Christmas

Sharing Interesting Things

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

One thing I did this Christmas was to gift some people various games that deserved their attention as they were:

  • Indie games that were original or interesting.
  • Early access games that deserved support – and were usually Indie games as well.
  • Games that broke the mold or redid things in smart ways.

The reasons for this may seem obvious, but to be obvious:

  • I want to support Indie games so that the games industry continues to innovate. There’s fantastic stuff out there.
  • I want to support Early Access so games can evolve with proper feedback. I know what good feedback can do.
  • It’s fun to blow people’s minds, so they think outside of the box and experience new things.

I want to strongly encourage this behavior because there’s enough sameness out there, enough watered-down media. If you’ve got something good, share it – and a gift is a great way to share it. Hey, if nothing else, people feel obligated to try it.

Besides the obvious benefits of sharing and so on, remember this includes giving people cold, hard cash. That dev probably needs every cent spent, and you can pay a few extra cents to help out.

Steven Savage

Business Idea: Geek Navitiy Scenes

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After seeing this geek polyglot nativity scene, I had a business idea: custom geek nativity scenes.

Imagine taking action figures, customs, etc. and creating – and selling – geek themed nativity scenes.  Star Wars, Star Trek, Dragonball Z, Sherlock (though you’d probably need 3 Sherlocks as the 3 wise asses), etc.  That’d definitely sell on eBay, Etsy, and maybe just as a commission.

Merely a thought.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

 

Those Powerful Christmas Gifts

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(Some of this was covered in a past podcast, but I wanted to revisit the idea).

What do the Kindle, the iPad, and Smartphones have in common with Gift Cards?

If you answered "flat and I'm sick of hearing of them as gift options" you're close, but I think you're missing the larger picture.  Though I too nearly burnt out on Kindlepadphone news over Christmas, despite my high news-capacity (news is mental jello to me), I believe there is something important about the sales of the Kindle, iPad, and Smartphones over the holiday.  In fact, I think there's a trend here that is worth exploring as it's going to affect technology use, and sales, and any jobs related to them.

We've all heard how Amazon's Kindle sales have been awesome. (I did my part in contributing to them as you saw).  Of course it seems that iPads are selling like crazy(at least in estimates) and have been doing well since the beginning.  Smartphones appear to be hot gifts.  So what is this trend beyond "technical stuff sells" that I'm all worked up over?

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