Category Archives: Random
Scrabble® at the speed of . . . silicon
Okay, so we’ve known for a while that “Angry Birds” is chewing up most of the free time that technological efficiency has granted us over the last handful of years. If you’ve been wondering, though, about the rest of this “cognitive surplus” (as Clay Shirky calls it), I have that answer for you. As Alec Baldwin reminded us last month, our stolen minutes are probably going to “Words with Friends” from that newly public behemoth of a social-gaming company, Zynga.
Scrabble's iPhone app
As the world knows, Baldwin’s refusal to “turn off his electronic device” got him kicked off an American Airlines flight last month and became a minor cause célèbre. It led to plenty of jokes, a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek self-loathing, and (of course) a “Saturday Night Live” skit in which Baldwin apologizes to himself on behalf of American. Nevertheless, l’affaire Baldwin is not the only thing that has drawn attention recently to online Scrabble® and its many clones. For instance, there was the fact that the iOS version of “the ultimate word game” was a free “pick of the week” at Starbucks recently . . . necessary, most likely, because while Scrabble may be “ultimate,” it ultimately may be at risk of marginalization.
I must begin by confessing that part of the value proposition that drew me to Facebook, back when I joined in August 2007, was one of the earliest of those clones: Scrabulous, a perfect and perfectly executed online rendition. Within days I was engaged in games with friends (and friends’ children) across the country, in fact using it as an excuse to entice some of them onto the network as well.
You see, I’m always looking for Scrabble opponents. Back in the 1970′s, once I was out of college and working nights in the slot of the Tribune sports desk, the opportunities had dwindled to basically three: (1) my friend Ann, with whom I would play with an agreement not to keep score; (2) me, myself, and I, with whom I would play four-handed Scrabble with the board on a turntable (Linda would come home after work, find me at the kitchen table, and ask, “Which of you is winning?”); and (3) the reason I kept paying my annual Mensa dues: Scrabble by mail with other members.
So now it can be told: It’s not electronic bill-paying or e-cards that are causing the Postal Service to crater. It has to be reduced demand for Scrabble by mail! (While I no longer remember the precise mechanics of, say, “drawing letters” with my pencil pals, I certainly recall staring at the mimeographed game-board grid before filling it in and mailing it off.)
Lexulous on Facebook
Back to 2007-08. All went swimmingly until Hasbro, the copyright holder, realized it had darn well better assert its intellectual property rights. Over time, Scrabulous’s Indian developers ultimately resurrected it on Facebook under names like “Wordscraper” and “Lexulous,” but with different rules and, most notably, an eight-letter rack of virtual tiles. This last infringement-avoidance attribute led to some amazingly high-scoring games among the 566 I played, many (as in this example) with my old Tribune pal Maurice Possley. But before long I was turning my attention back to “the ultimate word game,” cheerfully paying 99 cents for the iPhone app to go along with the Facebook implementation.
Words with Friends
But then along came this “Words with Friends” thing. No, it’s not Scrabble, nor was meant to be. It has a strange board layout that creates ridiculously high scores for boring single words, even bigger gaps between winners and losers (right), and a seemingly odd distribution of letter tiles. In its favor, however: it also has a virtually unlimited supply of opponents . . . nearly 16 million monthly users, 3,406,673 of whom have “liked” it on Facebook, and at last count 153 of whom are numbered among my Facebook friends.
Frankly, I wish they’d all just switch back to Scrabble®. But if they did, what would THAT do to Zynga’s stock price?
It was 40 years ago today, redux
That was then, this is now: 9/4/71 and 9/4/11
A couple of years ago, I noted here the 40th anniversary of my start in journalism by scanning in my first check stub. Today I note the 40th anniversary of my first day of work at the Chicago Tribune by comparing the news of the world as encapsulated by a pair of front pages: the edition I read on the Saturday morning that I went to work, and the Sunday edition I read today after a communion service, a church picnic, and a worship service at Winchester House, Lake County’s long-term health care facility for the elderly in Libertyville. (Maybe some other time I’ll write about my first worship service at a county home: in Kingsville, Ohio, during what turned out later to be called Super Bowl I.)
There are both similarities and differences.
- First, you may note that today’s paper has a more vertical profile. The 1971 Tribune was about 15 inches wide and 23 inches deep; today’s paper is more like 11 by 21.
- Second, you may note that the 89-pica-wide photo of a McCormick Place crowd listening to President Nixon shows that big photos are not necessarily a latecomer to Chicago front pages, though of course big photos in color appear way more regularly today.
- Third, you may note that “soft” news was appearing on Page One forty years ago (and that today’s front page is actually pretty hard). In the lower right-hand corner of this Saturday paper is “The Motley Crew,” a regularly appearing feature by Tribune rewriteman John R. Thomson whose overall purpose was to chronicle where he and his fellow staffers went to eat on their lunch breaks.It made Page One because of President Nixon, actually; the dinner he spoke at was advertised as the largest in history, with 25,000 being fed at McCormick Place and another 15,000 getting their meals at suburban hotels, all courtesy of the American Milk Producers Association. (What reporter can turn down a free meal, fully disclosed, in pursuit of a Page One byline?)
- Of course, one difference is that the President’s speech was about “a new prosperity.” Current Presidential speeches seem to have a different economic tone.
- You can’t miss the weather.
- And there’s nothing like a “Cubs lose again” headline to make a Chicagoan remember that the world is still spinning on the same axis today as when Leo Durocher was the current and future manager, two years removed from the pennant that was not to be.
There are other obvious things to compare, like story count, color, and the different kinds of people favored with head shots. Or that the Saturday paper was then a dime, not a dollar (in 2011 terms, that would be about 55 cents).
But finally, do not fail to note that the 1971 masthead noted that for your dime, you got to read “The World’s Greatest Newspaper.” Inspiration enough, don’t you think, for a new copy boy to show up for the 3 to 11:30 p.m. shift. that day? And then to continue showing up, on a fairly regular basis, for the 37 years that followed.