New Doom Movie HD Trailer
For all you doom fans, there’s a new WMV HD trailer of Doom the movie. Be warned, you need a beefy system to play it.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Gabe Newell of Valve says Xbox 360 Makes his Life Harder
Gabe Newell of Valve has stated that the Xbox 360 makes his life harder as a developer due to the differing models of the Xbox 360 which brings up an interesting point: why did Microsoft drop the hard drive component on lower end models of the 360? In my opinion what should have been done is differing sizes of hard drives should have been put in the different models as opposed to taking the HD out all together. Seems to me Microsoft may have dropped the ball here instead of trying to push another accessory sale. What are your thoughts?
Monday, August 29, 2005
Google Talk, Halo Movie Rights, and more.
This update was written in Word 2003 and sent straight to Blogger. It’s amazing how they’ve crafted a nice little plug-in to make blogging so easy. Now instead of opening up Outlook or Gmail, I can simply open up Word…accessibility is key I suppose. This is cool though, it allows me to edit and make sure everything is absolutely correct in my post before “going live”.
I know I’ve been neglecting the blog as of late. It’s not that I’ve been any form of busy to put a few new posts here or there, but with moving and looking for a new job, things have been a bit hectic. And with all the World of Warcraft I’ve been playing lately, well, you get the picture.
So, to wrap up what’s been happening recently in the world of news and technology, I’ll put a simple bullet list:
I know I’ve been neglecting the blog as of late. It’s not that I’ve been any form of busy to put a few new posts here or there, but with moving and looking for a new job, things have been a bit hectic. And with all the World of Warcraft I’ve been playing lately, well, you get the picture.
So, to wrap up what’s been happening recently in the world of news and technology, I’ll put a simple bullet list:
- Google recently released Google Talk, an IM client that also includes voice chat capabilities. I gave it a spin and found it to work, but it wasn’t too flashy and I found it slightly confusing at first to add new buddies to my list. It requires that users have an active Gmail account. The voice sound quality was decent, at least according to my tester it was as I talked to him but he had no microphone to talk back. It’s a very plain client, though it did use fewer resources than AIM (my IM client of choice).
- Microsoft has finally got a distribution house for the theatrical version of Halo. Universal and 20th Century Fox will pay Microsoft $5 million plus a percentage of ticket sales not to exceed 10% domestic box office receipts.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
E3 2005
Whew, what a week. With E3 and graduation from college, I've been pretty busy. E3 was fairly enjoyable. As most of you may know, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony showcased each of their respective new systems. The problem with a console launch year is that the content is still in development and not quite ready to be played. PS3 didn't have anything playable, but had a showing of a 15 minute video that show cased the upcoming content. Nintendo didn't have much on the Revolution, but did have some 3D Renders of the console.
For current generation content, there wasn't a lot to look forward to, surprisingly. Game of show ended up being the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Nintendo did have a playable version of this, however it required waiting in a 2 hour line to play for about 15 minutes. I didn't wait in this line, though I would have if there wasn't other stuff going on.
This year was fairly disappointing for me, if only because at the end of the second day I was pretty much done with what I had wanted to see. E3 has gotten so big over the years that there are lines for just about everything. Games these days are all starting to become the same. There's no real innovation anymore, and the new innovative concepts are pretty lame (such as Donkey Konga). Nintendo is really the only company that creates these innovative ideas, but most of them are too gimmicky and don't really catch on that well. The Gameboy Micro is a novel concept, but it by no means is a competitor to much else than a cell phone. The PSP has trounced Nintendo as by talking to others at the show the DS is pretty much considered a flop. Though, to be fair, the DS/PSP comparison isn't an apples/apples one.
As for the big consoles coming out, for those of you who think the PS3 is going to kill everyone based solely on sheer performance numbers, you're sorely mistaken. Sony has a history of running its mouth, and over promising, but under delivering. Remember back a few years at E3 when the GC and Xbox were just coming to market? Here's a quote from About.com:
Major Nelson has a nice comparison of the Xbox 360 vs. PS3 hardware specs. It's broken into 4 parts (click here for 2, 3, 4). To preface this, Major Nelson is an employee of Microsoft working on Xbox Live, so take the results with a grain of salt. I've done some research on the hardware of both systems, the cell processor and the Xbox PowerPC CPU with 3 PowerPC cores, and honestly, I do believe what Major Nelson says. The Cell processor only has one core, and with that core it processes the data using seven DSPs (Sony references this as SPEs), similar to that of how hyperthreading works on the Pentium 4. The article does get pretty deep into the technical aspects, so I won't go into detail of them here since my interpretation wouldn't be as beneficial. But honestly, the Xbox 360 hardware does look better on paper. And that's really all this is, a paper war. We'll see how the content comes out in the future and how it all works out in 2006.
Microsoft also announced this past week the backwards compatability of the Xbox 360. Their press-release hinted that only top-selling games would work. While this will be true at launch, it won't stay that way. ALL Xbox games will eventually be playable on the 360. The problem that Microsoft will have is that they have to create shims for each game. Think of a shim as an emulator for a specific game. Each game would have its own shim that would be required. The reason for this, I believe, is that the NV40 that is used on the current Xbox is using a dual-shader model (pixel and vertex, which is what is common in current-day GPUs) while the Xbox 360 GPU will be using a unified shader model which only has one shader. Due to this, Microsoft has to emulate the dual shader model onto the GPU. Normally, you would think just one emulator would be needed, but apparently each game needs its own. The unified shader model will be included in Direct X 10 (which is also called WGF 2.0 and is to be introduced in Longhorn). No new hardware will need to be purchased for these shims to be installed, either. There was no specifics mentioned on how the shims would be installed on Xbox 360 hardware, but I would imagine it would tie in with Xbox Live as some sort of dash update.
All in all, the future will be interesting. This will be the first year in which console hardware outshines the PC.
For current generation content, there wasn't a lot to look forward to, surprisingly. Game of show ended up being the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Nintendo did have a playable version of this, however it required waiting in a 2 hour line to play for about 15 minutes. I didn't wait in this line, though I would have if there wasn't other stuff going on.
This year was fairly disappointing for me, if only because at the end of the second day I was pretty much done with what I had wanted to see. E3 has gotten so big over the years that there are lines for just about everything. Games these days are all starting to become the same. There's no real innovation anymore, and the new innovative concepts are pretty lame (such as Donkey Konga). Nintendo is really the only company that creates these innovative ideas, but most of them are too gimmicky and don't really catch on that well. The Gameboy Micro is a novel concept, but it by no means is a competitor to much else than a cell phone. The PSP has trounced Nintendo as by talking to others at the show the DS is pretty much considered a flop. Though, to be fair, the DS/PSP comparison isn't an apples/apples one.
As for the big consoles coming out, for those of you who think the PS3 is going to kill everyone based solely on sheer performance numbers, you're sorely mistaken. Sony has a history of running its mouth, and over promising, but under delivering. Remember back a few years at E3 when the GC and Xbox were just coming to market? Here's a quote from About.com:
Several years ago at E3, Sony announced at their press conference that the “console wars are over." Claiming this when the GameCube and the Xbox were still fresh to the market, Sony backed its claim by comparing the sales figures of the PS1 & PS2 with the sales figures of the other two systems. Since the Playstation 2 had been on the market for nearly a year before the Xbox and GameCube, and since they were including the sales data of past Sony systems, the numbers showing Sony’s dominance were astronomical. In a lot of ways, it looked exactly like Sony claimed; the console wars had been won. Nintendo responded at their press conference later in the day with the combined sales statistics for every console they have ever produced: Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo 64, SuperNES, NES, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color, classic Gameboy – nearly ever system they’ve made since the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1983 made it into the tally. Their numbers put Sony’s to shame, and stood as a reminder that not only had Nintendo been around for a great deal of time, but that market information can and will be skewed.
Major Nelson has a nice comparison of the Xbox 360 vs. PS3 hardware specs. It's broken into 4 parts (click here for 2, 3, 4). To preface this, Major Nelson is an employee of Microsoft working on Xbox Live, so take the results with a grain of salt. I've done some research on the hardware of both systems, the cell processor and the Xbox PowerPC CPU with 3 PowerPC cores, and honestly, I do believe what Major Nelson says. The Cell processor only has one core, and with that core it processes the data using seven DSPs (Sony references this as SPEs), similar to that of how hyperthreading works on the Pentium 4. The article does get pretty deep into the technical aspects, so I won't go into detail of them here since my interpretation wouldn't be as beneficial. But honestly, the Xbox 360 hardware does look better on paper. And that's really all this is, a paper war. We'll see how the content comes out in the future and how it all works out in 2006.
Microsoft also announced this past week the backwards compatability of the Xbox 360. Their press-release hinted that only top-selling games would work. While this will be true at launch, it won't stay that way. ALL Xbox games will eventually be playable on the 360. The problem that Microsoft will have is that they have to create shims for each game. Think of a shim as an emulator for a specific game. Each game would have its own shim that would be required. The reason for this, I believe, is that the NV40 that is used on the current Xbox is using a dual-shader model (pixel and vertex, which is what is common in current-day GPUs) while the Xbox 360 GPU will be using a unified shader model which only has one shader. Due to this, Microsoft has to emulate the dual shader model onto the GPU. Normally, you would think just one emulator would be needed, but apparently each game needs its own. The unified shader model will be included in Direct X 10 (which is also called WGF 2.0 and is to be introduced in Longhorn). No new hardware will need to be purchased for these shims to be installed, either. There was no specifics mentioned on how the shims would be installed on Xbox 360 hardware, but I would imagine it would tie in with Xbox Live as some sort of dash update.
All in all, the future will be interesting. This will be the first year in which console hardware outshines the PC.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Xbox 360 Thoughts
I caught the Xbox 360 unveiling on MTV tonight and wasn't too impressed with the way it was portrayed. I guess I might be a bit old-fashioned here, but I wanted to see more about the hardware and what features the console would have and not an indepth look at Perfect Dark Zero with questions shot off at devs by some emotionless pro-gamer. While the look into how PD:Zero was made was cool, there should have been a lot more revealed about what people are getting themselves into. This obviously was a fluff piece that was designed to whet the appetite of would-be gamers.
Toms Hardware actually posted a good preview on what is in-store for us hardware wise. I suggest everyone take a quick read. There's a lot of information there that confirms a lot of the speculation about the console. One thing to note is that the 360 was being developed around the same time the first generation Xbox was. I don't think it was a side-by-side development, but the initial Xbox was designed such that it would generate buzz and get MS a certain portion of marketshare and developer backing. MS is now running full force and should be able to turn a profit on the 360 during this next hardware cycle.
Toms Hardware actually posted a good preview on what is in-store for us hardware wise. I suggest everyone take a quick read. There's a lot of information there that confirms a lot of the speculation about the console. One thing to note is that the 360 was being developed around the same time the first generation Xbox was. I don't think it was a side-by-side development, but the initial Xbox was designed such that it would generate buzz and get MS a certain portion of marketshare and developer backing. MS is now running full force and should be able to turn a profit on the 360 during this next hardware cycle.
Xbox 360 Revealed Tonight
Just a reminder that MTV will be show casing the Xbox 360 tonight at 9:30 PM EST.
http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/xbox/index.jhtml
http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/xbox/index.jhtml
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
E3
With E3 starting next week I felt it was time to post some E3 updates here. I will be attending E3 on May 18th, and flying into Burbank on May 17th. It should be a fun time as I'll be able to see all the next-gen systems as well as some new games coming out for the current consoles and PC.
As far as updates are concerned, a lot of talk has been going on about the Xbox 360. On Thursday, May 12th, Microsoft will showcase the Xbox 360 on MTV in its first public unvieling of the console. The show was taped last week and stars such as Elijah Wood were on hand for the unvieling. The sepcs on the console have been leaked:
2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)
Features for Gold service
(S) Also for Silver
(O) Also for Offline
- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) (S)
- Free Xbox Live weekends (S)
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile(S)(O)
- Motto for gamer profile (S)(O)
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide (S)(O)
- Offline achievments (S)(O)
- Online achievements (S)
- Access to other players' Gamer cards via Live (S)
- Cumulative gamer score (S)(O)
- Location/language profile (S)(O)
- Reputation (S)
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list (S)
- Free and premium download game content(S)
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv (S)
- Downloadable demos/trailers (S)
- Microtransactions (S)
- Custom playlist in every game (S)(O)
- Play music from portable devices (S)(O)
- View images from digital camera (S)(O)
- Strem media from Windows XP (S)(O)
- Interactive screen savers (S)(O)
- Track info for CDs (S) (O)
- Communication with voice, video or text (S)
The Hardware:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture
Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR
Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus
Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
So it seems as if everyone will have a shot at Xbox Live. Microsoft is really pushing all developers to include Xbox Live support. The video card on this console is also to be noted as it's better than all consumer grade video cards for PCs. All games are going to support 720p and will be in wide screen format. Folks, this console is going to revolutionize gaming. Sony has been quiet about the PS3, and Nintendo is afraid people are going to steal their ideas. All in all, this E3 is going to be very interesting.
As far as updates are concerned, a lot of talk has been going on about the Xbox 360. On Thursday, May 12th, Microsoft will showcase the Xbox 360 on MTV in its first public unvieling of the console. The show was taped last week and stars such as Elijah Wood were on hand for the unvieling. The sepcs on the console have been leaked:
2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)
Features for Gold service
(S) Also for Silver
(O) Also for Offline
- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) (S)
- Free Xbox Live weekends (S)
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile(S)(O)
- Motto for gamer profile (S)(O)
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide (S)(O)
- Offline achievments (S)(O)
- Online achievements (S)
- Access to other players' Gamer cards via Live (S)
- Cumulative gamer score (S)(O)
- Location/language profile (S)(O)
- Reputation (S)
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list (S)
- Free and premium download game content(S)
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv (S)
- Downloadable demos/trailers (S)
- Microtransactions (S)
- Custom playlist in every game (S)(O)
- Play music from portable devices (S)(O)
- View images from digital camera (S)(O)
- Strem media from Windows XP (S)(O)
- Interactive screen savers (S)(O)
- Track info for CDs (S) (O)
- Communication with voice, video or text (S)
The Hardware:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture
Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR
Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus
Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
So it seems as if everyone will have a shot at Xbox Live. Microsoft is really pushing all developers to include Xbox Live support. The video card on this console is also to be noted as it's better than all consumer grade video cards for PCs. All games are going to support 720p and will be in wide screen format. Folks, this console is going to revolutionize gaming. Sony has been quiet about the PS3, and Nintendo is afraid people are going to steal their ideas. All in all, this E3 is going to be very interesting.
Done with LV...for now.
Well, just a few minutes ago I switched my code back to the Co-Op. With the recent downtime, the need to have to have the pages you want to promote be cached, and the heavily usage of what I feel is a broken part of Google (the entire caching system is nutty if you ask me), the lack of sites, etc. I felt that at this time, for me at least, link vault wouldn't produce as I need it. I've got another site, www.exiledtech.com that will have quite a bit of pages once the sandbox penalty is lifted and a PR of 5 or so after the next update that I will split networks between the co-op and LV.
LV isn't a bad network, but it does take quite a while to see results, and right now I'm losing a ton by not having the co-op.
LV isn't a bad network, but it does take quite a while to see results, and right now I'm losing a ton by not having the co-op.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Link Vault Update #3
Some more improvements in the network today.
Vaultage: 2,893
Current Vaultage Usage: 579/2,893
Total Links Units: 5
Total Links/Vaultage used for each unit:
Vaultage: 2,893
Current Vaultage Usage: 579/2,893
Total Links Units: 5
Total Links/Vaultage used for each unit:
- http://www.clantt.com 88links/221 Vaultage used
- http://www.clantt.com/carinsurance 89links/136 Vaultage used
- http://www.clantt.com/creditcards/ 2o links/15 Vaultage used
- http://www.clantt.com/eminem/2005/04/eminem-lyrics.html 20 links/7 Vaultage used
- http://www.exiledtech.com 85 links/125 Vaultage used
So far, though, most links in MSN are not shown. Keep in mind that newer ads on the network are typically placed on low pr pages at first and have to "earn" the ability to jump up to higher PR pages. The ads that have more vaultage used than links means that the ads are on higher PR pages that take up more of your vaultage. So my www.clantt.com ad and my www.clantt.com/carinsurance ad both have links on higher PR sites than the others. My creditcards ad likely has some ads on lower PR pages.
I'm guessing by the end of the week my current vaultage might be used up too quick. I have been unsuccessful getting the link vault ads to show up on blogger web pages. So if anyone has any advice, please leave me a comment and let me know so I can get some more vaultage. I can also get more vaultage (only a little bit) from referrals. I also want to test out the referral benefits. You get network benefits based on how many referrals you get. The benefits are
Level 1 (1 referral) –Vaultage bonus up to 250
Level 2 (2 referrals) – Vaultage bonus up to 500 plus extra extra urls
Level 3 (4 referrals) – List of pages your links have been placed
Level 4 (7 referrals) – List of links placed on your site(s) and where
Level 5 (10 referrals) – Simply up down stats tracking for adverts with brief history
Level 6 (13 referrals) – History graphs to display the past performance of your adverts
Level 7 (16 referrals) – Unlimited URL allowance
So if you want to try the network out for youself, please use my referral link and sign up.
Link Vault Update #2
I left Link Vault to update and do it's thing over the last few days. The thing about LV is that things take some time to take hold. The way vaultage tends to update is that when someone hits a page, it runs the link vault code, which queries the server, and then adds vaultage to your account depending on the amount of PR the page has as well as whether if it is cached or not and the amount of links (up to five) you are giving the network on the page.
My current vaultage has grown to 2,682. I'm currently using 312 vaults. I currently have 5 ads running which gives me 203 total links (I have selected the max on each ad of 20 links per day).
I'm still showing backlink data from the DP Co-op when I do link: searches on MSN, so I cannot get any real accurate data for my main www.clantt.com and www.clantt.com/carinsurance links. For my www.exiledtech.com domain I've gained 4 backlinks in MSN out of 65 total links the LV control panel shows. I would imagine over the next few days I should see the 60+ links show up in MSN (providing those pages that the links are on are spidered regularly by MSNBot).
So after roughly 5 days or so, I'm slowly starting to see some data show up in the SEs. The thing about link vault is that you use up your vaultage over time, so while 312/2682 may not seem like a lot right now, that vaultage will be used up quite a bit in the future. The network could use a lot more sites, and if you are interested, as always, you can use my referal link to get started. Keep in mind that the links in this network are static (I've browsed many pages in the network and verified this) and that links are accumulated over time and not as rapid as the DP Co-op. You will need some patience to use this network. But a wise man said "Patience is a virtue"...
My current vaultage has grown to 2,682. I'm currently using 312 vaults. I currently have 5 ads running which gives me 203 total links (I have selected the max on each ad of 20 links per day).
I'm still showing backlink data from the DP Co-op when I do link: searches on MSN, so I cannot get any real accurate data for my main www.clantt.com and www.clantt.com/carinsurance links. For my www.exiledtech.com domain I've gained 4 backlinks in MSN out of 65 total links the LV control panel shows. I would imagine over the next few days I should see the 60+ links show up in MSN (providing those pages that the links are on are spidered regularly by MSNBot).
So after roughly 5 days or so, I'm slowly starting to see some data show up in the SEs. The thing about link vault is that you use up your vaultage over time, so while 312/2682 may not seem like a lot right now, that vaultage will be used up quite a bit in the future. The network could use a lot more sites, and if you are interested, as always, you can use my referal link to get started. Keep in mind that the links in this network are static (I've browsed many pages in the network and verified this) and that links are accumulated over time and not as rapid as the DP Co-op. You will need some patience to use this network. But a wise man said "Patience is a virtue"...
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Link Vault
Recently I've been using an advertising program called Link Vault. You may have noticed these links over at the bottom of www.clantt.com in the past. The previous links were from the Digital Point Co-Op network. Both networks are similar in that to adsense in that they generate advertisements to other websites.
The problem with the Co-op network, or at least the perceived problem, is that the co-op just returns a ton of back links based on overall network weight (which is determined by the PR of your root page and the amount of pages indexed by google using the API site: command). Now, the way google works, is that if there's a site that has a huge influx of backlinks, it tends to rank real well early on, but then starts to fall off when the googlebot comes back around to "revalidate" those links if you will. See, the co-op network has rotating links that are stored in a text file on your own web server. The co-op network ad code will take a look at the text file and display the next ads that are in line to be delivered. Based on your weight, you may have more or less ads listed in the text file. There's a little more to it than that, but you get the general idea.
What is Link Vault?
So what's this Link Vault I mentioned before? Well, Link Vault is similar to the co-op in that it delivers text advertisements using a "weight" (which is called vaultage) that is utilizes PR and whether or not the site has a cache in google. Supposedly each page stands on its own when determining vaultage, so if you have a really well done SEO'd internal linking structure and your index is a pr5-6, your sub pages should be one pr below that, and pages below that should be two PR values below the root, etc., you should be sitting well with a nice, high vaultage. The co-op doesn't do this, it just takes the root level PR index and bases the weight on that.
Link Vault also provides themed links that are static. They do this using some magical formula that places ads on pages that fit your site's theme and leaves them there until you leave the network or the site that is hosting your ads leaves the network. Link Vault also allows the amount of links you get per day be specificed. For instance, you can specify that you would like one page to get up to 20 links per day. You also get multiple versions of anchor text per ad (up to three) that you can assign a weight to (by default the top ad gets 50 percent weight, the second ad gets 30, and the third gets 20). The way this figures into vaultage I'm not 100% sure.
More information can be obtained at Link Vault's about page or Link Vault's FAQ page.
My Experience with Link Vault
I started using Link Vault on Wednesday April 27th, 2005. It took about 12-24 hours to get my site approved. Shortly after that my advertisements were approved. As of this writing I have the following vaultage:
The problem with the Co-op network, or at least the perceived problem, is that the co-op just returns a ton of back links based on overall network weight (which is determined by the PR of your root page and the amount of pages indexed by google using the API site: command). Now, the way google works, is that if there's a site that has a huge influx of backlinks, it tends to rank real well early on, but then starts to fall off when the googlebot comes back around to "revalidate" those links if you will. See, the co-op network has rotating links that are stored in a text file on your own web server. The co-op network ad code will take a look at the text file and display the next ads that are in line to be delivered. Based on your weight, you may have more or less ads listed in the text file. There's a little more to it than that, but you get the general idea.
What is Link Vault?
So what's this Link Vault I mentioned before? Well, Link Vault is similar to the co-op in that it delivers text advertisements using a "weight" (which is called vaultage) that is utilizes PR and whether or not the site has a cache in google. Supposedly each page stands on its own when determining vaultage, so if you have a really well done SEO'd internal linking structure and your index is a pr5-6, your sub pages should be one pr below that, and pages below that should be two PR values below the root, etc., you should be sitting well with a nice, high vaultage. The co-op doesn't do this, it just takes the root level PR index and bases the weight on that.
Link Vault also provides themed links that are static. They do this using some magical formula that places ads on pages that fit your site's theme and leaves them there until you leave the network or the site that is hosting your ads leaves the network. Link Vault also allows the amount of links you get per day be specificed. For instance, you can specify that you would like one page to get up to 20 links per day. You also get multiple versions of anchor text per ad (up to three) that you can assign a weight to (by default the top ad gets 50 percent weight, the second ad gets 30, and the third gets 20). The way this figures into vaultage I'm not 100% sure.
More information can be obtained at Link Vault's about page or Link Vault's FAQ page.
My Experience with Link Vault
I started using Link Vault on Wednesday April 27th, 2005. It took about 12-24 hours to get my site approved. Shortly after that my advertisements were approved. As of this writing I have the following vaultage:
I have added two sites to Link Vault. My first site is my main domain of www.clantt.com. My other site is www.exiledtech.com. Exiled Tech doesn't have much in the way of promotion as of yet as it is a new domain and I'm waiting for the right time to continue to work on it and promote it. It does have quite a few pages (since it's primarily a usenet feed), however those pages have yet to be cached. The following screen shot is of my user control panel.
I would have to say the Link Vault control panel is very well done. If your site has been approved it will be highlighted in green in the upper right. If your site has not been approved it will be red. The test link toggles the test mode on/off. This is done to make sure the ads are functioning on your page. However, ads don't start showing for quite some time as the network is still somewhat new. Link Vault will determine how many link spaces you have available on your site (you can specify the links you show which is from 1-5) and will tell you how many are filled. So you might not see links on all your pages. As long as the test mode shows links, you will be perfectly fine to use link vault.
Link Vault also allows for PHP and ASP pages. There are detailed instructions for setting up both methods. However, there are some tweaks that need to be made for vbulletin forums.
All in all I'm pretty happy with the way Link Vault is set up. The advertisement control panel is just as nicely set up as the site admin panel. I would show links, but then I'd have to kill you :). In all seriousness, I'd say everyone give it a shot. Links don't HAVE to be on every page of your site, though it's a good idea as the more links, the more vaultage.
If you would like, you can sign up to Link Vault using my referral link. I truly believe that Link Vault is better in certain ways than the co-op network. While the coop is a truly innovative system, it seems that Google is placing more emphasis on things like long-term links. Rotating links are fine, but in the long term they have no real value other than hoping someone sees your link and clicks it. There's no serp benefit, and I'd venture to say there's more likely hood to have your ads clicked on because your ads on placed on themed sites. With the co-op, you can have ads based on video games showing on real estate pages. There's no relevency (yet). So all in all, I think Link Vault shows a lot of promise and is better for both visitors and search engine bots.
