The CEO Game

• 07Aug

  Miniconomy an Online Trading Game

  The CEO Game, Web 2 Comments
  

  Miniconomy - Online trading game

  Miniconomy is a massive online multiplayer game that revolves around the art of trading. The unique idea behind Miniconomy game play is your ability to choose your career path. You can become a police officer, mayor or even a real estate agent. By allowing an unrestricted game play Miniconomy is trying to generate a virtual world in which similar events of the real world can occur such as a finance crises or dot-com bubble.  The game play is based on rounds, each round least for 3 weeks and after each round a winner is declared. Miniconomy was founded at 2002 by Wouter Leenards a computer science student and his brother.  The game first started as a simple online business game but along the years it evolved to include social and political sides.

  You might ask yourself what is the difference between The CEO game and Miniconomy well there are few differences. The first difference is that in the CEO game the virtual economy takes the key role of the game unlike Miniconomy in which the game focus today is divided to other sides. The second difference is that we in the CEO game are investing a great effort to give an extra educational value to the game as we define ourselves as a serious game. Third Miniconomy as a Netherlands based company focused mainly on their local audience unlike the CEO game which tries to focus globally. The fourth difference is that we believe that in order to allow more educational and entertaining game The CEO game must be based on real world values such as real countries/cites , real currencies, bank systems , real events and so on , unlike Miniconomy which a created a virtual world with virtual values and real world connection.

  Ailon

  The CEO Game.

  Miniconomy screenshots:

  

  Miniconomy street

  

  miniconomy maps

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  Tags: Miniconomy, The CEO Game

• 19Jul

  Chapter 2: SEO is not a choice

  The CEO Game, Web 1 Comment

  SEO is not a Choice

  Actually, it is a choice – the same choice everybody has for doing a bungee jump without the rope.

  

  SEO choosing is not an option

  Lets start with defining Search Engine Optimization.
  The term SEO refers to the things you can do in order to increase the number of desirable visitors who come to you website, after entering relevant search keywords in the search engine of their choice. In some cases (most of the cases!), this includes changing the website itself, redesigning HTML and content text, adding meta tags and so on. It also includes communicating directly with the seach engine, or gaining traffic by inserting links from other sources (“back-links”), so the search engine increases your page rank.

  Before I continue the good work, I must add few important remarks:

  • SEO is not accurate science.
  • No one really knows Google’s formula. There are a lot of ingredients, and page rank is one of them (an important one, but only one).
  • (More about Page Rank in future articles.)
  • Your website isn’t meant for everyone.
  • The meaning of the phrase ‘desirable visitors’ means the people who wish to find you. Potential users and not, god forbid, spamers, hackers, scanners and other persona non-grata.

  OK, Now that we are familiar with the subject, I wish you all the best….

  … Of course I wouldn’t abandon you guys! After all we’ve been through.

  So, How to Get Started?
  There are many books, blogs, articles, dedicate websites, videos, SEO companies and god knows what. But first things first – you must set your business goals! Here are several questions you should ask yourself, in order to define your target:
  What is my main business?
  What are my business goals? My main goal?
  What are my objectives for the next month, 6 months, 1 year?
  What function does my website serve (in relation to the business goals)?
  How does my website help me achieve my goals?
  Who do I want to visit my site?
  What do I want my visitors to do with my site?
  Which page (on my site) is the top priority, that every visitor must see?

  Next – determine your measuring factors!

  Why measuring factors?

  
  This isn’t really a question, but because so many fail at this stage, I’ll provide an explanation. Success factors as for number and KPI (Key Performance Indicators) put you in a place of visual, solid target, rather than fluid or feeling based factors. (what does the yellow part mean????)
  Those factors give you the direction you’re heading (up or down), set you up with schedule, and let you respond accordingly.
  Now – get to work!

  Before I say goodbye, I’ll give a great tip for all the future players of The CEO game . These business goals and measuring factors are important and essential, and that SEO is also a part of the game. It is important to position your company well, and in the earliest stage that you can.

  I’ll finish with the famous phrase:
  “…an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.” (Shakespeare, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’)
  Competition is the best when one wishes to improve, to get the most of it until you reach the top (Nim, ‘the CEO Game blog’)
  That will do it for now. Next time we’ll get to a more practical level.

  Nimrod Elias.

  The CEO game.

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  Tags: Advertisings, Google, SEO, The CEO Game, Web 2.0

• 04Jul

  Micro-Payments for Dummies

  Web What is Your Opinion?
  • You’re wandering through the endless corridors of the Internet, and you find an interesting article. But they want 10 bucks to read it – outrageous!
  • You write science fiction stories, and you want to get paid. Nobody has heard of you yet, so you only want to charge a few cents to read a story. But the credit card companies take much more than that for every transaction, and you end up losing money.
  • Your band wants to release an Internet single for only 25 cents, but you don’t want to sign any paperwork with iTunes or any other record company.

  Why isn’t there a way to pay very small amounts of money over the Internet? Why are we still using credit cards or other similar billing solutions? The concept of micro-payments has been around for a very long time, attempting to address the very same needs listed above, which have existed since the dawn of the Internet itself. However, credit card payments (either directly between the end-user and the product source, or through a service such as PayPal or Amazon) still capture most of the market. Let’s see why:

  

  Who will replace Paypal?

  • Credit card transactions are fairly secure. Credit card anti-fraud is nearly an exact science, and many people feel very comfortable with using their credit card to purchase services and items, even over the Internet.
  • Credit cards are ubiquitous. Nearly everyone has a credit card, no matter what country they live in. If a person has access to the Internet, it is even more certain that they have a credit card available to them.
  • It’s easy to make automatic future charges to a credit card. This way it is easy to keep a subscription to a service on the Internet: if the credit card fails to make the monthly charge, the subscription can be canceled.
  • A credit card represents one person or entity, and the paper-trail is relatively reliable and easy to track. This helps companies and service-providers feel better about using credit cards over other systems of payment – the credit card company guarantees payment, and the service-provider doesn’t have to worry about money laundering and other risks taken when dealing with money.

  And one of the disadvantages of using credit cards is the high price per transaction. The service-provider needs to give a sum off the top of every single charge he or she makes on a credit card. That means that small payments are going to cost more than large payments. Many schemes have arisen to combat this, using available credit card payments. For example:

  • Internal “tokens” from a service-provider: you pay $10 with your credit card, and you get tokens for use with that one company. This scheme works very well, in that the tokens can be arbitrarily small, and can be used for whatever the customer wants. For example, Skype uses this method to sell Skype Credits, which the customer can use for whatever phone calls he or she wants. The down side, of course, is that these credits can only be used in that one company. Furthermore, the customer is asked to put down a relatively large sum of money to begin with, and now there is unpleasant pressure on the customer to use up his credits.
  • “All you can eat”, or “wait for the end of the month” systems: certain companies (like emusic) sell music in an all-you-can-eat scheme, for a fixed price per month. Alternatively, iTunes allows you to buy on a per-track basis, but they hope you buy enough to justify the cost of the credit transaction, which they perform once per  month. These schemes also address the problem, but still demand a certain commitment on behalf of the customer.

  Obviously, we need a standard, worldwide provider for paying and receiving very small payments. Some systems already attempt to do this (Peppercoin, for example), but their reach is limited at the moment. It becomes clear that the benefits enjoyed by credit cards (listed above) become realistic only when a full-blown infrastructure is raised. That means that in order for micro-payments to be accepted as easily and readily as credit cards are today, they must be supported by large, international organizations – like banks.

  So what can we do?

  Now we have a dilemma: why should banks endorse a new method of payment if nobody uses it? Even if such an infrastructure existed today, people would not use it immediately. And banks make enormous amounts of money off of credit card transactions. Conversely, as we have seen, a small company cannot provide a reliable, standard, worldwide system for micro-payments for only a few users, and then grow the system. We cannot wait for an evolutionary response, because it simply has no reason to come into existence. And no large bank-like company is willing to commit to the revolution. And thus we are in a kind of Catch-22 situation, where it seems like we will be using credit cards and credit-card-like systems for many years to come.

  Eli.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: eCommerce, Finance, Micro Payments, Technology

• 29Jun

  Google Planet

  Web 2 Comments

  The World is Google.

  I’m sure I’m not the first one stating this claim.

  

  To SEO or to SEO

  Everything we wish to know is there. Professional documentaries, fun videos, official data, freely-posted and unreliable opinions – all just few search words away, and lots of it. If you wear the hat of the business man, you probably already know that you must be indexed by Google in order to be found.

  In order to get to the first page – you need to be the conversation of the day.
  In order to be the conversation of the day – you need to get to the first page.
  So, what came first, the egg or the chicken? In our case it’s easy. You must get to the first page: it’s the to be or not to be of every modern ambitious business.

  There is no magic. If you want people to find you, you must make an effort and let the search engine rank you, as high as they can.
  Moreover, if you want the right people to find you (your potential customers), you must be very devoted to the business of SEO

  What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization.

  Yeah, right, but what stands behind the words? That’s the one-million-dollar question.

  I’ll dedicate my next articles to discussing this subject. What is SEO, what does it claim, some great success stories, and most of all, how to do it (there are even tools helping you reach the top, only if you know what you are doing, of course).

  For now, just get this: in order to succeed in the modern world, you need to represent your production/service/goals as true passion (or at least make others believe that this is your main motive). Trying to be the best of what you’re doing is a key ingredient every search engine wishes to provide its users. Sometimes you need to take a step forward in showing those mighty search engines what you are really like.

  The bottom line – SEO is not a choice.
  It’s a win-win situation for you, Google, and your potential users.
  

  Nimrod Elias.

  The CEO Game.

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• 21Jun

  Business 2.0

  Web 7 Comments
  

  Facebook. Leading the web 2.0 world

  The Beginning of the Revolution

  In 2004, Tim O`Reilly said that “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform”. In the past few years, more and more new platforms have risen to fill the endless need of the public to post its own content. From Wikipedia in 2001, Facebook in 2004, and Twitter and YouTube in 2006, the Internet as we know it has changed. As we witness the “Global warming” of web 2.0 we tend to forget that behind every web 2.0 platforms stands a business.

  Converting Popularity to Revenue

  The key issue that today’s Business 2.0 struggle with is converting the “Cool” widget and gadget to a profit-making business. There might be thousands of sites offering to keep us in touch with our friends, upload our home made films or post our exact location, but what we don’t have is new ideas of how to make money from it. The main income source for businesses today is advertising, from plain banners to target based ads. The problem with advertising is that it is limited, and we as users are tired of being interrupted while trying to watch a movie or talk to our friends. It’s time for these businesses to stop the evolution and start the revolution. Even today, great sites like MySpace or Flickr lose more revenue with each year, and if a change isn’t made soon, in a few years no one will remember they ever existed.

  In my opinion, the solution to this downfall is offering services to the masses. These services need to be as unique as possible and related to the sites theme. These services could range from creating TV shows based on YouTube (each country and its own content) to professional event organization for groups based on social networks. Another solution might be using the wisdom of the crowds to foresee trends.

  Ailon.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Advertisings, Web 2.0

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