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	<title>Ed Healy</title>
	<link>http://ephealy.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 06 May 2012 02:12:22 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Travel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Get out of your country and see the world.&#8221; (Dave Delaney)

I&#8217;ve been blessed with the opportunity to travel a decent amount in my life. I wish I could run an A-B test to know what my life, and my personality, would be like if I had not had those opportunities. That being said, I&#8217;m going to assume I&#8217;m a better person because of those experiences.
When Dave Delaney posted his &#8216;40 life lessons&#8216;, the very first one was about travel. Here&#8217;s a video of us discussing life lesson #1:

Some things travel ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/05/05/travel/</link>
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		<title>Events and Snowmelt Marketing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just as snowmelt is an important part of the annual water cycle, events can be a watershed of content that continually refreshes your community.

While Spring is in bloom, here in the Pacific Northwest, the news is warning that the Northeast may see snow this week – up to a foot, in come locales. It may seem odd that snows will come this late in the season, but the Northeastern Summer will be better for them.
Snows melt; we all know that. When snowmelt happens, it creates surface runoff – an important ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/04/23/events-and-snowmelt-marketing/</link>
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		<title>Focus</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have come to appreciate the need for focus, in my life as well as my business.

Last year, I took the time to create an About page on my website. This is not a fun task. It&#8217;s hard to distill who you think you are down to a single document &#8211; one that you are willing to share with any person who might read it. Creating this About page, though, forced me to focus on who I am and who I want to be. In the end, I chose to ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/04/18/focus/</link>
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		<title>What does an effective Kickstarter banner ad look like?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’ve managed the banner advertisements on a number of great gaming websites for the last few years. What started with the Kobold Quarterly home page has expanded into a network of sites visited by over 2 million gamers and comic book enthusiasts each month.
Recently, with the rise of Kickstarter, I&#8217;ve had the pleasure of running campaigns for a number of crowd-funded projects. Here are the best performing banners, each ran for Kickstarter projects looking for funding.










Each of the above banners received click-thru-rates that were more than four times the network average.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/03/10/what-does-an-effective-kickstarter-banner-ad-look-like/</link>
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		<title>Results: Social Media at CCP Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A review of social media work done for CCP Games.

I was hired as a consultant by CCP Games to help refine their approach to social media; the contract ran from January 2010 to February 2011. Google+ hadn&#8217;t been released, yet, and the content team had a current editorial plan for the company blogs and YouTube channel, so my focus became Facebook and Twitter.
My directive: Generate traffic to CCP-owned websites, especially the EVE Online website.
My Key Performance Indicators:

Site Traffic: Looking at the raw amount of traffic that passed from social media ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/02/27/results-social-media-at-ccp-games/</link>
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		<title>Gamerati Population Distribution</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I often get requests from people wondering how many people live in various states, countries, etc. Here&#8217;s some numbers&#8230;

Anyone that runs an analytics program estimate how many people visit a particular website. They can even get an idea of which country, or region of a country, those people come from. However, since most sites don&#8217;t merge their statistics under a unified analytics engine, they have no way of determining if Joe Gamer from Iowa goes to multiple sites. And if he does, they&#8217;d have no way of accounting for this, ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/02/22/gamerati-population-distribution/</link>
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		<title>7 Magazine Advertising Tips</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Magazine advertising is one way you can reach out to new customers. Here&#8217;s some tips you might find useful.

Magazines are just one of many options available to businesses looking to reach out to new customers. Unlike online advertising options, such as banner ads, magazine advertising presents some unique challenges, in that it&#8217;s a little harder to measure the results of your campaign.
For publishers of tabletop roleplaying games looking at magazine advertising, Kobold Quarterly is one of the best options available, and I will use it in my examples.
Tip #1: Have ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/01/24/7-magazine-advertising-tips/</link>
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		<title>5 RPG Products You Can Fit Into A 63,206-Character Facebook Status</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The recent Mashable article on Facebook&#8217;s new status limit included everything from Bambi to the Bible. Here&#8217;s my version, using RPG products.
Background: Facebook recently made it so you can post status updates up to 63,206 character long.
Here&#8217;s a couple RPG-related products that would fit wholly within that new limit.
Pumpkin Town
Created by Peter &#8220;Doc Fortune&#8221; Seckler, and available for free on Jared Sorensen&#8217;s Memento Mori Theatricks site, Pumpkin Town grew out of early game design discussions on the Gaming Outpost forums. In particular, Mr. Seckler credits Mike Mearls, Jared Sorensen and ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/01/05/5-rpg-products-you-can-fit-into-a-63206-character-facebook-status/</link>
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		<title>Best Performing Banner Ads of 2011</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve managed the banner advertisements on a number of great hobby gaming websites for the last three years. Here&#8217;s the best-performing banners from companies that advertised on these sites in 2011.
The Gamerati network now serves over 25 million impressions to over 1.5 million gamers and comic book enthusiasts each month.  To date, we&#8217;ve served over a billion banner impressions and recorded over 2 million clicks.
&#8230; Here are the best performing banners of 2011:




















The average click-thru-rate for display advertisements on the network is 0.16%. Each of these banners received at ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2012/01/02/best-performing-banner-ads-of-2011/</link>
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		<title>My Local Gamerati</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today, I spent some time trying to figure out how many members of my extended virtual community live&#8230; in or near my physical community.

From time to time, an event organizer or store owner will ask me to help them get a handle on how many gamers live in their area. I don&#8217;t have a perfect way of determining that number, but since I do manage ads on some of the best gaming websites, I do have the ability to speak to how many people in a location visit the sites ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/12/27/my-local-gamerati/</link>
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		<title>Game Podcasting 101</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I attended NeonCon in November 2009. This is a part of the talk Ryan Macklin and I gave as part of CreativeU.

]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/12/25/game-podcasting-101/</link>
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		<title>Gamerati User Accounts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Four years ago, I sat down and scrawled out some thoughts about what I would like to do to help the hobby game community. Over the last couple years, I&#8217;ve been able to support my family promoting games, and now it&#8217;s time to tackle some of the more ambitious ideas I had.
But, before I can go forward&#8230; I need to lay a foundation on which to build.
Over the last couple months, Josh Dalcher has been helping me build a user module &#8211; a little bit of tech to allow people ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/12/19/gamerati-user-accounts/</link>
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		<title>Looxcie LX2</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Looxcie &#8220;Ear Cam&#8221; has been upgraded, and I can&#8217;t wait to try it out.
Last September, I wrote about the Looxcie &#8220;Ear Cam&#8221;. It operates like those blue tooth tools people have on their ears, but you can shoot video instead.
Well, the Looxcie has a new look and some new toys to go with it. Introducing, the Looxcie LX2 (aff) Wearable Video Cam.
As I no longer have an iPhone, I&#8217;m glad to see that the Looxcie now works with Android phones. In addition, you can now store up to 5 hours ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/12/07/looxcie-lx2/</link>
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		<title>Get Inspiration from GetGlue</title>
		<description><![CDATA[GetGlue is a new social network for entertainment.

A simple GetGlue summary: You can check into the media you&#8217;re consuming; books, movies, music and games. You can even check into &#8216;ideas&#8217;, but that seems a little nebulous and silly, so I&#8217;ve not paid any attention to this option. It&#8217;s very similar to foursquare, and you can tie both networks together so that you can (for instance) check into New Year&#8217;s Eve (on GetGlue) while watching it at your local theater.
This, of course, assumes you still go to the movie theater.
Anyway, I&#8217;ve ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/12/05/get-inspiration-from-getglue/</link>
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		<title>Jim Morrison Told Me To Do Better</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Jim Morrison died at 27. What can he teach us about accomplishments and motivation, 40 years later?

I watched When You&#8217;re Strange (aff), the 2010 documentary film about The Doors, tonight. The film reminded me of the fact that Jim Morrison was a member of the so-called 27 Club &#8211; that he died at a young age, having seen great fame in his short life.
Morrison didn&#8217;t just &#8216;happen&#8217; in 1965, springing from the ether to become a cultural icon. Sure, he was with The Doors for less than five years, but ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/12/05/jim-morrison-told-me-to-do-better/</link>
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		<title>Thanksgaming</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Thanks to gaming, I&#8217;ve met many great people and had many great experiences.
Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, thanks for making Dungeons &#38; Dragons, which introduced me to the hobby side of games.
Frank Mentzer, thanks for designing the killer &#8216;Red Box&#8217; D&#38;D set that captured my imagination, even if Bargle got the better of me.
Mom, thanks for buying that Red Box for me, and being my first DM, even if for only a short time.
Brian Palazzolo, thanks for spending untold hours with me, playing D&#38;D after school.
Tom Mcdonald, thanks for designing ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/11/23/thanksgaming/</link>
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		<title>The wrong question: Which is better?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Someone asked me which is better, Google+ or Facebook?


With the recent release of Google+ Business Pages come the expected comparisons between Google+ and Facebook. I&#8217;ve had my own thoughts about the pages themselves.
Today, someone asked for my personal thoughts as to which is better, Google+ or Facebook.
The answer: It doesn&#8217;t matter. The right questions are:
(1) Do any of my current or prospective customers use these services?
(2) If they do, how can I use these services in a unique way to reach them and add value?
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/11/08/the-wrong-question-which-is-better/</link>
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		<title>Marketing Lesson from Braum&#8217;s Ice Cream</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The fast food industry has spent millions of dollars to figure out how to market to us. What can we learn from them?

While in Oklahoma City, as part of the Gamerati Tour, I had the chance to have dinner with the crew from Super Genius Games. According to the Geniuses, I just had to get some ice cream from Braum&#8217;s; and so we did. While standing in line, waiting to order, I noticed the menu displays above the counter (pictured above). These are the same displays you see at any ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/10/18/marketing-lesson-from-braums-ice-cream/</link>
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		<title>What Effective Banners Ads Look Like (Q3 2011)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve managed the banner advertisements on a number of great hobby gaming websites for the last three years. Here&#8217;s the best-performing banners from companies that advertised on these sites in Q3 2011.
The Gamerati network now serves over 25 million impressions to over 1.5 million gamers and comic book enthusiasts each month.  To date, we&#8217;ve served over a billion banner impressions and recorded over 2 million clicks.
&#8230; Here are the best performing banners of Q3 2011:










The average click-thru-rate for display advertisements on the network is 0.14%. Each of these banners ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/10/17/what-effective-banners-ads-look-like-q3-2011/</link>
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		<title>Your Type of Customers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Whether you are a manufacturer, distributor or retailer, the type of customer you will have is determined by two factors&#8230;

The ven diagram is a good way to represent many things. In this case, I&#8217;m illustrating how types of customers are attracted to businesses. This could be equally true of social groups, charities, and the like.

A steakhouse probably won&#8217;t have a large number of vegan clients. Distributors of engine parts don&#8217;t usually get orders from quilting supply shops. Stores that don&#8217;t stock Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, don&#8217;t have Yu-Gi-Oh! players as customers.
If you ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/09/21/your-type-customers/</link>
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		<title>The McDonald&#8217;s Drive-Thru and Customer Addiction</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Watching people leave the McDonald&#8217;s drive-thru got me thinking about customer retention, and addiction.

I&#8217;m currently in Bozeman, MT as part of the Gamerati Tour 2011. Because there was no event today, I had the pleasure of eating dinner&#8230; alone. Unlike Phoenix, the weather here is cooperating, so I decided to cop a squat outside the local McDonald&#8217;s and enjoy myself.
As you can see from the picture (above), the tables are in clear view of the drive-thru exit and the trash can that every McDonald&#8217;s franchise seems to have. While I ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/09/13/mcdonalds-drive-thru-and-customer-addiction/</link>
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		<title>Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Customer Lifetime value (CLV) is a pretty simple, yet important and powerful, concept. Basically, you&#8217;re asking this: How much profit can I expect to see from my relationship with an average customer?


At the basic level, this is an easy calculation. Let&#8217;s take the publisher with a single product:
Cost to Customer &#8211; Cost of Product to Publisher = Profit per Sale
If I am selling a book for $25, and it cost me $7 to produce that book, then my profit per sale is $18. For the single-product publisher, then, the CLV ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/09/05/customer-lifetime-value-clv/</link>
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		<title>What Effective Banners Ads Look Like (APR&#8217;10-MAR&#8217;11)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve managed the banner advertisements on a number of great hobby gaming websites for the last three years. Here&#8217;s the best-performing banners of the last 12 months.
The Gamerati network now serves over 25 million impressions to over 1.5 million gamers and comic book enthusiasts each month. Between April 2010 and March 2011, over 100 companies have run campaigns with us. To date, we&#8217;ve served over a billion banner impressions and recorded over 2 million clicks. That&#8217;s the sample size&#8230;
&#8230; Here are the best performing banners of the last 12 months:
(10) ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/04/20/what-effective-banners-ads-look-like-apr10-mar11/</link>
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		<title>Vanity URLs for Facebook Pages</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the past few months, I&#8217;ve walked dozens of publishers through the process of setting up vanity URLs for their Facebook pages. If you don&#8217;t have one yet, here&#8217;s how to make one.

What is a vanity URL?
By default, your Facebook page has a URL that looks something like this:
facebook.com/pages/Your-Page/1234567890
A vanity URL looks like this:
facebook.com/Your-Page
Which one do you think looks better?
Watch this video to find out how to grab a vanity URL for your Facebook page.


Direct link to HD version of this video on the Gamerati Facebook page.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/04/18/vanity-urls-for-facebook-pages/</link>
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		<title>Loot: Lessons Learned Week 2</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Loot is two weeks old, and though it finally reached profitability this week, it&#8217;s too early to draw any lessons from the sales figures. I can say, however, that I had an object lesson in website analytics.

Links From Influencers Rock
In the first week, 1,862 unique people visited Loot 2,595 times. Most of these visits came from five sources:
 
* Direct Traffic (28%): People typing in the URL.
 
* Gamerati Banner Ads (23%): People clicking on ads I bought on my own advertising network for gaming websites (PDF).
 
* Facebook (19%): ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/03/28/loot-lessons-learned-week-2/</link>
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		<title>Loot: Lessons Learned Week 1</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I launched a new project this week. Called Loot, it&#8217;s a deal-a-day site focused on games and game-related products. In addition to helping with customer acquisition / social proliferation, Loot is also a way for me to test marketing theories. Week 1 is done. This is what I&#8217;ve learned.

Lesson 1: Good People Are Gold
The first thing you should know about Loot is that I didn&#8217;t do it on my own. I had the help of Josh Dalcher, who I met via his gaming blog. We worked on a couple projects ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/03/21/loot-lessons-learned-week-1/</link>
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		<title>What Do You Care About?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;At its heart, business is not about formality, or winning, or &#8216;the bottom line&#8217;, or profit, or trade, or commerce, or any of the things the business books tell you it&#8217;s about. Business is what concerns us. If you care about something enough to do something about it, you&#8217;re in business&#8230;&#8221; - Sir Richard Branson

The above quote is from Business Stripped Bare (affiliate link), which I&#8217;m reading on recommendation from Chris Brogan as part of his 2011 Business Book Club. Less than 1,000 words into the Introduction and I&#8217;m already confronted ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2011/01/04/what-do-you-care-about/</link>
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		<title>Orienteering and the Art of Business Navigation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Have you ever heard of orienteering? It&#8217;s an interesting sport &#8211; the marriage of cross-country running and land navigation skills. Basically, you&#8217;re given a topographic map that has a number of points marked on it, and your job is to reach each point and cross the finish line as quickly as possible.

You&#8217;ll make mistakes. Learn from them.
One of the basic skills needed for orienteering is the ability to read the map and choose the best route so that you can reach your objectives while avoiding obstacles along the way. The ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/12/15/orienteering-and-the-art-of-business-navigation/</link>
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		<title>Hobby Game Incubator?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[What would it be like if a half dozen aspiring publishers got together and spent a few months in intense product development? What if all distractions were removed, so that they did nothing but help each other grind the rough edges off their ideas. What if they did marketing research together, shared information about artists, playtested and promoted each resulting product?
What if participants stayed in a house together? What if every day someone came in to give instruction on design, marketing, community development, etc.?
I wonder if there are people who ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/10/09/hobby-game-incubator/</link>
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		<title>It&#8217;s Time for ESP</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I signed a contract with Blue Sky Factory today, engaging them to be my ESP. This doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;ll be hooking up to electrodes and guessing at Zener cards. Not that kind of ESP. Blue Sky Factory is an Email Service Provider.
Why an ESP?
Well, over the last few years I&#8217;ve been using Gmail as my sole base of email operations. This is great for personal emails, and business communications with a small number of people. However, Gmail has some serious limitations.
You can only send out a small number of emails ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/10/05/its-time-for-esp/</link>
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		<title>ENnie Awards Interview</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The ENnie Awards turn 10 years old next year. Right now, they&#8217;re running a series of interviews on the ENnie Awards blog, and were gracious enough to ask to speak with me.
You can read my interview here. Also make sure to check out those given by Rone Barton, John Reyst, and VSCA Publishing.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/10/05/ennie-awards-interview/</link>
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		<title>&#8220;Ear Cam&#8221; from Looxcie</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Steve Garfield wrote a short post today about The Future of Video. One of the products he linked to is a wearable camcorder from Looxcie. You can check out some early reviews on Amazon.com (aff).

Think Jawbone, but with a video camera attached, able to record up to five hours of video (according to the marketing copy). If the quality is as good as the examples on the Looxcie YouTube channel, this product will be awesome.
 I would have killed to have one of these when I was in Iraq. In ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/26/ear-cam-from-looxcie/</link>
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		<title>Print vs PDF Pricing for Roleplaying Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Vincent Baker posed an interesting question on Twitter today:
&#8220;Hey, fellow RPG publishers, I&#8217;m thinking about PDF pricing. How do you price your PDFs compared to your books, and why?&#8221;
I haven&#8217;t been a publisher for a number of years, so I&#8217;ll leave the &#8216;why&#8217; part alone. I thought it&#8217;d be fun to poke at product pricing using statistics, though.
I track sales of roughly 6,000 individual product titles while producing the RPG Countdown podcast. If I treat each individual product as a separate item, regardless of sales volume the average MSRP is ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/23/print-vs-pdf-pricing-for-roleplaying-games/</link>
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		<title>Do RPG Books Answer Your Questions?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When picking up a new roleplaying game, I have two related questions in mind:
(1) Why is this game fun?
(2) What can I do in this game?
Answers to these questions are our first priority when we interview people for the Atomic Array podcast. They&#8217;re also the focus of the first two paragraphs of any review published on Game Cryer.
Without knowing why a game is fun, and how I can experience that fun, I&#8217;m not really interested in a full description of the setting, a list of skills and spells, a catalog ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/22/do-rpg-books-answer-your-questions/</link>
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		<title>Unity vs. Uniformity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Both unity and uniformity can be used to describe a unified group of people. The terms are not the same; they bespeak two differing types of unification. In particular, they address the mechanism by which unification occurs.
First, some definitions (source: Merriam-Webster)&#8230;
unity
1 a : the quality or state of not being multiple: oneness
2 a : a condition of harmony: accord
3 a : the quality or state of being made one: unification
4 a : a totality of related parts : an entity that is a complex or systematic whole
uniformity
1 : the quality ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/21/unity-vs-uniformity/</link>
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		<title>Mapping Geographic Data</title>
		<description><![CDATA[On Friday, I wrote about some of the analytics tools I&#8217;m building so that hobby game publishers and retailers can learn more about what products are selling, where, and to whom.
As part of the Gamerati Analytics project, I went out looking for a way to render maps based on geographically significant data. I knew that I wanted to have data mapping available, but it seemed that would be just a dream without a hefty budget.
 Then I ran into Pete Warden from OpenHeatMap.
Right now we&#8217;re working on ways to integrate ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/20/mapping-geographic-data/</link>
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		<title>Gamerati Analytics</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The RPG Countdown podcast would not be possible without sales statistics. You can&#8217;t rate products without knowing how many copies are being sold, right? Thankfully, a number of publishers and retailers voluntarily share their sales figures, giving us numbers we can compare. The comparison is imperfect &#8211; we don&#8217;t have a record of every sale at every store and on every site &#8211; but it keeps getting better and better.
If you&#8217;re a publisher or retailer, we&#8217;d love to include your stats. Email me to learn how.
Getting sales information is one ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/17/gamerati-analytics/</link>
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		<title>What Does an Effective Banner Ad Look Like?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve managed the banner advertisements on a number of great hobby gaming websites for the last two years. What started with the Kobold Quarterly home page has expanded into a network of sites visited by over 750,000 gamers and comic book enthusiasts each month.
During that time, over 100 companies have run campaigns with us. To date, we&#8217;ve served over 725 million banner impressions and recorded over 1.7 million clicks. That&#8217;s the sample size&#8230;
&#8230; Here are the best performing banners, each receiving more than a 1% CTR.
(10) The Imperial Gazetteer (Open ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/16/what-does-an-effective-banner-ad-look-like/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Cleaning My White Board</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Motivation is one of the biggest daily challenges I face.

I have a mountain of things on my plate; it&#8217;s easy to get overwhelmed just thinking about them. When I look at my In Box and see 47 non-SPAM messages, I grow weary. When I add to that the appointments on my calendar, and the monumental list of unfinished items on my TO DO list, I sometimes find it hard to even start work &#8211; much less accomplish anything.
Lao Tzu, the so-called Father of Taoism, once said &#8220;The journey of a ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/15/cleaning-my-white-board/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>The September of My Discontent</title>
		<description><![CDATA[During my second tour in Iraq, I decided to leave the Army. I wanted to see my baby girls grow up-not something I&#8217;d be able to do while on government sponsored camping trips in the desert. If I wanted a relationship with my children, it was clear that a career as a soldier wasn&#8217;t for me.
I didn&#8217;t know what I&#8217;d do after leaving, though.
I knew I didn&#8217;t want to go back to my old life as an auditor. I knew I didn&#8217;t want to leave home before my wife woke ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/09/14/the-september-of-my-discontent/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>The Freedom of Transparency</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Chase VISA sent me an offer in the mail today; enroll in the FREE Chase Freedom program and receive 5% cash back on various purchases between April 1st and June 30th. I&#8217;m not sure how many home improvement purchases I&#8217;ll make over the next couple months, but when I do I&#8217;ll enjoy the kick back.
Still, I wonder why Chase required me to enroll in this program. Why did they not just enroll all card holders in the program and inform them of the fact? According to Chase, enrollment was necessary ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/04/12/the-freedom-of-transparency/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>A Living Telecom Infrastructure</title>
		<description><![CDATA[During the chaos that was 9/11 in NYC, mobile communications were a mess. The World Trade Center used to be an important hub the mobile architecture in lower Manhattan.  Until mid-afternoon, it was virtually impossible to make contact with anyone, if you were relying on a cell phone.

In 2007, I became aware of the One Laptop Per Child project. Of particular interest to me was the mobile ad hoc networking technology the it employed, allowing each laptop to act as a node, routing packets to other laptops in the ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/04/09/a-living-telecom-infrastructure/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Cheap and Compact Mobile Podcasting Rig</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You can spend a fortune on podcasting gear. If you&#8217;re an audiophile, part of the fun of podcasting is building different rigs for different uses. This can get expensive, though. More importantly, if you spend a lot of time on the road, it can be a logistical nightmare. Lugging around a ton of high-end A/V equipment can eat up valuable luggage space, especially if you want to do both audio and video recording.
When I&#8217;m on the road, I rely on my Flip. You can get a Flip UltraHD Camcorder (Affiliate ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/04/04/cheap-and-compact-mobile-podcasting-rig/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Storytellers: Philippe-Antoine Ménard</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Guest: Philippe-Antoine Ménard, the Chatty DM
Recorded: 18 March 2010
Mentioned:
* http://chattydm.net/
* http://www.perf.etsmtl.ca/
* http://twistimage.com/
* http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/03/24/storytellers-philippe-antoine-menard/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Leaving the Third Tribe</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Early last month, Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Chris Brogan and Sonia Simone launched Third Tribe Marketing, &#8220;a private community where like-minded people help each other out. It&#8217;s based on a combination of education and interaction that takes everyone&#8217;s Internet marketing skills to a higher level.&#8221; The dual-pillars of education and interaction support the Third Tribe. Members pay $47 each month for access to marketing classes and webinars, as well as a private forum where they can discuss issues facing their businesses.
There are over 2,000 Third Tribe accounts right now. When ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/03/22/leaving-the-third-tribe/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Gmail &amp; CRM</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Is Gmail your primary email environment? It is for me. I use a number of Google&#8217;s services, and having a Gmail account makes using them easier. The general lack of SPAM is also a nice bonus.
One of the features I use extensively within Gmail is Groups. By creating these lists within my contacts, I can track who I met at Gnomedex, or who listens to RPG Countdown. I can easily see if someone falls into multiple categories, which helps me when I&#8217;m in contact with them. This is important if, ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/03/19/gmail-crm/</link>
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		<title>Storytellers: Scott &#8220;Aldie&#8221; Alden</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Guest: Scott &#8216;Aldie&#8217; Alden from Geekdō
Recorded: 17 March 2010
Mentioned:
* http://popurls.com/
* http://alltop.com/
* https://rpxnow.com/
* http://www.geekdo.com/
* http://www.shacknews.com/
* http://www.gamecabinet.com/
* http://www.funagain.com/
* http://www.ted.com/
* http://www.boardgamegeek.com/bggcon
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/03/18/storytellers-scott-aldie-alden/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Dynamic URL Suffixes</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have a problem I can&#8217;t solve, and I&#8217;m hoping someone reading this can help. I&#8217;d like to dynamically tack a set suffix on to blog URLs before feeding them out into various channels.
Example URL: http://ephealy.com/sample-blog-post
Let&#8217;s say I want to tack on a tracking code for Facebook before feeding it to a Facebook page so that traffic resulting from Facebook can be tracked. Example Facebook URL: http://ephealy.com/sample-blog-post?tid=12345
And let&#8217;s say I have a different code for Twitter that I&#8217;d like to tack on before bit.ly takes over and the update feeds to a Twitter account. Example Twitter ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/03/06/dynamic-url-suffixes/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Why People Kill Puppies</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My internet is down. Again. This isn’t the second time this month, or even the third. I have logged ten days without service for more than an hour in the last four weeks. Just today, I’ve been without service three times.
I’m tired of this up and down, connected and unconnected, lifestyle. I just spent 5 minutes staring at my screen, considering it’d feel to take a baseball bat and smash it all: computer, desk, lamp, white board… everything. Unfortunately, smashing my computer isn’t going to solve anything.
Service providers are the ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/03/02/why-people-kill-puppies/</link>
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		<title>Go By Slow</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The most recent article from Zen Habits smacked me across the face more than a couple times. It&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m in a hurry, but I&#8217;ve complicated my life so much right now that &#8216;going slow&#8217; doesn&#8217;t feel like a viable option. Relaxation is hard to come by.
Read The Article: How Not to Hurry
It reminds me of a song by Poi Dog Pondering called The Ancient Egyptians. (like launches iLike preview)
My grand mother once told me that she liked to keep life simple. I balked at her then, but learned ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/01/31/go-by-slow/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Distilling my Bookmarks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have hundreds of bookmarks. Some of them go to sites I check daily, some are there as an ad hoc TO DO list, and others are just garbage I meant to get to but never did.
In January 2009, I had the same problem. Instead of trying to figure out which ones to keep and which to ditch, I killed them all and started from scratch. My current bookmarks all grew naturally over last year, and I even tracked the sites I visited most often during 2009.
It&#8217;s 2010, though, so ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2010/01/04/distilling-my-bookmarks/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Farewell Kobold Quarterly &amp; Level Up!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A short note to let you all know that I have decided to stop representing Kobold Quarterly (published by Wolfgang Baur) and Level Up! Magazine (published by Goodman Games) in order to pursue other opportunities in 2010.
If you would like to advertise in either of these great periodicals in the future, you will need to contact Wolfgang Baur and Joseph Goodman, respectively.
I want to thank everyone here that I&#8217;ve been able to meet because of my time representing these magazines, and I especially want to thank Wolfgang and Joseph for their friendship and the opportunity to ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/12/29/farewell-kobold-quarterly-level-up/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>FLGS Outreach</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A retailer asked me for help reaching out to the gamers in their area. I responded with a the following suggestions (partially edited):
Google Local is important for website traffic for local businesses. If you&#8217;ve already submitted your shop, good job. If not, make sure you&#8217;re listed.
IDEA: Sponsor game days at the local library. Bring in some games and demonstrate them. Don&#8217;t sell anything, just give people fliers with directions to your store (and the website) and a coupon good for a small discount. The flier will remind people where you ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/11/20/flgs-outreach/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>My Q4 Conventions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ll be attending a number of events between now and the end of the year. If you&#8217;re in the are, I hope to see you there:
Victoria Comic Convention (Victoria BC)
 http://www.victoriacomicconvention.com/
NeonCon (Las Vegas, NV)
 http://www.neoncon.com/
Emerald City Gamefest (Kenmore, WA)
 http://emeraldcitygamefest.org/
OryCon (Portland, Oregon)
 http://www.orycon.org/
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/10/29/my-q4-conventions/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Maximizing Facebook&#8217;s Live Feed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[For some reason, Facebook has decided to limit the number of people who can see your updates to 250. For those of us with more than 250 Facebook friends, this is not good. If Facebook allows 5,000 friends, wouldn&#8217;t it be nice if 5,000 people could view your updates?
There is.
Step #1: Click on the Home Page

Step #2: Hover over the right hand side of one of the updates in your news feed until you see the Hide option

Step #3: Click on on the Hide option and select the option to ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/10/24/maximizing-facebooks-live-feed/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Transparent PDF Pricing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I called John to tell him what I found out about the prevailing prices for PDFs in the 96-page and 128-page range.  Have a listen:
http://ephealy.com/transparentgames005.MP3
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/10/03/transparent-pdf-pricing/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Transparent Business</title>
		<description><![CDATA[John and I decided we need to find a new home for this project. We also talked about money, doing market research, and putting hard-core development on hold until we can integrate Jess into the mix. Have a listen:
http://ephealy.com/transparentgames004.MP3
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/10/01/transparent-business/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Transparent Benjamins</title>
		<description><![CDATA[NOTE: This email is part of the Transparent Publishing experiment John Wick and I are playing with.
John,
At some point, we should have a little chat about ‘boring business stuff’—stuff like how we’re going to handle money, whether we’re going to pay for any contributions, or whether we’re going to look for people to share profits. Before we bring someone like Jess on, we should figure out, at least in part, how we’re going to split dollar bills.
Any thoughts on this?
- Ed
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/10/01/transparent-benjamins/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Transparent Morality</title>
		<description><![CDATA[John and I talked about some higher-level stuff; the game&#8217;s going to be about moral choices. We riffed about some crunchy stuff, such as alignment, favors, and social combat. Right now, John&#8217;s contacting Jess Heinig to see if he&#8217;ll be our system monkey. Fingers crossed. Have a listen:
http://ephealy.com/transparentgames003.MP3
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/09/30/transparent-morality/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Transparent Thieves</title>
		<description><![CDATA[John and I decided some more stuff. We&#8217;ll be using our blogs, instead of email, to send messages to back and forth. We&#8217;ve also decided what we&#8217;ll be writing about and, tentatively, what system we&#8217;ll be using. Have a listen:
http://ephealy.com/transparentgames002.MP3
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/09/30/transparent-thieves/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Transparent Publishing?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[John Wick and I are starting an experiment. Have a listen:
http://ephealy.com/transparentgames001.MP3
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/09/30/transparent-publishing/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>What can we learn from my girls’ dentist?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I hated going to the dentist as a kid. When I was 7 (?), I had six teeth pulled because of crowding in my mouth. It was terrifying.

My girls went to the dentist today—and loved it. They came home telling stories about ‘the fun dentist’, and asking when they could go back.
What can we learn from my girls’ dentist?
(1) First impressions set the tone: When I was a kid, the waiting room at my dentist included a windowless paneled wall, a couple chairs, and a Mr. Potato Head (missing most ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/08/20/what-can-we-learn-from-my-girls%e2%80%99-dentist/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Gen Con Indy 2009 Redux</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I had a blast at Gen Con this year. It was a big show for Moonstew &#8211; Rone and I released nine episodes during the show. &#8220;The best for days in radio!&#8221;
Here&#8217;s a peak at the madness:
This Just In…From GenCon 2009! Pre-show #2:
On the second pre-show episode of This Just In From GenCon 2009, I joined Ryan Macklin to talk about convention survival.
Diana Jones Awards: I was proud to sponsor this year&#8217;s award. Dominion walked away with the well-deserved recognition.
Day 1
Atomic Array: Gen Con 2009 Special Edition I: Paizo Publishing, ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/08/17/gen-con-indy-2009-redux/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>This Just In…From GenCon 2009! Saturday 5pm</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I cohosted an episode of This Just in&#8230; with Ryan Macklin and had a blast. Guests Eddy Webb (White Wolf Publishing) and Brennan Taylor (Indie Press Revolution) were awesome. I&#8217;m not sure if we talked about anything important, but we had fun.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/08/16/this-just-in%e2%80%a6from-gencon-2009-saturday-5pm/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Your Second Chance is Now</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
If not now then when
Tracy Chapman, “If Not Now&#8230;”
On a recent episode of Atomic Array, we featured Geist: The Sin-Eaters, the new storytelling game from White Wolf Publishing. I like many things about the game, but the one I keep coming back to is the tag line: “A Game of Second Chances.”
Part of the intrigue in Geist: The Sin-Eaters surrounds the question, “If you came back from the dead with a second lease on life, what is the most important thing you’d want to accomplish?” This is the very question ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/08/09/your-second-chance-is-now/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>This Just In…From GenCon 2009! Pre-show #2</title>
		<description><![CDATA[On the second pre-show episode of This Just In From GenCon 2009, I joined Ryan Macklin to talk about convention survival. We went into the 1-2-3 rule (minimum of 1 shower, 2 meals, 3 hours of sleep per day) and some tips that we’ve picked up from their years traveling the convention circuit and from what other folks have said online — notably Adam Jury from Catalyst Games.
We mention:
* Pathfinder RPG from Paizo Publishing (Check out the video preview of the book!)
* Eclipse Phase from Catalyst Game Labs and CthulhuTech ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/07/30/this-just-in%e2%80%a6from-gencon-2009-pre-show-2/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Who plays at their FLGS?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[‘Making money’ selling digital RPG products is tough. It’s certainly possible, if approached properly, but if you want to see more than a token return on your products your best bet is to go print. The demand for digital RPG products is growing, but the digital side of the industry hasn’t matured fully. Yet.
It’s easy to see how iPods and file-sharing services are killing off the market for hard copies of music CDs. But, RPGs are books. They play more by the rules that govern that industry and the fact ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/07/25/who-plays-at-their-flgs/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>gamerati: Eloy Lasanta (Third Eye Games)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Eloy Lasanta owns Third Eye Games, publisher of Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. We had a nice conversation about reviews, what publishers can learn from them and how they can respond to them.
Third Eye Games: http://www.thirdeyegames.net/
A companion article to this episode can be found here:
Reviews: The Good the Bad and the Frustrating
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/07/08/gamerati-eloy-lasanta-third-eye-games/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Reviews: The Good, the Bad, and the Frustrating</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s easy to see why many companies regard reviews as crucial to their marketing efforts. After all, what’s more powerful for sales than having a well respected reviewer practically tell people to go out and buy your product? But are reviews really that important? And if they are, how do you go about getting them? And what do you do when you get a “bad” review?
The importance of reviews
There are two schools of thought when it comes to reviews. One regards them as an essential marketing tool, though one not ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/07/07/reviews-the-good-the-bad-and-the-frustrating/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Deep integration of iPhone applications</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I love my iPhone. It goes everywhere I go because it allows me to bring everything I do on the road. Almost everything; my life and work are increasingly mobile.
At the core of my iPhone infatuation is the ability to access and maintain my contacts, email and calendar in real time. Personally, I use Google services for all of these things – Gmail and Google Calendar, to be precise. There are thousands of iPhone applications, many of which may be great, but I rarely use more than a handful.
These applications ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/07/06/deep-integration-of-iphone-applications/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>gamerati: Shel Holtz (FIR)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Shel Holtz has been helping companies communicate for over thirty years. In 2005, he started For Immediate Release: The Hobson &#38; Holtz Report with his co-host Neville Hobson. Since then, they have produced over 450 shows discussing public relations and technology. I asked Shel to speak with me about podcasting and how it can help small publishers communicate with their customers.
Shel&#8217;s Blog: http://blog.holtz.com/
For Immediate Release: http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/
gamerati: Shel Holtz (FIR)
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/06/30/gamerati-shel-holtz-fir/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Interview: Dana McDonald of Custom Kingdoms</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Dana McDonald works as an environment artist at ArenaNet, the company that makes Guild Wars. He and his wife also craft custom terrain for miniature war gamers, which they sell through their company, Custom Kingdoms.
I met Dana at ConQuest NW in January. Through email, we’ve been discussing the art of terrain sculpting. Below is an editing version of that conversation:
EPH: Tell me a little bit about yourself, your business and what you do in broad strokes.
DMD: I have been building terrain since I was in 6th or 7th grade, and ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/06/29/interview-dana-mcdonald-of-custom-kingdoms/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Google Wave and Microblogging</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When Google announced Wave, my impression was that it was a glorified messaging protocol. Based on their preview videos, it appeared that Wave would allow you to hook into various services, such as YouTube and Flickr, pulling in content to share in a conversation. The live updating and thread branching features looked interesting, but I left without being firmly impressed.
On yesterday&#8217;s Marketing Over Coffee, Chris Penn said he&#8217;d been able to look into the developer docs for Wave. What he discovered was that Wave was more than just IM on ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/06/12/google-wave-and-microblogging/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Advertising: Don&#8217;t Leave Your Audience Guessing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was watching TV with my wife the other night when I saw a commercial that, to me, epitomizes what is wrong with so much advertising.

The commercial starts out with a guy tooling around in his garage. He&#8217;s working on something, but you&#8217;re not sure what it is. At first, I thought I was watching something about home improvements &#8211; a Craftsman, or maybe Sears, commercial.
A third of the way in, the scene switches. Now the guy is driving down the road in a truck. I&#8217;m not sure what he&#8217;s ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/06/08/advertising-dont-leave-your-audience-guessing/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Board Games (gamerati)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I asked a number of industry professionals to join me for an informal chat about board games. We talked about a number of things, from the apparent strength of the current board game market to ways all levels of the industry can help each other bring more games to more customers.
gamerati
Hans Isaacson: President of Uncle&#8217;s Inc, with five retail locations (Uncle&#8217;s Games, Puzzles and More!) in Washington State. He started out in the industry in 1990 as a retail clerk (the store&#8217;s &#8220;game guy&#8221;) for the former parent company of ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/06/06/board-games-gamerati/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>How social media helped me land an Xbox gig</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In the Spring of 2008, I moved to Bulgaria. My wife began helping with her sister’s business – a consulting firm that specialized in servicing foreign real estate developers interested in opportunities in the Republic of Bulgaria. My eldest attended pre-school during the day, while my mother-in-law watched the little one.
Bulgaria was an opportunity for me. We had very low expenses while living overseas and so I was blessed with a chance to build my businesses without having to worry about paying too many bills.
In April, I ran across an ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/05/27/how-social-media-helped-me-land-an-xbox-gig/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Using Twitter to time Promotions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’ve been tracking various key words on Twitter for some months. My hope is that I can determine when chatter about certain topics spikes, so that I can better help promote the products and services of the companies I work with.
For instance, I have a new podcast coming out this week. It’s a show about game design and game mastering, for people who enjoy roleplaying games. I could announce the show at any time, but why not make the announcement at a time when people are most likely talking about ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/05/26/using-twitter-to-time-promotions/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Online ad revenues: Is the slump over?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Q1 2009 was abysmal, as far as online advertising revenues were concerned. Have things changed?
I didn&#8217;t wake up one day and decide to be an advertising salesman. I certainly never expected to run ads for a network of sites. No, my expansion into the world of online advertising was by chance. When someone waves a large chunk of money in your face and asks you to take it, you don&#8217;t say No. You find out how to earn it.
That was how I started. An advertiser wanted to place ads on ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/05/25/online-ad-revenues-is-the-slump-over/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Open Design Podcast</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Wolfgang Baur will join me and Rone Barton to host the Open Design Podcast, a monthly show about game design and dungeon mastering. Skip Williams and Monte Cook will make regular contributions. The first episode airs May 28th and features talks with guests Jeff Grubb and Clinton Boomer.
The Open Design Podcast will be available via the Kobold Quarterly website, your subscription service of choice, and will air on War Pig Radio.

]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/05/14/open-design-podcast/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Augmented Reality</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re not familiar with augmented reality, there are a number of Googleable references. This video from Matt Dickman will give you a good idea of what I&#8217;m talking about.

OK, so now that you know what it is, let&#8217;s talk about what gaming companies can do with it.
Privateer Press could imprint unique icons on the bottom of each Warmachine mini. When held up in front of your webcame, two things could happen: your account could be updated to note that you own that figure and an animation of that figure, ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/04/26/augmented-reality/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>In Search of an Intern</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m looking for an intern. Check out the stuff below and, if you&#8217;re interested, send me an email with the subject [INTERN].
What you&#8217;ll be doing (to various degrees)

Contacting publishers to learn what products they plan to release this year.
Contacting retailers to learn what products are selling.
Helping design podcast shows, including format, pacing and tone.
Managing data for existing marketing projects.

Requirements?

Gamer.
Have an interest in the business side of games.
Not scared of numbers.
Not scared of talking on the phone.
Available at least 5 hours per week.

]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/04/01/in-search-of-an-intern/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>T-603 Days and Counting</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I decided to check my enlistment contract for the US Army today. Why? I wanted to figure out how long I had until my initial 8 years is up. See, even though I&#8217;m not on Active Duty, I&#8217;m technically still in the Army until 8 years after my enlistment date &#8211; though classified as Inactive Ready Reserve during the remainer of my non-Active term.
I have 603 more days. You would think that, after those 603 days are up, I&#8217;m free and clear, right?
It&#8217;s amazing the things you realize after it&#8217;s ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/23/t-603-days-and-counting/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>gamerati: Jason Falls (Doe-Anderson)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Jason Falls, VP Interactive and Online Communications at Doe-Anderson, and I speak about branding and social media.
Jason&#8217;s Home Page: http://jasonfalls.com/
Jason&#8217;s Blog: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/
gamerati: Jason Falls (Doe-Anderson)
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/18/gamerati-jason-falls-doe-anderson/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>gamerati: BIG Jason Henderson</title>
		<description><![CDATA[gamerati: BIG Jason Henderson
Jason Henderson is the world&#8217;s leading expert on search engine optimization for the Miva Merchant shopping cart. We spoke about landing page optimization and email marketing.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/17/gamerati-big-jason-henderson/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>gamerati: Stan! (Super Genius Games)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[gamerati: Stan! (Super Genius Games)
Stan! (Super Genius Games) talks about market research, and treating your business like&#8230; a business.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/16/gamerati-stan-super-genius-games/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>gamerati: Steve Russell (Rite Publishing)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[gamerati: Steve Russell (Rite Publishing)
Steve Russell talks about how the patronage model changed everything about the way he does business at Rite Publishing.
Related: Atomic Array 023 (Rite Publishing)
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/15/gamerati-steve-russell-rite-publishing/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Kicking Myself in the Teeth</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Everyone has drama in their lives. I don&#8217;t know a single person that has had something happen to them in the past that&#8217;s left a permanent scar of some sort. Most of us are blessed to have small scars, but some aren&#8217;t so lucky.
Some people really seemed to get kicked around by life. They may do well in some way. People may even look at them and think they lead charmed lives. Their blessings may be real, but for some&#8230; suffering the slings and arrows thrown at them has really ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/10/kicking-myself-in-the-teeth/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Worldwide D&amp;D Game Day on War Pig Radio</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Help bring the excitement of Worldwide D&#38;D Game Day to your store; tune in to War Pig Radio and listen to gamers from around the world enjoying Dungeons &#38; Dragons.
War Pig Radio broadcasts great programming 24 hours a day so you don’t have to search for something interesting to play over your store speakers. Industry news, product reviews, and interviews with the people who create the things we love—you can find it all on War Pig Radio.
On March 21st, Gamers everywhere will be playing Dungeons &#38; Dragons and War Pig ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/03/10/worldwide-dd-game-day-on-war-pig-radio/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Atomic Array Listener Survey</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I sent out an informal survey to some of our Atomic Array listeners. I&#8217;m still pondering what all the responses mean, but here&#8217;s the results so far:
(1) How did you hear about Atomic Array?
47%: Host mentioned it on message boards or in IRC
24%: Promotions
12%: RPG Podcasts.com
6%: Google Search for &#8220;RPG Podcasts&#8221;
6%: Heard promo on another podcast
6%: iTunes Search
(2) What was your first episode?
40%: Episode 001 (Colonial Gothic)
13%: Episode 005 (Interface-Zero)
10%: Episode 010 (Shadows of Cthulhu)
37%: Various Others
(3) How often do you listen to the show?
13%: Once, never again
73%: Every show
(4) ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/02/28/atomic-array-listener-survey/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Online Banner Ads and ROI</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s important to measure ROI when spending marking dollars. Tactics change (both in price and effectiveness) over time, so I regularly evaluate them to see if I can find the ones that will give my clients the greatest bang for their buck.
Today, I&#8217;m thinking about online banner advertisements. Why? Because, for all their faults, online banners are one tactic that allow the advertiser to gather hard data on their effectiveness. When I place a banner on a site, I can tell how many people respond &#8211; allowing me to make ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/02/20/online-banner-ads-and-roi/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Save Mother Earth, Kill A Tree</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Puget Sound Energy (PSE) sent me a mailer for their Green Power Program today. It&#8217;s a fairly straightforward program. You choose to switch the source your home (or business) uses for power over to renewable energy sources, in whole or in part, and agree to pay the added expense it costs PSE to provide this alternative.
Right now, I pay $0.10 per kWh. With this plan, I&#8217;d pay $0.1125 per kWh. A 12.5% increase.
I asked the PSE advisor what the average monthly power consumption was for homes of my size in ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/02/19/save-mother-earth-kill-a-tree/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>War Pig: State of the Sty</title>
		<description><![CDATA[War Pig is a 24-hour streaming radio station, with programming that focuses on board games, RPGs, comics, and other geek content. You can find the stream at: http://www.warpigradio.com/
Before launching War Pig, we contacted a number of our fellow podcasters, inviting them to contribute content for the station. Most of our initial contributors are now in place, including:
* Atomic Array
* Family Night
* Fear the Boot
* The Game Kennel
* Ogre Cave Gaming New Update
* Print &#38; Play
* RPG Countdown
* Wapcaplets
We also have some new content launching shortly, including contributions from:
* The Escapist
* ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/02/11/war-pig-state-of-the-sty/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>RPG Countdown (Press Release)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[MOONSTEW PRODUCTIONS LAUNCHES RPG COUNTDOWN – NEW BI-WEEKLY SHOW SPONSORED BY RPGNOW HIGHLIGHTS TEN HOTTEST SELLING RPG PRODUCTS
(January 28, 2009; DuPont, WA)—Moonstew Productions launched RPG Countdown today. Sponsored by RPGNow, the world&#8217;s largest source for digital RPG products, this bi-weekly show highlights the ten hottest selling RPG products, combining product descriptions with quotes from publishers and creators.
“We are jumping up and down, I can tell you. Moonstew has put together a very cool production,” says Sean Patrick Fannon, RPGNow marketing director. “We are looking at the 21st Century marketplace for ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/28/rpg-countdown-press-release/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Scorpion Queen</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ll be attending Dungeons &#38; Dragons Experience next week. On Friday and Saturday (8 AM!) I&#8217;ll be running an adventure called &#8220;The Scorpion Queen,&#8221; which you can find in the recently released In Search of Adventure from Goodman Games.
I was checking out the list of people attending today and noted that Ed Gentry will be sitting across the table for one of these sessions. I&#8217;m pretty excited; I&#8217;ve been wanting to meet him for some time.
Ed Who? Pick up his novel Neversfall.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/24/the-scorpion-queen/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Feedburner, Google and MyBrand</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Back when I set up my feed for Atomic Array, I took Paul Colligan&#8217;s advice and took advantage of Feedburner&#8217;s MyBrand service.
Link to MyBrand: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mybrand
Paul Colligan&#8217;s Explanation of how to set up MyBrand and Why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIHNjzkWLyI
Last week, Feedburner told me I needed to port over to Google. Matt Dickman has a nice little video about the transition here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcy74J72W40
Alas, while I followed Google&#8217;s advice, my feed was still broken. I tinkered around and, Eureka! I figured out what was wrong. I even made a video about it: http://ephealy.blip.tv/file/1686705/
HERE&#8217;S THE BAD ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/22/feedburner-google-and-mybrand/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Ogre Cave Gaming News Update on War Pig Radio</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you listen to War Pig Radio, you&#8217;ll now be treated to regular gaming industry news updates, courtesy of Ogre Cave’s Allan Sugarbaker. Each update will last 3-4 minutes.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/22/ogre-cave-gaming-news-update-on-war-pig-radio/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>War Pig Radio</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Enjoy gaming, comics, books, and movies? Hungry for entertaining and informative news, reviews, and interviews? War Pig Radio is for you.
At least, it will be. We have a couple kinks to work out, and we need to work up some more killer content before we&#8217;re ready to really move on it, but it&#8217;s live.
The idea? Provide entertainment and information to the gamerati 24 x 7. As we add more content to the line-up, we&#8217;ll also be developing players so that webmasters can embed War Pig on their websites. I&#8217;ve also ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/18/war-pig-radio/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Allan Sugarbaker and David &#8220;Zeb&#8221; Cook join Game Cryer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Allan Sugarbaker has agreed to act as content editor at Game Cryer. Allan served as tabletop games editor at Gamers.com for 2 years, editor for Game Buyer for 2 years, Administrator/Review Coordinator at RPGnet for over 5 years, and continue as Editor/Founder of OgreCave.com.
Veteran game designer David &#8220;Zeb&#8221; Cook will also contribute regular reviews of wargaming products. David&#8217;s name graces the credits of too many products to list. We&#8217;re excited to be working with him.
]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/15/allan-sugarbaker-and-david-zeb-cook-join-game-cryer/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Targeted Ads for eBooks and POD</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Modern online advertising technology (Google, Facebook, etc) allows an advertiser to target a specific demographic based on any number of criteria. As someone who manages advertising for a number of websites, one of the most important targeting criteria is geography. Service providers and retailers want to communicate with local clientele, not some random Joe.
This is great for websites, but how long will it take for this same ability to translate into other platforms?
Assume for a moment that I publish an eZine. I decide to sell a PDF edition and offer ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/06/targeted-ads-for-ebooks-and-pod/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Being Normal</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today is my rez day. Today I am one year old.
For those of you familiar with Second Life, a rez day is not a foreign concept. For the rest, a rez day is your Second Life birthday—the day you signed up for an SL account and became a resident.
How was my first year in Second Life? Let’s take a look…
On 04 January 2008, Michael Stackpole posted a blog entry about Second Life. He announced his upcoming appearance on SLCN’s “Meet the Author” (now, “Meet an Author”) and encouraged people to ...]]></description>
		<link>http://ephealy.com/2009/01/04/being-normal/</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>

