Word: socialism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...online-gaming world's fastest-growing segments - multiplayer role-playing games and social games - are increasingly generating impressive revenues from tiny transactions. Most role-playing games, or RPGs, originally relied primarily on subscriptions for income. The enormously popular World of Warcraft series remains subscription-based. But the trend is the free-to-play, or "freemium," model. Under this system, gamers can play as long as they want at no cost, but they usually find the games are more entertaining when they pay small fees to outfit their characters with virtual weapons, useful tools and other accessories. The popular virtual world...
...charges and subscriptions. And, freed from paying a set fee each month, some players actually end up spending more. Four years ago, Shanda Interactive Entertainment, China's biggest online-game developer, ditched subscriptions for the freemium model and turned around its sagging fortunes. Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of London-based social-gaming site Playfish, says micropayments work because online games aren't a product, they're an ongoing service. "It's nonsensical to pay up front for a service," says Segerstrale. "You don't pay up front for your gas or water...
...CyberCash offered online payment systems that didn't catch on. PlaySpan CEO Karl Mehta says this is because "there was not enough digital content to consume." That's changing. Mehta predicts that micropayment services will over the next few years become available on a wide range of gaming and social websites - adding that there's no reason they can't be used to buy newspaper and magazine articles, too. "The newspaper industry is now crying for this kind of solution," he says. If it works, publishers might be able to nickel-and-dime their way back to health...
...What I am convinced about is that the reaction of [these] millions of people is setting the stage for social and political change, whether that comes now, in the next four years, or the next eight years," Homaifar says. "The protesters are enlightening the world about the social, economic, and political frustrations Iranian people have been feeling for many years...
Iran is preparing for a potentially violent confrontation between the government and supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi on Saturday. While messages on Twitter and other social networking sites indicate much concern about safety, many opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insist they will attend the rally called by Mousavi. Several drew inspiration from a protest march on Thursday, an account of which TIME received on Friday morning. The author has requested anonymity...