commercialism
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Analyst: Walmart will sell 4.5 million iPhones in 2009
Which hardly seems believable, but you never know. Yes, Walmart, that bastion of crass commercialism, is going to be carrying the iPhone, that symbol of elegant commercialism, and what we're going to get is a whole lot of commercialism. Analyst Gene Munster (our favorite prognosticator other than the Groundhog himself) says that not only will Apple sell a whopping 45 million iPhones next year, but a tenth of them will be sold right here in America at good ol' Walmart.Apparently he didn't change his numbers from before the announcement of the Walmart deal, since he had already planned on Apple finding other ways to sell the iPhone. But man, that's a lot of iPhones – enough to give everyone in my current city of Chicago an iPhone, and then some to spare (we'd send them to St. Louis, if we actually had a Walmart here to buy them from).But no one's ever been proven wrong overestimating Apple sales we guess. If you think iPhones are commonplace now, wait until you see them at Walmart.[via MacBytes]
A holiday idea: pay it forward
For those of you sickened by the commercialism and resulting chaos of the holiday season, here's an idea to make you appreciate the holidays again: follow the concept of paying it forward. The concept is easy to understand: someone does you a favor, and instead of paying them back, they ask you to do something good for others. I'd like to ask TUAW readers to help take part in a "pay it forward" project. Let me start by telling you about my project this year.In this case, I feel like the good people in the Denver metro area have done me a favor by helping my Mac consulting business, Raven Solutions, LLC, become a success. Earlier in the month, I received a phone call from a local non-profit called Art from Ashes wondering if I could provide some assistance with Marketcircle's Daylite application. After looking at the group's website and becoming aware of the healing work they do with at-risk youths through poetry therapy, I decided to donate my time as a way of giving back to the community.
The Daily Grind: Is the genre too commercial?
Every industry has its Wild West period. Seemingly crazy folks move forward with what turn out to be not-so-crazy ideas. They work together (or in competition) to usher in something totally fresh and new. Some of them stumble. Okay, most of them stumble. But some of them create something so inspiring it births a whole new industry.If you played the early MMOs, you know that it was an exciting frontier. But in recent years the industry has settled into a groove. Yes, it's been a turbulent groove, but it's impossible to deny that in terms of design, most games these days are following a similar formula. This formula -- introduced by EverQuest (well, Dikus, actually!) and refined by World of Warcraft -- is used now because it works. It makes money most of the time -- more often than the other formulas or the wild-eyed ideas, anyway.But since the genre has settled on this formula, has it lost something? Has the massive success of World of Warcraft replaced the exciting frontier with a commercial empire that's short on inspiration and character? Put another way: do you feel like the new games are so focused on commercial appeal that there's no trace of love or passion for the endless as-yet-unimagined possibilities of virtual worlds left over?
