South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, the person holding back any progess on the introduction of an R18+ for digital games in Australia, labeled a report commisioned by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia “absolutely bogus polling” and “trash”. The report, which found 91 per cent of Australians support the introduction of an R18+ rating, was conducted by Bond University on behalf of the publisher’s lobby group.

Its author defended the research pointing out that the it was done impartially by international firm Nielsen and the statistical analysis was performed “following the highest standard of research ethics”:

Dr Jeffrey Brand, Associate Professor at the Bond University Centre for New Media Research and Education, told Screen Play today that “the research team for Interactive Australia 2009 would be interested in hearing specific criticisms from Mr. Atkinson with respect to particular flaws he sees in our research methodology”.

“All research must be funded and idle claims about the impact of funding influence on research outcomes are less useful than thoughtful considerations of how methodology impacts outcomes,” says Dr Brand.

Mr. Atkinson made the assumption that “he who pays the piper calls the tune”, but Dr Brand says he approached the IEAA with the proposal for the research in 2004 and was “not seeking to be paid for my views”.
“I have sought to bring quality national polling research to the table to facilitate discussion about the place of computer games in our society with the one funding source that would be willing to support the research.

“We make no profit from this research. The IEAA simply covers the cost of the research - not even my time is paid for, instead funding pays for Nielsen to field the study and for postgraduate students to help with analyses, build graphs and write up the report.”

Damn you inconvenient reality! This outright refusal to take the vast majority of the people seriously really shines a light on Atkinson’s understanding of democracy.

I recently wrote a post on this blog introducing you to Jan Chipchase’s Future Perfect blog in an attempt to introduce people to some blogs that might be outside their usual reading scope. Continuing with this series is a post about SEOMoz and why you should be reading it.

A concept that has been around for a long time in the web industry but only recently seems to be gaining steam amongst communications professionals is that of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). According to Wikipedia, this is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site via natural or “organic” search results. Basically, the more optimized your website is, the better traffic you’ll get to it.

For some reason, many of the people that I have spoken to in the past few months seem to think that there is some sort of alchemical magic or technological wizardry that optimizes a site for search engines.

Put aside those thoughts and start reading the SEOMoz blog, written by some of the world’s leading SEO experts. Some of their posts are directed at newcomers to the world of SEO and can offer a great introduction. Others are a little more complicated and technical, and the balance of the two types of posts lets you pick up anywhere and start learning or applying what you already know.

If you’re more of a visual learner, they also have a series of posts called Whiteboard Fridays where one of their team members will create a short, casual video explaining some SEO concepts.

One of my favorite posts on SEOMoz is about the Three Cornerstones of SEO. Even though it was published back in mid-September, I’m constantly referring to the great diagram they have that makes it easy to explain the basic concepts of Search Engine Optimization.

So head on over to SEOMoz and find out why can proudly say they’ve got more than 30,000 subscribers to their RSS feed.

-Parker

PS: Related is a great post from Ed Lee about why your site sucks in search engine rankings. As I commented there:

“I also think that too many people complicate SEO, particularly in our industry. They think that it is some kind of alchemical magic, when it really comes down to the three simple “pillars” that you mention. I’ve always heard that if you design a site that is easy to navigate by humans, the search engine bots/spiders will also be able to crawl it easily and find your content. If you’re creating relevant content and writing naturally using words that people are likely to search for rather than jargon, people will be able to find your site and are more likely to get something out of it, and subsequently link to it.”

(note: this is a belated followup to the post I wrote almost a month ago about Twitter)

A few weeks ago, I told my roommate about the magic of RSS feeds. I also told him about how he could go about subscribing to these feeds using an RSS reader like Google Reader.

Last week, I couldn’t help but feel pride when I walked into his room and saw him with Google Reader open, scrolling down through a number of posts.

“This is great, man,” he told me. “I’m getting all these updates from sites I like, but I don’t have to go back to them to check for new stuff.”

With that statement, I knew that he understood the value of RSS. Even though his reading list of Ultimate Fighting news sites probably isn’t the same as the list of sites that you check on a regular basis, what matters it that he is able to easily get the information he wants. As Seth Godin recently wrote about the topic of subscribing to information via RSS:

“If you subscribe to a blog, any blog, congratulations. Not only have you figured out how to keep up, for free, with huge amounts of information, you’ve done it in an elegant and efficient way. While it may be fun to try to remember which blogs you read and then go visit them in some sort of order, RSS and other subscription tools are way smarter.”

So right now you’re probably thinking that this sounds great, but wondering how it works. Well anywhere you see the RSS logo (normally in orange, but like shells in the Mario games, it can come in a variety of hues), or word ‘Subscribe’ or ‘RSS,’ you can sign up to start recieving RSS feeds. Nearly every these days allows you to subscribe via RSS, and those that don’t are missing out.

At Toronto’s recent WordCamp, I heard Joe Thornley compare subscribing to RSS Feeds to subscribing to magazines. Rather than having to drive all the way downtown to the store and look around to see if his new magazine had arrived, Joe noted that he simply took one of the subscription cards, filled it out, and everytime a new issue of that particular magazine came out it would be delivered right to his house. I think this is a great analogy, except that the best part about subscribing to things via RSS is that they are free and magazines aren’t.

Get started by first signing up for (or downloading) an RSS reader. There are plenty out there, but I prefer Google Reader. It is easy to sign up for at http://reader.Google.com and you can start using it right away.

While some sites will require you to manually input the address of the feed you want to subscribe to, clicking on the RSS logo on a page will generally take you right to Google Reader and allow you to subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you use Firefox, the little RSS icon will often appear in the address bar to let you know you can subscribe to that particular site just by clicking on the button, and being brought to Google Reader.

So what else can you do with RSS?

If you perform searches on a regular basis, it might be easier to subscribe to them via RSS. That way, you’ll be notified everytime a new search result comes up.
Technorati allows you to subscribe to an RSS feed of their search results, as do Twitter and Google.

I also use the Hype Machine to look up music fairly often Since I’m super into an artist named Lykke Li, I subscribe to an RSS feed of search results for her name on the Hype Machine so that I can always get the latest remixes.

For those of you using Yammer for internal communication, you can also subscribe to an RSS feed of your company’s conversation so that you can stay in the game.

If you have an account with Delicious, you can also allow people to subscribe to either every bookmark you save, or just ones you save with certain tags. For example, you could subscribe to my Delicious account at http://delicious.com/parkernow and get every single book mark I save or, if you’re like my roommate, you could choose to just subscribe to the bookmarks I tag ‘music.’

And if you monitor certain Wikipedia pages, you can pay attention to them more easily with RSS. By going to any Wikipedia page and selecting the history tab near the top, you’ll be able to bring up another menu down the left-hand side. One of those items is “RSS”, and subscribing to it will alert you everytime someone makes a chance. Not only will it let you know that the page has been changed, but it will let you know how the new version compares to the old version.
If you start making your RSS reader part of your routine, you’ll realize how much time your saving and how much extra information that you’re absorbing.

Oh, and Dave Fleet has some great tips for using Google Reader to help you with your media monitoring.

I’m sure I’m missing some RSS tips here…any other suggestions?

-Parker

Since the launch of CNW’s Social Media Release a few weeks ago, I’ve often been asked if including comments on the body of a release are a good idea, and if people should opt for them.

Comments are a great tool. If people react to your release in a positive manner, this could be reflected in the comments they leave, supportive of your brand or message.

However, there is the chance that someone will react negatively to your announcement. The fear of them leaving a critical or otherwise nasty comment is what is driving the uncertainty about using comments on a release.

Rather than being seen as a threat, I think that the negative comment should be seen as an opportunity. If one person is critical of your announcement. When they leave a negative comment, you have the chance to respond directly after it and in an official capacity. In a release without comments enabled, unhappy visitors might vocalize their feelings elsewhere, in places you can’t reach or might not be aware of. Further visitors to the release who might also be harboring the same feelings might read your response and be swayed.

-Parker

*

You know what would be awesome? What would be awesome is if someone created an email to FTP service.

I’m talking about the kind of system where you could simply email files to your server.

To upload files related to BlogCampaigning, I have to use either an FTP program (using Fetch for Mac right now) or Dreamhosts web-based FTP.

It would be way more simple if I could simply email files to my Dreamhost space. The FTP login information could either be specified in the email body, or set up with an account to which the email is linked. I envision being able to specify the path in the body of the email.

Is there anything like this out there? I’ve taken a look at YouSendIt, but it isn’t exactly what i’m looking for. There could also be a huge flaw with this system that I’m just not seeing.

-Parker

Yeah, after a few months of wicked hard work from a whole bunch of different people, the CNW Group Social Media Release has arrived!

If you’re not sure what a Social Media Release is, check out this video that CNW commissioned the amazing Mark McKay to do:

If you didn’t get it from the video, one of the solid points about the CNW SMR is that everything is embeddable. That’s how I got the above video into this blog post.

But what’s up with the little round face?

He is CNW SMR - the lines coming out of his mouth represent a message, while the ear represents the comments. Essentially, he’s a conversationalist, just like the CNW SMR.

It is also one of the first SMRs to truly offer comments on the body of the release. I’m not sure that everyone will go for this sort of thing, but I think that it is a fantastic idea. If one person has a comment (negative or positive) about your organizations announcement, chances are others will as well. With comments, that one person (or more than one person) can voice their opinion directly on the release, and you as a PR pro can also respond directly on the release. The advantage of being able to have an official reply in an offical place is obvious. (Oh yeah, these comments are RSS enabled as well, meaning that if you want to keep up to the conversation via RSS, you can)

In order to give you social media enthusiasts a better idea of how sweet the CNW SMR is, Todd Defren graciously allowed me to adapt a chart he created a few months ago that aimed to “untangle the various SMR offerings” from major wire services.

What else is cool about the CNW SMR? Well, you should check it out here and see for yourself (or check here for more CNW SMRs). You can also follow @CNWGroupSMR on Twitter to be updated when we issue new Social Media Releases on behalf of our clients.

The whole CNW team was awesome to work with on this project. Product Manger Duane Bayley has done a fantastic job (and if you have any questions, hit him up on Twitter) of working with the design team on getting all the elements right. CNW’s in-house graphic designer Kelly also did an amazing job of creating all those little face icons that you see on the release (I’ve also got a lot of respect for Kelly for being so patient with me and all my last minute suggestions).

I’d also like to give props to Mark McKay for making the kick-ass video above - he was truly a pleasure to work with. And thanks again to Todd Defren (and the SHIFT Communications crew) for letting us adapt their chart and Brian Solis for being a decent enough guy to provide us with both a quote and a photo for our SMR.

So what do you think? Is the CNW SMR the kind of thing you think you would use? Why or why not? Any thoughts on the topic that you can muster up would be greatly appreciated!

Feel free to comment on the release, email me directly (parker dot mason at newswire dot ca) or find me on Twitter.

-Parker

Disclosure: if it wasn’t already obvious, I work for CNW Group. However, this is a personal blog and the views expressed on it may not reflect those of CNW Group. Basically, I’m going to say what I want here, event if what I want to say has a lot to do with my work. Hey, it is my life and my blog. And Jens’ blog. And to a lesser extent these days, Espen’s blog. But you get the idea. Does anyone even read disclosure statements these days?

In his Yahtzee inspired video Savannah College of Art and Design student Daniel Floyd explores the shaky relationship between our favorite art form and our favorite past time – which, let’s face it, is exploitive, superficial and shallow at best. From tastelessness (Custer’s Revenge) over prudishness (Nintendo’s NES’ content policies) to hypersexualized characters (everything from the 90s to now): Games have not yet come to terms with sex.

This sad fact causes Floyd to raise the warranted question: How can you take seriously an art that denies sexuality? And whose fault is this sad state of affairs?

According to him there are several aspects of this: First of all games (still!) suffer from public misperception as being children’s toys. Never mind the fact that they never were designed solely with the little buggers in mind – which doesn’t stop sensationalist media from reporting on alleged pornographic content even when it’s just some harmless making out. After all videogames give traditional media some stiff competition; every hour you play a game is an hour not spend in front of the TV. Sensationalist claims surely come in handy here.

Then there’s the problem of legislation. Games with sexual content basically have a subscription for an AO rating (at least in the comparatively prudish US), which virtually amounts to a ban (due to the console manufacturer’s as well as retail policies). A further problem: Games which openly flaunt sexual content saw surprisingly (?) poor sales. Just think of titles like BMXXX or Playboy Mansion.

Then there’s the developers who, so far, hardly produced any mature material. But these are the people who could reverse the trend – by learning when and how to use sex. Floyd suggests they should draw on films as inspiration. If don’t know if game should really orientate themselves towards an older medium to achieve something unique but he makes a good point: Sex scenes can enhance the quality of a movie, they help build a story and reveal characteristics of the protagonists. All the while it’s the cause of the game that should dictate what is appropriate (instead of some random cutscenes which hypersexualized models which hardly disclose anything about story or character).

A way to appropriate sex is to explore intimacy in relationships as these provide the context for meaningful interaction between characters. Intimacy is certainly a given in videogames – often on a subtle level, but this subtlety can enhance intimacy even more by revealing less, not more (although this goes for other arts as well).

Floyd concludes with the statement that games should be free to include sex where it belongs without having to fear backlash; a point I raised myself several times as well, also under the viewpoint of games being a burgeoning art which must be afraid to explore this crucial element of human existence (in a hostile media environment and an unfavorable political economy) . After all, as Floyd rightfully points out, sex is one of the defining characteristics of adult entertainment and sets it apart from children’s pastime.

A few question remain though. If games are to orientate themselves towards movies in terms of appropriating sex – does this solely apply for cutscenes? Games are an interactive medium after all; therefore they have to deal differently with narrative elements and convey a story differently.
Also: How do you design an interface that doesn’t make you feel awkward while performing sexual acts in a game? The thought of tenderly treating a thumbstick like a body part to be stimulated certainly has something slightly weird about it… And then there’s still the Wiimote…

-Jens

…I should be a guest blogger on 4 Reasons Why, a blog that regularly posts of list giving four (or sometimes five!) reasons why something is or should be.

1.) It is a chance to broaden my horizons and improve my writing, as cliched as that sounds. My posts here are fairly eclectic and nothing is stopping me from writing about different topics but I tend to focus on the usual suspects of social media, technology, PR and video games. Writing a guest post for someone else will force me to take a different stance and look more closely at my own writing.

2.) As I’ve mentioned before in posts like this, Four Reasons Why is one of my favorite blogs these days. Getting the chance to write for them would be like the plot of a Mark Wahlberg movie like Invincible or Rock Star: longtime fan gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance to become famous and live his dreams.

3.) I totally understand where the 4 Reasons Why guys are coming from. After working on BlogCampaigning for almost two years, I can sympathize with the They’re looking for help, and I can sympathize with the need to do things like drink beer and play sports instead of trying to come up with content for my blog all the time. And who knows, maybe if I write a guest post from them they’ll join the ranks of Paull Young (who wrote a post about Astroturfing for us a while ago) and Rick Weiss (who had a guest post here about video games and PR).

4.) They’re looking for guest bloggers.

If you think I should be a guest blogger on 4 Reasons Why, let them know or come up with your own list.

-Parker

I can’t even remember where I first heard about someecards.com, but I’ve loved them ever since. Targeting an audience of the Facebook-savvy and millenially-jaded, their slogan of “when you care enough to hit send” is what first drew me in. There are a lot of e-card companies out there, and I’m pretty sure that Someecards is the only one whose copy is memorable.

If you haven’t had a chance to look at the site and their cards, do so now. I guarantee you’ll end up sending one to a coworker, loved one, friend or one-night stand. Those are just the kind of cards they make, and the formula is simple: vintage, semi-contextual graphics on a plain background with one line of hilarious writing. Some of my favourites include one that really calls people out for typing “LOL” in emails and conversations and this one about breaking up. And yes, they’ve even got a card about Twitter.

So what are they doing right online? Well, as I’ve mentioned and as you can see, they’ve got great content.

They have also made it super easy to send cards to your friends from their site without messing about with a registration process (although it would be nice if you could login and the site would remember which cards you sent to who).

While at first they started with just email updates about when they would add new cards, they have recently started a Twitter feed to share new cards and other information about the company. With full understanding of their target audience, the company has also developed a Facebook application for sharing these cards.

Both of these moves are huge, as I think there are very few people that would sign up to receive email updates from a company anymore. Not everyone is on Twitter yet (nor do I think Twitter will replace email), but thinking in alternative distribution directions like that is what will determine whether or not organizations succeed in the online space.

I only really have two problems with the strategy of someecards: First of all, they need RSS support. It would be great if I could be alerted to their news and new cards that way. Secondly, I don’t really know how to capitalize or space their company name. Should it be Someecards, or Some E-cards? or someecards? (mesh, among other hot Web.20 entities, has the same problem).

Stay tuned to BlogCampaigning because in the next few days I’ll be doing a follow up post, Online Done Wrong.

-Parker

PS: I promise (threaten?) to send a card from someecards.com to everyone that leaves a comment with a valid email on this post.

A little while ago, I posted here about how my old position as Communications Coordinator was open at CNW Group.

As a result of that post, a number of BlogCampaigning readers applied for the position and I’m delighted to say that one of them got the job!

So say hello to Amanda Laird, Communications Coordinator. You can catch her on Twitter and Del.icio.us.

Amanda, if you’re reading this and want to do a post about life at CNW, let me know!

To everyone else who applied - I heard that all of the top candidates for the position came as a referral from this blog. Knowing that my readers are such top quality makes me feel great, so thanks everyone.

-Parker