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Louis Vuitton selling an iPad case you don't need
Luxist is our luxury-obsessed sister blog here at Weblogs, Inc, and even though I'm just a poor blogger, I still enjoy browsing through their site every day, checking out all of the stuff I don't need and can't buy. Enter the Louis Vuitton iPad case, patterned canvas cases made by the famous French fashion brand that provide a very stylish sleeve for your Apple tablet. I especially like the notches in the top to show off the Home button -- you'd never actually need to press that button without seeing the screen, but I suspect it's there to just show enough of the iPad that you can prove to any onlookers that that's what you're carrying around. They're $365, which is almost as much as the iPad itself, but as with most luxury items, if you're worried about the price, you probably shouldn't be buying them anyway. Just in case you do have more money than sense, these will go on sale sometime next year. In the meantime, if you need any $400 cases made from felt, we should talk.
Happy 5th birthday (plus or minus a few months) TUAW!
While writing up a short post about Wolfram|Alpha yesterday, I decided to test the service by entering a few domain names to see what kind of results I would get. I typed in TUAW.com and Macworld.com, and was pleased to see a comparison of daily hit statistics, but what really surprised me was to find that the TUAW.com domain went online on June 16th, 2004. That, of course, makes us five years old today!We contacted Scott McNulty and Laurie Duncan, two former TUAW editors, who filled us in on some details. The first "soft launch" TUAW post was actually made on January 27, 2004 by Jason Calacanis -- it has survived a number of design changes and can be viewed here. One of the earliest examples of real-world content is Sean Bonner's post here. So is Wolfram Alpha wrong? Not precisely: those early posts appeared under the "apple.weblogsinc.com" domain, which later migrated to TUAW.com. What's happened in those five short years? The switch to Intel processors, Tiger, Leopard, the iPod nano, shuffle, and touch, and a little something called the iPhone. It's been a lot of fun for all of the bloggers who have been involved, and we hope that TUAW has been and will continue to be among your favorite sources for Apple news.I'm curious -- what changes do you think we'll see in the next five years? Leave a comment below.
Introducing Big Download (beta), the newest site in the Joystiq network
Our good friends at Joystiq are passing out the cigars today -- the newest site in the Joystiq network (which WoW Insider is a part of, within Weblogs, Inc., which is a division of AOL) is called Big Download, is in beta, and is open right now for your browsing and file grabbing pleasure. We'll direct you to the most important part of the site, the World of Warcraft page, where you can grab Blizzard's latest patch and trailer at your convenience (in case you haven't gotten them yet), but the site's got lots of other good stuff, too, including that sweet looking Mirror's Edge gameplay video everyone's going gaga over, and even full MMO clients like Dream of Mirror Online and EVE Online.The site's got a decidedly PC bent, which we're big fans of, obviously, and there's a news page which will cover PC and game file news from 1 to 100% downloaded. And with a feature called "My Tracker," you can sign in and every time there's a new file for a game you want (say, a certain 10 million player fantasy MMO that you just can't get enough of), they'll tell you right away.Looks cool to us. The site is still in beta, as we said, so stay tuned for more updates and features all the time. And what's that you say? You want a place where you can get up-to-date, virus-free WoW addons, a place that never goes down and charges no fees and requires no registration to download from? Patience, my friends. In time, good things will come.
Announcement: WoW Insider is now HKO Insider
We've got an exciting new direction to announce here today on WoW Insider. Because patch 2.4 has just released, and information about Wrath of the Lich King, the next expansion, is pretty much nonexistent (we haven't even been told a release date by Blizzard yet), AOL, the company that owns the Weblogs, Inc. network of blogs, of which WoW Insider is a part, has determined that instead of covering World of Warcraft every day, we will now be covering a new, surely more exciting and surely soon to be more popular massively multiplayer online game.Yes, starting today, WoW Insider is becoming HKO Insider, and instead of WoW, we will be covering the very popular MMO Hello Kitty Online. With no changes at all coming to Azeroth anytime soon, it's time to say goodbye to the Barrens and Stormwind, and "hello" to Hello Kitty, Sanriotown, and the entrancing world of the Flower Kingdom. Playing with Illidan and Kael'thas was fun for a while, but now HKO Insider will bring our daily insight and coverage to the world of Badtz-Maru and Keroppi. Want guides on how to make your garden grow, or the best way to PvP against the My Melody class? They'll be right here on HKO Insider.All of your favorite WoW Insider features -- Know Your Lore, Moviewatch, Shifting Perspectives, and 15 Minutes of Fame, are all here (and you'll be able to see them posted later today). But instead of covering World of Warcraft, all of our writers, whether they like it or not, will be covering Hello Kitty Online from now on.Please enjoy the new focus of the site, and thanks for reading as always. While Hello Kitty Online is still in closed beta, we're almost sure it'll come out before Wrath of the Lich King, and we've been asked to point our site towards the real MMO winner of the year in 2008.
WeGame records their way into my heart
Having to find quality Machinima for two blog posts daily can be torture. Most people won't spring for a paid copy of Fraps or gamecam, so I'm stuck looking at watermarks. That's almost an instant disqualification for consideration.Enter WeGame, which would be just like any other video sharing site if it didn't have one major difference. They offer free, easy to use recording software to their users. As a matter of fact, it's so simple that I was able to record six quick videos, review them, and choose one to upload within 30 minutes of downloading the program. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.Read on after the jump to find out more about WeGame ...
How to comment on WoW Insider
A lot of readers have been asking lately about the new commenting system, and so here's a short guide to setting yourself up in our comments section here on WoW Insider.Our new comments section will not only remember all of your personal information, but they'll also let you use an avatar of your choosing, and even reply to and moderate others' comments. First things first, you've got to get set up with a password. To get one, you simply leave a comment as a new user, putting your name and email in the comments form (under "New Users" below). Then, you'll get sent a message to that email address, with a password (usually random letters and numbers) to sign back in. Come back to the site, and now leave another comment with your email, and the new password (under the "Current Users" title in the comments section), and you're good to go.The next thing you'll want to do is set up your profile, and you can do that by clicking on your name in the comment that you posted.Update: Hopefully this is working for everybody. Lots of people are asking why we do it this way, and I've got a short answer and a long answer. Short answer is "because this is how Blogsmith does it, and we're run with Blogsmith." Longer answer is that the system was designed, I believe, to be quick and easy-- enter your info as a new user, and you get your password and account set up for you. Enter your info as a "current user," and you never have to click another email again. We are listening to your feedback, so if you have ideas, we're all ears (and of course whatever we come up with has to be implemented by our coders, so thanks for being patient). But for now, this is how it works, and hopefully everyone has their situation figured out. Thanks again for reading!
EVE Online on the Mac next Tuesday
The Weblogs, Inc. network of blogs (of which TUAW is a part) announced its newest member today, Massively (covering news about MMO games, and co-lead by yours truly), and right there on the launch page was great news for Mac MMO fans. CCP, the company that makes the great EVE Online, has announced the release of a Mac client for the game next week.The update will come in the form of a new patch for the client (called Trinity), which will also feature new ingame ships, lots of new items, and updated graphics textures. I've only just recently gotten into EVE Online, but it's a good time for a space-based MMO-- really complex economy, harsh PvP, and excellent skill system. I know some Mac users have already been playing it with Boot Camp and Parallels, but it'll be nice to finally have a native Mac client.The patch is supposed to drop next Tuesday, so the Mac client should be available on the site sometime soon after that. Get ready to head into low sec space on your Mac, but be careful-- the rats are out in force.
AOL plans WoW social network at wow.com
Those of us who have ever tried to buy a domain know what I'm about to talk about. All those really great, short, three-to-five letter domain names are taken. You may think you've thought of something nobody else would use, but as soon as you run to your web host of choice and type it into the search box your dreams are shattered as you discover it's already registered to someone else.Over the course of it's many corporate acquisitions over the years, AOL has obviously picked up the ownership of a premium domain name or two. One of them -- wow.com -- was acquired when they took ownership of the remaining assets of Compuserve many years ago. In its article posted this morning, Techcrunch.com reveals that AOL has decided to pull wow.com out of mothballs and use it as a social networking site for World of Warcraft players.I guess this is one instance of patience paying off. They've owned this domain for what appears to be a very long time, and now they've found a great use for it. All I know is that if America Online has decided to take this on, they will do a fantastic job. I'm looking forward to seeing how they execute this plan.Oh. And I should probably take a moment to "do the voice" of that guy who reads the fine print really fast at the end of the car commercials and say "WoW Insider is a part of the Weblogs Inc. blogging network which is owned by America Online."
AOL acquires GameDaily
It seemed just like every other morning at the GameDaily offices. Writers furiously hunching over their laptops, an antiquated espresso machine spluttering in the background and an irate Chris Buffa demanding to know why the cleaners still hadn't removed the decomposing horse from his office. Alas, the quiet productivity came to a grinding halt as soon as the ceiling caved in and a dark shadow fell over the office complex. Moments later, squirming and screeching GameDaily employees were carried off by what witnesses could only label as a "giant ball of random stuff."AOL's business katamari has officially picked up the GameDaily group and lumped it together with the AOL Games division. The AOL Games team will be integrated into GameDaily's editorial staff, though it is unclear at this time as to who will form the head. Ralph Rivera, Vice President and General Manager of AOL Games, explains that gaming sites "have become a valuable resource for advertisers wishing to reach the young male audience, and GameDaily is a brand that resonates with these highly sought after consumers. We look forward to continuing to serve this audience, maximizing GameDaily content with AOL's community features, and further expanding the AOL Games community."To assuage the inevitable fears that an evil, corruptive force will somehow alter GameDaily's editorial content, it is worth pointing out that AOL acquired one Weblogs Inc. last year, a deal which included an obscure gadget blog and some other, thoroughly outrageous video game blog. We don't care who's pushing the ball -- we're enjoying the view, same as always. Welcome to the family, GameDaily.Read - AOL acquires Gamedaily from GigexRead - AOL's Ralph Rivera explains the GameDaily purchase
Live and breathe WoW? We want you!
Do you introduce yourself to others with your character and server name? Is maintenance day the most boring day of the week for you? Being paid to play WoW isn't just a pipe dream; WoW Insider is hiring new bloggers who know Azeroth inside out. Sounds like you?To apply, send three sample blog posts and a bio (including your experience with WoW) to winapply at gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
Is Second Life your life?
Do you spend the majority of your first life in Second Life? Does your primary contact info involve telling people to download the client and find you in-game? Weblogs, Inc. wants you--we're hiring bloggers who know the world inside out and want to write about it!Please show us your stuff by sending three sample posts, a brief bio describing yourself and your experience with Second Life, and your contact information to winapply AT gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
