Comments on: Game Plan: What marketers can learn from strategy games

By: Jason Pearson

Jason Pearson — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:52:04 +0000

Great article. YOu drew some interesting parallels. I better start working on my chess game. Thanks for sharing.

By: Rex

Rex — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:33:15 +0000

I’m a tournament chess player (USCF Rating 1302) but I hadn’t considered applying my chess knowledge to business. Thanks for getting my to think outside the box.

By: SiteMost’s Blog Recap 28/11/07 at Brisbane SEO Blog

SiteMost’s Blog Recap 28/11/07 at Brisbane SEO Blog — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:14:43 +0000

[…] Game Plan: What marketers can learn from strategy games […]

By: The certain Way

The certain Way — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:20:25 +0000

I think this is a very interesting point you make in your article. You are quite right, but that is the whole tricky thing about business: being able to leverage your own strength and finding the hole left by others.
Usually we tend to have tunnel vision, blinded by the huge amount of information that comes at us. And only the best can see the trees through the wood (or was it the reverse ).
Anyway, I think we all need to start out as imitators (we did when we were kids, an look at us now ) and then move on. But again, I think this is a difficult thing. but you are right. If we want to go for the big money, it is the only way.

Btw, I’m here from John Chows site also.

By: Hamlet Batista

Hamlet Batista — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:02:53 +0000

Thanks, David. Done!

By: David Airey

David Airey — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:02:07 +0000

Thanks for the compliment, Hamlet.

From a usability standpoint, I think you should change the ‘blog’ tab, in the top navigation, to read as ‘home’.

When I noticed that your header image didn’t link to your homepage, I found myself searching for a link to ‘home’, then realised it was actually your ‘blog’ tab.

Considering your whole site is a blog, I don’t think it’s necessary to label it separately.

By: Hamlet Batista

Hamlet Batista — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:50:42 +0000

David - As a top of the line graphic designer, I highly regard your opinion. Thanks for the quality feedback. Don’t hesitate to suggest any improvements.

By: David Airey

David Airey — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:33:04 +0000

Hi Hamlet,

Having been subscribed to your blog for a while now, it’s not often I visit, as I read your content in Google Reader.

I just saw the ReviewMe review on JC’s blog, and noticed your redesign. Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I just wanted to say that your new look is certainly a step-up on the old one. Nice job.

I hope all’s well.

By: Advanced SEO Tips From Hamlet Batista | John Chow dot Com

Advanced SEO Tips From Hamlet Batista | John Chow dot Com — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:37:09 +0000

[…] “read more” would be a good idea, because the posts tend to be very lengthy. Look at What marketers can learn from strategy games, for example. Given their word count, it is perfectly acceptable that Hamlet doesn’t blog […]

By: Hamlet Batista

Hamlet Batista — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:54:06 +0000

Wow. Great research material. Thanks for the link

By: Jez

Jez — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:51:19 +0000

Here is a paper that outlines some of the principles, it is not the one I was referring to, which is more advanced in terms of “un-supervised learning” and “knowledge discovery”…. but it gives an idea of the principles.

http://ai.arizona.edu/papers/dog93/dog93.html

By: Jez

Jez — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:42:42 +0000

I think he did use the modern approach.

Taking your connect 4 example… he would write a program to learn from each game and revise the strategy. You do not have to load statistics / historical data, though it would give the program a head start if you did.

You could simply start playing with no data at all.

The computer would lose the first games as it learned from its own mistakes and the winners success.

After enough games it would eventually learn for itself the algorithm you discussed to play the “perfect game”.

I tried to find the white paper he mentioned to me, but all I can find are advertisements for AI programs that predict sports results, seems like the idea caught on!!

By: Hamlet Batista

Hamlet Batista — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:38:27 +0000

Thanks for the great insights, Jez.

We are creatures of habit and we often repeat the same phrases in our speech and writing. You friend probably used some advanced statistics techniques to identify such patterns.

A modern approach is to train the computer with a large enough set to make sure the results close to the expected ones. Microsoft uses a similar technology on their search engine. They call it RankNet or something like that.

By: Jez

Jez — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:58:24 +0000

Interesting reading about your program. Someone I know wrote a program using AI at University… feed it a few sample books and it will learn to determine the author of subsequent books.

He went on to write a program for predicting racing results…

The interesting thing about these programs is that you have no idea how the program is actually predicting the results, i.e. you do not know what it has “learned”… only how it has learned.

Recently I was reading comments by BH SEO’s looking at doing the reverse of the first program… using AI to improve automated content generation / use of synonyms.

There is a white paper somewhere from a University that wrote a program using AI to produce academic papers…. if these programs come to fruition they will make Googles job of spam detection a lot harder… in fact, programmers could use success in google as part of the “training” for future content generation…

Regrettably I am not that good a programmer, but I am sure someone somewhere is beavering away on this stuff….