V Festival 2009: A Final Thought

Thought I'd post my thoughts of this year's V Festival in Stafford, which I've just come back from. It will also make a change to talk about artists that are still alive on these pages!

In no particular order I managed to see the following during the two days: Bjorn Again, Ocean Colour Scene, The Lightening Seeds, The Proclaimers, Alesha Dixon, James, The Human League, Oasis, The Noisettes, Jet, Dizzee Rascal,The Specials, Happy Mondays, Pendulum and The Killers.

OK that was pretty much chronological order over the Saturday and Sunday! It was something of an older affair (something that has been reported of late during the Media as a growing trend). It gave me a chance to see some bands I didn't think I'd ever see, such as The Human League, Happy Mondays and The Specials as well as a nostalgic look back at The Lightening Seeds and probably the only time I'll ever exchange money to see an Abba tribute band!

These older bands were excellent but it was a bit unfortunate that I didn't really know much of their music. I'll make a note to do my research better prior to going in future as it does so much to the experience when you do.

The surprise act of the weekend for me was Alesha Dixon! I had a free slot and went along out of curiosity more than anything other reason and liked what I saw: good songs (pop, but well produced), great stage presence, good rapport with the audience but above all of that you get the sense of a genuine person enjoying what she's doing. Should also mention the dancing! She's got quite an act and if her appearances as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing work out well for her and raise her profile, she'll make quite a success of things in the years to come. Genuinely impressive!

Oasis were poor (I feel having seen them more than a few times previously I can make such judgement) and something was clearly amiss as they then pulled out of the Chelmsford gig. A lot of people really enjoyed Dizzee Rascal and the 'bouncy' stuff was impressive but I was content to sit at the back with a beer! Same really goes for The Proclaimers and that's about as generous as I can be with them!

A final word on a non-music note, the Guinness Garden and V Healthy spots were excellent. I'd been to V a few years ago and didn't seem to remember them being there but it's a sign of good things to come from festivals if they're acknowledging that some of their campers want something a bit more refined! Someone also needs to rethink festival loos but I think that's just a pipe-dream!

Who tweets the Twitter demise?

I was about to post something else and wanted to check a quick reference on Twitter. However, it's down! As Twitter has broken some of the biggest stories of the past 12 months and thus gained a reputation for breaking news quicker than anyone else, who breaks this one? status.twitter.com is presumably located on a separate platform but how many people know it's there?

Who tweets the twitter demise, that's what I want to know!

Stick Cricket: Great game, successful strategy

I've been meaning to post about my favourite ever Internet game for a while now. Stick Cricket's history is quite an interesting read, a rise from a student learning how to develop in flash to one of the best Internet games out there.

I first became aware of this game a few years ago now and it is the only Internet game that has held my attention for longer than a week! I can't quite put my finger on what makes the game so appealing for me, but there are a few factors that probably help. Firstly, the ability to score fours and sixes on a regular basis (the entire point of the game) brings that feel good factor when playing. Secondly, the view you get (a batsman's view) of the ball careering to the boundary is very, very satisfying. It also looks like a proper cricket shot. Sometimes on other games the actual game play isn't very realistic. Finally I think the concept is something that fits the medium it has been developed on. Although originally using stick men, the game has developed but kept to the same ethos.

Apart from the game play elements addressed above I think another reason I really like the game is the way in which Stick Sports has been developed and allowed to evolve. Slowly but surely they've enhanced the Stick Cricket game. New features, new competitions, more variety in how you play have always enticed me back to the game. They tackled the most obvious shortcoming of their game (not being able to bowl) with a challenging online multi player game. It didn't last very long but it was good!

More impressively than the actual innovations that were borne seems to be the strategy they have adopted for development. Stick Sports had a core product and they spent time and money developing it; enhancing the game play and ensuring it maintained its popular appeal and market position. Only after this phase of its strategy had proved successful did it branch out to develop other games to complement the cricket game and produce a range of sports games under the stick sports banner. (The best of these games in my opinion is Stick Tennis)

Although with success has come less discrete advertising and more 'obvious' placement of adverts, this doesn't interfere with the experience of using the sites. They have developed a community feel to the site that although I don't personally see as advantageous, I know a lot of other users do). The site is not in the same league as Cric Info and other cricket media in terms of a cricketing knowledge base, but this seems to be the next phase in the strategy. Blogs and forums are prevalent on the site and there is also 'Live Score' features (although I must confess to not having used these enough to pass comment).

Basically I've been impressed with Stick Cricket since the beginning, and if it is possible to end with an awful pun, believe that from tiny acorns, cricket bats really can grown! [I'm sorry]