VentureBeat |
- One-time Bill Gates assistant appointed new Microsoft marketing head
- Why mobile data encryption doesn’t matter (as much)
- LinkedIn wants to connect to the Web with new plugins
- Dish Network buys Blockbuster for $228M, all about streaming video and kiosks
- Twitter predicts performance of individual stocks
- Entrepreneurs: Ignore all the talk of bubbles
- Deals & More: Marin Software gets $16M for search advertising management
- FindTheBest unveils a fun way to rank dogs, motorcycles, and more
- San Francisco supervisors back Twitter tax break. Zynga next?
- Analyst: Motorola Xoom and Atrix are duds
- Late-stage investments dominate cleantech sector in Q1
- BioWare gives away triple-A title Mass Effect 2 for free with Dragon Age 2
- Is another Black Ops map pack coming May 3?
- Sony’s next-generation gaming handheld may be delayed due to Japan quake
- PopCap Games forms a new label to experiment with games
| One-time Bill Gates assistant appointed new Microsoft marketing head Posted: 06 Apr 2011 08:18 AM PDT
The newly created Consumer Channels Group will combine Microsoft’s Retail, Mobile Operator and Distribution teams into one organization. In this position, Capossela will work with Microsoft’s partners to create new business opportunities and consumer experiences through Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox and Office. He will also be responsible for Microsoft’s marketing, advertising and corporate communications. Mr. Capossela is replacing Mich Mathews, who stepped down from the position less than a week ago. Capossela, a one-time Bill Gate's speech assistant, has been with Microsoft for 20 years, and previously served as senior vice president in the Microsoft Office Division. He was instrumental in bringing Microsoft Office into the cloud, and his appointment and the consolidation of the Consumer Channels Group may signal Microsoft’s focus on retail and mobile. Microsoft Kinect sales topped 10 million last month, breaking a world record for fastest selling consumer device, and Xbox 360 sales increased by 42 percent in 2010. The company's efforts in mobile have also been well documented, most notably in their recent partnership with Nokia. Microsoft will need a strong presence in the executive team, having lost a number of high ranking employees in recent times, including Bob Muglia, the president of its server and tools business, chief software architect Ray Ozzie, and head of business division Stephen Elop. Companies: Microsoft People: Chris Capossela
      |
| Why mobile data encryption doesn’t matter (as much) Posted: 06 Apr 2011 08:05 AM PDT
As long as I've been involved in enterprise mobility, the overwhelming security focus has been on data encryption: Over-the-air encryption versus at rest encryption; DES versus Triple-DES versus AES; 128-bit AES versus 192-bit AES versus 256-bit AES. You get the picture. And for the past several years, encryption was almost certainly the right focus area. I definitely wouldn't argue that data encryption isn't an important part of a well-designed mobile security architecture. I'm just not sure mobile data encryption matters -– at least on its own -– nearly as much as it once did. Why? Because encryption, as a preventive measure, assumes the primary threat is coming from the "outside" – typically (but not exclusively), in the form of a hacker trying to intercept communications or extract data from a lost or stolen device. While such threats are real and you absolutely must guard against them, we've reached a crucial point in the evolution of mobile technology, and just as importantly, user behavior where the primary mobile security threat is no longer the faceless and malicious hacker, but instead the legitimate, fully authenticated owner of the device itself. If this sounds surprising or controversial – it shouldn't. In the "there's an app for that" world we now live in, the greatest threat comes from the 100 percent well-intentioned end-user who is simply trying to be more productive and get more work done, more quickly. Not the hacker. Not the device thief. Not the disgruntled employee or ex-employee who purposely steals data or maliciously creates a security exposure. Why? Because when faced with a productivity challenge, today's mobile device users are much more likely to proactively search for – and also successfully find–their own solutions, with or without IT's participation and blessing. This is especially true for the ultra-tech-savvy Generation Y that's entering the workforce. Real examples of the sorts of mobile productivity solutions that users finding and adopting on their own in huge numbers (to list just a very few) include Box.Net, Dropbox, Evernote, and GoodReader. These are all great mobile productivity apps that solve real problems for their users. Unfortunately, from an IT security and compliance perspective, they also share another common trait: they're explicitly designed to replicate and share data with other apps, services, and/or users. This doesn't mean these apps are "bad". On the contrary, their productivity benefits often directly or indirectly derive from the fact that they enable such sharing and replication. However, this doesn't change the fact that they represent very real data loss and compliance risks. And, unlike the "lost device" scenario, this type of exposure is much more difficult to protect against and almost virtually guaranteed to occur. If you don't think so, just check the "top 25" list of Business and Productivity apps on your favorite application market place. It's already happening. It's this relatively new category of risk – created by the well-intentioned user, not the faceless hacker – that will define how mobile security evolves from its traditional and relatively narrow focus on encryption and "lost device" scenarios to a much more comprehensive and holistic approach to data loss prevention. And that's why encryption still matters – but maybe not as much, on its own, as it did a few years ago.
Companies: Box.net, Dropbox, Evernote, Good Technology People: John Herrema
   |
| LinkedIn wants to connect to the Web with new plugins Posted: 06 Apr 2011 08:02 AM PDT
While developers can build applications that run on LinkedIn itself, perhaps the most promising part of the platform involves the ability to access LinkedIn data from beyond the LinkedIn site, on other sites and apps. Think of how Facebook has used Facebook Connect and its various social plugins to expand beyond Facebook.com, approaching its vision of becoming your social identity wherever you are on the Web. LinkedIn seems to be attempting something similar with your professional identity. These new plugins should make that process easier. In a company blog post, LinkedIn’s Adam Nash describes the additions as “a featherweight way to light up your site and increase engagement, without any costly development overhead.” Plugins offer the ability to allow users to sign in with their LinkedIn account, view member profiles, view company profiles, recommend products, and more. The plugins use the new JavaScript version of the platform that LinkedIn announced in October. Thousands of developers have built applications for the upgraded platform already, LinkedIn says, resulting in more than one billion pageviews. Now the company is opening the platform to all developers. Companies: linkedin People: Adam Nash
   |
| Dish Network buys Blockbuster for $228M, all about streaming video and kiosks Posted: 06 Apr 2011 07:12 AM PDT
But don’t expect the deal to help Blockbuster’s remaining 1,700 beleaguered stores. Dish is likely aiming to take advantage of Blockbuster’s online video streaming service, disc-by-mail rentals and rental kiosks. “Blockbuster will complement our existing video offerings while presenting cross-marketing and service extension opportunities for Dish Network,” Tom Cullen, executive vice president of sales, marketing and programing for Dish Network, told Reuters. Perhaps the smartest thing for Dish to do is rid itself of even more Blockbuster retail locations and focus on a wider proliferation of its kiosks, which compete directly with DVD kiosk company Redbox, and focus more on its video streaming service, which is available on multiple mobile and TV set-top devices. The purchase also opens the door for Dish to offer cross-promotion deals with its satellite TV and Blockbuster’s services. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dish ends up offering free Blockbuster streaming accounts and disc rentals to its subscribers as an added bonus. The combination of Dish and Blockbuster could attack Netflix — which doesn’t offer rental kiosks or traditional TV service — from multiple sides. It’s also worth considering just how far Blockbuster has fallen. At its highest point, the company’s market cap sat at more than $5 billion in 2002. Now, Dish has managed to snag it for slightly more than two times what Netflix paid to stream Mad Men. Dish’s bid still needs to be approved by federal bankruptcy court at a hearing on Thursday. Companies: Blockbuster, Dish Network People: Tom Cullen
   |
| Twitter predicts performance of individual stocks Posted: 06 Apr 2011 07:04 AM PDT
TUM previously conducted a study in which text and sentiment analysis methods were used to analyze tweets related to particular stocks and whether they contained “buy”, “sell” or “hold” messages. The study showed that the sentiment from Twitter messages tracks stock market returns for individual stocks and can even predict them a day ahead. If an investor had oriented their share purchases according to the Twitter sentiment in the first half of 2010, they would have achieved an average rate of return of up to 15 percent. While the Pace University study only tracked the stock prices of 3 companies (Starbucks, Coca Cola and Nike), TUM’s study looked at tweets related to any S&P 500 company over 6 months in 2010 as indicated by the presence of a relevant hashtag and gauged the relationship of those tweets to stock returns, trading volume and stock price volatility. 250,000 tweets were included in the study. The information in tweets captured market movements fairly quickly, and strong buy signals on Twitter were followed by abnormal returns (higher than expected returns) from that stock the following day. Higher volumes of tweets about a particular stock were also related to higher next day trading volume of that stock. High volatility, where the stock price varied a lot, led to higher Twitter message volume as people consulted their peers for information. There were also more disagreements between Twitter users on a particular stock (whether to buy, sell or hold) when the trading volume was higher. The researchers also looked at how investment advice circulated on Twitter and whether users who gave higher quality investment advice gained more followers or retweets. Surprisingly, retweeted information was not found to be of significantly higher quality, in terms of predicting returns, than the average tweet. The 1.5 percent of users who were responsible for 50 percent of the tweets analyzed also didn’t necessarily give better investment advice than average. But a certain subset of users in the high-frequency group made accurate predictions in more than three-quarters of messages. Those users were rewarded with higher RT rates and follower increases. Companies: Technical University of Munich, Twitter
   |
| Entrepreneurs: Ignore all the talk of bubbles Posted: 06 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT (Editor's note: Brad Feld is an early stage investor and co-founder of Foundry Group. This story originally appeared on his blog.) "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble." – Macbeth Every time I hear the word "bubble" I think of that quote from Macbeth. I also think of Tulip Mania and the South Sea Company which purportedly was the source of the concept of an economic bubble. And then I remember Charles Mackay's classic book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds." When I returned last weekend from a week off the grid I encountered the word "bubble" over and over again when referring to the tech industry. A variety of people were using it to describe the current situation. This has been going on for at least a quarter or two, but the velocity of it seems to have picked up with a wave of high priced financings along with large financings for nascent companies. While plenty of tech bloggers were tossing around the word "bubble", I also noticed it among the mainstream media. But more interestingly I saw it in my twitter feed from some entrepreneurs and VCs who I respect a lot. So I spent some time on my run yesterday rolling the idea of a bubble around in my head. In the tech industry, the great Internet bubble inflated between 1999 and 2000 and deflated (or popped) in 2001. I remember it well as 2001 was easily the most challenging year of my business life. I made a lot of mistakes in 1999 and 2000 that I've hopefully learned from (I believe I have) and took on a lot of challenging things between 2001 and 2005 which laid the groundwork for the business context that I find myself in today. So, in hindsight, the great Internet bubble of 2001 was very powerful and useful to me, even though it was very painful. I refuse to make predictions as the only thing I know with certainty is that some day I will be dead. I view predictions as irrelevant in the context of what I am working on and trying to accomplish. Sure – I pay attention to what is going on around me, have hypotheses about what's going to happen, and adjust my behavior accordingly. But I think making predictions with certainty such as "we are in a bubble" are useless, especially in the absence of recommendations about what to do to either defend against or take advantage of the situation. I find this discussion about bubbles especially bizarre and entertaining against the backdrop of the downward economic cycle of the past few years. In 2008, everyone in business and politics was consumed with the "global economic crisis". However, entrepreneurs just put their heads down and continued to accelerate the current web revolution which started around 2004 with "Web 2.0" being articulated by Tim O'Reilly. Today, there is once again enormous focus on entrepreneurship as the salvation for many things, with the naysayers starting to say "but it's a bubble" or some variant. If you recognize that we are in a strong, positive, upward segment of the current "tech company creation cycle", that's more than enough. You should accept that we'll be back in a downward part of the cycle at some point, but that we don't know if it'll be in a week, month, year, or decade. We also won't know the slope of the curve although if you are a hedge fund trader you probably think you can calculate the derivative of some equation about the future that will tell you what to buy and sell. Whatever – have fun and good luck. If you are an entrepreneur, you can build a significant, powerful, sustainable business taking advantage of market expansion during the up cycle and consolidating your position during the down cycle. Don't get distracted by speculating about "bubbles" other than the ones in your bathtub. Instead, spend your energy creating amazing products, thrilling your customers, building an awesome organization, and living your life. Always remember that one day you too will be dead. People: Brad Feld
   |
| Deals & More: Marin Software gets $16M for search advertising management Posted: 06 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT Today’s funding announcements include companies offering ad campaign management, mobile game advertising and electronic medical records:
Kiip raises $3.6M for in-game advertising: The startup founded by teenage entrepreneur Brian Wong has raised a new round of equity funding led by Hummer Winblad with participation from True Ventures, Crosslink Capital and others, according to a filing with the SEC. Founded in 2010, the San Francisco-based company says it is looking to hire business development employees and iPhone developers. Practice Fusion grabs $23M for free online medical records: The provider of a web-based electronic medical record (EMR) system has raised a second round of funding led by Facebook and Founders Fund. The San Francisco-based company says more than 75,000 healthcare professionals use its free network to support more than 60,000 patient visits each day. HouseTrip lands $2.7M for short-term apartment rentals: The apartment rentals website has raised a first round of funding led by Index Ventures to match apartment owners with travelers looking for a place to stay. Founded in 2009 and based in London, the company has listings in more than 350 destinations globally and lets owners list their apartments for free on the site. Companies: CrossLink Capital, Facebook, Founders Fund, HouseTrip, Index Ventures, Kiip, Marin Software, Practice Fusion, Shutterfly, Spacex
   |
| FindTheBest unveils a fun way to rank dogs, motorcycles, and more Posted: 05 Apr 2011 06:22 PM PDT
The Santa Barbara, Calif. company’s goal is to become the definitive destination for finding the information you need to make choices, whether it's buying a smartphone or choosing a school. The site's data is arranged into charts (aka comparison apps) showing the relevant facts about each item. And if you find the charts a bit overwhelming, the site has added other ways to compare products. For example, FindTheBest just announced a new feature that lets you build slideshows ranking items on the site. To help attract some attention for the feature, it asked some well-known figures in the tech world to contribute. So you can see the best motorcycles as selected by Randy Komisar, who is a member of the company's board and a partner at FindTheBest investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Or you can check out Foodspotting cofounder Soraya Darabi's favorite dogs. FindTheBest has also added a question-and-answer feature. O'Connor told me that the company doesn't "fashion ourselves to be a Q&A site." But FindTheBest contains the answers to many of the questions people ask on sites like Google. By adding questions like "Which ski resort gets the most snow?" FindTheBest can make those answers more visible to search engines. As for where the site goes from here, O'Connor said he wants to focus on making the service more social. FindTheBest raised money from Kleiner's sFund for social networking startups but, as yet, has relatively few social features. O'Connor said the challenges is to balance user input and social features with FindTheBest's need for reliable data. (The company's information is mostly compiled by its employees. Businesses can also submit data, but FindTheBest verifies submissions before posting.) O'Connor also revealed that he owns the FindTheWorst.com Web domain, so that could be another way to expand. Companies: FindTheBest People: Kevin O’Connor, Randy Komisar, Soraya Darabi
   |
| San Francisco supervisors back Twitter tax break. Zynga next? Posted: 05 Apr 2011 05:20 PM PDT
The city's Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 today in favor of capping the messaging service's payroll taxes at its current level for the next six years. That means Twitter won't have to pay taxes on new hires — or on the stock option payoffs that would come if the company went public. (Technically, the tax break applies to any company with a payroll of more than $1 million that moves into San Francisco's seedy mid-Market neighborhood, but Twitter is the clear beneficiary.) Although the tax break needs one more vote from the board as well as approval for Mayor Ed Lee, today's vote seemed like the biggest hurdle. The city's largest public employee union has campaigned against the deal, arguing that San Francisco shouldn't be giving tax breaks in the middle of a budget crisis that could lead to the elimination of hundreds of jobs. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on today's vote, but the company has signed a letter of intent to rent the mid-Market office if the tax break is passed. It previously said that the expenses of staying in San Francisco were impossible to justify, and it was reportedly looking at a property in Brisbane, a city south of San Francisco. Of course, a move would have had some costs for Twitter too — Bay Area tech companies are battling to hire and hold onto the area's top talent, and a San Francisco location should appeal to the young programmers that Twitter wants to attract. (There's a reason Silicon Valley companies like Google have to run shuttles for workers commuting from San Francisco.) Now other startups are hoping for similar benefits. Social gaming giant Zynga has reportedly lobbied to get itself included in the tax break, and it sounds like some of the city's supervisors want to revise the payroll tax as well.
   |
| Analyst: Motorola Xoom and Atrix are duds Posted: 05 Apr 2011 04:58 PM PDT
Sales opportunities for both the Xoom and the Atrix, which plugs into a separate keyboard and screen to basically replicate a notebook, have been slim because there is a lot of competition that is much cheaper, Faucette said. That includes cheap but very powerful smartphones like the iPhone 3GS, which retails for around $49 with a two-year contract, and the HTC Inspire. On the tablet front, the Xoom has to compete with the iPad 2 — a goliath that has almost complete control of the tablet market. The Xoom runs Honeycomb, the latest version of Google’s Android mobile operating system optimized for Android. But that might not be enough to differentiate it from the other Android tablets on the market. It also has to contend with Research in Motion’s Playbook, which will run Android apps, and Hewlett-Packard’s upcoming TouchPad tablet, which will run Palm’s WebOS mobile operating system. I got a chance to play around with the Xoom at the CTIA Wireless 2011 conference in Orlando, Fla., last month and I honestly was not that impressed. It didn’t do much to differentiate itself from the Galaxy Tabs on display there. In comparison, RIM’s Playbook blew me away with a very smooth and intuitive interface. The build of the Xoom also felt a little cheap compared to some of the other tablets on the market — especially when compared to the iPad 2’s aluminum body. The Atrix is also a bit baffling, if only because of the price. Motorola is trying to market the device as a replacement to notebooks with the screen-and-keyboard add-on. But the dock retails for around $500 with the Atrix — and that’s on a two-year contract. There are some cheaper notebooks that pack more punch than the Atrix’s smartphone guts. Pacific Crest cut its revenue estimates for Motorola Mobility to $12.2 billion in 2011, down 11 percent from the earlier estimate of $13.7 billion. The wall street analyst firm also cut its 2012 revenue estimates to $13.6 billion from $15.3 billion — or 11 percent. Pacific Crest cut Motorola’s profit outlook by 32 percent and 36 percent for 2011 and 2012, respectively. Companies: Apple, Google, Hewlett Packard, HP, motorola, Research In Motion, RIM
   |
| Late-stage investments dominate cleantech sector in Q1 Posted: 05 Apr 2011 03:36 PM PDT
Investors poured the most money into late-stage ventures that accounted for $2.39 billion of the investments in the first quarter this year. More than half of the deals were late-stage investments, but they accounted for 93 percent of the funds. That’s because just a handful of companies are spearheading innovation in various industries. Solar power ventures received the most money, bringing in $641 million across 26 deals. That includes a $72 million investment in Alta Devices that involved storied investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — even though the company was still in a half-stealth mode. The next best performer was the transportation industry, with $311 million across 8 deals. That includes electric and hybrid vehicles that have less of an environmental footprint than internal combustion engine cars. Biofuels came in last, only receiving $148 million across 13 deals. There’s still a lot of room for innovation in solar panel technology, which captures sunlight and converts it to electricity. That includes improving the efficiency of light capture and creating flexible displays that can be placed on any surface — a technology that SoloPower, which also received a late-stage investment of $13.5 million, develops. The U.S. led the world in investing in clean technology startups, according to a report by Pew. But cleantech companies in the U.S. aren’t spending a lot of money deploying the technology — such as buying solar panels and wind turbines to generate renewable energy sources. North America accounted for 85 percent of all investments in clean technology startups, according to Cleantech Group. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers was the most active among clean technology investors, dropping money into nine companies, according to the report. VantagePoint Venture Partners invested in five companies, and General Electric Financial Services invested in four. Companies: Alta Devices, Cleantech Group, Coda Automotive, solopower
   |
| BioWare gives away triple-A title Mass Effect 2 for free with Dragon Age 2 Posted: 05 Apr 2011 03:14 PM PDT
It’s the kind of stunt that most independent game developers can’t quite pull off — forcing them to rely on non-traditional ways to generate support for their games, like teaming up with other developers to release gaming “bundles” that bet on the good will of the gaming community. But BioWare is owned by big game maker Electronic Arts and so has more options on the table. Even massive game companies like Electronic Arts have to use incentives like this to bring in new gamers and appeal to new audiences rather than the traditional hardcore crowd it has already captured. That’s quite a perk for new game buyers, seeing as the game was adored by critics and received a 96 out of 100 across 98 reviews on review aggregating site Metacritic. Mass Effect 2 sold more than 2 million copies in its first week of release as well. BioWare is basically offering two triple-A titles for the price of one for PC gamers everywhere in an attempt to drum up additional support for the game that still stands in Mass Effect 2’s shadow. Dragon Age 2 received a score of 79 out of 100 across 71 reviews on Metacritic. For Electronic Arts, this is a good way to get copies of Mass Effect 2 into the hands of new gamers ahead of BioWare’s epic conclusion to the space opera trilogy, which is due out later this year. Electronic Arts is also cross-pollinating its games by offering exclusive Dragon Age content to Mass Effect 2 owners in order to increase publicity for its other games. Many other game publishers are doing the same thing in order to create interest in newer titles, since the triple-A space is getting quite crowded. Mass Effect and Dragon Age are both critical franchises for Electronic Arts, which needs to keep churning out the hits in order to keep pace with rival Activision Blizzard. EA and Activision Blizzard constantly battle for the leadership of the hardcore game industry — with Electronic Arts relying on franchises like Mass Effect 2 and Activision Blizzard dominating the first-person-shooter space with its Call of Duty franchise. A studio such as BioWare is a prized asset because most of its games end up as hits. Companies: Activision Blizzard, Bioware, Electronic Arts
   |
| Is another Black Ops map pack coming May 3? Posted: 05 Apr 2011 02:51 PM PDT
Australian retailer GAME accidentally leaked information about the second map pack on its web site and then pulled it. As proven by sales of previous Call of Duty map packs, the launch of this kind of downloadable content is as huge as a new blockbuster game on the consoles. The new map pack will have five maps entitled Zoo, Hotel, Convoy, Stockpile, and the zombie map Survive. The price wasn’t listed, but previous map pack First Strike was sold on Xbox Live for 1200 Microsoft Points, or $15. We are checking with Activision Blizzard for comment. Call of Duty Black Ops is one of the best-selling video games of all time, with sales of more than $1 billion since the launch in November. Activision Blizzard previously launched its First Strike map pack in February. As we noted before, if video games are the new Hollywood, map packs and downloadable content are smart ways to satisfy the insatiable thirst that some gamers have for sequels. Instead of coming years later, though, these downloadable expansions to existing games keep players addicted to a recently released title. Activision Blizzard said some time ago that it had sold more than 20 million Call of Duty map packs, generating more than $300 million in sales. So it’s clear that map packs are a big business, and video game publishers may want to avoid publishing rival games on May 3, since gamers will be a little busy. Companies: Activision Blizzard
   |
| Sony’s next-generation gaming handheld may be delayed due to Japan quake Posted: 05 Apr 2011 02:32 PM PDT
Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America told Bloomberg that the PlayStation Portable’s successor, dubbed the NGP, may be delayed, arriving in just one region this year instead of all three regions at once. That’s not good for Sony because Nintendo has launched its 3DS, and it’s selling quite well; Sony potentially has nothing to match it through the next Christmas selling season. “It may be the straw that says maybe we get to just one market by the end of the year’,” said Tretton. That may give developers in some regions more time to complete games for the launch. Sony has previously said that it planned to launch the NGP in the fall. Handheld launches are relatively rare events and require the entire game development community get behind them to produce games so that sales can take off. The NGP is potentially a big deal because it will play Sony PlayStation style games as well as Android Market games. Sony launched its original PSP in 2004 and has sold tens of millions of units, but Nintendo has sold about twice as many DS units as the PSP. Sony jammed a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor into the device at a time when most phones are just now getting dual-core processors. The company says that the performance will be a lot like the PlayStation 3's visual rendering powers, which are pretty formidable already. Sony also recently introduced the PlayStation Suite. It gives developers a way to publish NGP games on Android phones — and bring Android games to the NGP. The NGP is Sony's hedge against Nintendo's latest portable gaming console, a 3D-powered device called the 3DS. While Nintendo has focused on bringing some new ideas to the table — such as a touch screen and multiple screens — Sony has typically tried to make the most powerful console. The PlayStation Portable, for example, has more power than the Nintendo DS but is a much more traditional handheld gaming device. Sony is basically betting that it can win over gamers with the largest and most accessible game library and some beefy tech. People: Jack Tretton
   |
| PopCap Games forms a new label to experiment with games Posted: 05 Apr 2011 02:02 PM PDT
PopCap is preparing for an initial public offering in the second half of the year. The company has basically bottled the kind of hit-making capability that other companies would love to have. To foster more of that, the new label will give designers more free rein to “create smaller, simpler and sometimes edgier” games without the constraints of an established global games publisher. It’s not unlike the different labels that Disney had for movies, from Tri-Star to Miramax. And it shows that even creative companies have to keep doing what is necessary to foster creativity within their ranks.
The label is named after the intersection in downtown Seattle where PopCap’s headquarters is. The first game, dubbed Unpleasant Horse, is coming on the iPhone later this month as a free title. Unpleasant Horse isn’t exactly for the whole family, like many of PopCap’s other games. The flying horse destroys small birds and lands on other innocent horses, which are then pushed into a meat grinder under the earth. Allard said such games may be “too strange to merit the PopCap seal of approval.” Allard said that PopCap’s games are very polished, but the process takes too long to try out marginal ideas, where the best thing to do is to try them out and see if people gravitate to them or not. 4th & Battery will be a safe area where developers can “hone their chops.” The label will produce several titles a year. Allard said “4th & Battery is a pressure valve intended to keep our heads from exploding.” Jason Kapalka, co-founder and chief creative officer at PopCap, said, “Expect weirdness.” Overall, PopCap has more than 400 employees. Dave Roberts, chief executive of PopCap, said in a recent interview that the company has been investing heavily in multiplatform games that include both social and mobile titles. The tough decisions, he said, involve whether the company is investing enough money on platforms such as the iPad or Android, even as it stays focused on PC games. He said the company was contemplating going public and he has noticed the “high mood” among investors who are hot to put money into mobile and social games. He noticed that valuations are rising and they’re “really based on what people are willing to pay for game companies.” There was even a rumor that Zynga would buy PopCap, but Roberts declined comment on that. Roberts says he knows Zynga is hiring people in Seattle and that he wants PopCap’s people to have a passion for making games. “We had a mobile bubble in 2006, but the difference now is there is a lot of money being made,” he said. “You can argue if it is sustainable. Our approach is to always create something with lasting value.” Companies: Popcap Games, Zynga People: Dave Roberts, Ed Allard, George Fan, Jason Kapalka
   |
Microsoft announced today that 
This discussion about enterprise mobility is one of the five themes we will be focusing on at the
John Herrema is the senior vice president of Corporate Strategy at 
LinkedIn
Dish Network landed the winning bid, valued at around $320 million, for Blockbuster in its bankruptcy auction. The company actually expects to pay around $228 million in cash — after “certain adjustments” are made at the deal’s closing — for the rental chain, according to 
We recently wrote about a study from Pace University that showed that the popularity of a company in social media 
Marin Software brings in $16M for search ad tools: The San Francisco-based 
When 
It's looking increasingly likely that Twitter will stay in San Francisco.
Motorola’s tablet computer, the Xoom, and the Atrix smartphone it designed to replace a notebook computer are duds that can’t compete for market share, 
Investments in clean technology startups rose 13 percent in the first quarter this year in North America, Europe, China and India — to $2.57 billion from $2.28 billion in the first quarter of 2010 across 159 companies — according to a report by Cleantech Group.
Selling 1 million copies of a triple-A title in two weeks just isn’t enough for some game companies — like BioWare, which will offer a copy of its previous 
The launch details for the second Call of Duty Black Ops map pack may have been leaked, 
Sony said today that its next-generation gaming handheld could be delayed beyond the end of this year because of disruptions to its supply chain as a result of the quake and tsunami in Japan.
Ed Allard, head of studios at PopCap, said in a | You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar