Yesterday morning I tried signing up as ad publisher on Ad4Games.com. I own few gaming sites and want to show more targeted advertisements, so this ad network seemed as a decent choice. I saw them serving banners on few other websites. When I tried to register, the town I live in is comprised of two words, as a result their system told me that only the following characters can be used “A-Z and a-z” (as seen in the image on the right). Seriously now?! The first two two word city names that come in my mind are Los Angeles and New York.

I contacted their support staff and my conversation follow:

[11:39] yvebts: Hello
[11:40] ad4game: hi
[11:41] yvebts: I am trying to register on ad4game.com as a publisher, but your system will not accept my city, because the name has a space in it
[11:41] yvebts: I can’t use - or _ because they are not accepted characters
[11:42] ad4game: just use no space
[11:42] ad4game: or write
[11:42] ad4game: space
[11:42] ad4game: we will adjust it
[11:42] ad4game: what is your website please?
[11:42] yvebts: OK. thank you
[11:43] yvebts: hivemindsgaming.com and clanmp.us
[11:51] ad4game: allright
[11:51] ad4game: i see you havent finished registering yet
[11:53] yvebts: I will attempt to complete the registration at a latter time. Thank you for you assistance.

Even though I know that I can send a letter to any one address in the US just by writing down the ZIP code and 4 digit extension, I wouldn’t write “space” in the name, because it will irritate me when I see it printed on the envelop. I have observed and have experienced the results of doing something silly like that and from people making assumptions. To top that, I have seen some really odd town names, so if they actually have someone who manually enters the address, why would they think of changing the town name?

Lastly, I tried registering last night and right before I typed this post. They still have not fixed this. As a company that claims to have been in the game advertising business for over 5 years you would think that they are quick to respond and fix issues in their system. Ad4Games.com, if you ever read this, if you have really been in the business for over 5 years just think about the number of publishers you have lost on. Even worse, the amount of revenue from advertisers you have lost on, because your advertiser sign up form has the same issue. I am not going to register until this is fixed. Probably eventually I will forget about your site and will not register at all.

BTW, what does “… been in the gaming industry for more than 5 years.” mean? You have been designing, developing, selling, promoting …. games?!

UPDATE (2008-10-27): It appears that the type of character limitations in the sign up form has been fixed. When I was signing up I noticed that Ad4Game had made a positive step in password security by mandating that passwords be alphanumeric. Good job.

Valve being bought by Google! That is a horrible thought, but there are number of web sites which are reporting this. Here are a few links:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

I decided to send Valve a quick email, and I think that everyone that is agains this happenign should do as well.

Good morning,

TechCrunch and TheInquirer are reporting a potential acquisition of Valve by Google.

Please say it isn’t so. I’ve been a fan of you company and games since you guys first started. I have been following your company and enjoyed your products all these years. An acquisition by google might seem like a financially good choice but technology and product wise it is not.

Valve has managed to remain financially independent and overcome a variety of obstacles all this years. Please do NOT give into the google idea. Be yourselves. Visiting Valve headquarters and working for Valve is a dream for many people. Don’t destroy your fan base.

Sincerely,

Alexandar Tzanov

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

You can email Valve at contact@valvesoftware.com, or contact the company in the following ways

Telephone:
425-889-9642

FAX:
425-827-4843

Postal address:
PO BOX 1688
Bellevue, WA 98009

The community has already started a discoution on the Steam forums.

Based on the people I follow on Twitter, I have noticed that people are tweeting more before lunch CTZ than in the afternoon, irregardless of geographical location. It seems like people stop tweeting for the second half of the work day, then they pick up again latter in the evening.

I guess it is true, people slack in the morning more than in the afternoon. Of course I have read other wise, but I think that the opposite is only true for the first quarter or half of the work day morning.

I believe the same holds true for pro bloggers. There seem to be more posts in the morning. My guess is they write some in the morning and more in the afternoon, which would explain fewer posts in the afternoon. They publish in the evening writings from the afternoon, then write some more and schedule the posts for the morning. If all that makes sense.

So, tell me twitterers - what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Have you noticed any other trends or facts about twitterers’ personalities, behavior, or patterns?