Fox Van Allen

In January 2010, I began work at Joystiq’s WoW Insider, taking the helm of a newly created column. That started a thus far illustrious career in writing gaming content for outlets as diverse as Yahoo! Games, Best Buy, and Tecca. But don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at these links and see for yourself:

Profanity filters, homophobic slurs, and Blizzard’s shaky relationship with the LGBT community
In January 2012, it was revealed that World of Warcraft’s profanity filter blocked the word “homosexual,” but more common gay slurs popular with gamers (i.e., faggot) were allowed. That led me to write this op-ed discussing Blizzard’s past controversies involving gay gamers, and what the company can do to right the wrong.

The worst Call of Duty player in the world goes hands on with Black Ops 2
Challenge: Despite being a terrible Call of Duty player, I was assigned to visit Treyarch in Santa Monica to preview Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Solution: Write a brutally honest preview of the game from the perspective of someone who is horrifically bad at the game. The typical Tecca reader is not a hardcore FPS gamer, so instead of attacking readers with a wall of information, I took a more entertaining approach. The result was the unique column above, which became a viral hit on Google+.

WRUP: Meanwhile, in the other universe
What aRe yoU Playing is a weekly column on WoW Insider that showcases what other games the blog’s writers are enjoying. After taking over the helm of the column, I injected as much creativity and personality into each opening as best I could. In this well-regarded WRUP, I gave readers a glimpse into the alternate universe of the TV show Fringe, and more specifically, what their favorite WoW Insider writers’ doppelgangers were playing “over there.”

WRUP: WoW Insider’s first childrens’ book
Presenting information in new, novel ways? Yeah, I can do that. In yet another creative reach for WRUP, I wrote and illustrated a childrens’ story. It was very well received and even passed around inside Blizzard Entertainment.

The WoW Insider Show, live at PAX East 2012 (Episode 240)
Can I do more than just write? Of course I can! I was part of the live WoW Insider podcasting panel at the 2012 PAX East conference.

E3 2012: Worms Revolution aims to provide massive amounts of destruction for minimal amounts of money
I provided on-site coverage of the 2012 E3 gaming conference for Tecca. That content was syndicated to both Yahoo! and the Best Buy website.

Hello, Team Fox! Between Yahoo!, USA Today, and MSNBC, my name has been read far and wide — in America, at least. I’ve yet to go global. Until now.

On June 19, I attended a press event for the upcoming Microsoft Surface tablet in Hollywood, California. After getting the inside scoop for Tecca, I was approached by someone asking if I’d like to tape a short segment. What I didn’t immediately realize at the time: I would be taping a segment for the BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world. You can check it out above. (And yes, had I known I’d be making my world media debut, I’d have spent the two minutes it takes to give my hair that familiar Fox spike.)

Front page of Yahoo!, May 7, 2012

If you’re a regular reader of the Yahoo! Technology section — or really, of Yahoo! in general — then you may have noticed something exciting lately. An increasing number of posts have been authored by one Fox Van Allen.

Most recently, my column “4 high-tech ways the federal government is spying on private citizens” was promoted to the main carousel of the Yahoo! front page, helping it to garner an eye-popping 4,081 comments (and counting). And it’s not just Yahoo! that’s syndicating Fox Van Allen content: It’s appeared on USA Today and MSNBC, as well.

USA Today: ‘Supermoon’ coming this Saturday
MSNBC: Aquatic stunt: Frickin’ sharks with frickin’ laser beams

My dad is really, really proud, y’all.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a social media experiment. In one month — May 25, tenatively — I’ll be moving from Boston to Los Angeles. That 3,000 mile road trip is an epic journey in and of itself. But I want to make it more epic. I want to take you with me.

Now sadly, my 2005 Honda Civic is only a five-seater at best, so I can’t take you along in a literal sense. But I will be live blogging the whole trip both here and on Twitter (@Foxvanallen). To keep it interesting, I’m going to stop at some of the more unusual places America has to offer. But which ones? Well, that’s up to you.

Here’s how the experiment will work. From now until May 20, I’ll be taking your suggestions as to places you want me to visit. Anything is fair game. Want me to stop by the World’s Largest Ball of Twine? Done. Have a drink at the best bar in Austin? Why not? Meet up with you and shake your hand under the St. Louis Arch? If you insist. Take a zip line off  America’s highest suspension bridge? Why do you hate me? But no matter — from casual stops to intense challenges, nothing is off limits.

Once the suggestions have all been submitted, I’ll draw out the tentative route. Now obviously, I can’t visit all the suggested places — there’s a 10-day time constraint on the trip, and I can’t do anything that costs a ridiculous amount of money (I’m living off a blogger’s salary here). But I will map out the route that contains the most interesting suggestions, and use that as my guide. Along the way, I’ll be tweeting, recording short videos, and blogging about my adventure. And I’ll even be taking your real time suggestions as to places to eat lunch, places to visit, and deviations from the planned path. I’ll do my best to make it as if you’re right there with me, even though you’ll be sitting behind your computer screen thousands of miles away.

This is probably not the first fully interactive road trip, but this may very well be the most awesome. To suggest a place to visit, simply tweet at me or reply to this blog posting below. So, what do you think, folks? Are you in?

[Image credit: Tomoryd]

I’ve been hard at work writing for general tech news site Tecca (much of which gets syndicated to Yahoo!). My most recent column there is titled 4 high-tech ways the government is spying on private citizens, and to be honest, a lot of stuff in there is incredibly terrifying from a privacy standpoint. Did you know the federal government is building a multi-billion dollar facility in Utah to break your encryption and check all your private emails for potential terrorist activity? Did you know the government is considering a law that would require your internet service provider to keep constant tabs on what sites you visit? Did you know the government is contracting to build a system capable of sifting through tweets and Facebook messages?

It was just over 10 years ago that President Bush and a bi-partisan group of legislators forced the Patriot Act on the American people, and about six years ago that provisions of the Patriot Act were made permanent law. Supposedly, the law makes us safer. I’m just glad to have a job that offers me the ability to publicly ask, “at what cost?”