Whenever I’m not running a crazy-ass ponzi scheme in World of Warcraft to generate absurd amount of cash, I try to keep up with what’s actually happening in that game. At least, from time to time. So I was pretty surprised when I saw a pretty lengthy response from one of Blizzard’s flackies that indicated something a bit out of character for the MMORPG supergiant. For the first time — since I can remember, at least, when I started working on my auction shenanigans — Blizzard is focusing on the supermajority rather than the superminority.

Blizzard executed a hotfix recently that resulted in some dramatic latency improvements for about 99 percent of its players. The fix trashed the other 1 percent of the players. But Blizzard seems pretty content with that — you can’t win every battle is their argument. And from a purely logistical standpoint, it’s true. There’s always been a minority that cries about class balance and server maintenance.

Apparently there’s a fix in the pipeline for those latency issues with the 1 percent. Instead of waiting for that fix, But Blizzard went ahead and rolled out the changes and damned the minority to a pretty terrible experience for the next month or so. Blizzard has always been one of those stellar companies that is not satisfied unless it has every single one of its customers on lockdown. (I personally get hounded from time to time to reactivate old canceled accounts.)

Every company hits a threshold where it becomes pure nonsense to pay attention to a tiny blip of a blip. It’s not the happiest decision in the world, but Blizzard had to reach it eventually. It’s still a pretty innocuous introduction to the big leagues for the World of Warcraft developer — not with fanfare, but with an almost complete non-issue.

But it does fire off the signal flare that Blizzard — and its parent company, Activision-Blizzard, have finally hit the big leagues. The video game industry, despite being a massive behemoth, has been only quietly growing as its more famous music and movie brethren get all the attention. So they have been able to skirt some of the rules — maybe it means they don’t have as aggressive revenue targets, maybe it means they can develop a game for 14 years.

Now it seems, for better or worse, that Blizzard might be the one that ends up leading a charge into the mainstream. This was a pure cost-benefit decision and the decision was in favor of improving the experience for the supermajority. That’s some pretty hardcore corporate thinking — and definitely something a bit new for the video game industry.

I caught myself not two seconds ago missing the glamor and perks of working for a company like Reuters a touch. There’s a ton of respect and immediate name recognition. That’s not the case with blogs out here in Silicon Valley — say, like TechCrunch or VentureBeat. (And yes, TechCrunch counts — because very few I know on the east coast are even aware of TechCrunch.)

So it presents a bit of a unique challenge — how can you leverage that weaker level of recognition and stay toe to toe with the supergiants? Well, I’ll default to my editor’s advice on this one: just win.

Make do with limited resources and go forth to kick some ass. Thankfully, out here, doing just that will bring along a victory lap proportional to the amount of work put in. A true scoop is gratefully rewarded by the community (though sometimes the choice for a TechMeme headline is a bit questionable.)

Things move pretty quickly out here, and it’s easy enough to just get comfortable rehashing press releases and covering spot news. But that’s not my style, and I hope it’s not an all-pervasive style. But it does seem that way sometimes. I just know I get an insane amount of satisfaction actually doing additional reporting for my stories and just doing the footwork.

I haven’t found the right pace just yet for it, but I’ll get back to you on that one. In the meantime, just win.

In retrospect, 2010 was a pretty ridiculous year. I graduated from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and within about three weeks I was missing it like hell. I took an internship with Reuters, and actually turned down an offer from them. Instead, I traveled across the country to San Francisco and took a job with VentureBeat. I think I can safely say I have way more fun than most other people while doing my job.

I was engaged for two years and that came to a crashing halt just about five months ago. I can honestly say that it was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. There’s something to be said about being able to freely pursue any kind of interests you have without having to include someone else in the equation constantly. It was rough, and definitely didn’t go out on the best terms, but in the end I think it ended up being the best decision.

Now I’m able to focus solely on my work and just have some fun with it. If you haven’t and are interested, you can check out what I’m writing about on VentureBeat. It usually amounts to video games, cloud computing and Apple. I’ve decided to just go ahead and let my job dominate my life, and it’s worked out pretty well so far. Man, am I seriously getting paid to do this?

Here’s a few other new years resolutions I made — feel free to steal them if you wish.

• No more Chekhov’s Guns
• Circumvent any and all public relations officials
• Kill the embargo, once and for all
• Have a little bit of fun for the next 8 months
• Prove the Riemann hypothesis
• Acquire a taste for good beer
• Run like a maniac
• Be excellent to everyone

But, mostly, I just want to keep it simple. The period just after graduation seems to be the strangest, without someone over your shoulder to grade your every move. I’m missing a little bit of direction right now, but that’ll come with time. For now, it’s time to enjoy San Francisco and get cracking with a job that I actually love.

But hey, you never know — so keep a lookout on Twitter and Facebook for updates to new posts. I am an opinionated bastard with no limit to my love of the vidjamagames, after all.

Cheers!

Google Wave’s demise makes two for Google that have come to a crashing halt — and should hopefully make people realize that Google is, in fact, quite capable of failure like everyone else.

Google’s stock is insanely expensive and probably a bit overvalued, and a lot of that is a product of the hype that surrounds the company on a constant basis. There are at least a few consequences from that, and in the end it leads to problems like Wave and Buzz.

First and foremost, it places the thought that “Google can do no wrong” into the minds of most even remotely tech-minded individuals. Gmail is fantastic, as is the search, as are many of Google’s other apps — but even their best aren’t perfect and they have failed before, and probably will fail again. Simply embracing everything Google throws your way will inevitably backfire in the worst way possible.

The kind of academic mindset that I’ve heard arises at Google is also important to the growth of ideas on their campus, but again, the hype might end up doing more harm than good. There’s almost nothing worse than an elitist programmer that thinks he or she can do no wrong — because they are smart enough to know how to argue effectively AND be stubborn about their problems. I’ve dealt with my fair share of them to have a so-so idea of what to expect.

Google wave was an interesting experiment, but it didn’t fill a hole that needed filling for the average consumer like Gmail and its search engine did in the very early days. Much in the same way, Google Buzz replicated the function of Twitter, and it seems Google Games will have trouble doing more than replicating Facebook’s games.

So, the morale of the story: Google can do wrong. Accept that. Embrace it, even, because it will inevitably lead to bigger and better products. Few companies are as good as Google in learning from their failures.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion is the latest to enter into the superphone era, but now that it has, it’s time to start thinking about the next big thing.

The BlackBerry Torch is as much a BlackBerry as it is a me-too statement that verifies pretty much everything we knew about what’s wanted in a superphone — a large, capacitive touchscreen with 3G connectivity and a stylish and functional interface. Research in Motion has thankfully brought something somewhat new to the table with its trademark QWERTY keypad — although the Droid certainly beat them to it — but the phone still seems much like a statement about how great the rest of the superphones on the market are already.

It’s time for the next big shift — whether that be to the cloud or to a deeper circle of location-based hell, the BlackBerry Torch is as much a sign as any that developers now need to step it up a notch.

We saw this happen once before, when most modern phones began mimicking the Sidekick for its text-based communicative properties — that shift eventually heralded the beginning of the modern smartphone. We even saw the shift to the superphone occur in the same way, with Android and iOS leading the way to a new era of incredible choice in how users define their devices through the Android marketplace and App Store.

Whether this says the change is imminent, however, is not clear — we did after all just escape an incredible recession and are recovering at an anemic pace. The major players are all in place, but it isn’t clear as to whether they are willing to step up their game and produce the next big thing. New features are trickling in very slowly — front-facing cameras, cloud integration, etc — rather than one single company releasing THE flagship device that defines an era.

It also isn’t immediately clear what will define the next era of personal phones/computers, as the biggest overhauls will in the end define the superphone era. But we are in the middle of the superphone era, so we may have to wait a while before we finally see the next big thing. But rest assured, it’s probably already in the pipeline and we’ll hear talk of the next truly integrated communications device.

Jailbreaking most devices nowadays is so easy that even a chicken could handle it — and it really does speak to the escalating understanding that the millenial generation has of its technology.

I will be the first to say that I am not a computer-savvy person. I know very limited amounts of programming (Java, Objective-C) and I use a Mac because it is so damn easy. What I am good at, however, is adaptation — like finding ways to optimize my computer and my design space, find my way around a new program like Photoshop.

But the great part about adaptation is that it doesn’t require incredible technical and programming know-how — just a little bit of quick thinking and some understanding of the technology that goes behind it.

We’ve even gotten to the point where you can visit a website and it will jailbreak the iPhone 4 for you. That doesn’t imply laziness, as one might expect — rather, it speaks to a much deeper understanding of the technology to the point that the millenials do not, and probably will not, understand it at a semantic level, but can interface with it at an almost biological level.

My own jailbreaking attempts mostly consist of applying a program or method to flash new firmware onto the device and troubleshoot it along the way — as I will inevitably need. Again, I am not literate when it comes to programming languages, but I know enough about the technology to troubleshoot my way through it — and I know that there are huge communities out there that are willing to answer questions.

We can thank the millenials for this — the programming ones, at least, for realizing the necessity of an easy-to-use interface and troubleshooting approach to customizing devices. Thankfully, we are more communicative than our previous generations — and when one of us needs help, there always never seems to be a shortage of users willing to do so.

One of the more infuriating (on the developmental side) aspects of virtual markets is the constant threat of currency creation — the unintended use of another in-game item outside of its natural currency as the primary transaction medium.

When an alternative currency takes root as the primary transaction medium, it completely nullifies the sinks that developers have put a lot of time and consideration into and there exist no guaranteed methods of draining the currency and preventing massive levels of inflation as more are acquired over time.

The most notorious case of this is the Stone of Jordan, one of the most powerful and useful — and also surprisingly ubiquitous, though I can never seem to find one — items in the game. To date, the value of the “SoJ” has decreased nearly exponentially — to the point where some of the more powerful weapons can “cost” upwards of 30 copies of the ring.

Of course, Diablo 2 is notorious for currency creation due to its limited moderation. Runes and “perfect gems” are also seen as an acceptable currency, but gold is almost never used outside of repairing equipment, purchasing healing potions and gambling for powerful items.

Less-moderated virtual markets are the most vulnerable to this simply because of smaller development teams and limited time. While updates still arrive periodically for Diablo 2, the team is obviously hard at work (at least we should hope) on the next iteration of the game and are unable to sink a significant amount of time to make gold a more attractive currency. (It also doesn’t help that the stuff drops like water)

Large-scale virtual markets, ones that have a larger number of eyes on them constantly, likewise enjoy a greater amount of security against currency creation. Incentives are made to continue working with the primary transaction medium through attractive sinks, heavy moderation of outside trading and multiple methods of acquiring other “threatening” currencies.

In World of Warcraft, the most threatening currency is again obviously the gem, but there are at least five different methods of acquiring it — badges, honor points, purchasing or prospecting among others. These options do not exist in more limited markets like those of Diablo 2 — nor are there more attractive sinks and the like.

Of course, there are ways to hedge against the more substantial damages of currency creation as a player. The most obvious method is to constantly keep a portion of your assets in commodities that can immediately be liquidated for use. The challenge is to find commodities that are expected to avoid deflation and either remain at the same value or appreciate in value.

In most markets, it means sticking with customizable commodities — enchantment materials, gems and resources that can be used to modify or alter stats and allow for greater customization. Customizable commodities rarely experience deflation unless it is intentional or advance deflation, and more often than not will increase in value as the amount of currency in the market increases.

As always, be aware of the direction that the market is taking and pay attention to patch notes for clues to advanced deflation and potential inflation.

There seem to be more than a few people crying foul over the 100 million Facebook accounts ripped from the internets and thrown onto BitTorrent. What seems to have been lost in the process was that all of this information was OPEN to the public and pulled with a crawler — nothing illegal, for now.

Major corporations getting reportedly all up in there and chowing down on the massive free dose of market research is slightly more worrying. It isn’t a secret that some of the bigs out there have been trolling the Facebook and the Twitter for market research, largely because millenials are almost impossible to market to — short of the monocle smile.

Ron Bowles has essentially done the bigs a massive favor and saved them a good bit of time, and while I have to give him a hand for exposing to the blogodome that —once again — people are stupid and don’t know how to adjust their privacy settings, I have to turn around and slap him mildly across the face for putting some poor college graduate doing market research out of work. You, sir, should be ashamed for what you have done.

Then again, this is at least the nth wakeup call for the lowest denominator of Facebook users that have yet to adjust their privacy settings. It’s not the first, and I’m sure you can use some kind of fancy logic induction to show it won’t be the last — that’s not something I’m going to go into.

It’s time for everyone to do one of two things: stop griping about privacy or turn the hell up your privacy settings. You don’t have an excuse to do neither of them.

I had a chance to speak with Lee Givens, principal product manager of mobile operations for AOL, who mapped out America Online’s plan from here on out – to become the largest source of journalistic original content on the Web. I have to say that while I have a massive hatred for all things AOL, for their former practices amongst other things, that is a damn fine idea.

I’ve always been of the thought that journalism is gradually evolving into a service industry over a manufacturing industry, although that was not always the case. But as the dice has been rolled, this vehicle for profit is no longer viable as advertising on the web is significantly cheaper and much, much more effective.

Before the 2007-10 recession, journalism was most definitely a manufacturing industry — we made newspapers, and that’s how the money was made. Sure, blogs were around, but it was a budding community and the term “citizen journalism” hadn’t yet been thrown around. Ad space was sold at a premium and newspapers reaped fat profits from it.

Nowadays, the only news publications that are financially viable on a large scale are wire services like Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Reuters — but they were always providing a service. They distributed their information out across the wire and making it a business of getting it first, although Bloomberg was a bit of a separate beast with the Bloomberg Terminals.

I should still make it clear that I have the utmost disdain for the term “citizen journalism.” Being in the right place at the right time does not make them a journalist, it just makes them a witness — and the best sources in journalism are first-hand witnesses. We should call this “happenstance journalism,” not citizen journalism.

We’ve fragmented our journalistic community into a smattering of niche blogs like Gawker, Techcrunch and VentureBeat — and that’s far from a bad thing. In fact, it’s great, because people have an even greater access to the news they specifically want. The blogodome has evolved into a true service industry, much like wires were and still are.

AOL is looking to capitalize on that, it seems, and I have to approve of it — it shows a willingness to drop the previous model that clearly has no relevance in our current age.

So, hats off to you Mr. Givens. Here’s hoping you are successful.