Our latest subject didn't take a scientist to develop. As soon as President Obama popped into a Best Buy to pick up some games for his family for Christmas, we knew it would be this week's front-running candidate for the Kotaku 'Shop Contest.
That's the commander-in-chief at an Alexandria, Va., Best Buy, picking up Ubisoft's Just Dance 3 for his daughters. The expressions, the people involved, the fact someone's holding up a copy of a video game, this is a profoundly exploitable image. I'll just offer it up and step out of the way.
Source Image: President Obama buying Just Dance 3 at Best Buy.
You know the rules: The 20 best will get rounded up and published at the end of next Saturday. Meantime, I and the rest of the starred commentariat will approve and promote as many as we can so folks can see them and pass judgment.
This is your no-frills step-by-step procedure to participation in the Kotaku 'Shop Contest.
1. Create your 'Shop.
2. Upload it to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. It's stupid simple. No account is necessary.
3. This is very important: You must use the URL of the image itself. In imgur, this is the second URL it gives you after you upload the image. It's under "Direct Link (email & IM)"
4. At the beginning of the comments roll, click "Start a New Thread"
5. To the right of your name, select "Image."
6. Paste the imgur URL in the image URL field. It's the field that says "Image URL."
7. You can add editorial commentary if you want, but then just hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, paste the image URL as a comment.
8. This is important: Keep your image size under 1 MB. It will not upload to comments if it is over that size. What's more, we're getting reports that if your 'Shop is more than 1000px tall (vertical), it won't upload. If you're getting the broken-image icon, try resizing to a smaller dimension.
Alright, that should cover everything. I expect a double effort out of you guys this week, given the quality of this exploitable and the fact everyone knew it was coming. Happy Holidays, you have seven more 'Shopping days left!