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Survey reveals what twinks are all about
This is interesting -- our friend Drayner over at Twinkinfo.com recently took a survey of his site's readers, and after picking up almost 1,000 replies, he's posted the results. They show a little bit of insight into the kind of person that plays a twink (a character maxed out at a certain level before 80, usually to run around in PvP battlegrounds). Specifically, they're male, under 21, play for 21-30 hours a week, think their gear rates a 5 out of 5, and are probably level 19 and in Warsong Gulch capturing flags. I'm not sure if that's suprising or not, but those are pretty safe majority votes, even given the smaller sample size of the poll.Twink players are also more likely to not have more than one account, which kind of makes sense -- they only need one account and just have lots of characters on them. 66% of twinks are actually in twink guilds, and most have at least more than one twink to play around with. Hunters and Rogues top the class choices (though not with a clear majority at all). And perhaps most interesting, over 50% of twinks say Blizzard is serving them just fine -- they're not ignoring them, and they're not giving them any more love than other players. Still, as Drayner pointed out to us, about 36% of twinks said they'd leave the game if Blizzard shut them down with an additional 30% saying Maybe, so Blizzard does have a little incentive there to keep twinking happening.Quite interesting -- twinks might be one of the only groups of players who are completely fine with how they're being handled in game. 2.3 obviously gave them lots of new items to play with, and while there is some frustration from other players, Blizzard has made it so easy to level that if you don't want to play with the twinks at 19, you can move on pretty quickly.
Motorola loses a cool $397M in Q3, delays handset division spinoff
Now that the books have been cooked to a delicious golden brown, Motorola has revealed its third quarter earnings today -- and for consumers and shareholders alike, the news isn't particularly awesome. First off, they've lost $397 million in the quarter, compared with $40 million in net earnings (black ink, not red) in the same quarter a year ago. Secondly, while they've announced today that they plan to develop a full range of Android-powered handsets in 2009, they're not coming quickly; they're expected in the second half of the year at the earliest, and when you factor in the inevitable delays, that could realistically mean 2010 for some of the models. What's more, they've announced a belt-tightening plan to cut $800 million in 2009 expenditures, which will inevitably lead to some morale problems out in Schaumburg (for those who are still employed). Finally -- and we're not sure if this is ultimately good or bad news -- co-CEO Sanjay Jha has decided to hold off on selling the handset division until some time after the third quarter of 2009 due to the "macro-economic environment," which we think is code for "we couldn't give it away right now." Keep fightin', Moto.Update: How's Moto going to save close to a billion dollars in 2009, you ask? Greg Brown, the other half of Motorola's Ambiguously Executive Duo, mentioned that it'll be trimming 3,000 jobs from the company -- 2,000 of which will be coming from the handset division. We imagine it's pretty hard for company staffers to innovate when there's a constant fear of the chopping block looming overhead.
North American TV shipments up 28% year-over-year, Samsung gets bragging rights
Despite the weakening economy here in the US and elsewhere, people are -- as predicted -- still showing interest in HDTV. Shortly after seeing what a nice Q2 the plasma sector had, DisplaySearch has revealed that TV shipments in general were way, way up in said quarter. In fact, North America saw the biggest year-over-year increase (28%) since the outfit started tracking TV shipments in 2004; then there's the 26% quarter-over-quarter growth, which is equally impressive. LCD TV shipments rose 52% compared to last year while PDP shipments shot up 34% in the same period, and it's safe to say that Samsung has the most to gloat about. It was the leading overall brand with shipments of its sets surging to a record 19.1% of all shipments in North America during Q2. Anxious to see who took the proverbial silver / bronze? Check out all of the stats in the read link below.
DisplaySearch Q2 plasma results shows big growth, Matsushita on top
Oh, how quickly the mighty have fallen (again). Shortly after Matsushita dropped to third in plasma shipments in Q1, the outfit has leapfrogged both LG and Samsung SDI in order to claim the gold in Q2 2008. The outfit's revenue share skyrocketed from 29.4% to 36.8%, showing a 23% year-over-year improvement. Also of note, 1080p PDPs saw remarkable growth (54% year-over-year) this quarter, which were reportedly driven by sales of 46-inch models. Looking at Matsushita in particular, over 43% of its plasma shipments in Q2 were 1080p, and overall it "accounted for over 70% of all 1080p PDP shipments." Anyone taking bets on who comes out on top in Q3?
AT&T has secured 379,000 U-verse TV subscribers
While Verizon was busy acquiring over a quarter-million new FiOS TV customers during Q1 2008, AT&T wasn't resting on its laurels. The company managed to pick up 148,000 new U-verse TV customers in the same period, pushing the 231,000 it ended 2007 with up to a new total of 379,000. Potentially more interesting is the firm's intentions to still hit the long-standing goal of netting a million subscribers before 2009 dawns, and as if that wasn't bold enough, it's looking to pass approximately 30 million living units by the end of 2010 (it's at 9 million now). Of course, we aren't discounting the company's ability to do so -- after all, it is rolling out service to a plethora of new locales at a pretty brisk rate -- but with the inability to record two HD channels at once, we can't see it really catching on until a few more limitations are lifted.
CEO chats up spinoff as Motorola posts nightmarish quarter
Motorola's recognized that its mobile division's been in a train-wreck status for a little while now, yet somehow, losses continue to widen at the world's number three (for the moment, anyway) manufacturer. The company shed $194 million on sales of $7.448 billion, compared to a loss of $181 million on sales of $9.433 billion in the same quarter a year prior; we suppose the gap is narrower, but not by a heck of a lot. There's no profit in sight, either, with guidance of 2 to 4 cents per share worth of red ink in the second quarter.As expected, the bulk of that bleeding is coming directly out of the mobile division, and to that end, USA Today sat down with CEO Greg Brown to chat about the state of the business and the impending spinoff. Brown says that by preparing for the divorce, the division's becoming more accountable for its own success -- in other words, it has a credit card and checkbook in its own name -- and that its people are becoming "energized" by the move. He wants cooler, consumer-driven products hitting the market at a consistently quick pace (one look at Samsung or LG should teach 'em a thing or two about "quick pace") and says that too great a focus on technology has led them astray recently. That sounds a little bogus to us; we certainly wouldn't call Moto devices the highest-tech around, but hey, if he wants to convince himself that his company's phones aren't selling well because they're too high-tech, we can't blame him.Curiously, Brown paused before answering that he "feels" like the mobile division would probably benefit from using the Motorola name going forward; we'd assumed Motorola's granting of branding rights were a foregone conclusion, but it seems like those details haven't been sorted out yet. If they end up pulling even the Moto name from the new company, honestly, what's left?Read - Greg Brown interviewRead - Q1 2008 results
Apple Q2 results liveblog, 5 pm ET
We're going to be covering the Apple earnings call live at 5pm ET / 2 pm PT, now that the earnings report is out ($1.16 per share, hot hot hot!). To listen in on the call, you can pick up the QuickTime stream here. Remember, for ongoing coverage of AAPL be sure to check out our sister site BloggingStocks.
Latest financials confirm it: Sprint and Nextel probably shouldn't have merged
Well, it looks like the aggressively priced unlimited action really didn't come a moment too soon. We're no economists here, but it doesn't take rocket science, a Ph.D., collegiate level maths, or even a fancy calculator to crunch the cold, hard numbers coming out of Sprint Nextel's fourth quarter earnings call. For starters, the number three carrier in the US reported a net loss of nearly $29.5 billion, which -- get this -- is more than the combined value of its outstanding stock. Let us reiterate for emphasis and drama value: Sprint lost more money in the fourth quarter of 2007 than the company is worth. Wow. If it's any consolation, the staggering figure is largely due to a $29.7 billion write-down of Nextel's value, which as the Wall Street Journal lays out, makes the 2005 merger officially a "Deal From Hell." With postpaid subscribers continuing to migrate to other carriers, there's no telling how to stop the hemorrhaging -- especially if the fresh $99 unlimited plan doesn't end up doing the trick -- but something tells us the move to Kansas isn't going to magically patch it all up.
DirecTV's net income down slightly, uptick in HD consumption blamed
We already heard plenty of rosy news out of the Comcast camp, and generally speaking, the message is equally positive from DirecTV. Granted, the firm reported "only" $348 million in net income compared to $356 million a year earlier, but revenues managed to skyrocket some 17-percent. The reason, according to CNN Money, is the substantial uptick in demand for "more costly high-definition TV and digital recording features." Also of note, DTV hooked nearly half a million new subscribers in Q4 alone, and the monthly churn rate had dropped to 1.42-percent -- its "lowest in eight years." Consumers flocking to HD? Imagine that![Via Bloomberg]
Comcast nets 2.5 million new digital cable subscribers, lots of cash in 2007
Verizon isn't the only major cable provider walking with a bounce in its step in 2008, as Comcast's latest earnings report revealed that the company snagged 2.5 million new digital cable subscribers and $2.6 billion in net income during 2007. Also of note, it made sure we knew that 42-percent of its digital cable customers took advantage of "advanced services such as DVR and high-definition television" compared to 36-percent a year prior. Unfortunately, it failed to reveal exactly what percentage was subscribed addicted to HD programming, but we were told that pay-per-view revenue shot up 22-percent to a staggering $774 million in the last 12 months.[Via Light Reading, image courtesy of Thermocaster]
RIM doubles up profits, revenue
Just as forecasted, Research in Motion has delivered quite the Wall Street-pleasing results in the fiscal third-quarter. The BlackBerry maker's recently released numbers showed a staggering $370.5 million profit compared to "just" $175.2 million in the same quarter last year. Furthermore, the firm's Q3 revenue rose to $1.67 billion from $835.1 million last year. According to co-CEO Jim Balsillie, it's pretty "clear [that] BlackBerry smartphones have crossed over from being viewed as a primarily enterprise product to being marketed as a strong mainstream offering," and considering the results, it's hard to argue that point. Oh, and just in case you haven't seen enough digits in one post, it should be noted that RIM shipped out more than 3.9 million handsets and added around 1.65 million BlackBerry subscribers in Q3, also. Not too shabby, eh?
70% of WoW Insider readers will be on Voice Chat
Well there you go. I'd like to say that I called it (although I did say that voice chat would find a place in a lot of PUGgers' hearts), but I was surprised to see that 70% of you readers expect to use Blizzard's new voice chat feature coming in 2.2. Personally, I'd rather stick to Teamspeak (and I'm guessing my guild will do just that). And I know, from the comments yesterday, that there are lots of people out there who just don't want to get involved in voice chat, whether there's an ingame system or not.But clearly Blizzard was right to put the time in-- there is a good majority of players ready to plug a mic in and start speaking to each other. Very interesting.Update: You're right, commenters. Title updated from "players" to "WoW Insider readers," since that's who we actually polled. I only got a B in Stats class in college.
Liveblogging the Apple earnings call
We're on the line live for the Apple FY07 Third Quarter earnings call, starting up in just a few minutes at 5pm Eastern. Apple is expected to announce some big numbers, and we should get an idea of what they expect from the iPhone in the next quarter or so. More updates as we post them.If you want to join in, Apple's got a quicktime link, so hit it and let the big numbers hit your ears at the same time they do us.5:08pm: Welcome to the conference call. Here we go.5:10pm: Peter Oppenheimer: record-breaking max sales and continued strong demand for iPod. Net income up 73%, huge numbers overall.5:11pm: Apple's growth rate more than 2 1/2 times the predicted growth rate for the quarter. Mac notebooks up 42%. 9.8 million iPods, 31% growth over the quarter.5:12pm: 71.5% share of MP3 players are iPods. iTunes surpassed Amazon and Target.5:13pm: 270,000 iPhones sold, 146,000 iPhones activated. Some problems during the first week, and we would like to apologize. Since then, AT&T has corrected the cause, and we are experiencing high percentage of problem-free activation.More after the break.
Joystiq interviews gay gamer survey's creator Jason Rockwood
Six months after the data for the "Gaymer Survey" was expected, we catch up with Jason Rockwood to find out what took so long, what he hopes the data is used for and what can various groups take away from the survey? What's the most surprising thing to you about the survey? The biggest surprise about the survey was the interest from the audience. I had over 10,000 people from over 35 countries take this survey -- in like a week! It was so much of an overwhelming response. That was the biggest surprise.What took so long for the results to be released? This was expected to be finished last fall, correct?It took a long time because I decided that my applications to graduate school would be strengthened by having brought the project to some level of completion, because of that, I was working on the project mostly independently, outside the context of the academic setting, even though I was under the supervision and association of UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). So, it took a long time because I was working on this alone. Most researchers doing this kind of work are in a PhD. program and have funding of some kind. I had neither.So, what do you hope happens with the data?I hope it sparks continued conversation between and among gamers and developers on the topic of gay and bi people in gaming. I hope that it forms a foundation for exploration in the academic community on the topics of gaming motivation and sexuality, and I hope more games end up being produced for a gay audience.
X360F Pumpkin Carving Contest Winners
When it comes to the Xbox 360 community, not all fanboys are created equal -- and neither are all pumpkins. We received around 20 entries in our carving contest and all of them (except for the odd photoshop fake) were better than the average jack-o-lantern. Richard and I would like to thank all the contestants for making this a competitive contest that proved Xbox 360 fanboys have Halloween spirit and artistic talent to spare. And special thanks to our prize sponsor RockMeTV.com for providing a copy of Gears of War to give away.Without further ado, please view the official results of our 1st Annual Xbox 360 Pumpkin Carving Contest after the jump
Wii Fanboy favicon poll: and the winner is ...
The readers have spoken! The new favicon for Wii Fanboy will be ...... what, you didn't think we'd make it that easy, did you? Results after the jump.
DS Fanboy favicon poll: and the winner is ....
The readers have spoken! The new favicon for DS Fanboy will be ...... what, you didn't think we'd make it that easy, did you? Results after the jump.
Apple turns the most customer service frowns upside down
I couldn't resist the headline, but can you blame me? This tech stuff can be a doozie on consumers, but it seems that Apple just received the highest rankings in a customer support satisfaction survey released by the ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index). This 2006 second quarter report found Apple's industry-leading satisfaction rating on the rise to 83%, up 2.5% from last year (funny: in my student adventures, an 83% leading the class is typically considered a bad thing). The industry overall saw a slow increase in satisfaction, with Dell leaping over 5% to their 78% mark, and even HP and (surprisingly) Gateway seeing mild improvements.Check out the full list of results - which includes plenty of other industries like automotive and even search engines - for more details of which companies are putting smiles on their customer's faces.
Sunday survey results: FM Transmitters - yea...not really
This past Sunday I ran a survey to see what y'all thought of iPod FM transmitters - the good, the bad and the ugly. I figured that since I weeded through all the comments, I should let you guys know whether you gave this particular category of iPod accessories a thumbs up or down.The greater majority of you really weren't that fond of FM transmitters, the two largest reasons being signal unreliability and overall audio quality. Many of the FM transmitter haters recommended going with solutions like cassette adapters, FM modulators or a full-on dedicated stereo with iPod-friendly inputs.Among the still-healthy pro-FM transmitter crowd however, there were three clear favorites: Kensington, Griffin and Monster. This was really helpful in narrowing down my options, and I think I'm going to do some more digging on those and what all this FM stuff is about before dropping another ~ $70-80 or more on something like this.Ultimately, since my wife always beats me to the Matrix anyway (and she already made me sleep on the couch for dropping $80 on an iPod accessory), I opted to go with a $15 cassette adapter for now (on a side note: it's hilarious what accessory makers can get away with by slapping iPod branding on cassette tape adapters these days). I know, I know: a cheap and simple solution for all the awesome feedback you readers offered, but until AOL (remember: they bought Weblogs, Inc. last year. You're reading an AOL blog! Mwahaha!) sends the 6-figure job offer my way, I'll have to wait on the pimped out touch-screen iPod + Car Borg™ adapter (heck AOL, I'll even take a 5-figure job!). When I do get around to finding that perfect iPod/Borg/accessory thingy, trust me: you'll be the first to know. Resistance, after all, is futile.
Google Importer - search Google with Spotlight
Google Importer is a Spotlight plug-in that can add a Google search to the list of results Spotlight returns. It is installed as a System Preferences pane with options to adjust how many results are gathered from Google, whether to show a link to an actual Google results page, and how many seconds to wait after the last key is typed to begin searching Google. Note: that last option only adjusts how long Spotlight waits to search Google, not the rest of your computer like many users have been asking for.I haven't tinkered around with this, but it sounds like a nice idea as long as it doesn't hang the Spotlight search too much. Google Importer is donationware and available from Caffeinated Cocoa Software.
