gaming > tech stuff > and baseball

I don't buy things  from 'da man!' A commercial, billboard, bumper sticker, banner ad, paid or sponsored link has never recommended a darn thing that I have bought. I do not trust marketing...I trust my friends! Friends tell the truth...and mass marketing is often over-hyped lies. If you do not believe me, as any marketing exec who finds herself at a company with poor product development...and lasts about fourteen [14] months in the job. As my baseball coach used to say, "you can not polish a turd." While a bit harsh..true. I do not subscribe to the marketing theory that impressions + lots of them = buying stuff. I know this is not a nice thing to say, as I do not wish to offend or make redundant marketing execs with fancy lexicons that sound like cotton candy to me. It is a simple fact for me and most everyone I talk to. I buy things because my friends tell me they recommend them OR there's a fairly low risk way to try something [signing up for newsl...

Q. Why is SAS70 Type 2 Certification Important ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS70 ) A. SAS70 indicates professional standards have been used by a service auditor to assess the internal controls of the service organisation.  In a practical use case scenario, when you are audited, if your service provider is NOT SAS70, you will then have to pay your auditors the roughly $10k to audit each service provider.  Net/net - SAS70 Type 2 in conjunction with PCI Compliance are the highest standards you will want to see for a service provider in the Billing, Virtual Storefront & Customer Life Cycle Management fields.

There are four levels of PCI Compliance.  Level I is the highest standard .  Levels III & IV are self audits and should trigger serious red flags within your organization, as there is zero accountability. Why choosing a PCI Level I supplier saves money and limits risk! -         Liability : using a PCI Level I provider means that you absolve yourself from all liability as it pertains to the storage and transmission of credit card data. This means that if there was ever a breach and personal information was revealed, your SERVICE PROVIDER is liable, not your company. o     Imagine your Public Relations Team explaining to your end users that their personal credit card information was compromised because you did not choose a PCI Level I Compliant provider. -        Registration pages: o     You must host registration pages, because they cannot touch credit card data. - ...

Game Publishers that wish to monetise around a strategy for the sale and management of virtual items need to understand the relationship of PCI Compliance with the e-Wallet.  Included in this is the ability to STORE credit card data at the ACCOUNT level for e-Wallet purchases and one-click-buying (spontaneous buying) either 'in or out-of-game.' When discussing an e-Wallet capability, gamers must have their form of payment at the ACCOUNT level so VC (virtual currency) deposited into an e-Wallet can then be used to purchase from a ‘stored balance.’ The only thing that matters is CONVERSION. Since the first static page was posted and an effort was made to get users to sign up for a newsletter or become a member, there is one primary metric that matters; CONVERSION. Conversion is ‘the line in the sand.’ Conversion is taking a user from being a looker to a participant (which can be buying, signing up, registering, trying another game or character class etc), depending ...

A.       eWallet – the ability to have an account with stored value of virtual currency or cash a.        Account management capability 1.        User has a balance of virtual units from which to credit through purchase 2.          Credit through XP (experience points) 3.        Credit through unique Offers/Promotions/PIN codes 4.        Decrement through purchase 5.        Decrement via expiration of assets or currency, based on expiration business rules 6.        Ability for user to view all the transaction details of purchases in a self-service tool 7.        Ability for users to edit user information in a self-service tool 8.        Ability for users to up/cross-sell their plans (subscription based) via a self-service tool b.       Ability for CSRs to view accounts c.        Ability for CSRs to edit accounts d.       Ability for CSRs to modify account details e.       Ability for CSRs to view/edit/modify purchases f.         Ability for CSRs to view/edi...