Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, Events, real-world, Expansions, Launches, MMO industry, New titles

The numbers are in and Blizzard has broken their own record once again. After selling 2.8 million copies in 24 hours, World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, has set the record as the fastest-selling PC game of all time, according to Blizzard. The irony is that the previous record holder was also Blizzard with their first WoW expansion, The Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million on the January 2007 launch day.Blizzard's CEO and co-founder, Mike ...

Yesterday, I posted my Q&A with Scott Monty from Ford and his responses to a pile of questions about how they are approaching social media. And I promised that I’d share with you my takeaways, so here they are. Will you share yours with us too, in the comments? Strategy First. The tools don’t matter a fig. [...]

A team of ex-Googlers, with backing from Y Combinator, the Friendfeed founders and others, have created what might be both the ugliest and most useful group productivity app we've seen. Etherpad, a new product from Appjet, launches this morning, and you must try it out. It's comparable to Google Docs or a wiki, but it's far more useful. You start off by creating a new workspace. You type basic text on numbered lines at will. Then invite someone else in and have them type as well. Each user's edits are highlighted a different color. Changes are ...

Mozilla just gave the official add-ons website (AMO) a major upgrade! One can now customize Firefox by downloading and installing pre-packaged collections of easy to use add-ons with just one click using an install wizard. So so much easier. I really like this. Tom Merritt at CNET was on the money when he [...]

The saga of cheatsheets and reference sheets continues with this outline of the hot new WordPress 2.7 which will be released soon. Like WordPress 2.5, this is a radical release. Like WordPress 2.5, the bulk of the changes affect the WordPress admin. Unlike WordPress 2.5, however, this is not merely an update of the backend but a complete rebuilding.

Business are inherently complicated, sticky, fuzzy, large-scale, operationally chaotic entities– which is probably at least one reason the 50-90% small business failure rate exists. Let’s make it simple. A business is: A translation of that would look like: And finally, an example would be: Often, startups get frustrated when looking for investment (or other external partnerships/support/resources) because they think [...]

Adobe today said it would develop optimized versions of its AIR and Flash 10 apps for ARM11 and Cortex processors. The update will be part of the Open Screen Project initiative and is meant to bring both complex Internet apps as well as more advance...

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio

Not that we haven't seen a tube-based iPod sound system before, but it's been awhile. And besides, this one's for the UK market first and foremost, so chew on that, rest of the world. Logic 3's Valve80 includes a pair of 2-way bookshelf speakers coated in a black lacquer finish along with a swank tube amplifier that pushes out 40-watts per channel. You'll also find an iPod dock, composite / S-Video outputs and a pair of audio ins and outs. Yeah, £299.99 ($448) is pretty steep, but we're sure ...

US solders and Michigan drivers share one thing in common. The absolute need for better run-flat tires. Solders have to deal with IEDs and weapon fire where Michigan drivers have to pilot over post-Winter sinkholes. Both can be disastrous for the tires and wheels so that’s where this honeycomb tire enters. Current run-flat solutions still require some air [...]

Today we deployed another request driven feature. We've had a lot of people asking to see more information on how many social points they and others have acquired. So we threw together a simple page to give a full view of all of your social points.

Its a great page for checking your status and researching the interests of a person you're considering to follow. The default view shows the top level categories and your cumulative score for that group. To see the individual scores for the subcategories just click on any of the rows to expand.

We ...

Where does it end? Honestly, where do we draw the line? I have come to terms with not being a bank holding company, thereby being denied a bite of the $700 billion bailout. I can live with that. Like most Americans, including every small business owner I know, I can live with having to stand on my own two feet. I can live with being responsible for my decisions and my actions and I can live with the consequences of those actions. I am not saying it is ...

The economy is bad and the stock market is hitting all-time lows. If there was any time to be a little more frugal, this would be it. Thankfully, Google Tools can easily substitute the other expensive software programs you might normally think of first. Here are the Google Tools, and those they substitute, that can help [...]

I imagine more than a few startups will take Jenaé up on her offer to wear your startup shirt and talk about your company for a day. It's $75, and she posts videos on her site, YouTube, Seesmic and Viddler, posts pictures on Flickr and tweets about it all as well. You have to send her the shirt two weeks in advance, and afterwards she gives it away.

It consists of me being your walking advertisement as I wear your company shirt and showcase anything else you send me. I spread the news via Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Viddler, Seesmic ...

We've received multiple (if thin) reports that Apple is working on a search engine of some sort. At first glance, the rumors make sense. Apple's Safari browser has 6-7% market share, and currently uses Google as the search engine for both the standard and iPhone/iPod versions (unlike other browsers, you don't have a choice). They also have a suite of personal productivity tools through Mobile Me that bring some hard core users to their servers daily. All of that traffic and usage equates to a lot of searches, which can be monetized heavily. Also, Apple can ...