CLIP iPhone game developers rejoice at Apple’s latest update plans

from VentureBeat by Dean Takahashi

There were a lot of happy game developers among the 200 or so people who attended Thursday’siGames Summit, which was devoted to iPhone games.

This week, Apple announced itsiPhone 3.0 update coming this summer would have a number of game-friendly features: a virtual goods platform, Bluetooth multiplayer, and peer-to-peer connectivity. The speakers game developers such as Tapulous, ngmoco, Booyah, Demiforce, Zynga and Social Gaming Network were all excited about the progress Apple has made in making a game-friendly platform.

With more than 30 million iPhone and iPod Touch users to target, the developers see more potential to make lasting businesses. By accident or design, Apple has created a vibrant game ecosystem that keeps on getting stronger. The game features that made the iPhone unique? The social nature of the games, the four-inch multi-touch screen and the accelerometer that detects tilting or shaking.

“Everywhere else I go, people are talking about how to survive,” said Ken Gullicksen, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures who moderated a panel at the summit. “In this market, people don’t talk about that. The animal spirit is alive and well and there is an enormous amount of excitement here.”

Steve Demeter, founder of Demiforce, said he always wanted to make a game on his own terms and the iPhone’s easy development tools and AppStore allowed him to do that and to start selling it. His hit puzzle game Trism was a top seller on the iPhone last year, even though his company has just a few people.

The challenge is that Demeter’s achievement is against the odds. There are mow more than 6,700 games on the iPhone, with more than 2,000 of those free, according to Mobclix. Venture-funded companies such as ngmoco, Zynga and Social Gaming Network are moving in fast. If your game dips below the top 100 games, it’s almost impossible for users to discover. Apple highlights cool games on its web site, but being selected is like winning the lottery. While viral social games spread from friend to friend, it’s easy to get lost.

But the speed with which the iPhone has revived the moribund mobile games market is still measured in months. Tapulous was a pioneer in the iPhone game space with its music-oriented games, but it was founded only 26 months ago. Neil Young, chief executive of ngmoco in San Francisco (and a GamesBeat 09 speaker), said that the iPhone as a game platform is as momentous an event as the launch of the first Nintendo game console, the debut of Microsoft’s Xbox Live online games service or the launch of the first massively multiplayer online games.

The difference, Young noted, is that Apple has thus far decided not to make its own games and instead has focused on making a platform that is attractive to game developers. If Apple had focused on its own game division and favored it the way some console makers have done in the past, it might have stymied development.

Gamers have shown they’re willing to download games. Now the challenge is to get them to play more. Young said that the average game session on short games such as Maze Finger is eight minutes, but the longer game Rolando has gamers playing for 22 minutes per session. The latter suggests deeper engagement with the games that parallels game sessions with the Nintendo DS.

As the games get more sophisticated, heavier investments in engineering, marketing and PR become necessary, raising the need for venture capital, Young said. It’s more important to upsell or cross-sell users from one game to another to help new titles take off. Pretty soon, big developers and publishers will have to start looking at the iPhone market the same way they do the Wii.

“It would be silly to think that the iPhone is not a threat to traditional gaming,” said Brett Seyler, general manager at game tool maker GarageGames.

Keith Lee, chief executive of Booyah, predicted that the iPhone and iPod Touch installed base would reach more than 100 million by the end of 2010. That’s far faster than the nearly six years it took for the Nintendo DS to reach more the same number.

“It has gone viral, like the moment when your mother said she wanted a Wii,” Young said.

That doesn’t mean it’s time to count other platforms out. Andrew Lacy, chief executive of Tapulous, said he expects that the Google Android, Palm Pre, Nokia, Windows Mobile and RIM Blackberry platforms are all likely to see good growth in the coming year as smart phones replace older phones at a fast clip. But Lacy said it will become much tougher to support other programs if it means hiring a couple of hundred programmers to adapt games to run on all of the other platforms.

It’s clear where the momentum is. Young said ngmoco generates more than half of its revenue from outside the U.S.

Shervin Pishevar, chief executive of SGN, said that his company has seen more than 10 million of its games installed on iPhone since the first one launched in September. He showed off a prototype accessory that attaches a toy golf club to an iPhone. When you swing the device, the iPhone’s accelerometer detects the movement and reproduces the swing in the golf game.

Developers are excited about the upcoming virtual goods platform, which allows the developers to let users try the games for free and then pay for individual items inside the games. Pishevar said that the company’s (fluff)friends virtual pets game is generating $50 in virtual goods purchase a month. When the iPhone 3.0 software launches this summer, those sorts of revenues can be generated by iPhone games.

Young said that developers are now trying to come up with second-generation iPhone games that make use of more features of the iPhone, such as its ability to store a music library, access the web, or the contacts for friends.

The iPhone market is also becoming more mature, with companies such as Aurora Feint and Viximo coming up with tools that make it much easier to add social elements to iPhone games. Mark Pincus, chief executive of Zynga, said he was glad that Facebook Connect — which introduces a way to import social networking data across platforms — will provide basic plumbing for social games on the iPhone. Brian Balfour, founder of Viximo, said the company makes money selling its own applications but will also try to provide a one-stop solution for everything that a developer needs to make a game go viral.

“We’re at an exciting time for virtual goods, iPhone sales, and gaming, with all of it coming together,” Balfour said.

Google opens up Google Books to Sony’s eReader

by Peter Ha on March 19, 2009

Sony and Google’s tag-team tactics might not hurt Amazon and its Kindle reader, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. For who, exactly, we’re not so sure. Sony announced a bit ago that Google has opened up more than half-a-million of its books to Sony’s eReader. The catch? All of Google’s archived books are about as old as your granddad, if your granddad were 80-years-old.

The addition of Google’s archive of books brings the number of available titles to Sony’s eReader at around 600,000. Amazon offers roughly 240,000 titles at the moment, but these include recent works and almost all of the New York Times bestsellers. Both Sony eReader models are cheaper than the Kindle at $300 (PRS-505) and $350 (PRS-700), respectively, but they lack WhisperNet for instant downloads among other notable features. On the flip side, Google announced that they plan to make the over 1.5 million public domain books available for mobile phones, which includes the iPhone and G1.

HOW TO TICK PEOPLE OFF

1. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
3. Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO."
4. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
5. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
6. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
7. Reply to everything someone says with "that's what you think."
8. Practice making fax and modem noises.
9. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
10. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
11. Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
12. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
13. Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
14. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
15. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
16. Staple pages in the middle of the page.
17. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
18. Honk and wave to strangers.
19. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
20. TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
21. type only in lowercase.
22. dont use any punctuation either
23. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
24. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
"DO YOU HEAR THAT?"
"What?"
"Never mind, it's gone now."
25. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
26. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "No, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
27. Ask people what gender they are.
28. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
29. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
30. Sing along at the opera.
31. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
32. Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles."

CLIP Enthusiasts keep pushing Smule’s Ocarina iPhone app to higher numbers

from VentureBeat by Dean Takahashi

Ge Wang, the quirky Stanford assistant music professor who co-founded the iPhone music app makerSmule, delivered an update yesterday on his company’s growth since starting out just eight months ago.

Smule’s big hit is Ocarina, a cool app that we’ve written about a few timeswhere you blow into the microphone of the iPhone to make the surprisingly rich sounds of an ocarina flute. Wang said in a speech today at the eComm mobile tech conference in Burlingame, Calif., that nearly 700,000 people have now bought the 99-cent iPhone app since November.

There are more than 25,000 iPhone apps now, according to Mobclix. But Ocarina stands out as memorable. The app seems to work like magic, but Smule’s software analyzes the noise coming in via the microphone. The software can recognize changes in the force of the blowing, and the user can control the sounds by holding the iPhone up or down and tapping on virtual flute holes on the touch-screen display.

It’s not so much the revenue that’s impressive, but the passion of the fans and where the creators want to take them. YouTube is chock full of Ocarina enthusiasts playing songs such as Stairway to Heaven, Amazing Grace, and the theme of the video game The Legend of Zelda. These fans are answering Wang’s question about “what does it mean to be a Smulean?”

Subject: Why men don't write advice columns

Subject: Why men don't write advice columns
Importance: High

 

Dear Walter,

I hope you can help me here. The other day, I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn't driven more than a mile down the road when the engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband's help.

When I got home I couldn't believe my eyes. He was in our bedroom with the neighbors daughter. I'm 32, my husband is 34, and the neighbor daughter is 22. We have been married for ten years. When I confronted him, he broke down and admitted that they had been having an affairfor the past six months. I told him to stop or I'd leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. He won't go to counseling and I'm afraid I can't get through to him anymore. Can you please help?

Sincerely,

 

Sheila

 

 

Dear Sheila:

A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine... Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it's clear, check the vacuum pipes and hoses on the intake manifold and also check all grounding wires.. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the injectors. I hope this helps,

WALTER 
 

How to Reach Baby Boomers with Social Media

Ed: Please check out:

• Rightbrain search - http://search.tearn.com
• Media Life Top 1000 - http://media.tearn.com
• Twitter Top1000 - http://twitter.tearn.com
• My other gf is ... - http://gf.tearn.com
• My other bf is ... - http://bf.tearn.com

A new report from Forrester Research revealed some surprising information: apparently Baby Boomers aren't exactly the technology Luddites that people think they are. In fact, more than 60 percent of those in this generational group actively consume socially created content like blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums. What's more, the percentage of those participating is on the rise.

In 2007, the percentage of Boomers consuming social media was 46% for Younger Boomers (ages 43 to 52) and 39% for Older Boomers (ages 53 to 63). By 2008, those number increased to 67% and 62%, respectively.

The number of Boomers reacting to content posted online, as opposed to just passively consuming it, is also trending upwards. For example, the proportion of Older Boomers reacting to content doubled from 15% in 2007 to 34% in 2008. According to Forrester, this is now a percentage that's high enough to target this group with a social application.

Joining social networks is also becoming a widely popular among the Younger Boomers. Today, almost one in four Younger Boomers are active in social networks, up from 15% in 2007.

The one thing that Boomers are less likely to do in the online world is actually create content - outside of updating their online profiles and leaving blog comments, that is. Boomers are still not involved heavily in writing blog articles or creating videos and posting them online. In 2008, 16% Younger Boomers were involved in content creation (up from 12% in 2007) and 15% of Older Boomers did so (up from 8%). Although both groups saw an increase, it's still the least popular activity.

What This Means

For companies wanting to reach out to the Baby Boomers online, this data shows that spending at least a portion of your budget on social applications for the group isn't entirely a waste of time and money. The group isn't as active online as younger generations are, but their participation levels are now moderate and increasing.

The best bets for getting Boomers interested in your content is to create blogs or videos that relate to the life or work-style of Boomers, Forrester suggests. And if you're looking for feedback and contributions from the Boomers themselves - like comments or criticisms - make that process dead simple. Don't introduce overly complex sign up forms or processes. Instead, encourage low-effort contributions such as star ratings.

Marketers can also look into reaching Boomers through social networks now - specifically those favored by this generation like Classmates Online, Eons, BOOMj.com, TeeBeeDee, and even the AARP's online community. There is some participation in these social spaces now, but even more growth is expected over the next 12-month period.

CLIP Letterman; SI.com/Swimsuits; Netflix

—CBS pushes Letterman clip online for more buzz: The clip of actor Joaquin Phoenix's odd behavior on the Late Show with David Letterman made the rounds on the web at least an hour before the show hit the airways—a sign that CBS execs knew it would generate some online buzz—and possibly attract more on-air viewers. NewTeeVee notes that the clip didn't drive an immediate improvement in ratings, but that its online popularity (an unauthorized clip had gained more than 500,000 views on YouTube before being taken down) was a boon in itself.

—Swimsuit launch nets SI.com record video traffic: SI.com amassed more than 5.7 million video views in the first two days of the launch of its 2009 Swimsuit issue; that tops the 3.3 million video views the site got in the six weeks surrounding the launch of the 2008 issue. The record also extended to SI's YouTube channel: it garnered more than 1.8 million video views in two days this year, compared to 2.1 million views for all of Febuary 2008. The company attributed the growth to better quality video and a new player, as well as more prominent placement of clips throughout the site.

—Netflix' 10 million subscribers: The movie rental service said it had added more than 600,000 subscribers since January 1, bringing its total subscriber base over the 10 million mark. Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) said the growth surge stemmed from the expansion of its streaming video service to devices like the Xbox 360 and new TiVo DVRs. Release.

STATS Game On! Online Gaming Surges as Gamers Seek Out Free Alternatives in Tight Economy

 

Minutes Spent Playing Online Games Jumps 42 Percent versus Year Ago

 

RESTON, VA, January 28, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an analysis of Americans’ usage of online gaming sites, which showed that the category has grown 27 percent during the past year to 86 million visitors in December 2008, while the total time spent playing online games has jumped 42 percent. Americans’ total share of Internet time spent playing online games grew from 3.7 percent in December 2007 to 4.9 percent in December 2008.

 

Yahoo! Games ranked as the most visited site in the category with 19.5 million visitors (up 20 percent), followed by EA Online with 15.4 million visitors (up 21 percent), and Disney Games with 13.4 million visitors (up 13 percent). The tenth most visited site, Spil Games, saw traffic surge 269 percent to 6.7 million visitors.

 

Top Online Gaming Sites December 2008 vs. December 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix
	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	Dec-2007	Dec-2008	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	183,619	190,650	4
Online Gaming	67,457	85,977	27
Yahoo! Games	16,184	19,468	20
EA Online	12,673	15,369	21
Disney Games	11,933	13,458	13
WildTangent Network	7,650	13,306	74
Addictinggames.com	9,706	11,343	17
AOL Games	8,380	10,750	28
MSN Games	9,685	10,263	6
Miniclip.com	7,264	8,636	19
Nick.com  Games	6,020	7,092	18
Spil Games	1,821	6,715	269

 

“It appears that online, ad-supported gaming is one of the activities that has benefited during this economic downturn,” said Edward Hunter, comScore director of gaming solutions. “Not only have consumers turned to outlets such as gaming to take their minds off the economy, but as they curtail their discretionary gaming-related purchases they are turning to free alternatives.”

 

Online Gaming Category Attracts More Display Ads

Despite a challenging online display advertising market, trends are looking remarkably positive for the online gaming category. From November 2007 to November 2008, the total number of display ad views in the Online Gaming category grew 29 percent to 8.6 billion. The increase in display ad exposures is due primarily to the increasing number of visitors to the category (up 30 percent), while the average person’s frequency of exposure has remained relatively constant at 127 ad views per person. Another positive trend is that the number of display ads per page view – a measure of “ad clutter” – has actually declined 17 percent.

 

Display Advertising Trends in Online Gaming Category November 2008 vs. November 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
Online Gaming	Nov-2007	Nov-2008	% Change
Total Display Ad Views (MM)	6,659	8,610	29
Advertising Exposed Unique Visitors (000)	52,066	67,834	30
Advertising Exposed Reach %	28.6	35.6	25
Display Ads per Page Viewed	1.00	0.83	-17
Average Frequency	127.9	126.9	-1
GRPs Total Population	2,271	2,913	28

 

“The growth in display ads in the online gaming category not only underscores the assertion that gamers are increasingly accepting of ad-supported games, but also that the advertising community is recognizing the value of this highly engaged audience,” added Hunter. “It is also likely that the advertising agency community will begin to demand more evaluations of campaign effectiveness in this space as spend and impressions continue to rise.”

 

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital .marketing intelligence. For more information, please visitwww.comscore.com/companyinfo.