Content Generation

First, let me explain that I have been on both sides of this fence for a very long time. As the founder of a content generation firm , I have built my business on job boards as a freelancer. I have also used a multitude of freelancers for everything from graphic design to delivering my groceries. And I can say that the following tips help across the board.

Would you ever walk into a department store, grab an item, take it to the counter, and haggle over the price? Unless the object is broken or there was some confusion over a discount, the chances are very low. Most people respect that the prices given at a department store are the prices you pay at the counter.

The same is true in freelancing. When you contact a freelancer and they provide a bid, the last thing you want to do is haggle over price. This translates as “I don’t respect what you do, but I still don’t want to do it myself.”  Only in the situation that you think the original project description was inaccurate should you go back for a different price.

The biggest mistake I see on job boards are people who promise consistent work or a bulk order down the road. This is a major red flag to anyone who does freelancing. Unfortunately we have all dealt with the client who leveraged this tactic for a lower rate and then never followed through. A few bad apples ruin it for everyone.

How to Slash Prices with Freelancers - Business 2 Community

Forrester defines DOCCM as software used to compose, format, personalize and distribute content to support physical and electronic customer communications and improve the customer experience; examples include policies, contracts, correspondence, statements, invoices, personalized marketing materials and welcome kits.

EMC Document Sciences xPression enables the creation, production and multi-channel delivery (output for print, email, SMS, and Web channels) of personalized customer communications in both real-time and high-volume batch, on premise or in the cloud. Leading organizations rely on xPression's open, flexible, service-oriented architecture, unparalleled scalability, and out-of-the-box ECM integration to easily produce a wide range of vital business documents. xPression enables organizations to reduce document development costs by up to 90%, improve time-to-market by as much as 75%, and enhance the overall customer experience with highly effective 1:1 communications.

In recognizing EMC Document Sciences as a Leader, the report states that EMC Document Sciences "is well-positioned for a complete DOCCM enterprise platform, with an open architecture based on Java and web services. It has excellent on-demand credentials and a strong multi-channel strategy combined with a services architecture well-suited to real-time and straight-through content generation." EMC Document Sciences was also noted for its "superior support for interactive applications," as well as "extensive support for multichannel output." EMC Document Sciences was also recognized for its innovation in integrating with standard authoring tools which reduces dependence on IT and allows business users to adopt and manage DOCCM applications more easily while also enabling compliance.

Forrester segments the DOCCM market into structured (scheduled, batch output such as monthly bills or statements); interactive (human interaction mixed with templates for multi-channel output) and on-demand (output triggered by multi-channel requests) categories. For inclusion in the Forrester evaluation, the DOCCM software solution must support all three document output segments, have innovative solutions or significant market share, and generate strong customer interest.

Independent Research Firm Cites EMC Document Sciences as a Leader in Customer ... - MarketWatch (press release)

Oct. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --- Meeting the demands to consistently create engaging content that will attract and maintain loyal customers can be overwhelming.  Utilizing surveys and polls, however, can not only provide valuable insight into an audience's thoughts and needs, but also be an easy, cost-effective way to generate thought-provoking content.

Stay Top of Mind Through Creative Content Generation , which will explore how organizations can easily conduct surveys and polls and collect compelling data to turn into insightful content that can capture press attention and spark conversations across social networks.  Additionally, the webinar will teach participants how to get the most out of their content by transforming its formats to repurpose the results.

Zoomerang is a fast, easy-to-use and powerful tool to make and send your own online surveys and polls.  Millions of people and thousands of businesses, non-profits and educational institutions trust Zoomerang online surveys and polls to gather feedback allowing them to make better decisions with minimal cost and effort. Zoomerang provides customizable survey templates for the most common questions including customer satisfaction, meeting feedback, product feedback, event planning, online voting and hundreds more. Zoomerang customers can take advantage of Zoomerang Sample, a panel of more than 2.5 million consumers ready to take surveys.  Zoomerang is a product of MarketTools Inc.  For more information, visit www.zoomerang.com .

MarketTools is the leading provider of software and services for market research and enterprise feedback management (EFM). The company is focused on providing leading organizations the actionable customer insights they need to make better business decisions that lead to high-value business impact. As the first company to make online surveys widely available on the Web, MarketTools continues its market leading position by providing the broadest range of powerful, accurate and integrated customer insight technologies that empower companies to become the most customer-centric organizations in their industries. MarketTools' premier portfolio of technology-based insight brands includes CustomerSat™, TrueSample®, Zoomerang®, ZoomPanel® and ZoomPanel Tech™.

Zoomerang and PR Newswire Host a Free Webinar: Stay Top of Mind Through ... - PR Newswire (press release)

The proposed content generation fund will incentivise local content producers to think big, says deputy minister of communications Obed Bapela.

The December 2013 target for switching over from analogue to digital broadcasting is within reach, and the country will be able to generate enough content after the migration.

So said deputy minister of communications Obed Bapela, when opening the 2011 Information Technology Association (ITA) Conference, yesterday, in Bryanston.

Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) wants R1.6 billion from government to enable it to provide new content as part of the country's migration to digital television.

Digital TV to boost local content - ITWeb (blog)

This question crops up on a pretty regular basis in a variety of my online haunts. It's understandable ? AI is, I feel, one of the trickier (or at least murkier) areas of game development and it's a fundamental area that, if done wrong, is going to get you a bad review very quickly.

With that said, though, this kind of question is one a lot of people ask about AI, and it isn't really one that can be answered. There isn't one way to implement AI for a game, there are lots, and which one is most appropriate varies hugely dependent on what kind of game you are making, what you're trying to achieve, and what else is going on in your game.

Gamasutra - News - Opinion: What Shape Is Your Game? Our Properties: Gamasutra GameCareerGuide IndieGames GameSetWatch GDC IGF Game Developer Magazine GAO My Message close tag. * * If you do not want to deal with the intricities of the noscript * section, delete the tag (from ... to ). On * average, the noscript tag is called from less than 1% of internet * users. */--> tag. * * If you do not want to deal with the intricities of the noscript * section, delete the tag (from ... to ). On * average, the noscript tag is called from less than 1% of internet * users. */--> news features Blogs jobs/resumes contractors store rss twitter SEARCH GO ALL CONSOLE/PC GAMES SOCIAL/ONLINE GAMES SMARTPHONE/TABLET GAMES INDEPENDENT GAMES SERIOUS GAMES View All October 11, 2011 Zynga Expands To New Genres, Details Platform Plans GDC Online: How Dragon Age Legends Got To 100K Likes -- And Was Not A Big Hit [ 1 ] GDC Online: Neal Stephenson's Company Working On 'The Mongoliad' Game [ 1 ] View All October 11, 2011 We're Going to Need Another Category: Going Hardcore on Facebook A Big Change For Soulcalibur V : The Tago Interview [ 7 ] Two Tendrils Of Resident Evil 's Evolution [ 4 ] View All Post RSS October 11, 2011 Postmortem: Muse Games' Guns of Icarus 9 Things We can Learn about Game Design from Dark Souls [ 6 ] Star Power is a Dangerous Thing Lurking In The Shadows: Examining the Mechanics of Stealth Games. [ 13 ] Indie Game Contests - To Enter Or Not To Enter [ 3 ] View All Post a Job RSS October 11, 2011 Armature Studio Designer THQ - San Diego Senior UI Artist LightBox Interactive Tools Programmer Armature Studio Senior Designer Volition Lead Combat Designer Cadillac Jack Software Game Development Engineer - DirectX, OpenGL, Unity3D View All RSS October 11, 2011 Zordix launches the trailer together with the... SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT TAPS LEGENDARY COMIC... NEWS RELEASE: Hundreds to get taste of uni life at... Steven “Destiny” Bonnell joins Quantic... Majesco Entertainment Wants to Hear the Crowd Roar... Editor-In-Chief/News Director: Kris Graft Features Director: Christian Nutt Senior Contributing Editor: Brandon Sheffield Business Editor: Colin Campbell --> News Editors: Kris Graft, Kyle Orland, Frank Cifaldi, Mike Rose Editors-At-Large: Leigh Alexander, Chris Morris Advertising: Jennifer Sulik Recruitment: Gina Gross Feature Submissions Comment Guidelines Opinion: What Shape Is Your Game? by Luke Dicken [ Console/PC , Programming ] 2 comments October 11, 2011 tag. * * If you do not want to deal with the intricities of the noscript * section, delete the tag (from ... to ). On * average, the noscript tag is called from less than 1% of internet * users. */--> [In this reprinted #altdevblogaday -opinion piece, AI game researcher Luke Dicken says that before you write AI for a game, you first need to know the shape of the problem you're trying to solve.] "I'm making a game. How do I write AI for it?" This question crops up on a pretty regular basis in a variety of my online haunts. It's understandable ? AI is, I feel, one of the trickier (or at least murkier) areas of game development and it's a fundamental area that, if done wrong, is going to get you a bad review very quickly. With that said, though, this kind of question is one a lot of people ask about AI, and it isn't really one that can be answered. There isn't one way to implement AI for a game, there are lots, and which one is most appropriate varies hugely dependent on what kind of game you are making, what you're trying to achieve, and what else is going on in your game. So, how can we make the question more meaningful? What it needs is a lot more information to be included. In an ideal world, the question will look more like "I'm making a game that focuses on , how do I write an AI system that will do ", but in an ideal world you'd maybe instead be looking to hire an AI consultant (I am available should you want to pursue that further? :) )  rather than just asking in relatively relevant places online.

That might get you an answer that is specifically tailored to what you are trying to do and the game you are trying to make, rather than just a ten-minute chat on an IRC channel and a bunch of potentially useful links, which is often what this question receives.

Opinion: What Shape Is Your Game? - Gamasutra