Page 260 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce
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8.6   Social Games and Gamification                                                             245

             Hulu
                                                                •  Photography and art sharing. Flickr, Instagram,
           Hulu (hulu.com) offers advertisement-supported streaming   Picasa, SmugMug, Photobucket
           on-demand videos of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox,   •  Video sharing. YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Open-
           Disney (including ABC programs), and other networks and   film, Japan’s Niconico (nicovideo.jp; now available
           studios. Due to copyright laws, Hulu offers videos only to   in English as well),
           users in the United States and a few other countries. Hulu   •  Livecasting. Twitch.tv, Livestream, Skype, Ustream
           provides video in Flash video format. In addition, Hulu   •  Mobile social networks: Path, Liveme
           offers some TV shows and movies in high definition in a   •  Music and audio sharing. ccMixter, FreeSound,
           manner similar to Google Sites, Fox Interactive Media, and   Last.fm, MySpace, Reverb-Nation, The Hype Machine
           Yahoo! Sites. Users can manually share videos they like on   (hypem.com/popular)
           their Facebook pages by using the “Facebook” button. It is   •  Presentation sharing. SlideSnack, SlideShare,
           not necessary to connect their Hulu and Facebook accounts   authorSTREAM
           to do this. Hulu is one of the most popular Internet video   •  Media and entertainment platforms. Kaltura Open
           sites (see nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/binging-is- the-   Source Video (corp.kaltura.com/Video- Solutions/
           new-viewing-for-over-the-top-streamers.html). Hulu offers   Media-and-Entertainment)
           some of its services free, supported by advertising. It also   •  Virtual worlds. Second Life,  The Sims,  Active-
           offers Hulu Plus, which includes premium shows and the   worlds, IMVU
           ability to watch on more devices for a monthly fee of $8.99.   •  Game sharing. Miniclip, Kongregate
           This service, however, also features limited advertising. For
           more about their offerings and difference between Hulu and
           Hulu Plus, click on the “frequently asked questions” tab at
           hulu.com/plus.                                       Note that many of these have some features of social net-
              Advertising and subscriptions are the primary social com-  works; therefore, they may be referred to as such. In addi-
           merce business models for most streaming entertainment  tion, most of these generate revenue from advertising and/or
           sites.                                             subscriptions, including from mobile devices.

             Funny or Die and Cracked.com
                                                                SECTION 8.5  REVIEW QUESTIONS
           According to their website, Funny or Die (funnyordie.com)
           is a comedy video website created by actor and comedian   1.  Relate social networks to streaming music.
           Will Ferrell, among others. Unlike other viral video sites,   2.  Describe the ways you can watch videos on the  Web
           members of Funny or Die are encouraged to vote on videos   (streaming videos on-demand).
           that they view. If they think the video is funny, viewers cast a   3.  Describe some of the multimedia presentation sites.
           vote for “Funny.” The video then gets a score of the total per-
           centage of people who voted the video “Funny.” If the video
           receives an 80% or greater “Funny” rating after 100,000  8.6     SOCIAL GAMES AND GAMIFICATION
           views, it gets an “Immortal” ranking. If the video receives a
           20% or less “Funny” rating after 1000 views, it “dies” and is  A  social game is a video multiplayer game played on the
           relegated to the Crypt section of the site.        Internet, mostly in social networks or in virtual worlds. Gamers
              Cracked.com, another humor website (which includes  can play against computers or against each other. Many social
           videos), also uses crowdsourcing to solicit material from the  games are “massively” multiplayer online games (known as
           Internet crowd.                                    MMOG or MMO), which are capable of supporting hundreds
                                                              to many thousands of players simultaneously. MMOG players
                                                              can compete, collaborate, or just interact with other players
             Multimedia Presentation and Sharing Sites        around the globe. Many game consoles, including the PSP,
                                                              PlayStation 8, Xbox 860, Nintendo DSi, and Wii can be played
           Multimedia sharing can be done in several ways, and its pur-  on the Internet. Additionally, mobile devices and smartphones
           pose is entertainment, advertising, training, and socializa-  based on such operating systems as Android, iOS, webOS, and
           tion. The following are some representative types of sharing,  Windows Mobile are seeing an increase in the number of
           and companies in each area:                        MMO available games. Social games are very popular.
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