer handsets are more willing to pay for multimedia services
• 56% of all multimedia phone owners now use mobile internet and email usage at least one message, up from 36% last year
• 33% of all multimedia phone owners download music, up from 21% last year
• 17% of all mobile users and 27% of teenagers say they are willing to pay for “time-critical and relevant content that can be easily viewed while on the move”
• Multimedia phone owners that do not use multimedia services listed uncertainty of cost, security and privacy, slow access, cost and poor content as reasons for not using these services
• 60% of customers expect to use their mobile phone for the majority of their calls this next year

Click here to download the full report (pdf).

Lawmakers believe laws of this nature will protect children from experiencing the “interactive nature of video game violence”. They point to studies that link violence in video games to violence and hostile actions in teenagers and preteens. There are numerous independent studies dispelling this connection as being no stronger than other forms of entertainment/media and even the positive effects of video games.

Even if the studies cited by lawmakers are correct and their intentions are genuine, laws of this nature will have little impact on minors’ access to mature and adult rated games for a number of reasons.

First, the laws leave the games covered by the ban up to interpretation. Many groups have already claimed that games that “depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious or cruel” could even include boxing, football and hockey sports games. Without a clear definition, law enforcement could adequately not enforce the law.

Second, police unions and groups across the county have already said that they have better things to do than run sting operations to catch stores selling violent video games to minors. Ask any 14 year old if they can buy a pack of cigarettes as proof of how well those bans have been enforced.

Finally, studies have shown that most video games are actually purchased by the adults in the household for their children (at the child’s request). This means that children will still have access to these games, and it is up to parents, not the government, to monitor what their children are playing.

The report projects that the Xbox 360 will lead console sales with 19.6 million units sold through the end of 2008, with the PlayStation 3 selling 15.5 million units and the Revolution selling 5 million units. While the early launch accounts for much of this early lead by Microsoft, the overall projection shows a definite shakeup of the gaming industry from the current generation.

The PS3 will move into the yearly sales lead in 2009 with 8.5 million units for the year and will lead the overall console cycle – by a relatively small amount. The model assumes this next console cycle will run through 2011, so expect your Xbox 3 and PS4 in time for the holidays in 2012 (and no, you can’t preorder yet).

Software sales are expected to rise significantly with an overall 43% increase by 2008 from both increased units and higher average prices. Publishers and console makers will also begin to see substantial revenue from in-game advertising and online downloads, as sales from these will rise from less than 250 million in 2005 to $1.3 billion in 2008. For those interested in investing in publishers, the report suggests being careful because of market volatility over the next 12 months, but Piper Jaffray reiterated its Outperform rating on several publishers including Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive and THQ.

In the past eight months, Google’s market share has slipped slightly from 57.2% to 56.9% of total global usage. During that same time, MSN Search usage increased from 8.6% to 8.9%, with Yahoo keeping a steady 21.2% and AOL Search 3.2% of global usage.

One interesting point is that, according to this research, all other search engines only account for 9.8% of global internet searches. That may hold for North America and Western Europe, but it seems a little low when considering the rest of the world. It would also be interesting to see someone look into the market share of different search engines/portals/directories for helping people locate information. “Search” is likely the largest part of this, but solid information on the total market for directing users to information online is difficult to come by (any ideas/information would be appreciated; please comment below or drop us a note).

OneStat.com averaged search usage of 2 million visitors, which was comprised of 20,000 visitors from each of 100 countries, per day over the past 2 months to avoid any sudden shifts.

Telephia maintains a panel of 69,000 wireless subscribers in the United States that it samples each month for mobile phone research. For the month of June 2005, more than 1,200 selected panelists responded to questions about their mobile internet usage and demographics. Weather-related sites were accessed by 3.9% of the total wireless audience, 2.9% visited a search site and 2.5% visited a sports related site.

The tables below, sourced from Telephia Audience Metrics, provide more details on the high-level results.

Click for Table 1
Click for Table 2

The walled gardens of many carriers likely account for a portion of the reason that portals ranked so low, but there may be another reason. Today’s handsets (hardware and interfaces) make accessing mobile content extremely difficult for the average user.

Given the complexity of mobile surfing and a user’s general limited disposable time when mobile, users are defaulting to the information that they have the greatest need for and can access quickly. General research clearly shows that city guides/maps/directions are extremely valuable to consumer and business users. However, limited use maps provided by the Google/Yahoo/Mapquest at minimal costs or supported by advertising differ when compared to more involved location services. Along the same cost/benefit lines, current mobile devices are difficult for extensive reading of news, stock reports, etc.

On the other hand, access to email via a mobile device is relatively simple on most carriers with a capable handset. We believe that users are not reading or writing large amounts of emails on their phones. They are likely using their phones as a type of mobile alert system and reading select messages. SMS has become widely popular because of its simplicity, but it requires the sender to use their phone and compose a short message. Mobile access to email, though, does not require a sender to guess what device you have ready access to and allows them to send the full details.

Telephia’s report simply provides details on users and what applications they use. It is up to you to determine your own explanations for this usage.

For those unfamiliar with CAFE requirements, these rules govern the minimum average fuel standards that each automotive company must meet with the vehicles it creates. While the government has made minor adjustments to the requirements for each category of vehicles, these rules are far out of sync with the original intentions.

The most substantial changes in the auto industry have come from the type of vehicles purchased by consumers. The CAFE rules originally offered minimal fuel requirements for trucks and vans to minimize the financial impact on businesses, while increasing requirements for consumer vehicles. At the time of creation, these classes of vehicles amounted for only a small percentage (single digits) of total vehicles on the road, with consumers purchasing almost entirely cars. Since then, the consumer market has made a drastic shift towards trucks and vans. As a result, the lower standards allotted for these “business class” vehicles have now become the dominant vehicles on the roads.

In addition, the overall fuel economy trends have essentially hit a plateau over the past 12+ years. Green Car Congress recently issued a report summarizing the most recent findings on the area. The most interesting take away from their research is that at a time when the automobile industry claims it is spending tremendous amounts of money on R&D into new fuel sources all research into gas powered engine efficiency seems to have stopped.

The release of many of the hybrid vehicles the attempts at creating fuel cell vehicles should be applauded, but these advances simply are not large enough, and they do not offer enough of a benefit to consumers. Most hybrid vehicles on the market today cost several thousand dollars more than their counterparts on the market. Even with the current high gas prices, it still takes regular driving for more than three years for consumers to begin to see any real benefit from ownership of a hybrid.

Given the additional cost of most hybrid vehicles, consumers have been reluctant to purchase these vehicles in real numbers. Not to mention, that the new mini-SUV hybrids, such as the Ford Escape, appear to offer only minimal fuel efficiency improvements under the driving conditions of many of their owners (e.g. less stop-n-go traffic).

Hydrogen power vehicles do hold the promise of a best case scenario, with zero pollutants and long distances between refills. Automotive companies promise that these vehicles will begin to be rolled out in the next five to ten years, and the State of California is hoping to have small numbers on their roads as early as 2007. However, industry experts do not believe that we will see significant volumes for much longer due to the lengthy time to build the refueling infrastructure, and that assumes that the safety concerns can be overcome.

Will hybrid vehicles be the way of the future? Will consumers be forced to live with a continuing of the current fuel efficiency technology?

Without a real catalyst, the market is likely to see more of the same until hydrogen vehicles hit the market. The drastic increase in gas prices recently may serve as such a spark to the market by pushing consumer demand, but this is unlikely. The restructuring of the CAFE standards have the possibility of accelerating innovation in fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, the government has not announced specifics for the proposed restructuring, and industry analysts expect the changes to only amount to a splitting of current categories with little overall impact.

The time has come for our politicians to drastically increase the CAFE requirements on new vehicles. The technology is available for at least a 10% to 20% increase in current standards. A significant increase in the standards would encourage the core parts of the industry to further increase funding in engine technologies and would offer a real opportunity for new technology firms.

Most consumers have never contacted their elected officials for anything more than contesting a local parking ticket. If you are feeling the “pinch at the gas pump”, please contact your congressmen/woman and encourage them to increase the CAFE standards and fuel efficiency requirements that automakers must follow (an email only takes 2 minutes, and a call only take 4 minutes – be sure to include your home address for you opinion to count). For those that work in mechanical engineering and technical fields, the opportunity exists for you to make your mark.

Please post back with links to advancements and technology available today. We are also interested in hearing about fuel efficiency projects currently underway.

The real growth in India’s cellphone industry came after the Indian government relaxed its rules. Since then, Reliance Infocomm entered the market. In 2002, Reliance Infocomm helped push the market by offering phones that were nearly free initially and did not require payment until later.

The Gartner report makes additional advisements for Indian telcos that include a key focus on non-voice value-added services such as games, ring tones, and music downloads. With a large portion of the market opportunity coming from low-income users, average revenue per unit (ARPU) may be as low as $5 per month in the next 18 to 24 months. These additional services will help to improve the bottom line and differentiate offerings.

The study surveyed 1,400 CFO’s from a cross section of U.S. companies and asked them “Which of the following portable technology devices do you consider most indispensable in your life? Their responses showed the cellphone to be their highest priority, with their laptops being a close second.

• Cell phone 44%
• Laptop computer 39%
• Wireless handheld 8%
• Mini hard drive 4%
• iPod 2%
• Other 1%
• Don’t know/no answer 2%

The most interesting result is that 2% of CFOs believe their iPod is their most important portable device.

NTT and others have been researching 4G for some time, well before WiMax development began, but standards have not been formed as there is still debate on the uses of 4G. The original plans for 4G were to offer 100 Mbps wireless transmission. NTT has successfully blown through this barrier with a successful test of 1Gbps using their 4G technology, a Variable Spreading Factor-Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (VSF-Spread OFDM) and a 4-by-4 Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna.

Laparoscopic surgery, also known as keyhole surgery or band-aid surgery, involves manipulating controls/joysticks to control a fiber optic camera and surgical tools to perform minimally invasive surgery with only tiny incisions in the person’s body. Laparoscopic surgery has been around for many years now, but doctors have only recently begun to notice a stirring correlation between the top surgeons and video gamers.

Surgeon Butch Rosser, directory of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, read a reporter’s comments about one of his procedures that referred to him as a “Nintendo surgeon”. This started his thinking that perhaps his apparent gift among many of his peers was because he was a gamer.

Rosser set out to see if there was a correlation by using a standardized laparoscopic training exercise called “Top Gun” to test laparoscopic surgeons that had never played a video game and those that were gamers. “The results were really astounding,” he says. “First of all, if you played video game [at any time] in the past, it was found that you were significantly faster and, more importantly, you created fewer errors than people who had no previous video game experience. Then when we looked at whether you were a current video gamer, we found that if you played video games currently, you were over 30 percent better — faster, and created fewer errors — than someone who did not play video games at all.”

Alan Castel, psychology professor at Washington University of St. Louis, performed another study where people from different groups are given a series of standard visual tests looking for a particular object (e.g. a letter) among a group of other objects on a computer monitor. “Video game players had faster reaction times on the order of 100 milliseconds, which might not sound like a lot but in this domain it’s quite a strong finding,” says Castel. “And you can imagine, when driving, a difference of 100 milliseconds could really help you avoid accidents.”

The research showed that gamers used the same search patterns as non-gamer, “but video game players were faster and more efficient when carrying out this search,” says Castel.

“Previous research has shown that video game players have more attentional capacity and can carry out search functions in more efficient manners,” says Castel. “Our research was interested in examining whether there were differences in how video game players and non-video game players search the visual environment, how they carry out visual search. We were interested in whether video game players would carry out visual search in a different way relative to people who don’t play video games.”

Castel suggests that not only are video games good “practice” for many mental tasks around activities like military flight training and surgery but that they may also be a good tool for rehabilitation of people recovering from brain injuries.

The mental improvement from video games is clearly there. However, Rosser does point out that surgeons perform better with just three hours of video game play per week. Rosser goes on to say to kids “That Butch Rosser would not be here in this capacity if he played video games and did not have good grades, did not develop perseverance. And I would say to that child out there that thinks that they got a free pass to play video games carte blanche, I say ‘Nooo, sadly mistaken.”

With the current talk from politicians, trying to get “airtime”, of banning video games, imposing regulations beyond other entertainment mediums such as books or movies, and the “detriments” of video games, the work of organizations like the International Game Developers Association, who advocate for a more balanced and fair look at games, is needed more now than ever. Research has shown the positive effects of playing video games and has shown very mixed results of any ill effects.

Those in positions to regulate the video game industry need to take a fair look at the studies in the area before attempting to impose any unfair requirements on the industry. With that said, not all games are appropriate for all ages. Parents need to know what their kids are playing. The industries ESRB ratings are a great first step for this, as are many of the review sites online.

To the kids out there, do you homework, but please play your video games. You may be the one operating on me one day…

Component strength is extremely important for many applications and tested strength of the new material already exceeds the strongest steel sheets and Mylar and Kapton sheets used for ultralight air vehicles. This new nanotube sheets “can be made so thin that a square kilometer of solar sail would weigh only 30 kilograms.”

Some of the reported demonstrations include:

• Yards of ribbons have been successfully run that are lighter than a feather but stronger than steel
• Made entirely of carbon, they also conduct electricity
• Sheets (measured in meters) created from nanotubes can be ‘pulled’ and created on the fly in minutes
• The sheets can collect solar energy, and do so when bent or creased.

Example applications include:

• Blankets that could be unfurled in the desert to harvest energy for soldiers
• Clothing strong enough to repel a bullet
• Car doors strong enough to protect passengers and double as batteries
• Composite structures for fuel cells, supercapacitors or light emitters

For a full overview of the developments, see the UTD press release and the August 19th issue of the Prestigious Journal Science.

Lawmakers continue to read outdated research that only evaluate mobile devices and new technology in isolation. Are cellphones distracting? Yes. Does using a headset with a cellphone reduce the driver’s distraction. No. In fact, using a headset generally makes a user feel more comfortable while talking on the phone, which causes them to use the phone even more.

The more complete research on driver distraction have looked at the level of driver distraction for a wider range of activities often performed in the care: adjusting the radio, talking/dialing the phone, talking to passengers in the vehicle, writing notes, reading directions, putting on make-up, eating, etc. Almost across the board these studies have shown that the level of distraction among these activities is very similar.

The NPD Group invited a balanced group of teens (13-17) and adults (18+) to complete the survey and received more than 8,700 responses, including over 6,700 from current wireless subscribers.

Key findings from the study included:

• 50% of U.S. wireless subscribers own a phone capable of downloading games
• 27% of wireless subscribers play games on their phones, including purchased downloads, free demos and pre-loaded games
• About 1/3 of those that play mobile games buy the games themselves
• About 2/3 of those that play mobile games only play demos or free pre-loaded games
• 6% of current non-gamers show an interest in playing games on their phone over the next 12 months
• The average mobile gaming session is 11 minutes in total length
• Consumers who play games on other devices (e.g. consoles, PC, laptop) are twice as likely to play on their cell phone
• 60% of kids between the ages of 13 and 17 are likely to be mobile gamers
• 23% of adults are likely to be mobile gamers
• Mobile gamers generally spend more money when buying their handsets; an average of 57% more
• Mobile gamers are generally “heavier users of their mobile phones” than non-gamers, using 48% more wireless minutes and spending 22% more than average
• The dominant purchase model in the U.S. is single downloads, as opposed to subscriptions
• “Compared to typical wireless subscribers, mobile gamers are twice as likely to be African-American, Hispanic or Asian”
• The most cited reason for playing mobile games is “to kill time or alleviate boredom”

While we would like to see more information regarding the demographic and economic split of the sample size, these high-level results and the overview of the full report, “Mobile Games: Who’s Playing”, are quite interesting and shed a good bit of needed light on the U.S. mobile games industry.

The idea is based on a MIT paper called “Voices of Attraction” that analyzed 60 five-minute speed-dating sessions and an unpublished study in the area. The research from the speed-dating sessions showed that verbal and non-verbal clues could be used to gauge a person’s level of interest in the conversation.

The software could be used by companies during negotiations to get the edge on their counterparts, by lecturers at conferences to keep the crowd engaged or even by individuals to make sure they are giving a situation the adequate attention.

Project leader Anmol Madan, a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Media Lab, and his advisers–Alex Pentland, director of the Human Dynamics Research Group at the Media Lab and Carl Marci, director of Social Neuroscience at the Lab have formed IMetrico to capitalize on the research and begin development. There is a long way to go from preliminary research to a working production version of the software, but the area is of great interest and one that we will continue to watch.

Dmitri Williams, the lead author of the study, found “no strong effects associated with aggression”, with no statistical difference between players and the control group on their beliefs on aggression after playing the game – for an average of 56 hours over the month. When compared to the control group, those who played the game were no more likely to argue with their friends or partners and shoed no overall increase in argumentative behavior. The study also did not find any correlation between how a player played the game and aggressive behavior.

Williams does not suggest that his study is conclusive. Rather, Williams says that their will need to be more long-term studies before conclusions on either side can be made. He also believes that future studies may need to focus more closely on younger teenagers.

What does this mean for retail businesses, game studios, publishers and parents? Quite simply, it means do not to listen to the “doomsday” claims of the major media outlets and politicians. It is difficult, if not impossible and inappropriate, to legislate morality. Games, like all activities and forms of media, require parents to be involved in their children’s lives. ESRB ratings on games are a great first step.

According to Ziff Davis Media’s annual “Digital Gaming in America” survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected U.S. households, nearly a quarter of all video game players watched less television than last year and expect to cut their viewing time even further this year. The study also showed that 76.2 million people in the United States play videogames, up from 67.5 million a year ago, representing an increase of 11.4%. The increase in gaming follows strong sales of portable gaming systems and reductions in the prices of current-generation video game consoles.

The Digital Gaming in America study is conducted by Ziff Davis Media Game Group, producers of leading print and online brands Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine and 1UP.com. The study reveals a number of surprising shifts in gaming habits and consumer preferences in 2005.

The study lends credence to observations that consumers are increasingly turning away from television and towards videogames for their entertainment. The Digital Gaming in America study found that 24 percent of gamers reduced their TV watching over the last year, and a further 18 percent expect to do so in the next twelve months. Video gamers are generally spending less time watching television this year compared to last year: they watched 16 hours per week in 2005 versus 18 hours per week in 2004, representing an 11.1% decrease. Furthermore, among core gamers, High Definition Television (HDTV) viewership increased to 18% in 2005 versus 7% last year.

“We’re seeing a broadening of the gamer base as gaming goes more mainstream, and simultaneously a heightening of intensity among core gamers,” said John Davison, Vice President and Editorial Director of Ziff Davis Media Game Group. “We’ve see this expansion reflected in the discussions among our gaming community members on 1UP.com. Portable gaming in particular appeals to a more diverse audience, while the new high-definition capabilities promised in next-gen home consoles has raised core gamers’ expectations for high quality gaming.”

In 2004, video gaming overtook PC gaming for the first year ever. The strong growth in video games continued in 2005. This year, 62.6 million households played video games and 56.6 million played PC games, versus 54.5 million and 52.3 million, respectively, last year. According to the study, this year core gamers will spend an estimated $5.6 billion on gaming products, also up from a year ago.

One of the leading trends impacting the videogame market is portable gaming, which continues to grow strongly. According to the study, 40 percent of video gamers are likely to purchase a portable gaming device in the next twelve months.

Habits of a Portable Gamer

According to the study, 86% of video gamers own a cell phone this year, which is up from 70% a year ago. Of these individuals, 48% play games on their mobile devices. The high proportion is due mainly to the advancement in technology of cellphones and their ability to play multi-functional video games with improved graphics.

Other highlights include:
* Over 42% of gamers purchase games for their cell phones
* Mobile gamers spent an average of $13 in the last 60 days on mobile
games for their cell phones
* Mobile gamers spent 19 minutes per gaming session
* Text messaging is the most popular option on cell phones (77%),
followed by color screens (71%) and downloadable ring tones (67%)
* Arcade (57%), Card (44%) and Puzzle (37%) games are the most popular
games on cell phones

Methodology
The Digital Gaming in America 2005 study was conducted by the Strategy Group, an independent research company. One thousand five hundred and fifty eight people were polled, randomly, nationwide from May 2005 through July 2005.

Full text of press release

The White Paper is the work of over 30 volunteers in the casual games space, and the list of contributors reads almost like a who’s who of the industry including; AOL, TryMedia, Skunk Studios, Large Animal, Pogo, Shockwave, Garage Games and many others. One of the most interesting sections for developers may be the Games to Market section which asks the same questions of 18 different publishers and gets answers about a variety of topics including Commission Breakdown (50-65% rev share from Garage Games) and even who/how to contact each company.