firehose

Thanks a lot, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and 2. Ever since Warner Bros. cracked the code on splitting J.K. Rowling’s final Potter novel into a pair of films, we’ve been saddled with increasingly expansive adaptations—The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1 and 2 were based on a single book. The Hobbit, a single-volume prequel to The Lord Of The Rings, is a film trilogy of its own. So it should be little surprise that Warner Bros. is adapting the three acts of Stephen King’s novel The Stand into four films, four being a trilogy adjusted for inflation.

To be fair, Stephen King has already created a precedent for stuffing more content into Stephen King projects. The original 1978 edition of The Stand was updated in 1980 and again in 1990, when 400 previously unpublished pages were restored for The Stand: The ...

"The European parliament is poised to call for a break-up of Google" in a vote next week, the Financial Times reported today. The resolution would be nonbinding, because any final action would have to be taken by the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.

"A draft motion seen by the Financial Times says that 'unbundling [of] search engines from other commercial services' should be considered as a potential solution to Google’s dominance," the paper wrote. "It has the backing of the parliament’s two main political blocs, the European People’s Party and the Socialists."

While the parliament itself "has no formal power to split up companies," it does have "increasing influence on the [European] Commission, which initiates all EU legislation," the report said. "The commission has been investigating concerns over Google’s dominance of online search for five years, with critics arguing that the company’s rankings favor its own services, hitting its rivals’ profits."

Days after a BuzzFeed journalist revealed that an Uber executive floated the idea of using its “God mode” ability to snoop on journalists who write about the ridesharing service, rival firm Lyft has changed its policy to prevent most employees from doing something similar.

Erin Simpson, a Lyft spokeswoman, told Ars in a statement by e-mail that the company’s “longstanding policy prohibits employees or contractors from accessing any user personal information except to the extent such use is necessary to do their job.”

As of Thursday, the company has “proactively made additional updates to further safeguard our community members' privacy, including the development of tiered access controls that further limit access to user data to a smaller subset of employees and contractors. Ride location data is restricted to an even smaller subset of people.”

Chances are good that most of your favorite websites are almost entirely supported by advertising. In exchange for free content, the thinking goes, you have to view some ads — but Google is trying to shake up that model a bit with a new system it's calling Contributor. Instead of dealing with ads, those who use Contributor will donate between $1 and $3 a month to see Contributor partner sites without any advertising. That money goes to the participating sites, though it's not clear if Google is taking a cut — or if you'll need to donate that much per site you visit.

As of today, only a handful of partners have been announced by Google: Mashable, The Onion, Science Daily, Imgur, WikiHow, and Urban Dictionary. However, Google claims that these sites represent only a "few" of the partnering sites for Contributor, though there's no word on who else is taking part yet. If you're interested in trying out Contributor, you can sign up to join the waitlist now. Once you've signed in and paid your monthly dues, the participating sites will show thank you messages or pixel patterns instead of ads.

Given how much of Google's business is based on online advertising, participating in a movement that reduces ad impressions is a pretty surprising move for Google. That said, it's far too early to say whether Google's plan will catch on, but there's no doubt it's an interesting step into the murky waters of getting paid for online content.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh speaking at the United Nations in September.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

mechaspiderman:

professorthorgi:

Do you see that? Do you see those numbers up there? Those are the sales figures for Storm in the month of October. Let me tell you why this is bad.

Now for years I heard people saying how much they love Storm, how she deserves her own book, asking why Marvel won’t give her one and why they don’t make a movie about her and saying they would totally buy a book of hers if they gave her one.

Well Marvel finally listened and gave her her own ongoing series, and it was indeed a great and happy day. They put superstar writer Greg Pak on the book, a guy who had been campaigning for her to have a series for years and was a big fan of the character and her history, it was all lined up to be a big smash hit. 

Now, jump to October. Marvel cancels any book that drops below 20,000 units in sales (and it’s actually started canceling books even higher than that, sorry All-New X-Factor fans), and sure the book had some low sales compared to other new series when it started, but I didn’t worry. those sales figures only show how much retailers are buying and retailers get it wrong all the time, so I told people “Guys it takes retailers three months to adjust their sales figures to match the way that customers are buying the title. And I know that customers are going to buy this book up, heck they have been at my store, so just wait till issue 4, the sales will jump up on that one because the retailers will see how much the customers want it.”

Yeah, turns out I was wrong, because issue four not only dropped another ten percent (still kind of high for the typical issue 3 to 4 drop), but it is now below the 20,000 dollar cancellation line.

Let me repeat that for you. This book, the book we were all asking for for years, is now at issue 4, the issue that retailers start ordering based on how much they’ve seen it sell, and it’s already below the cancellation line. This means that this book staring a strong, well written, powerful Woman of Color, perhaps the most prominent one in comic book history, the first series she’s ever had, making it a very important book for the history of Marvel… is not selling. And not only is it not selling, it’s REALLY not selling, do you know how many books at Marvel drop below 20,000 units by issue 4? Hardly any.

And to everyone out there whose first instinct is to shout out “Well Marvel isn’t advertising it enough.” Stop, just stop. It’s Storm, STORM! One of the most famous characters in their universe. And it’s being written by Greg Pak, the guy who wrote the most popular Hulk series since probably the 80s and is currently writing some of the most popular series over at DC, he’s kind of a big deal.

So Marvel did their job, we asked for a Storm book and they gave it to us. Now it’s up to us, now the responsibility is on our shoulders, and we have to go out there and buy the book, we can make as many post as we want about how happy we are that this book exist (and those post are great, don’t get me wrong, keep making them) but end of the day, the only thing that can save this book is our four dollars. 

SO HERE’S THE DEAL

You see that cover, that one up there, yeah that’s Storm #5, it comes out this week, this Wednesday the 19th of November, 2014. 

Go to your local comic book store and buy it.

It’s as simple as that.

Well okay there’s more to it than that, but that’s the least we can do. Want to do more? Great, then here we go.

But what if my store sells out or doesn’t carry it?

This is what you do about that. One of the main reasons that the people running comic book stores don’t order enough of the books that people want. It’s because customers don’t make their voices heard. And I don’t mean saying you want a book online. No, I mean if you want this book, go to the person working at your store, and say you want to reserve a copy of Storm this Wednesday. Almost every comic book store in America has some sort of a subscription or reservation or pull list service.

And just pulling a copy of this off the shelf yourself and buying it doesn’t have nearly as much of an impact as you going up to the counter and asking them face to face for it, or them on Tuesday night pulling the books and putting them away for their customers and going “Huh, look, someone is reserving Storm.” There is a new wave of readers finally speaking up and saying that they want books with more diverse characters and different tones and stories than what we’ve always gotten, and I see that each week in my store. But when it comes time for me to pull the books for the people who reserve with us, do you know what I always pull? The same old stuff that has always sold in a comic shop since the dawn of time. And when it comes time for us to order the new books, those pull list and request hold a big sway on what we order. So make your voice heard.

But that’s not all! If your store doesn’t carry this book or they run out, if you just walk in and go “oh well” then that does nothing. Going up to the counter and asking them if they could order another one, will typically result in them actually ordering you another copy. Which then sends a message to Marvel that “Oh hey, look at that, some new people are buying this book who just got into it, great!” And also if you ask them to start a weekly subscription list for you and you ask them to add Storm to that list, if your store doesn’t typically order that book, then that means that they just increased the number of copies they permanently order for that book for all future months. 

But I have to spend my four dollars this week on a big crossover book or another title I really don’t enjoy but I read just so I can find out what happens inside.

No, you don’t, you really don’t. Look at the books you’re buying and ask yourself, “Am I enjoying this?” if the answer is no and you’re just buying it to know what happens in it, then stop, you can learn all that info online in the amount of time it takes me to type this sentence. Spend your money on the books you will enjoy, or on the books you want to support because it sends a message that you are behind, and as I said, Storm really does that. 

But I’m already buying Storm

Awesome, up top!

*SMACK*

Down low!

*SMACK*

Now go buy a second copy and give it to your friends, or give the digital code away online. I tried so hard to save other books in the past (some successes, a lot of failures, I miss you already New Warriors) and the number one way I got people into a series was by getting them hooked with a free copy. (The number two way to get people hooked is by making tons of post talking about how good and important the book is, so if you can’t afford another copy, then by all means do that).

Okay, I’m going to do it, I’m going to buy a copy of Storm this week. What do I do then?

First off, thank you, and secondly, post about it this Wednesday through Friday (19th - 21st) with the tag “Save Storm.” Take a selfie with the cover, make a post about what you love about it, encourage other people to make post about it. Whatever you do, use the tag “Save Storm” and get this going around the internet like a typhoon. 

Come on Storm Chasers, I know we can do this, it’s still early, Marvel will give this book up until at least issue 10 or 12 to turn itself around, but that still means we only have a few issues to save it in, so let’s get it done this week and show everyone that Ororo deserves a book and has the fanbase to back it up!

OR buy it online through <a href="http://marvel.com" rel="nofollow">marvel.com</a> or comixology!

jizeru-jueru did you hear about this?