Within hours of the announcement the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Hello Kitty will have her own MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). So why are we talking about Hello Kitty here at Outblaze? For one, Outblaze is the provider of all services on SanrioTown, which as any kawaii connoisseur knows is the official home of Hello Kitty and friends. Outblaze also handles the backend for the game Hello Kitty Online - something we also did for adidas in The Impossible Team Online Game, a free title adidas offered during the 2006 FIFA World Cup (the game was taken down after the end of the tournament).

But back to Hello Kitty Online. We were pleasantly surprised by the remarkable display of Kitty Power: within a few hours of the announcement the game site received 30,000 requests for beta accounts and the news was plastered on countless blogs. And we were delighted by the flood of humorous reactions. Here is a small selection.

Kotaku

Kotaku (one of the first to report this news) informs readers that “Only one MMO could possibly release World of Warcraft’s death-grip on the massively multiplayer gaming market - Hello Kitty Online.” They also posted a selection of game screenshots under the heading “Too cute to live”.

Kotaku readers were not to be outdone and produced some lively banter:

User JAML said, in reference to the bright and cheerful palette, “To all Developers out there: More colors that are not some sort of brown please.” I know Yahtzee Croshaw agrees.

TECHKNOW commented, “With all the Player Killing in the Open Beta, lord knows what this will be like when it gets released on the market. I just hope I get to carry over my +9 Lollipop of Destruction”

Probably referring to the super cute screenshots, ICEPICK314 commented, “didn’t know you can code diabetes…”

MELODYKITN said, “Is it bad that this MMO sounds a whole lot like there’s more to do than other free MMOs?”

InventorSpot

The InventorSpot boldly states, “Today Hello Kitty Online, tomorrow the World (of Warcraft)”.

ValleyWag

Like Polonius, this Silicon Valley gossip rag knows that brevity is the soul of wit; in a post titled Why Second Life will fail, they provide an irrefutable argument in just four words: “Hello Kitty Virtual World”.

Plime

Plime.com calls Hello Kitty Online “THE deprogramming tool for WOW addicts” [that's World of Warcraft, for those unfamiliar with the abbreviation].

Japanator

Recovering from the attack of extreme excitement caused by the announcement, Japanator decreed Hello Kitty Online “the most mind blowing MMO ever conceived”. Japanator readers are encouraged to sign up for beta, although they are warned to prepare themselves for “a face-melting cute explosion. The music actually left sugar crust in my ears”.

little. yellow. different.

This blog stated, in a manner incomprehensible to non-gamers, that “today, a new MMORPG has entered a private invitation-only phase that could possibly bring Blizzard to it’s murloc-killing, PVP-flagged, epic-wearing knees” [Blizzard is, of course, the maker of World of Warcraft].

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The site that’s been covering PC gaming since 1873 did not manage to retain its cool in the face of the Hello Kitty Online announcement, and began dribbling about “The End Of Cute, where Cute will reach critical mass and implode to create some kind of super-dense Hello Kitty merchandising, sucking us all into the candy-coloured abyss”.

New York - Tokyo

Nothing ambiguous in a post titled Hello Kitty takes on World of Warcraft: “World of Warcraft’s days as king of the MMORPG hill are numbered…. it’s only a matter of time until the battlefields of Azeroth are barren and lifeless” [Azeroth, for the uninitiated, is the fantasy world setting of WoW].

Zergwatch

In Zergwatch’s entry titled MMORPG Showdown: Hello Kitty vs Toontown Online we witness how the little kitty soothed the beast’s savage heart: “I quickly realized that this is going to be the cutest goddamn MMORPG we have ever seen. I suddenly lost my angry gaming edge and wanted to cuddle with fluffy pillows and ride unicorns around rainbow filled sky.”

Hello Kitty Hell

We made it a special point to send this fellow a copy of the press release, but we needn’t have bothered - apparently he received over 40 emails about Hello Kitty Online from excited readers. Hello Kitty Hell thoroughly blasts the game, but we can’t help feel that these are just the desperate words of one who has almost succumbed to Kitty Power: “Hello Kitty sticks with her true colors by making money (’The Item Mall allows players to use real money to purchase special items and upgrades for characters’) and creating violence (’Hello Kitty Online has an extensive crafting system with output such as tools & weapons…it has a sophisticated combat system’)”.

He concludes: “Sanrio Digital … where all people working deserve to lose their jobs for thinking for one second that 1. creating this game was a good idea and 2. sending me a press release about it so my wife could know about it was in any way, shape or form a smart thing to do”. OK, Hello Kitty Hell!, we’ll keep you posted on our progress.

I hope you enjoyed this selection. There were many more amusing write-ups and feedback but I can’t possibly capture them all, so if you have any please post them as comments here (please note: comments are moderated and there may be a delay in publishing).

Technorati tags: hello kitty, hello kitty online, Outblaze, MMORPG, Sanrio, Typhoon Games

He came to our offices, he fired several volleys of questions, he filmed it all. We are talking, of course, about Thomas Crampton’s whirlwind video tour of Outblaze and the ensuing YouTube videos (embedded below for your convenience).

The interview is split into two video clips, under 20 minutes in total but covering a lot of ground. The first video is Thomas Crampton barging in the Outblaze offices and being shown around, with a bit of company history thrown in. Outblaze started life as a technical services solutions provider, then morphed and expanded its way to the point where we are now a media services and solutions company, as explained by Outblaze CEO and Founder Yat Siu in the interview.

The second video clip focuses primarily on the partnership between Outblaze and Turner, and the reasoning behind the alliance. An alternate recording of that video was posted on our own blog last week in order to answer frequently-asked questions about Outblaze and Turner, however Thomas’s video contains some additional footage - the Director’s Cut, as it were.

Technorati tags: Yat Siu Outblaze Turner Cartoon Network Hello Kitty Sanrio

Over the last week announcements of the Turner Entertainment and Outblaze project called TurnOut have generated quite a few questions. We’ve taken a video of Thomas Crampton video-interviewing Outblaze CEO and Founder Yat Siu a few days ago on the subject of this cooperation. Thomas Crampton is a former correspondent for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, currently working for Next Media Hong Kong and of course on his own blog.

Thomas came for a tour of our offices and to catch up on all the exciting work Outblaze and Outblaze sister companies are doing. We recorded the conversation about the Turner / Cartoon Network project in order to illuminate those who may have questions not addressed by the announcements of the last week.

The video is about 8 minutes long. In it, Yat Siu explains how TurnOut is bringing together Turner’s impressive library of brands and characters with Outblaze’s digital services to create compelling Web 2.0 offerings.

Turner Outblaze TurnOut Thomas Crampton Yat Siu
Turner Entertainment

On Monday, I got a few hours’ notice that Joi Ito, Chairman of Creative Commons and board member of the Mozilla Foundation, was arriving to our offices en-route to a visit to Macao. This initiated a flurry of activity in the office since Joi is also a board member of Outblaze affiliate SanrioDigital, and it was thus a great opportunity to give Joi some insight into what the team at SanrioDigital has been up to, and to pick his brain and see what else we could be doing.

Joi is a fascinating person and has tremendous insight into popular culture. His ability to absorb information at a rapid pace and provide succint yet insightful comments was extremely valuable to the team. In spite of his pressing schedule, he was also able to meet up with Pindar Wong, Chairman of the Asia & Pacific Internet Association and co-founder of the first licensed ISP in Hong Kong. Pindar and Joi have been associated due to their involvment in ICANN.

Pindar is a big proponent of bringing Creative Commons to Hong Kong along with others such as Rebecca MacKinnon, Charles Mok, and Oiwan Lam . My apologies if I have failed to mention other prominent Hong Kong fans of Creative Commons.

I had the privilege of spending some time with Pindar and Joi and gaining insight into why they think Creative Commons is valuable to Hong Kong and what challenges are faced in localizing CC for this territory. I hope others can help promote the advantages of Creative Commons and provide assistance to the Hong Kong Fans of Creative Commons who at this point are looking for a lawyer specializing in intellectual property to review their draft.

Enjoy the video content and don’t forget to spread the word!

Post interview whilst we were discussing random things, discussion again veered towards Creative Commons and its relevance to Hong Kong and thanks to our intrepid cameraman Jacky Yuk who kept the camera rolling I have another snippet for you to enjoy

Technorati Tags: creative+commons creativecommons hongkong video joi+ito

On the evening of September 18, 2007, bloggers and members of the Web community in Hong Kong gathered for drinks at one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive establishments, the Prive’ lounge on Wyndham street, in the city’s hottest entertainment district. The event was kickstarted by Angus Lau and Jeremiah Owyang, and sponsored and hosted (and ultimately organized) by Outblaze. The turnout was good: over 80 people signed up at the wiki event page and around 70 showed up. For nearly three hours industry people and enthusiasts mingled, drank, ate, and made merry.

Jeremiah, whom I met at the event for the first time, turned out to be a pleasant and insightful fellow who genuinely cares about social media communities everywhere - traits that will no doubt serve him well in his new role at Forrester Research as social computing senior analyst. He blogged the event and took numerous photos, so have a look at his post.

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Do you think this Flickr picture is indecent? The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) and the Obscene Articles Tribunal (OAT) of Hong Kong argue that it is, and are ready to prosecute Oiwan Lam over it. Oiwan Lam is a Hong Kong woman who posted a link to the photo in question on a Hong Kong web site. TELA received one complaint about the link from an unknown prude, and the two agencies collaborated to bring indecency charges against Oiwan Lam. Oiwan’s purpose in linking to the photograph was to protest against the archaic laws that the Obscene Articles Tribunal and TELA unilaterally decided apply to Internet links in an earlier case.

Oiwan certainly proved her point. The indecency charge she now faces in court (probably in September) carries a maximum penalty of HK$ 400,000 (US$ 51,160) and one year in prison.

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Well, it has been quite a while since first OFTA (in 2004) and then CITB (in 2006) issued requests for public comment about a proposed UEM (Unsolicited Electronic Messaging) bill to be introduced in Hong Kong. We sent in our responses to both these agencies: OFTA and CITB

Our responses to OFTA and CITB were endorsed and supported by other key industry players, such as various Hong Kong based chambers of commerce, that graciously agreed to submit Outblaze’s response to OFTA and CITB as endorsed by them, and as their joint response with us to the requests for public comment.

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Are we well served by our general news media? It sometimes doesn’t seem that way when the subject is one of a scientific (including medical) nature. I came across an article on CNN that tells the story of Shannon Malloy of Nebraska, a woman who survived a horrendous car accident. My sincere wishes for a strong and rapid recovery go to Ms Malloy, but this piece is not about her. It’s about the way her story was reported.

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