Windows Live and the AOLization of the Internet

Most of us hated the way AOL did that, and yet site operators, forum moderators, etc. are going right down this same path. Then along comes Microsoft, and takes it to a whole new level with Windows Live.

It would be easy to just blow this off as Microsoft trying to create a new AOL, but what bothers me the most is that this is part of a larger, more negative trend internet wide. External linking, traffic exchanges, link swapping, etc. were once time honored methods of sites helping each other grow. Now people are so obsessed with their own page views they think SHARING traffic is losing traffic. This is a terrible philosophy that is rotting far too many communities at their core.

When sites share traffic, they gain traffic. That’s how the internet works. Lets not obsess over ad clicks and pageviews so mindlessly that we forget what made the internet special. The ability to read a story, click a link for more details, return to post your thoughts, click another link for a similar story, etc. is what makes reading things on the internet so much fun. We forget this at our own peril.

This paper reviews what we know so far about gold farming, seeking to provide the first systematic analysis of the sub-sector. It assembles available data at the sectoral, enterprise and worker level. Five main analytical lenses are then applied. Economic analysis shows how exchange rate variations and scale economies do and do not impact gold farming; and the strong influence of information failure in the purchase of virtual items: known as “real-money trading”. Analysis from the perspective of industrial sociology charts the commoditisation and globalisation of the sub-sector, while value chain models identify resource dependencies and power inequities. Enterprise analysis investigates enterprise entry, existence and progression, and outlines the competitive forces shaping the sub-sector’s development; particularly threats. Developmental analysis investigates the impact of this sub-sector in macro and micro terms. Finally, there is a sociological analysis of the role played by perceptions and other social forces.

He conservatively estimated annual worldwide RMT sales at around $1 billion US. Considering the fact that most forum, blog, and discussion posts (from players) evince a negative attitude towards RMT, who is buying all that gold? I think there is a great deal of “protesting too much” across the internet regarding this issue.