Need I say more? Go Blue!
Are You For Real?
In the 1960s, Stanley Milgrim, then a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a controversial experiment. In an obviously controlled setting for the study, Milgrim and his associates directed their subjects to give ever-increasing electrical shocks to strangers whenever they gave the wrong answer to questions in a test of memory. The strangers were really actors pretending to experience pain and did not actually receive any jolts of electricity. The study, intended to measure how compliant people would be to obey authority figures, even to the point of inflicting pain on otherwise innocent individuals, was disturbing, to say the least. The subjects, despite some discomfort at first, continued to “shock” the test-taking actors. The experiment raised ethical concerns about subject study methodologies, among other things.
However, recently, Mel Slater, a computer scientist at University College London in England (with a joint appointment to the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona), reproduced this experiment without running afoul of the ethical concerns that the original study raised. Mr. Slater conducted his experiment in a virtual world where test-taking “victims” were avatars whose expressions changed from happy to pained in response to the actions of participants in the study—much the same way the real-life actors did more than 40 years ago. Not only were the results astonishingly similar, but to the surprise of many, the real-life participants experienced increased heart rates and described feelings of regret or feeling badly about delivering electrical shocks—even though they knew the strangers on the other side of the screens were avatars and not real people!
Video Games Become a Taxing Subject
Did you know that Louisiana offers a 20 percent tax credit against expenditures for video game developers and certain other interactive digital media companies that are based there? This digital media tax credit is not unique to Louisiana. In 2005, Atlanta began a program of providing tax incentives to digital media, and a number of other places have begun to attract development using tax incentives as well.
Test Data? Really?
Are you using real customer data for testing? In a recent survey, well over 60 percent of IT professionals use live customer data for application testing and for software development. Guess how many IT professionals outsource application testing (and share live data with the testing company)—about 50 percent. Worried about sensitive data? Compliance with data breach statutes? Privacy concerns? Is this a potential gap in the security wall many companies build around their networks? You bet. Could it be a big compliance, legal and regulatory problem? Bigger bet. While live customer data is obviously the most representative for testing, it’s also the most risky. What can you do? Use fake data. Anonymize or sanitize real data. Use encryption. Limit access and strengthen contract, monitoring and audit controls. We know privacy and security, regulation and compliance. Call us.
Microsoft Bidding for Yahoo!
It’s all about the advertising. Get it? In 2007, researchers estimate that there were well more than 2 billion views of progressive download or streaming media every month! That doesn’t even include user-generated content. Translated into dollars, that means that revenue from advertising associated with streaming video and audio grew to about $1.37 billion—just under 40 percent growth from the year before. Still not convinced, almost half a billion dollars were generated from pre-roll advertising—the ads shown before a streamed television program. Don’t expect these numbers to start falling anytime soon. Even if the economy slows in 2008, the relatively cost-effective ability to create, distribute and measure digital advertising across a variety of media platforms and formats, wired and wireless, will likely not slow down. Go Giants! Go Gadgets! Go Widgets!
Rimon ATM Expands into Hong Kong & Beijing
Rimon’s Advertising Technology & Media Law practice is global and now we have colleagues in Hong Kong and Beijing. If you need us anywhere in this world, any digital domains (Hi David) or virtual ones, we are only a click away. Contact me, or my colleagues, Douglas J. Wood, or Stephen S. Edwards.
Business & Legal Affairs Conference Scheduled for February 12-13, 2008
Douglas J. Wood is again co-chairing the Business & Legal Affairs Conference of the Association of National Advertisers, to be held in New York, Feb. 12–13. If you haven’t signed up, you should.
Rosenbaum Authors Article for E-Commerce Law & Policy Journal
Joseph I. Rosenbaum recently authored an article for the E-Commerce Law & Policy Journal, published in the UK, entitled “Virtual Worlds For Children: An Introduction To The Issues” (January 2008), exploring the emerging use of virtual worlds to advertise and market, exploit, educate and entertain children.
Useless But Compelling Facts – January 2008
In this world of concern over global warming, can you tell me how many times it has been, at least since official records have been kept, that Niagara Falls has actually frozen over completely? Send your answers to me.
Useless But Compelling Facts – December 2007 Answer
Shhhhh! We can’t announce that Thomas Grace at AT&T correctly answered the November 2007 question. He knew the interesting film coincidence in which Mai Ling, who played Mei-Lei, a stewardess who happened to be a spy on a plane in the 1964 James Bond motion picture “Goldfinger,” also played a stewardess and again happened to be a spy on a plane, in the 1969 movie, “The Chairman,” starring Gregory Peck and Anne Heywood.