Dan O'Halloran

It’s been relatively quiet at WoW Insider. As Editor-in-Chief I do more planning and less writing than I used to. March was largely coordinating coverage of the latest World of Warcraft content patch currently on the testing realms. Also focused on ramping up our social media presence. We’ve always had a healthy Twitter and Facebook community, but we can definitely make those outlets more compelling and useful for our readers.

At Tecca, I continue to write the Tech For Parents column. The great thing about this column for me is that I get to draw from my real life experience as a father of two to pick and research topics. Recent columns include basketball tech for little hoopsters, astronomy tech for kids and an overview of the new Ninentedo 3DS to help parents decide if the new handheld gaming device is right for their children. MSNBC’s Today Show picked up on the 3DS piece and republished it on their site as well. I also got to mix my love of tech and massively multiplayer online games in a short news post on Tecca about RIFT‘s intergration of Twitter into the game.

Over at G4TV’s video game blog, The Feed, I’ve been continuing writing a weekly MMO column as well as reviews. I’ve been playing A LOT of the new fantasy MMORPG RIFT and was able to turn that into a column explaining the RIFT class system, an overview of the first month of the game and an official review of the title. I also wrote a round up of MMO news that came out of PAX 2011 which I hope one day to attend.

I’m also gearing up on transforming my Danomatic.com video game news aggregation site into a moblie gaming app news and review site. I strongly believe that gaming apps are the future of gaming and thus the future of gaming journalism. Plus, I can’t stop playing them, so I might as well write about them.

G4TV's The Feed website reports on video games, tv, film, comics and other geeky related stuff. I've started writing a weekly column for them covering news in the massively multiplayer online (MMO) video game genre. The first three are already live:

• A Look At The First MMOs of 2011
  
• Superhero MMO Champions Online: Is Free To Play Worth It?
• Earthrise Sci-Fi MMO Faces Stiff Competition — Star Wars: The Old Republic, Fallen Earth, Battlestar Galactica Online, and More

I've also started writing reviews for them of various games.

• DC Universe Online (PC & PS3)
• Two Worlds II (Xbox 360)

It's an interesting challenge to write for a broader audience who may not be familiar with the material I'm covering, but it's a challenge I'm enjoying immensely.

Much has happened in the last four months. First, I was promoted in September to the position of Editor-in-Chief at WoW Insider, the unofficial World of Warcraft news site I've been a part of for the past three and a half years. I now oversee the five editors and twenty plus writers that make us one of the top news sites for the MMORPG. I spent most of my first four months as EiC planning the WoW Insider reader meet up at BlizzCon 2010 in October that topped over 2,000 in attendance and coordinating our extensive coverage of the gaming convention. After that was organizing a very large number of contest giveaways for the site. Also, I oversaw our URL changeover as well as our extensive coverage of the launch of the 3rd WoW expansion, Cataclysm, in early December. My focus for the new year, however, is to return to actively writing for the site and finding new ways to grow our readership.

As a result of my increased responsibilities on WoW Insider, I have stepped down from my involvement on our sister site, Massively, that I helped launch in October 2007. I had a great deal of fun working on the site, including attending many conventions and meeting the people behind the game, but I'm happy to say the current management team there has things well in hand. The interest game companies have shown in working with the site for beta key giveaways and exclusive interviews is a testament to how well regarded it has become.

In August this year I also set up an offline edit bay in my house and now work part-time at home as a write/producer/editor for my main on-air promo client, ABC Family. Working from home has its usual benefits and drawbacks, but I get to see my kids more and that makes it worthwhile. And the tax deductions don't hurt either.

Finally, Christmas came a bit early and I was given an iPad as a gift this week. It was quite unexpected and I have been enjoying it more than I thought. I've found quite a few apps for both me and my kids to play. I was under no delusion about how long I would be able to hold on to it until my kids got their hands on it. Expect some posts on iPad apps soon.

Last week I rolled out my new Mobile MMO column. This week I debut the new bi-monthly Facebook MMO column at Massively. I was going to kick off Facebook MMOgraphy with the vampire MMO City of Eternals, but SOE surprised us with a Facebook MMO based on their upcoming spy-themed MMORPG, The Agency. I got a look at The Agency two years ago at E3 and have been waiting for the roll out of the game. This new gaming app is a great way to tide me over until SOE is ready with the bigger title.

The Agency: Covert Ops combines some Farmville, some Mafia Wars and a lot of mini-games to draw people into their James Bond world. The Facebook gaming application isn't an MMO itself as there is no real time interaction among players, but if you like Facebook games, you'll enjoy this slick, entertaining app. You can read my first impressions piece at Massively.

Big shout out to my old boss at Massively, Barb Dybwad over at Mashable who got the exclusive on this story.

Today over at Massively, a site dedicated to news coverage of massively multiplayer online games, I debuted a new bi-monthly column covering Mobile MMOs called Massively Mobile. The first column covers the recent updates to the excellent action 3-D MMO Pocket Legends. Upcoming columns will look into other MMOs in the emerging mobile gaming app field including Anrufen Online, IMO and Outer Empires.

The other two weeks out of the month will see another new column I'm starting there, Facebook MMOgraphy. This will cover MMOs showing up on Facebook. This one is a harder call as to what constitutes an MMO since all Facebook games are social and multiplayer. I'm starting with City of Eternals from ohai for the debut of this column. Yes, I'm getting paid to play a vampire MMO. On Facebook. Don't hate.