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Social media bots are damaging our democracy
Social media has become our town crier. When major news breaks, roughly two-thirds of American adults now find out about it online in real-time. But the aftermath of the week's third mass shooting, environmental catastrophe or political meltdown is often rife with false claims, misinformation, and outright conspiracy theories. Some of this comes simply from the confusion surrounding the unfolding situation but to an increasing degree, the discussions around these events are being deliberately -- and effectively -- influenced by an army of autonomous digital actors.
The Daily Grind: Does your MMO guild use social networking tools?
The apparent popularity of ZergID, the most recent social network and online gathering spot for MMO players and guilds, made me wonder just how many gamers actively use these types of tools. I can remember them at least as far back as the early 2000s, when ezBoard was king (remember ezBoard?!). More modern versions, like Enjin, expanded on the message board format to include profiles and calendars and even DKP. But my guild has shied away from most such tools. We've always had a custom-built website with our own tools, some purchased software and some handcrafted just for us. I wouldn't want to risk losing data on another network, and truthfully, most of my guild's communication is done through other outlets anyway, like Steam, voice chat, and text-based chat channels. What about you folks? Do you use ZergID, Enjin, or other sites to organize or track your friends and guildmates online? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Textual celebrates three years and version 3.0 with a $3 sale
Textual is a popular, lightweight IRC client for the Mac from Codeux. Now 3 years old, the app was recently updated to version 3.0. To celebrate these milestones, the developers have dropped the price of Textual to US$3. The latest version of Textual has a long changelog that includes new commands for encrypted chat and support for new scripts like moto that'll give you easy access to commonly used emoticons. There's also new messaging feature that'll playback up to 100 messages after each restart. You can read the full of list of changes on Codeux's website. You can download Textual from the Mac App Store. The $3 sale starts today and ends April 28.
TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT
Just a reminder that our live streaming video show, TUAW TV Live, will be polluting the Interwebz at 5 PM EDT today. Although we have some rumors to talk about, most of today's show is up to those of you who are in the chat room so bring your best ideas. As usual, I'll be starting the show at 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT / 10 PM BST) sharp, and we'll take a few minutes to chat before the demos start. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel. The chat is on IRC: join us on server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv.
TUAW event chat for readers
TUAW isn't just a blog, it's a community. Want to chat with other TUAW readers during tomorrow's Apple event? Join us in the #tuaw chatroom on irc.freenode.net. Kevin Avila (eddienull) will be moderating. We'll be starting the chat around 9:30 PT, with our metaliveblog coverage kicking off at 10PT. Looking forward to seeing you then!
Join TUAW tomorrow for day-long Apple event coverage
The banners are up at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and tomorrow at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST, Apple is expected to announce a new iPad and possibly a new Apple TV. The entire crew here at TUAW would love for you to join us for a day-long celebration of the event. The fun starts tomorrow at 9:30 AM PT / 12:30 PM EST when our chatroom will open up for discussion with the TUAW team. Join us in the #tuaw chatroom on irc.freenode.net. Kevin Avila (eddienull) will be moderating. At 9:45 AM PT / 12:45 PM ET, the official TUAW metaliveblog launches with Erica Sadun behind the keyboard and our new liveblogging tool in control. With this cool new tool, you can scroll back and forth in time to see what you missed while running to the bathroom, and there's absolutely no browser refreshing required. Many thanks to Erik Sagen, Joe Bartlett, and Brett Terpstra for their outstanding work on the front end of the new liveblog tool. This was Joe's first project with the team, and according to Brett he got a "roaring start out of the gate." Kudos to the Blogsmith team for their work on the back end of the system. During and after the liveblog, be sure to check TUAW for breakout posts describing any and all new features and products. At 2 PM PST / 5 PM EST, you can join Kelly Guimont and myself here or at ustream.tv/tuaw for an hour long TUAW TV Live. We'll be talking about the announcement and would love for you to join us. It's all here and all live, tomorrow on TUAW.
Guild Wars 2 devs fielding your questions this Wednesday
How is ArenaNet countering the massive Star Wars-related hype bomb that's detonating across the MMO industry this week? Hopefully by ignoring it and continuing to work on Guild Wars 2. That said, the company is trotting out Jon Peters and Johnathan Sharp to field fan questions during a live IRC chat later in the week. The shindig goes down on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. EST, and if you're not familiar with the IRC platform, Guild Wars 2 Guru has a helpful web client that will speed you on your way. You'll need to submit your questions for moderator approval (translation: don't expect an answer to beta or release date queries), so head to GW2 Guru to read all the rules.
The Guild Counsel: Fan Faire 2011 guild leader panel
As you know from this column, I'm a big fan of guilds. So it's probably no surprise that I went to Fan Faire with a special goal of meeting up and talking to guild leaders from a variety of SOE games. Last year, I teamed up with Adam Trzonkowski, my former podcasting co-host and author of the book The Guild Leader's Companion, and together we recorded a show with several guild leaders from EverQuest, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies and Free Realms. This year, we met again, and had a chance to catch up with a few returnees as well as some new faces. Joining the discussion this year were leaders from DC Universe Online, EQ, EQII, and RIFT. Judging by the turnout, you could say that guilds are like snowflakes. We had Rick Hall and his juggernaut guild Heroes, the oldest guild on the Luclin server in EverQuest. He's carrying a roster of hundreds, and regularly raiding 54-man raid content. Added to the list of "long in the tooth" guilds were Legion of the White Rose in EQII, led by Kendricke, and Iniquity, who has moved from EQII to RIFT, and is led by Adam. The league Absolute Justice in DCUO, led by Arctic Titan, is not only playing in a different genre of MMO, they're on a completely different platform, the PS3. Twilight Company, led by Megera in EQII, is mainly a tradeskill guild, which set it apart from the others in attendance. And last, but not least, is Revelry and Honor, my guild from EverQuest II, and now led by Maesyn, Nauralea, and Andaraiel. Read on for a peek at what has led to their success, and some amazing war stories along the way.
VoxOx combines all your contacts into one Mac client
Since we're The Unofficial Apple Weblog, we kept it pretty Apple-oriented during last week's CES conference. There were plenty of interesting Windows apps and other smartphones and tablets around, but if it wasn't Apple-centric, we usually walked past it to find something more our style. But VoxOx is a notable exception -- it's an app and a service that runs on both Windows and Mac, and we sat down with a few members of the team to talk about the app and where it's headed next. The idea for VoxOx is that it encompasses all of your communication in one app. Phone calls, IRC, instant messages, SMS, social networks and so on, are handed through VoxOx's client. The big news at CES was that the VoxOx client was updated, and VoxOx told me that the Mac version is being reworked according to feedback to look more like a Mac app, according to the Apple HIG. Once inside the app, it's quickly apparent that VoxOx is powerful -- you can merge contacts from multiple networks and even keep conversations going across protocols. There is a charge to call out (just like Skype), but there's never a charge for inbound calls, so family and clients can call your computer directly, and/or you can get those calls routed off to any other number. There's even a translation service now integrated into the client, so you can see real-time translations of chats back and forth to other countries. Unfortunately, VoxOx's biggest issue is that it's not very open -- you can't pull in contacts from another app, and you definitely can't bring them out of the service easily. The UI looks better than it used to, I'm told, but it's still not what I'd call a "beautiful" app. Still, if you're looking for a way to consolidate voice communications, VoxOx seems a compelling option.
Adium 1.4 ships with support for Twitter, better group chat features
The duck is amuck: the versatile & free multi-service Mac IM client Adium has reached a new milestone, version 1.4. The new version includes support for Twitter messaging, full IRC support, improved group chat services and bookmarks for persistent chats, an update to the underlying libpurple chat library, and many other tweaks and fixes. The new build requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or newer. Adium supports popular chat networks such as AIM/MobileMe, Google Talk (along with all other Jabber/XMPP-based chat services), MSN and Yahoo! Messenger; it also connects to Facebook chat and other services like QQ, Gadu-Gadu, Lotus Sametime and Novell Groupwise. No, it doesn't do voice or video (or FaceTime), just sweet old text like our forefathers intended. The Adium open source project keeps chugging along, despite a severe resource crunch and shortage of development hours. If you're a savvy Mac programmer with an interest in the topic, the team would welcome your energy and contributions.
IRC on the iPad: Colloquy and Linkinus
I was originally going to do a "TUAW Smackdown" for iPad Internet Relay Chat (IRC) clients, but after testing both mobile Colloquy and Linkinus, there's not a lot of smacking to do. Both apps are well-written, solid offerings that I can wholeheartedly recommend. They allow you to set up your connections, enter your credentials, and easily hop into and out of chat rooms as needed. Using IRC chat is a big deal for Mac and iPhone developers. It's a great way to find peer-to-peer support. Sites like Freenode and OSX86.hu give you access to hundreds of other developers to consult with in real time. Engineers from a major fruit-named corporation frequent popular chat rooms, offering unparalleled technical access. Having a useful IRC client on the go can be golden, so it was important to me to find a good one for the iPad, and both of these clients are excellent. When it comes to price, Colloquy is the clear winner. The iPad version of Colloquy sells for US $1.99 at the App Store. Linkinus costs about four times more at $7.99 for its iPad version. In terms of bang for your buck, both are good buys, though. I don't think you'll be dissatisfied with either one. %Gallery-93852%
Bitlbee and Rooms: Accessing AIM Chat Rooms from your iPhone
We're a pretty AIM-based blog around these parts. The fact that Weblogs, Inc. is owned by AOL may or may not play a role in that. Regardless, we TUAWians spend a lot of time in AIM chat rooms. The App Store's lack of AOL chat room support has been a real burden when we're out on the road with iPhones. I was delighted when a recent tweet put me in contact with Björn Teichmann, author of the iPhone IRC application Rooms [iTunes link]. Rooms, claimed Teichmann, could bring AOL chat rooms to our iPhones. Teichmann sent over a promo code for his app, which normally retails for $1.99, and spent a few hours getting me up to speed on AOL chat rooms using his software. Let me explain: It's not that setting things up ended up being difficult to accomplish, but rather there weren't a lot of clear and available instructions for doing so. What Teichmann worked out over those hours was a somewhat reliable way to access AOL chat rooms via IRC. Read on to learn more about his solution...
Upcoming Champions Online dev chat to focus on the Hero Games
We do a lot of talking on this site (readers included) about things that could be changed or improved in the games we play, and Champions Online has been the subject of these discussions perhaps more than any other title in recent times. While some of our collective feedback must get back to the Cryptic Studios developers, one of the best ways to get through to them is by participating in their dev chats. There is one coming up at 4PM PDT this Thursday, October 8th, and the topic du jour will be the "Hero Games" PvP arenas.The main way that the devs will be taking questions is through this forum thread. They plan to go through as many of the questions posted there as they can, but the audience will get a chance to ask some follow-ups or extra questions at the end too. The IRC channel is #championsonline at irc.coldfront.net, or if you don't want to use an IRC client, there is a Java chat client available as well. So, if you think the Hero Games in Champions Online could be improved somehow, get a few questions ready (remember, the questions thread on the forums gives the highest chance of them being answered) and let your voice be heard this Thursday.
Star Trek Online developers discuss Away Team game mechanics
Cryptic's upcoming Star Trek Online is boldly going where numerous Star Trek PC games have failed before. Only now, for the first time, the Star Trek IP meets massively multiplayer online games, and we're hoping that Cryptic Studios will release a solid sci-fi title that balances Trekkie canon bliss with gameplay that keeps MMO fans happy. A number of Star Trek fans following along with STO's development clearly have high hopes for the game, and so do we at Massively. What's also unique about Star Trek Online is that it's one of the few sci-fi MMOs that has both starship combat and terrestrial gameplay. Of course, there are many questions that remain about Star Trek Online, particularly when it comes to beaming down to the surface of planets. Have you ever wondered about when you beam down with your Away Team, if you'll visit the planets that are prominent in Star Trek canon, or will these be new worlds? For that matter, will your starship be left defenseless without you there on the bridge? And if you do Away Missions only with other player characters, will your Bridge Officers still level up with you?
Star Trek Online IRC dev chat tomorrow, August 12th
Tomorrow marks another Star Trek Online IRC dev chat, which is scheduled to being at 11:30am Pacific Standard Time and will last 30 minutes. The chat will focus on the recent Ask Cryptic, which was all about ground combat, firing your lasers and guys in big rubber monster suits. Okay, so maybe we made that last part up, but it felt right. Anyhow, if you've still got some burning questions after reading that recent Ask Cryptic, feel free to head over to #STO on coldfront.net or access the chat via the web-based java client -- just make sure to type "/join #STO" in the text field.Thankfully, Cryptic realizes that not everyone will be able to make it to the chat. So if you can't, just head over to this ongoing thread and toss your question into the pile. It's a sure bet there'll be a transcript shortly after the chat ends.
Adium 1.4 beta brings Twitter support and other goodies
Our favorite multi-service messaging client, Adium has issued two awesome updates. For OS X 10.4 Tiger users, or users who just want to use the most "stable" Adium release, the team has released Adium 1.3.4. This version boasts and updated core library and an updated Facebook chat plugin. The Adium blog states that this will likely be the last update for OS X 10.4 Tiger users. If you're running OS X 10.5 Leopard and you want to get a taste of some new Adium features, the first beta of Adium 1.4 is also now available. The big news with Adium 1.4 is Twitter support! As Megan reported back in March, Twitter support is something the Adium team has been working hard at implementing for quite some time. In addition to Twitter, Adium 1.4 also supports IRC, enhanced group messaging (independent styles and whatnot) and a slew of other improvements and enhancements. You can check out the whole list here. I haven't really been able to try out the Twitter integration, because I think I follow too many people (Adium crashed after the 2000 or so Growl notifications went haywire), but it looks like a great way to at the very least integrate all of your messaging profiles in one place. What are your thoughts on the new Adium beta?
Join the Jumpgate Evolution developer chat this Tuesday, February 24th
If you happen to have some Jumpgate Evolution questions burning in your brain, then next Tuesday on February 24th we recommend that you join in a developer chat over on Stratics. The actual chat will be held via IRC, which you can find a handy-dandy guide to right here in case you're not overly familiar with the application. For everyone else, here's a list of equally handy, as well as dandy, servers to join: irc.glowfish.de EU - Germany 6667 6668 stratics.frws.com USA - Colorado 6667 6668 7000 stratics.afraidyet.net USA - Texas 6667 6668 irc.gamers-irc.org USA - Colorado 6667 6668 7000 We'll be following up on any transcipts that hit the net afterwords, so if for some reason you're unable to make it (or IRC boggles your mind) you can still partake in new Jumpgate Evolution information as you see fit.
First Look: Mobile Colloquy
I've used the IRC for at least 10 years, if not more, and I've utilized a range of clients starting with the stalwart mIRC for Windows. When I migrated my home system to a Mac, the IRC client of choice quickly became the open-source Colloquy. It was simple to use and easy to integrate scripting via AppleScript. I could easily join chat rooms across multiple serversSo, it should be no surprise that Mobile Colloquy [link opens iTunes] shares many of the same features as its desktop kin. We first saw Mobile Colloquy back in 2007 when it was made available via the Installer.app and it very much the same on the surface as its jailbroken predecessor. It's taken the promise shown back then and has turned into an excellent and stable release that's now available through the App Store.One of the unique features is a built-in browser that will open links transmitted in a chat room or private message. The some of the pages opened through the link are not iPhone-optimized version, but the regular Web sites. I accessed the optimized versions of CNN and Google just fine through the built-in browser, but TUAW came up as the normal site. The button on the bottom right of the browser will take you into Mobile Safari. There is no bookmark tool, you'll go into Safari to take care of that. The "Done" button closes out the built-in browser and returns you back to your chat. It's a very nice feature, but I wish you could bookmark links without having to open the same web page again in Safari - something that could be extremely tedious over the EDGE network. Another drawback is when you do choose to go into Safari, you will be knocked off the servers you were logged into. Give the client a few seconds for the servers to reconnect, then tap the name of the chat room you were in. You will get a prompt asking you if you want to rejoin it.Another very nice feature is completion pop-ups for basic IRC commands, including user names of other people in the chat room. You can also use specialized commands, such as /google query and /wikipedia query, which will bring up results in the built-in browser. All chat rooms and private messages are gathered under one screen. You can set specific words to be highlighted and turn on an optional vibration when the word is used, such as your nickname. Colloquy can be used either in portrait or landscape mode as well.Mobile Colloquy is available in the App Store for $1.99, and it's well worth the money.%Gallery-42866%
Breakfast Topic: So. How's it going?
I'm sort of wondering to myself whether there's any real point to writing a Breakfast Topic this morning. Some of you already have Wrath and have probably spent the last several hours in a caffeine-fueled genial haze exploring Northrend -- or, alternatively, cursing your server's lack of stability and punching holes in nearby walls. Clearly you are in no fit state to be enjoying any breakfast that's not Red Bull or espresso. Some of you, like me, don't yet have Wrath and are anxiously awaiting a delivery or the opening of a store that's stocking it. Many of these folks spent a little time with me, Adam, and Mike in Ustream chat last night and got to witness: a). my first experience with IRC (painful, wasn't it?) and: b). a suspiciously-penned patch note of dubious veracity confirming that Ghostcrawler hates Paladins (see above), and: c). Mike deciding to fish instead of go to Northrend. For a few minutes, anyway.And some of you are comatose WoW Insider staffers whose articles today will be written by your household pets. I don't judge. We're all friends here. But I am madly curious as to what everyone's up to this morning, provided they're awake enough to click options on a poll. What are you up to in the day following Wrath's release?%Poll-22361%
Check out Snak for free today only
A new President, free software, and a look at an IRC client you probably haven't used yet -- what more could you ask for? Snak is giving out their IRC client today (and there's only a little bit of time left in the day, sorry about that) for free to celebrate the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Whether you support that choice or not, no one would vote against free software, right? Go check it out, enjoy the free download (to get a license, you've got to drop an email note to Obama2008 AT snak.com), and leave the Obama drama for your mama.Personally Colloquy does pretty much everything I'll ever need in an IRC client, and it's already free (although they do appreciate donations if you enjoy the 'ware). But Snak looks like it's got some cool features too, including an "Mp3 list" for... erm... backup downloading, and an "address book" for all your IRC friends. Seems worth trying out, and today at least, you can't beat the price.Thanks, Alex D!
