Specialized Social Media Part 2: Networks for Music Lovers and Musicians

Who Should Used Specialized Media for Music Communities:

If you have a product or service that is of special interest to either music fans or to musicians and bands then networking on these specialized social media networks can be a great form of advertising. This can include businesses that sell music equipment, venues that are looking for new talent, or businesses that meet specialized needs such as creating custom web sites for a band or designing promotional t-shirts, or other service can also greatly benefit from getting their name and products or services in front of the right people.

Of course, anyone involved in the music industry will also want to explore social media dedicated to music fans as a simple and cheap way to promote there own music, find new fans and venues, and sell their own CD’s and other music related items. Additionally, music fans who want to stay up to date on what is happening with their favorite bands or discover great new music that they might not otherwise be exposed to will likely find something worth there time at one of the many music related social media networks.

So whether you are looking to sell your own business or service, promote your own music, or simply spend your online time finding the best new music then checking out music themed social networks may be a great choice. Here are a few great suggestions to get you started:

MusoCity- A great little community for music lovers, fans, bands, and music professionals of various musical genres and a great place to discover new musical artists. Get your free account and start mingling with other music fans and discovering new talent right away.

Last FM- This is a great site for music lovers with videos and profiles for just about every type of music you could be looking for including indie, rock, pop, metal, and even jazz and classical music. Musicians can even find ways to sell their music and build a fan base with Last FM.

ilike.com- iLike is designed for music lovers and utilizes a spectrum of other social networking sites to let users share play lists, discover new music, and get personalized concert alerts.

Diletante- This is a wonderful community for lovers of classical music and new artists and composers looking to gain an audience for their musical talents.

In additional to social networks devoted to the broad spectrum of music, certain artists have also started their own unique versions which is not  only a great way for the bands to connect with their fans but it also presents an excellent opportunity for you to network with others who share your common interest or who might loosely fit a particular type of demographic. One great example of this is the network designed by H.I.M. on their web site at heartagram.com.

Regardless of the type of music that you are looking for or the audience that you wish to capture, odds are there is a perfect social network or two out there that can help you achieve your social networking goals while meeting some interesting people and finding great new talent in an easy and affordable way.

Specialized Social Networking: Networks for Artists & Writers

Social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook have proved useful for a variety of general purposes for both professional and social networking as well as business promotion. However, that generalization can only go so far and for people with more specialized areas of interest or business focus. For this reason, a number of social networks have emerged catering to special niches that allow users to make more useful connections. After all, what is the point of networking with a million people on a large, generalized social network if none of those connections are interested in your particular product, service, or area of interest?

In this multi-part series on specialized social networking, I will scour the digital world and take a look at some great social media sites that are addressing the needs of the niche market in social networking including everything from sites for writers and artists to off the wall social network sites for vampires and the gothic scene. To start the series off, here is a great list of social networking sites for Writers and Artists.

One of the biggest groups that social networking specialty sites are catering to include writers, painters, and other artists. These sites are a great way to showcase your talents, network with potential clients or collectors as well as other artists that can help you discuss your art, and to find great information for improving and expanding your natural talents.

Ten great sites dedicated to this genre include the following:

Art Slant:

A great network site for contemporary artists, Art Slant is where you can show off your latest creations, write a review, announce a showing, or contribute to their array of general content while networking with other contemporary artists.

Art Break:

This is one of my favorite artist’s communities. Not only do you get the benefits of networking with members of the art community but you can also showcase your work and even make arrangements to sell it to potential buyers at Art Break with no commission charges of any kind from Art Break. You can get an account with them for free, or if you prefer an ad free experience they do have a premium option available.

My Own Verse:

For those that feel like waxing poetic, My Own Verse, which describes itself as a poet’s playground, is a great choice. Set up your profile and connect with other poets to share and critique one another’s work which can help you to grow your own talents or simply satisfy your love of the written word by discovering fresh new voices in poetry.

My Art Info:

My Art Info is a social network for artists, art students, and collectors. The site allows artists to show off their talents while giving collectors an opportunity to find new artists or discover a great piece to add to their collection.

Artition:

This is a new but interesting community for the creative types. At Artition you can upload a gallery of your art work, music, videos, or even written works so it offers a little something for everyone in the art world.

The Outpost:

If you are looking for a young and hip creative community, then check out The Outpost, a fairly active community for music, arts, fashion, and culture.

Writer Face:

Next we have a social network designed specifically for writers. With all of the standard trimmings of a traditional social networking site, Writer Face is a great way to connect with other writers.

The Art Review:

A great place for finding the latest artists and art related news and blogs now offers a network feature to allow you to post your own profile, network with other artists, and show case your talent to Art Review visitors.

Peer Scribe:

Another choice in social networking geared towards writers. Post your profile and upload a portfolio or attend online workshops to help you fine tune your writing skills at Peer Scribe.

Art Log:

Art Log provides a great way for artists to announce their events while networking with other artists and commenting on various pieces of work highlighted on the site. They also have a regular newsletter and tons of great info on art events around New York.

The Writer’s Network (Frome OnceWritten):

The folks over at OnceWritten.com now have a social networking service to help you find and connect with fellow writers. Hosted on the Ning network it has all of the standard social networking features such as blogs, customizable profiles, and a friends list.

My Art Space:

My Art Space is another great choice for artists who are looking to show off their current work and get inspired by networking with other like minded and creative souls.

Writer’s Digest:

Of course, no list of writer’s social networks would be complete without the long standing authority in the world of writing, the Writer’s Digest. This magazine which is devoted to the craft and business of writing now has its own social networking community which provides an excellent community for networking with other writers.

 

 

Google Wave: First Impressions

Two days ago, Google released its highly anticipated project dubbed Google Wave. Initially, Google only sent 100,000 invitations, and those folks that were invited could only recruit 8 more people, much like the Gmail launch 5 years ago.

Luckily, I become one of 100,000 users who received an invite to try, test and use Wave. My first impression of Google Wave was that of a kid who has a browser open in front of him but no clue which website he should open.

This is the first screen that I was presented with after I logged into Google wave:

After watching a few videos from the Google Wave team, working with Wave became piece of cake.

Here is a video tutorial from Google wave team:

Navigation panel is easy to understand and work on. Left sidebar is similar to Gmail with Labels and Navigation bar like Inbox, Sent , Trash… Below the Navigation bar, there is a panel for Contacts, which you can drag and drop to create a new wave.

Creating a new wave is like starting a new conversation. One thing worth mentioning here, when we start a new wave, we can add as many contacts as we want. Simply drag and drop contacts from contact list to new wave. Here is a screenshot with multiple contacts in my wave :

Google Wave works in real time; what ever you are typing can be seen by current users in your wave.

Wave is a mash-up of Google chat and Gmail. For example: if you are ‘waving’ another user, and he/she is not online, they will receive the message upon logging in. If they are online, you can start a real time conversation.

Understanding Google Wave Interface :

The Google Wave interface is divided into 3 columns :

1. Navigation
2. Inbox
3. Wave

Navigation Panel :

The Navigation Panel is where you will see the Gmail style inbox, sent items, settings, trash, search and folder options. Followed by your contacts. (See image below)

The search option is interesting: it will let you save a search, and with one click you can search for your previously saved search term.

Inbox Panel :

The interface of the Inbox Panel in Google Wave is somewhat similar to Gmail, but a new button which you will see here is the Mute Button.

Mute Button: can be used to mark any Wave, which you do not want to appear in the Inbox. Though you can search for a Muted wave, by search or if you tagged it while waving.

I find this feature important and useful; at least my girlfriend can’t disturb me unless I want her to.

Wave Panel :

The Wave Panel is where all of the magic happens. This panel can be used to start a new wave and see the Playback. Playback is another useful feature, which allows you to see all of the messages along the timeline. If you tend to have very long conversations, this feature will come in handy. Another great feature of Wave: you can drag and drop pictures into a conversation, but only if you have Google gears installed.

Generally speaking, the flexibility of Wave is pretty exciting. You can add lots of useful extensions from the Google wave extension library. You can also integrate Twitter within Google wave.

The end result? The full effect of Google Wave is not very impressive at the moment, as it relies on a broad user base that is currently hindered by the limited invites. This will most likely change based on the substantial buzz that Google Wave is generating around the web. Look for Google Wave to become next best thing.

Have you used Google Wave? If yes, feel free to share your first impressions.

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Editor Note : This is a guest post by Harsh Agrawal, who write about technology and wordpress at shoutmeloud and Themepremium respectively.

The Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Looking to get the word out about your business or website? Try social media marketing!

What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the use of social networks and networking websites to advertise websites, products and media. With the internet as big as it is, and with the current popularity of all sorts of social networking communities, the internet is a fantastic tool to promote all sorts of material. Plus, with the internet now easily accessible to almost everyone, it is easy for both large and small businesses alike to use these networks to their advantage.

Wide Exposure
The first obvious benefit to social media marketing is the wide exposure people can find on the internet. Inserting a well-placed link or using some creative keywords can near-instantly grant your information exposure to thousands and thousands of social networking users who may be interested in your blog, website or store. Because most of the information on the internet can be picked up and spread on its own (for example, how search engines find your website based on keywords and meta tags), less work is required to start giving your information mass exposure.

Selective Audiences
The internet is a very large place, and has what you might call many different sections — news communities, networking websites like Facebook and Myspace, gaming communities and more. This may seem intimidating at first, but it actually makes things easier. When dealing with advertising online, you are able to easily select what communities and groups you push your social media marketing towards. For example, if your website or company is more geared towards gaming products and services, you would be able to focus on the social gaming communities. This ensures that you don’t invest too much time and possibly money towards advertising your website in places that won’t give your marketing efforts any attention.

Plethora of Advertising Methods
Since there is such a vast number of websites and communities on the internet, finding different ways to advertise is a breeze. The direct social networking sites provide plenty of options, from different groups to clubs and fan sites, but many people have found less orthodox methods to reach viewers. Some marketers turn to YouTube to create viral videos that people begin sharing because of the cool factor, for example. The side-effect they’re looking for is the great exposure their product or service gets while it’s spread with no effort necessary on their part. With the immense user base of YouTube, joining a few groups and plugging your video can be a great way to increase your user base. Another thing you can try is joining communities with similar interests and adding your content there. For example, if you have a website or blog about news, current topics or debate points, you could enter communities such as Digg and Reddit and add your content to gain exposure.

Social media marketing is an incredibly valuable tool for website owners. It provides you with new marketing methods and makes spreading the word much easier than ever before. If used correctly, your website can gain plenty of exposure through various media, and generate interest in their own products and services. Your strategic marketing could reach thousands of internet users in the same way many large companies have been able to do, for a fraction of the price.

Highlights of E3 2009

E3, the biggest gaming convention in the world, has recently had its annual meeting at the Convention Center in L.A.. The gaming companies love to make their big announcements at this time, and here is a list of what they have been holding out on the gaming crowd.

Xbox 360 News

• The open-world action game Crackdown will have a sequel, appropriately named Crackdown 2. Like its predecessor, it is only available for the Xbox 360.
• Mass Effect 2 will be out in early 2010 for the PC and Xbox 360.
• Accept no substitutions, the one and only Jack Black will star in Brutal Legend. Jack is a roadie in this game, who must battle demons for some reason. It is available for the Xbox 360 and PS3, and will also star Lemmy Kilmeister and Ozzy Osbourne.
• Put out an APB on APB, a game available for the PC and Xbox 360 where the gamer plays a gang member.
• One of the bigger announcements was Project Natal, Microsoft’s answer to the Wiimote. This is a camera and microphone that mounts on the television that can sense motion, three-dimensional movement, and sound. This controller that requires nothing but the user was introduced by none other than Steven Spielberg.

Nintendo Wii News

• Red Steel 2 is due out for the Wii, and will make full use of the MotionPlus.
• For the first time, Super Mario Brothers will be available to play on the Wii. A sequel to Super Mario Galaxy is also coming.
• WiiFit Plus and Wii Sports Resort are two sequels that encourage Wii gamers to be more active.
• Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to the popular science-fiction M-rated game. This one appears to be available only for the Wii and is due out September 29^th.

Nintendo DS News

• Nintendo DS users will have a unique gaming experience with Women’s Murder Club: Game of Passion. This is based on James Patterson’s novels, and I believe this had a series, didn’t it?
• Other new DS titles include Kingdom Hearts, Mario and Luigi: Bower’s Inside Story (Fall 2009), and Golden Sun DS (2010).

Sony PS3 News

• God of War 3 is slated to hit the PS3 very soon.
• PS3 titles to be released will be Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Assassin’s Creed 2. Believe it or not, Final Fantasy XIV is under development, exclusively for the PS3.
• PS3 is also developing a motion-sensitive controller similar to the Project Natal from Microsoft.

Sony PSP News

• PSP Go has finally been made official. The Go is smaller, has a slide-up screen, and no UMD drive.
• PSP games to be released include racing game Gran Turismo and a few others. For example, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker should be available for PSP in 2010.

Multiple Platform News

• Tony Hawk made a personal appearance for Tony Hawk Ride, which Zmogo has already reported on in a previous article.
• In case you haven’t heard, Beatles Rock Band will be released on 09.09.09.
• Lost Planet 2 will soon be available for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
• While we are on the subject of those three platforms and sequels, Dead Rising 2 will also be available soon.

Technology Stress and How to Overcome it

Do I even need to ask how many have experienced frustration and anguish that have occurred because of the supposed easy-to-use plug-and-play application that didn’t work? How about when you print a document, only to find out that the hard copy that comes out of the printer looks nothing like the document on your computer screen?

Just today, I was printing out my tax returns and other pertinent information for insurance reasons, and I could not get my wireless printer to churn out my vital documents. Oh man, my frustration level went through the roof!

I imagine that all of you have experienced a similar problem of having your technology fail at a vital time. The you have to waste countless hours troubleshooting the problem so it is working again. I’m sure a lot of you are probably thinking: Sure, who hasn’t experienced this? It’s all part of living in the United States: our tech gives us problems.

The truth is that any time you have any sort of frustration with technology, this is technology stress. Stress of anything is bad enough, but what makes technology stress worse than other daily stress is that most technology is supposed to reduce our stress.

In most cases, it does. I can’t think of how hard it would be for me to do all my writing work on a typewriter as opposed to my laptop. In a recent article that I wrote about Louis CK shows us what is up with technology, describes that today’s tech saves us a lot of time, but we generally focus on how much time is lost as we adapt to newer technologies.

What happens when the devices that are supposed to do that actually make our lives harder? The only solution is to implement some tech-stress saving solutions. I found these online, and I recommend them.

1. Learning basics of computer operations to know why your computer fails you.
2. Figure out what the error message really means.
3. Know the limits of your drivers and programs.
4. Take care of your technology.
5. Stay away from technology for a while.
6. Stress down with the emWave.

Precisely what is the emWave? It is a personal stress reliever that allows you to relax. What you need to put your thumb on pad, and clip a wire to your ear. Yeah, that sounds a little unusual, but it works. All you need to do is start breathing.

The EmWave is programmed to check your pulse, and then measures it for stress levels. If you stress is high, then expect to see a red light. There are other blue lights that you have to match your breathing to, and the light will slowly turn green.

With a few breathing exercises a day, you should be able relieve your tech stress in no time flat. Yes, I can completely aware of the irony of using technology to get rid of technology stress.

Now, what happens when the tech of our electronic stress relievers let us down? Now that is tech stress times two.

Source

Is the Future of Online Advertising in Danger?

In the current economic situation all forms of marketing have suffered a serious blow. The latest numbers suggest that while all marketing media has suffered under the strain of a recessed economy, online advertising growth in particular is softening.

Since the tech and dotcom busts of the 90’s online ad revenue has grown at a staggering pace. The decline of the housing and credit markets, however, has finally spilled over into all sectors. According to the most recent numbers published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, online advertising was sliced by 50%. With growth now at 10.6% it is evident that online ad sales have hit a plateau of $23.4 billion. Q4 sales reached $6.1 billion, showing only a small gain of 2.6%

This is the smallest fourth-quarter gain in seven years. The stunted expansion was caused primarily by bleak holiday retail sales and the strained budgets of the biggest advertisers. 51% of ad dollars were spent in the fourth-quarter season, and this is also the smallest percentage for Q4 sales since 2002.

It is clear that the economy has an immediate impact on ad sales; however, David Silverman of PricewaterCoopers suggested during a recent webinar that the growth of the online ad market, despite the softening economic situation, indicates the strength of online advertising as a viable marketing strategy.

This comes as a hard pill to swallow for investors who have seen 25% gains in recent years, thanks to advances in Web 2.0 that fueled a massive expansion in online ad revenue slip down to single digits.

In 2008, experts predicted the numbers of online advertising sales to remain static, however the more current estimates predict a decline for 2009. A slow, steady decline is expected this year. Dr. Kedrosky, an economist at the Global Hollywood Conference, warned about declines of nearly 10%, as traditional sources of ad sales go into a similar downward spiral.

Some more optimistic sources, such as Jeff Lanctot of Razorfish, say that a static 2009 would be the goal to strive toward, and many analysts have not given up hopes of small growth in the sector. Still, with the depressing numbers from the IAB, many research firms and analysts, like eMarketer, are lowering their expectations for 2009.

Some online advertisers have begun looking for more quantifiable sources of revenue. Search went up 4% in 2008, and performance based advertising grew 6%. This is a shift towards ad sources with more accountable revenue. Analysts expect this trend to continue throughout 2009, and expect this area to grow until the economy firms enough to encourage more entrepreneurial sources of online advertising again.

Display advertising has seen a large slump in sales since 2008, yet it still remains a firm 33% of online spending. Digital video advertising went from 1% to 3%, showing a dramatic increase, despite contributing such a small portion to online ad sales. As video compression techniques improve this area is expected to continue to see growth.

As newspapers continue to face extreme economic strain, classified advertising dropped a hefty $100 million, or about 2% from previous totals. From the industrial sectors the largest contributor, retail, had the biggest losses. Retail ad sales fell from 25% to 22% of spending dollars.

Build up your online presence with interactive advertising and marketing using a firm that understand analytics, behavioral targeting, and focuses on ROI.

Louis CK shows us what is up with technology

A few weeks ago, a comedian named Louis CK was on the Conan O’Brien show and created a lot of buzz on many a blog when he went into an impromptu routine about technology. The video clip has appeared in many sites everywhere, including Kevin Kelly’s Technium.

Granted, Louis CK’s little tirade on technology was probably more a product of a routine that he has performed several times than actual on-the-spot inspiration. If you don’t have four or so minutes to spare to watch it here, I’ll give you the highlights.

This little bit’s unofficial title is called Everything’s amazing, but nobody’s happy. Louis CK talks about how he can remember using a rotary phone, and how slow it was back then. I grew up in a home that had one of these spark-powered dialers, and it took a while before we adapted. I remember one time when one of my friends came over, and he had never even seen a rotary phone.

There was a time when we used technology like rotary phones, old-school IBM Personal Computers and televisions, and we simply understood that they had some shortcomings. I remember our family’s first PC from when we purchased it back in 1985. It took over fifteen minutes to properly boot up, and most of the programs were on floppy disks that really were floppy in their five and a quarter inch glory.

We’ve gone from using that technology to complaining about it. Today, it is all about being fast and furious with tech. It isn’t enough to have a phone that can go on the Internet, unless it can perform this function right away.

Louis CK goes on to say how he can’t stand to see young girls complain about their cell phones. Come on, it’s calling space. Give it some time. He then goes on to talk about how he was on an airplane with Wi-Fi, and how the passenger next to him was upset when it was down. Like the world owes him something that he just discovered ten minutes ago.

I agree with Louis CK’s basic assumption that we have ceased to be amazed by phones that communicate via satellite, or wireless Internet while in the air. In fact, we really should be amazed that we even have air travel, but we aren’t. If anything, we want it to be faster and more efficient.

In short, we have become a society that has become spoiled by technology. We’ve come so accustomed to the latest technology, that we are prepared for our gear to be dated on the day we buy it. As a result, we don’t see how much technology is meeting our needs, but only see the flaws.

Can you imagine the time where we’re at Star Trek levels with our technology? Man, it would be awesome to have transporters, faster-than-light spaceships, food synthesizers, and force fields. However, I know it will get real old, real fast. Even the holodeck, with that awesome ability to create matter from energy, will utterly cease to amaze us.

Do We Still Need Big-Name Antivirus?

Threats from malware in the form of viri and spyware are a constant worry, especially given that the Internet is now an indispensable tool that many of us must use for some of our most crucial daily tasks. But are the big-name antivirus packages, like McAfee and Norton, still necessary?

Recently my computer began to have some serious performance issues. Starting it up took an obscene amount of time, to the point where my computer still wasn’t usable after I went to make an entire plate of waffles for breakfast. Firefox took a full ten minutes to load, graciously giving me plenty of time to tear my hair out and hit my monitor in rage, and my machine would labour intensively at the most simple procedures.

I started to worry that my computer might be infected with some of those “viruses” I’d heard so much about, so I went about trying to get rid of them. After several full scans of my computer’s entire hard drive and running memory, multiple spyware scans, and a great deal of booting from safe mode and investigating the task manager, I decided I had done all I could. Yet only one apparently benign virus had shown up and been dealt with, and my computer was still running like glue dipped in tar encased in cement.

Then I noticed it: a program related to my McAfee antivirus was constantly increasing in memory size. Could my antivirus software have a memory leak? Could the culprit be the very thing that I thought was on my side? With few options left, I took the risk and deleted my entire McAfee package.

It wasn’t easy, because McAfee fought me the entire way. It required that I download some obscure uninstallation program, even though there was already an uninstall in the add/remove programs menu, and it told me many times that I couldn’t uninstall some files because they were still on the computer, which is pretty much the most absurd, frustrating thing a program can tell you. Uninstalling McAfee required just as much effort as deleting the most stubborn spyware.

But lo’ and behold, after deleting McAfee my computer ran flawlessly. No more slow downs or memory leaks or waffle breaks while I waited for the Start Menu to show up. After my horrible experience with this antivirus package, I started to wonder: are big-name antivirus packages worth it any more?

Tech Crunch recently ran an article that brought to the Internet’s attention a strange Symantec-related program called pifts.exe, which seemed to be performing some shady operations. Posting about the application on the Symantec forums resulted in deleted threads and banned accounts, which raised some serious suspicions in the online community.

Was this just a mistake, a series of coincidences, or some sort of conspiracy? It is of course difficult to say, but whatever the case may be, the situation doesn’t exactly give a good impression of Symantec’s service. This is because the pifts mini-scandal reminds us that big-name antivirus software companies are in the business of making money, and just because their programs are supposed to help defend our computers from threats doesn’t mean that those big companies aren’t above sneaking in their own spyware-like programs into the mix. If a company like Sony is apt to do these sorts of things, there’s no reason to think that Symantec or McAfee aren’t above doing the same.

None of this means that Norton, or any other antivirus software, is actually actually sneaking computer-destroying malware onto our computers, but it still brought me to ask this question: is it worth it for me to have big-name antivirus software on my computer if it can be more of a nuisance than the viri it protects me from?

The answer for me has been an unequivocal “no.” McAfee rendered my computer into a machine that had the performance of a profoundly retarded rock, and was just as much of a pain to uninstall as the most tenacious malware. In the past I found that antivirus packages like Symantec’s were intrusive and annoying, constantly bothering me with pop-ups, making computer games crash, and identifying all the wrong programs as threats. Further, if the pifts situation is any indication, Symantec’s software may not be the best choice for users who want to keep mysterious applications from messing with their machines.

The bottom line is that I want my antivirus software to make my computer-use worry and bother-free, which is the exact opposite of what all big antivirus software has done for me. Big-name antivirus has been nothing but a bother for me, and there’s no point in using it if it is just as much, if not more, of a nuisance than most malware.

For now I’ve resorted to using AVG antivirus, because it’s free and seems to do the job. Whether this will hold up is another question, but the reality for me is that big-name antivirus is unnecessary and annoying, and I wouldn’t be surprised if others felt the same way.

Top 5 Linux Games for 2009

As we go about “realizing” our New Year’s resolutions were maybe just a bit too stringent, I’m going review the top five games in Linux. Once the great downfall of the platform, gaming can now only be considered a strength, in the hopes you take up this guilty pleasure and wait for 2010 before you give up on gaming. May I present the premier Linux gaming software with the best from each genre.

Tremulous (Shooter)
This FPS (first-person shooter) game is portable on all main operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac) and is built using the Quake engine.
Players choose between two races: aliens and humans. Both have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and both are opposing teams on the same map. Whilst uncommon for an FPS, Tremulous allows you to build working structures that serve many functions, the most important being  “respawning,” whereby if a player is killed, he reappears at a respawn site. Kills for your race earn you credits. For humans, this means better weapons or upgrades; for aliens, kills enable them to evolve into more powerful beings, the most powerful being the “Tyrant”. The objective behind the game is to not only kill all players of the opposing team (i.e. race) but also to destroy their “respawning” site(s), so that they can’t reappear. With an average of 400 users online at a time, there won’t be a moment left in the day to regret the amount of time you spent playing.

According to SourceForge statistics the game has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times as of 16/10/2008. It was also voted Player’s Choice Standalone Game Of The Year in the Mod Of The Year 2006 competition.
Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://tremulous.net/

Sauerbraten (Shooter)
Meaning “roast meat” in German, this C++ written FPS runs on the main operating systems (Windows, Macs and Linux) and is built using the rendering engine Cube 2, for those of you who aren’t keen followers of the Quake movement (as with Tremulous). The main distinction to make between Tremulous and Sauerbraten is the ability to edit the geometry of the map ingame. Coupled with an emphasis on 6-directional gameplay, this dynamic is going to keep you hooked. It supports both Singleplayer and Multiplayer modes, and the latter of the two offers three possible gameplays: Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, and Capture (whereby teams fight over certain areas of the map). For the Singleplayer mode, there is plenty to keep you busy, unlike in Tremulous. You have the option to play scenarios split into episodes, Deathmatches with bots ganging up on you, and the game even goes so far as to provide levels where you can fight in slow-motion.

MacWorld UK gave it four out of five stars, whereas Games For Windows: The Official Magazine mentioned it in Issue 3 with the reference “perfect for both stingy and creative gamers alike.” But now for an organization whose opinion matters… Phoronix, a purely Linux-orientated hardware and software reviews gave it a positive rating due to “several enchancements to its underlying “Cube 2″ engine”.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://sauerbraten.org/

Warzone 2100 (Strategy)
If you liked StarCraft, you’ll love this. The “3-D cross-platform real-time strategy” denotation doesn’t do justice to this once-proprietary program. This game is highly customizable, allowing everything from a wide array of camera angles, to the ability to customize drive systems (e.g. wheels/track) of your units. Warzone 2100 follows an episodic gameplay structure, following a sequence of scenerios whereby you have a time limit to complete the objectives stated using construction, upgrading, recruitment, etc. for the availability of the manpower required for the task. The latest stable version was released January 12, 2009.

Warzone 2100, once developed for the PlayStation (rating of 76%) and Windows, is now praised by the likes of IGN and Gamespot, which had the following to say about the game:
“Warzone 2100’s highly navigatable 3D engine, unique campaign structure, and multiplayer gameplay should please most real-time strategy fans”.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://wz2100.net/

Glest (Strategy)
This Spanish game, developed using Glest Advanced Engine, is basically a cross between Tremulous and Warzone 2100. It imitates the 3-D, real-time strategy idea of Warzone 2100 but with a medieval theme. It mimics Tremulous in that there are two opposing factions, Magic and Tech, both with their own strengths and weaknesses, both fighting each other on the same map. The Tech team is composed of conventional warriors with medieval weapons at their disposals, with their own unique set of units, buildings and upgrades. The Magic team is targeted at more experienced users where most of their army is “morphed” or “summoned.” Whilst lacking close combat skill, it makes up for it in brute power and versatility. For those of you who loved StarCraft on Windows – this is the game for you.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://glest.wikia.com/wiki/GetGlest

SuperTux (Retro)
For those among us who miss hearing the upbeat music of Level 1 SuperMario, may I present SuperTux. It’s the classic side-scrolling adventure game we all played in our childhood, only now, instead of Mario you have “Tux”, the penguin mascot of Linux. With “Penny” captured by bad guys, it’s up to Tux to rescue her.

Receiving Game Of The Month award by HappyPenguin.Org when it first came out, SuperTux went on to celebrate eight version updates and the SuperTux Development Team and Blizzard Entertainment are eagerly working to bring you Supertux 2. The beta release reiteration of SuperTux really brings back memories of SuperMario with multiple “Worlds”, a variety of monsters and a complimentary, childlike plot.

http://supertux.lethargik.org/

I hope these referrals introduce more users to the variety of games on the Linux platform. While much remains to be accomplished, we can at least revel in the progress made up to 2009, and look forward to what this year will bring for us.

By Mihai Marcas

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