VentureBeat |
- Only two women make 2011 Forbes Midas List
- T-Mobile’s dual-core G2x superphone coming April 15 for $200
- Fotopedia’s new app lets you tour Paris through photos
- Why mobile app success is more than just download numbers
- Does social media marketing actually work?
- Battle brewing at Microsoft over retail store expansion
- Rome2Rio launches travel search with planes, trains, and automobiles
- Google’s Andy Rubin: Nothing has changed with Android’s openness
- Cocoon promises a safe, spam-free, private way to browse the web
- Zoodles reaches a million children with Kid Mode mobile apps
- Dell to invest $1B in data centers offering cloud services
- 5 reasons not to take a big VC round
- Social game firm RockYou looks inside for new CEO
- GameStop retail giant opens a store on Facebook
- EA chief says Battlefield 3 will take down Call of Duty
| Only two women make 2011 Forbes Midas List Posted: 07 Apr 2011 09:48 AM PDT
The Midas List ranks the top venture capitalists as measured by, among other criteria, “his or her leadership within within a firm or sector, his or her firm’s overall standing in the venture capital industry,” and an analysis of the firm’s disclosed M&A’s and IPO exits. Farrington holds the 77th spot on the list; Ranzetta, the 93rd. We’ve called attention in the past to the dearth of women in sectors like cleantech, but Forbes’ most recent Midas List is a sober reminder that while women make of the majority of the U.S. workforce and U.S. management positions, they remain woefully underrepresented in the world of venture capital. And things seem to be getting worse. The last Forbes Midas List, which was published two years ago, had a much stronger female presence: Ann Huntress Lamont of Oak Investment Partners held the number 25 spot; Farrington came in at 44; Jennifer Fonstad of Draper Fisher Jurvetson was at 54; Jean George of Advanced Technology Ventures was at 76; and Kathleen La Porte of New Leaf Ventures held the 95 position. Any thoughts on what made this year so different? Companies: Accel Partners, Forbes, StarVest People: Deborah Harrington, Theresia Gouw Ranzetta
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| T-Mobile’s dual-core G2x superphone coming April 15 for $200 Posted: 07 Apr 2011 09:16 AM PDT
The G2x, known elsewhere in the world as the LG Optimus 2X, is T-Mobile's first phone to use a dual-core CPU, as well as one of the first dual-core smartphones available in the US (alongside the Motorola Atrix 4G on AT&T). It heralds a new wave of smartphones that are aiming to compete with computing power on the level of laptops and desktops. The G2x will also run on T-Mobile's 4G HSPA+ network, which makes it yet another compelling addition to the carrier's repertoire of 4G devices, including the recently released Samsung Galaxy 4G, MyTouch 4G, and the G2. The phone is powered by Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 chip, which is available in the Atrix 4G, and is set to power many other Android devices this year. It also packs a 4-inch display, 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video conferencing. The phone will ship with Android 2.2, but LG says that it will be upgradeable to the newer 2.3 release. Notably, it can record 1080p high-definition video (most phones today are limited to 720p HD recording). The G2X will also be the first smartphone to include Nvidia's Tegra Zone app, which will direct users to flashy Android games that will be able to take advantage of Nvidia's powerfulTegra 2 chip.
Companies: Lg, Nvidia, T Mobile
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| Fotopedia’s new app lets you tour Paris through photos Posted: 07 Apr 2011 09:09 AM PDT
The company was co-founded by Jean-Marie Hullot, who previously served as chief technology officer at NeXT, the company whose acquisition returned Steve Jobs to Apple. The Fotopedia site now has 30,000 members who submit and rate photos, but Daligault said the company hasn’t quite figured out how to create a rich photo experience in the Web browser — which is why it’s focusing on mobile apps, specifically apps on iPad and iPhone, for now. All of Fotopedia’s apps have a similar design, allowing users to quickly swipe through tens, hundreds, or thousands of high-quality photos. The Paris app contains more than 4,000 images, as well as virtual trips that group photos into categories like “people” and “fashion”, and a trip builder for save users’ to save their favorite photos and locations. Daligault was emphatic that Paris is not a travel app per se. It’s not supposed to help you plan a trip to Paris, but rather experience Paris remotely. I’d argue that the distinction isn’t a clear one, because a lot of so-called travel writing is supposed to help readers experience locations that they may never visit, but the Paris app is certainly fun to browse even if you’re not flying to France in a few months. This app is also the first step to creating a larger Metropolis app that features photos from cities around the world, Daligault said. Fotopedia has raised $6.5 million from investors including Ignition Partners, Banexi Ventures Partners, Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, Joi Ito, and others. It plans to make money by charging for some apps, like the Memory of Colors app that it collaborated on with photographer Jaime Ocampo-Rangel, and by introducing advertising to its free apps like Fotopedia Paris.
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| Why mobile app success is more than just download numbers Posted: 07 Apr 2011 09:00 AM PDT
Over the past three years, the mobile landscape has been dominated by big numbers. Hundreds of thousands of apps on millions of devices downloaded billions of times. It's like the early days of the Web all over again. Think unique Website visitors and page views. A lot of numbers, but with what net result? A million downloads can make for a nice story, but they really don't tell anything interesting, and they don’t equal success. It's very difficult to build a business on a $0.99 app, let alone on a free one. Along with downloads being mobile's incorrect measurement, we've seen executions missing just as often. People have been trying to take what worked on the Web and shove it at mobile. But the rules are different now, so you have to change how you think about, treat and present content within the new medium.
Mobile is, by its very nature, an intent-driven platform. You pick up your phone to make a phone call, check your email, look up sports scores or play a game while waiting in line. Successful mobile apps have learned to take advantage of the intent-driven nature of the mobile channel and have designed apps that create ongoing user engagement. They are not developing static brochure-ware apps or feature-by-feature replicas of their Websites. Success and failure in mobile apps comes in all shapes and sizes: Toyota: Toyota has an iPhone app that is effectively a website in-an-app. Users can configure and then get a quote for their Toyota of choice. The problem: would most people think to go to the app store when considering a new car purchase? But more importantly: Is this app one that users will launch again and again? Of course not. So Toyota has missed the opportunity for ongoing engagement. What if instead, the Toyota app would let Toyota owners enter their VIN number for their car and be kept up-to-date on important recall information and service schedules. Heck, it's mobile: the app could see a user's location and notify them, via push notification, that there is an empty service bay at the dealer just three blocks away: "Come in in the next 20 minutes and we’ll give you 20% off your oil change." That is a real conversation providing engagement and value to the user. It's because the story being sold isn't about the brand, it's about the user, which tends to be the stories customers actually care about.
Angry Birds: The folks at Rovio are no fools. In the early days they probably saw that $0.99 apps didn't have much of a shelf life. They took it a step further and continued offering content for their users with that original $0.99. The app just kept getting better. People talked, people shared; they got their friends to play and install the game. They created a conversation by continually evolving the game.They now have a franchise, and the $.99 per app is only part of their story. They built their franchise by continually engaging users with the very content they loved, even though that content was delivered for free to existing users. Mobile is more than download numbers. It's about telling your customers a story they care about, engaging users in a valuable way, and delighting them. And what's now possible is as futuristic as our missing jetpacks, and in some ways, better than we imagined. We just have to quit thinking about it as a dumb screen people stare at when they're bored, and start thinking about it as a portal to their time; a responsibility we better respect. Remember: You may only get one chance to get your app installed on a user's device. Be sure to think hard about how you create a valuable conversation for both them and you as you develop your app. If you don't, your downloads will be another example of empty numbers.
Companies: Rovio, Toyota, Urban Airship, Warner Brothers People: Scott Kveton
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| Does social media marketing actually work? Posted: 07 Apr 2011 08:51 AM PDT
The company surveyed 300,000 consumers on more than 180 websites across a dozen private and public sector industries. It’s not all bad news for social media marketeers. 18 percent of site visitors (averaged across surveyed websites) report being influenced by social media to visit a website. However, there was considerable variation in the results for different companies.
Promotional emails are also sometimes neglected in favor of the more glamorous social media, in spite of the fact that such emails influence 32 percent of purchases. Companies themselves seem a bit confused about their objectives when it comes to social media. Internet Retailer Magazine surveyed 400 U.S. companies (19 percent of them retailers) in December 2009 and January 2010. It found that 74 percent of companies wanted social media to drive traffic to their websites, while only 56 percent wanted it to increase sales. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Companies: forsee results
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| Battle brewing at Microsoft over retail store expansion Posted: 07 Apr 2011 08:30 AM PDT
According to sources close to Microsoft, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner are interested in matching or exceeding the number of Apple retail stores, which currently number over 300. Many attribute Apple's success in recent years to the growth of its stores, which allow customers to interact with the company's newest products. Despite the push to follow Apple, Microsoft has only opened 8 stores since launching its retail initiative in late 2009, and has only announced two future stores. Considering how expensive the stores are to build, and the fact that most of the existing ones are not profitable, it doesn’t appear to be the right decision to expand the number of retail stores. If Microsoft went ahead with CEO Balmer's plan to match the number of Apple stores, it would certainly raise the eyebrows of investors. This is particular true given the needed changes that could be made now at the existing stores, which currently only serve to remind consumers of how unhip Microsoft is.For example, Apple calls its technical gurus “Geniuses,” while Microsoft calls its equivalent employees “Retail Technical Advisors.” Microsoft has not paid attention to the uniformed brand image and attention to detail that have made Apple so popular. Additionally, in contrast to Apple’s products, the products on sale at Microsoft stores are also available from hundreds of other outlets. Although customers may stop by the stores, there isn't a large incentive to purchase products at one of the Microsoft stores when there are so many other options. At this point, at least until the retail stores become profitable (unlikely for some time) or Windows Phone 7 devices begin selling well, it may be best if Microsoft holds back on Balmer's retail ambitions. People: Kevin Turner, steve ballmer
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| Rome2Rio launches travel search with planes, trains, and automobiles Posted: 07 Apr 2011 08:03 AM PDT
The site was created by a two-person team of former Microsoft employees, Michael Cameron and Bernard Tschirren. They noted that a lot of the information that they want to feature on the site is already available in travel books, which may instruct readers to fly into a specific airport and take a specific train to reach a remote location. With Rome2Rio, Cameron and Tschirren want to make those kind of tips available online, for free, and in a way that helps travelers compare different options. To do that, Rome2Rio pulls includes flight data from 670 airlines; train information in Europe, India, and China; driving directions; and ferry information. The data is drawn from a number of different sources (for example, the flights come from an international flight registry; the driving directions come from Google Maps), but from what I’ve seen, the experience is pretty seamless. You just type in the places you’re traveling to and from, then Rome2Rio will show multiple routes and how long they’ll take. Once you’ve added a travel date, it will also plug in air fares from Kayak, and you can go to Kayak to purchase your tickets directly. While the site will try to give you a route to any destination you want, the team suggested that the real sweet spot is Europe, where knowing about trains and alternate modes of transport can sometimes save hours of travel time and hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They want to build out the site by adding more data sources, as well as new features like a “get me out of here!” option or app that lets users re-plan a trip on-the-fly when their flight has been canceled due to weather, disasters, or for any other reason. The company is based in Melbourne, Australia and is self-funded for now, but Cameron and Tschirren said they’re preparing to raise their first round of funding. Companies: Rome2Rio People: Bernard Tschirren, Michael Cameron
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| Google’s Andy Rubin: Nothing has changed with Android’s openness Posted: 07 Apr 2011 07:56 AM PDT
Rubin’s defense of Android’s open source status is to be expected since it’s one of Android’s biggest advantages over Apple’s closed iOS platform. Rubin stresses that Google is operating the same way it always has with Android: It remains committed to releasing the platform’s source code when it’s ready, and he says that Google is following the “anti-fragmentation” program that has been put in place since the very first version of Android. “We don't believe in a ‘one size fits all’ solution,” he wrote, referring to the massive amount of device types and form factors that Android now supports. He also denied that Google is working to standardize a single Android chipset (rumors pointed to Google working with ARM). Rubin goes on to say that the Android team is still working on bringing Honeycomb’s features to phones, and that its code will be released to the community once that happens. “This temporary delay does not represent a change in strategy. We remain firmly committed to providing Android as an open source platform across many device types,” he said. Still, Rubin didn’t respond to earlier claims that Google is prioritizing certain manufacturers (in this case Motorola and other Android 3.0 tablet makers) over others. That’s likely been happening for some time — especially since Google has been tapping different manufacturers for its flagship Nexus One (HTC) and Nexus S (Samsung) phones. People: Andy Rubin
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| Cocoon promises a safe, spam-free, private way to browse the web Posted: 07 Apr 2011 07:12 AM PDT
That’s the experience Virtual World Computing promises with it’s new Cocoon browser plug-in. The Cocoon plug-in works with Firefox and other browsers to effectively unplug your computer from the internet and route you instead through Cocoon’s servers. Those servers filter out the bad stuff and let you surf the web through Cocoon’s own connections as fast as possible. “We let you have more control, like setting up an electric fence around your house,” said Jeff Bermant (pictured right), chief executive and founder of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Virtual World Computing. The benefit of going through Cocoon’s connection is that web sites can’t spy on you. They see only Cocoon, not your computer, as if you were using an “in-private browsing” feature. Normally, browsing the web privately would mean your machine would browse the web as if it were stripped of tracking software known as “cookies.” If you take out your cookies, you are in for a rude surprise when you visit a site such as Amazon.com, which won’t recognize who you are and won’t let you log in without those cookies.
Rather than using a traditional third-party site to mask your movements, such as a proxy server or Tor identity-masking network, Cocoon tweaks your browser. Cocoon then creates “mail slots” for you, concocting a random and disposable email address for every site that you want to log into on a regular basis. Cocoon will automatically fill out a form when you sign up, substituting a Cocoon-generated email address for your actual email address. You don’t have to remember the Cocoon email at all. When the web site wants to verify your email, it will send an email to the Cocoon email address. You can go into your mail slots, click on the name of the web site, and find the verification email there. You can then open it and click on the verification link from the web site. After you do that, the web site will confirm your account as a real one and let you proceed to browse or buy things. Cocoon can store cookies related to that site, but you don’t have to do so on your own machine. One protection is clear. If hackers break into a company and steal your email address, as happened with the cyber attack against email marketing company Epsilon, the hackers won’t get your real email address. They will only be able to steal the Cocoon address. Your privacy is protected. Your Cocoon email address can’t be used to send email to anyone; that blocks spammers from signing up for Cocoon accounts. Another benefit is that you can log into Cocoon from anywhere and then log into a web site. Normally, you would have to log in and prove to that web site that you are who you say you are. But Cocoon handles that for you so you can quickly get on with what you want to do. You can even log into Cocoon and see all 30 web sites you had open the last time you logged off. Bermant founded the company in 2008 with chief technology officer Brian Fox. Bermant had a bad experience where a virus took over his server and spammed his friends with 30,000 messages a day. “I felt there has to be a better way to browse,” Bermant said. “I didn’t like being followed around, with cookies landing on my computer without my knowledge.”
Cocoon can also be set up with master accounts and sub-accounts so that children can safely cruise the web. You can lock down the sub-accounts so they can only visit safe sites, and you can track every site the kids visit using Cocoon’s own tracking ability. You can also block the user’s ability to fire up another browser. And for yourself, you can turn off Cocoon’s ability to track your history. In that case, your internet service provider also won’t know your web-browsing history. You can sign up for Cocoon and get a 30-day free trial and then pay $6.95 a month for it after that. There are rivals out there, but Cocoon has gone a long way to making this friendly to consumers who don’t want a lot of hassle just to browse the web privately and safely. You can, for instance, hide Cocoon from your browser window and also turn it off with a single button click. The company already has more than 4,000 active users and is self-funded. Its advisors include Marvin Minsky, the artificial intelligence expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Companies: Virtual World Computing People: Brian Fox, Jeff Bermant
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| Zoodles reaches a million children with Kid Mode mobile apps Posted: 07 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT
Mountain View, Calif.-based Zoodles is trying to open up a new market for children on the smartphone and tablet platforms, hoping the devices will spread out to kids as they become cheaper and more ubiquitous. Right now, the market isn’t huge because tablets are very expensive toys for children eight years and under. But Zoodles says it has become the fastest-growing company focused on products for young children. If it stays that way, the dollars will add up. Zoodles is thinking ahead with a whole suite of offerings for youngsters. The company launched its Zoodles Kid Browser in June, 2010, allowing children to enjoy lots of games and web sites via a safe-for-kids browser plug-in for Firefox. Then in September, the company introduced Kid Mode for Android phones, allowing children to play in a locked application on a parent’s phone. In October, Zoodles launched a video mail service for children (pictured at bottom) where grandparents could read a book to their kids via a Skype-like video calling service. More than a million children have used Kid Mode to date. In the last 90 days, 500,000 new users have joined. Four kids are joining Zoodles every minute (about eight kids are born every minute in the U.S.). The million kids have spent more than 3 million hours playing education games focused on math and reading skills. Mark Williamson, chief executive of Zoodles, created Kid Mode as a tool for parents to keep their kids busy with entertainment and learning. Using Kid Mode, they can let their kids play with adult toys such as smartphones or tablets without needing to supervise them. In Kid Mode, for instance, a child can’t accidentally make a phone call to the adult’s boss. The new Kid Mode app will support all Android tablets, including the Motorola Xoom pictured at top. With Flash-enabled apps and a front-facing camera, the Xoom will be able to run Kid Mode in a way that is much more compelling for children on a big screen. Parents can lock the Home button while a child plays so the kid can’t accidentally delete emails, move calendar appointments, and uninstall apps as they can on unguarded tablets. Parents can also set additional controls and monitor progress in apps, filtering content based on age, interests and educational topics. Zoodles says the Android version is the most feature-rich to date. On a tablet, the video mail apps gets more interesting. Pre-approved adults such as grandparents can send video messages to children using a webcam and children can respond with the front-facing camera on the tablet. Adults on the run can pre-record bedtime stories for kids, reading a classic storybook in a video recording that the child can view with the tablet. Sue Hillbeck, a military wife with three kids, has made Zoodles Kid Mode part of her family’s everyday routine, allowing family to send video messages back and forth while her husband is on deployment. The content accessible via Kid Mode can be adapted to each child’s grade level. Kid Mode is free to download, and a premium membership costs $7.95 a month or $59.95 a year. Zoodles was founded in 2008 by Williamson, who was frustrated that his young daughter had to be constantly supervised while using a computer to play games. Zoodles Kid Mode is available on the Mac, PC, Android and Apple iOS devices such as the iPhone. Zoodles is currently a top five app on the education section in the Android Market. The TV is the biggest rival, but other rival kid-oriented companies are Glubble and Kidzui. The company has seven full-time employees and more contractors. The company’s parent company, Inquisitive Minds, raised $2.6 million in funding to date from investors including Harrison Metal Capital.
Companies: Zoodles People: Mark Williamson
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| Dell to invest $1B in data centers offering cloud services Posted: 07 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT
The move seems like an effort to counter the growing services and software focuses of rivals such as IBM and HP. Dell hopes to transform its business from simply selling hardware to providing more value-added services that will help customers offer consumers all sorts of web services in an era of an ever-expanding internet. The move combines hardware, software and service offerings to customers that will make Dell into a more well-rounded enterprise vendor. HP voiced a similar vision — which included running data centers for its customers — as new chief executive Leo Apotheker laid out his strategy a couple of weeks ago. Both HP and Dell sell a lot of equipment to web service vendors such as Amazon, but now they’re effectively going to compete with Amazon in hosting businesses in their data centers. The $1 billion figure is impressive, but given that the company already spends $50 billion a year to support revenues of $61 billion, it’s unclear how much that $1 billion is over and above what it would have spent anyway. Over 15 months, Dell has made nine acquisitions related to everything from new services platforms to storage. All of them are helping to build up Dell’s capability to serve customers at “every layer of the architecture,” said Steve Schuckenbrock, president of Dell Services, in a conference call with reporters. “This is a very important investment for us,” he said. “As we increase the velocity of bringing new solutions to market and drive the intimacy with our customers, we can change the nature of what we sell to our customers.” In other words, Dell isn’t just selling hardware or software slapped together from vendors such as Intel and Microsoft. Rather, it is providing customers with data center capacity, cloud services such as mass storage, and other solutions. Schuckenbrock said this change is happening now because trends like cloud computing — where user data and apps are hosted in web-connected data centers rather than in on-site computers — are transforming the way that business is being done. Dell’s $1 billion investment will include hiring more salespeople and training them to sell data center services. The company will also build 10 new data centers around the world in the next 24 months to host public and private cloud capabilities. Dell will also set up 12 “solutions centers” that include a lot of real-world labs where customers can figure out what they want to build and integrate different technologies together. That will help small and medium-size business adapt to the “virtual era” of the cloud more easily. Many of those customers don’t even know where to start. Dell’s announcement comes a couple of days after it announced plans to open the Dell Silicon Valley Research and Development Center to establish a bigger research presence in one of the most important tech regions of the world. Dell has acquired four companies in recent years and will now centralize them in 240,000 square feet of office space in Santa Clara, Calif. Over five years, Dell expects its Silicon Valley workforce to grow to more than 1,500 people, from about 700 by the end of 2011. Dell says one of the new services it will offer is “computer as a service,” such as hosting the entire backend service for a social network. Like Amazon’s S3 storage in the cloud service, Dell will also offer “storage as a service.” Dell is based in Round Rock, Texas. Companies: Dell People: Steve Schuckenbrock
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| 5 reasons not to take a big VC round Posted: 07 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT (Editor’s note: Chad Little is the founder and CEO of FetchBack. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.) Over the course of my career I have done the bootstrap venture, the venture with significant VC dollars and the capital efficient venture (sub $5 million). Through all of these experiences I've learned lessons about capital raising, and more specifically, the cost of doing a large VC round. I'm not about to claim that VC money is always a bad idea, but before you take your startup on a tour of Sandhill Road, here are five reasons NOT to accept the big paycheck. You're the rule – Let's acknowledge this and get it out of the way: Occasionally there's an exception as to when it's smart to raise a large VC round. Most startups that go after this kind of capital are not in that camp. A great example of this is when a company is perfectly positioned, has a proven model and by "throwing gas on the fire" it can move to dominate a position in a marketplace. These are the stories we read about when the big hit occurs. These deals are the exception, not the rule, but they're the ones that get the majority of press and attention. I have, unfortunately, witnessed too many times where entrepreneurs are faced with the decision to do a large VC round and fall victim to the fear that they have to pull the trigger in order to be competitive. The thought rings through their heads, "I have to fill the coffers, if I don't they'll pass me by!" This is a false belief and the fear alone leads many entrepreneurs into bad decision-making. The majority of the deals getting funded today by large VC rounds do not fall into this category. It creates a false sense of security – There was a company during the course of our first year of business that I was convinced would be a key competitor – especially if they should get significant traction. I knew the company was pre-profit, had a hand-full of clients, and was beginning to show promise. Then it happened. Their major round of capital came in. They weren’t ready, though. This wasn't a company that had discovered the next big thing and was ready to explode. It was a company that had promise and was being approached by VCs left and right. When you throw this much money at a company in this stage it can create a false sense of security, make management lazy, and unfortunately set up a series of events that take the founders out of the game. In this case, that's exactly what happened. (I’ve made the same mistake as well in the past.) It's just money – The promise that comes with money about added value is usually a false one. The reality is there's a lot of capital out there chasing very few good deals. If an entrepreneur has a solid offering, getting cash is not an issue. Getting cash from a group that also offers connections and mentorship is another thing. VCs who use lines like "The doors we can open," and "The expertise we will bring to the table" should set off warning bells. And if you are in the minority that actually receives mentorship from your investors, know that this value can help a company that has already got momentum, but it cannot mask the need for the management team to properly execute. Mismatched goals – VCs often conflict with management around goals. Most VCs are under tremendous stress these days to provide a positive return, based on fund performances of the last five years. This drive can often times be at odds with what’s right for the company and the management team long-term. VCs are typically not in it for the long haul and if an opportunity presents itself to cash out early, it can cause tremendous strife if the entrepreneur is not ready. You run the risk with any outside investors, but additional pressures on VCs to create returns can increase the chances. This venture is your baby. Really consider if you're okay with someone else calling the shots. Redefine success – It's easy to equate success with getting a big round of financing completed. No question it's a major achievement. But when you look at the dilution that you had to accept, a different thought may go through your head: "Why did I give up that much of the company?" I equate happiness with having options. The scenario of big round, after big round and the gradual dilution of shares is just one path to exit. Here's another: Prove out the model. Prove out the product, even if at a minimal level. Keep expenses tight. Don't over extend. Don't get caught in the "I must do a raise to compete" mode. If you can meet these milestones, this is true success. It's when you get here that you realize you can keep more of your company than you initially thought possible, and you know you can get the job done with fewer resources.
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| Social game firm RockYou looks inside for new CEO Posted: 07 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT
Marino has effectively been running the Redwood City, Calif.-based company since previous CEO Lance Tokuda stepped down to focus on strategic initiatives in November. She led the company through a bunch of layoffs and pivoted the company from its ad network business toward a focus on social games. She also helped acquire two social game companies and filled out the management team with a bunch of seasoned game veterans. In an interview, Marino said her top priority during the CEO search was to keep RockYou moving on all of its strategic priorities. The company exceeded its revenue targets for the fourth quarter by 40 percent and implemented its strategy to focus on social games for Facebook, where it still has about 19 million monthly active users. “We applied a lot of duct tape and made genuine progress in our restructuring of the company,” Marino said. Founded in 2005 by Tokuda and Jia Shen, RockYou started early on Facebook with simple apps such as birthday cards. While it grew to become a huge player in those simple apps, it also watched as Zynga took most of the market in social games with its farming and city-planning simulations, which gave Zynga an audience that is more than 10 times bigger than RockYou’s. RockYou branched out into ad networks under Marino, who joined the company in 2008. But the company figured out that the real money was in deeply engaging social games. The transition to gaming started with the hiring of Jonathan Knight, a former Electronic Arts executive, as senior vice president of gaming in October. Knight and Marino decided to kill off most of RockYou’s game line-up. They acquired game studios TirNua and Playdemic and reset the bar on making more elaborate games. Previously, RockYou’s Zoo World games was the only major title that was bringing in lots of users for RockYou’s social games. Now Playdemic’s Gourmet Ranch is another big title that is popular with the Facebook audience of women ages 35 to 50. RockYou has commissioned multiple titles, including a sequel to Zoo World and an unnamed title from John Romero, the legendary co-creator of Doom and co-founder of the new social game studio Loot Drop. Those titles will start to debut soon, and they show that RockYou will rely on both internal games and externally produced titles, said Steve Van Horne, chief financial officer at RockYou. David Chao, a member of RockYou’s board and partner at investor DCM, said that Marino has successfully repositioned RockYou in social games, hired key talented, acquired new studios and so has quickly pivoted the company for fast growth. Marino joined to lead sales in 2008 and became chief revenue officer in 2009. Besides Knight, RockYou has also added other key staff in recent months, including Greg Kearney, senior vice president of technology; Allyson Willoughby, general counsel; Katrino Osio, senior vice president of marketing; and Julie Shumaker, senior vice president and general manager of media. RockYou has raised $127 million from Sequoia Capital, Partech International, Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM and Softbank. Marino said the company is not planning to raise money in the immediate future and has a lot of cash to spend on its growth plans. Over time, the company will likely move into mobile markets as well. RockYou has about 165 employees now and is feverishly recruiting to try to add more people, including server engineers and strong directors of its business units. Recruiting talent is currently one of the toughest problems, given the recovery in Silicon Valley and the war for talent among all of the major tech firms and startups, Marino said. Companies: RockYou People: Lance Tokuda, Lisa Marino
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| GameStop retail giant opens a store on Facebook Posted: 07 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT
The move is part of GameStop’s strategy to stay relevant in the age of digital distribution of video games, since it doesn’t want to go the way of the now defunct Hollywood Video and Tower Records chains. It also shows that Facebook is becoming a big distribution channel for retail sales in the emerging category of “social commerce.” GameStop is tapping Adgregate Markets, a Sausalito, Calif.-based start-up that has already built about 50 stores for major brands on Facebook. GameStop’s store could be a big one since the chain already has about 1.8 million fans for its Facebook page. GameStop has made digital distribution a priority as a way to offset the potential decline of physical store sales. By 2014, GameStop hopes that its digital game distribution businesses will generate more than $1.5 billion in revenue, or roughly 12.5 percent of its sales. But GameStop still has 6,600 stores and plans to expand overseas with new stores. The Facebook page is a way to more deeply engage with millions of fans who might otherwise not visit a store. Adgregate’s system is directly tied into GameStop’s backend game web site so that the system can verify that inventory of a game is available at a local store, said John Underwood, chief operating officer of Adgregate Markets. And because the site is built on top of Facebook, the retailer can add merchandise Likes and Shares, gifting (buying a product for a friend) and group deals. Adgregate, founded in 2008, has built more than 50 ShopFans stores on Facebook pages in the past year. Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop already ranks as the No. 115 retailer on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 list. Its new page is here. Underwood said the Facebook user interface is moving from rigid templates to a real social shopping experience. Game fans will be able to pre-order the most-anticipated games and earn rewards via GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards loyalty program, which has more than 8 million members. Users can promote and discuss upcoming titles on the fan pages. Underwood said the overall social shopping experience is much more convenient than other ways to shop. Adgregate charges a fee to build a custom site and charges a monthly fee and a per-transaction fee. For the most part, the service is aimed at large retailers rather than small, independent ones. Companies: Adgregate Markets, GameStop People: John Underwood
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| EA chief says Battlefield 3 will take down Call of Duty Posted: 07 Apr 2011 12:08 AM PDT
At stake in this competition is control of one of the biggest markets and the most rabid fans of video games. The leading combat games represent the state-of-the-art in video game technology, and the top game can generate more than $1 billion a year in revenues with each major release. Each company can be expected to spend more than $100 million on marketing and ads in this battle. John Riccitiello, chief executive of EA, said at the Ad Age Digital Conference in New York on Wednesday that EA’s realistic modern combat game will launch in November in head-to-head competition with Activision Blizzard’s next Call of Duty title. The whole “less filling, tastes great” debate among gamers and game publishers would be just plain comical if it weren’t for the fact that so much is at stake. Riccitiello compared the feud to the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry in baseball.
EA has been busy touting the graphics and gritty realism of Battlefield 3 in video trailers released since the Game Developers Conference in March. Call of Duty has the advantage because Activision Blizzard has been releasing games every year that are growing in demand. Riccitiello knows how to make people care about the battle as if it were a heavyweight boxing prize fight. But there’s some risk in his smack talk, particularly if EA doesn’t blow Activision Blizzard out of the water. Last year, EA touted the return of Medal of Honor, which sold millions of units after its launch in September. But the game received poor average reviews of 72 out of 100 on the PC (74 and 75 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3). Call of Duty Black Ops completely blew Medal of Honor sales out of the water and its ratings ranged from 81 to 88. Activision Blizzard has said its sales for Call of Duty games have crossed $1 billion for the second year in a row. EA’s stock price took a dip after the Medal of Honor game received negative reviews. But Battlefield 3 clearly looks better than Medal of Honor and is being built by EA’s premiere DICE studio in Sweden. It has been in the works for a long time and EA has been pouring resources into making sure that the game is polished. Based on what I’ve seen, EA’s graphics and game play are the best yet from the Battlefield series. EA’s advantage is that it can attack Activision Blizzard from two fronts: Medal of Honor and Battlefield, alternating each installment from one year to the next. Activision Blizzard executives have puffed out their chests as well. They said in February that their company has allocated more resources to Call of Duty games than ever before. The company has also talked about Project Beachhead, aimed at delivering a “best in class online community and service suite” for Call of Duty. It is creating a free-to-play version of the game for the Chinese market. But it hasn’t shown its hand for the next Call of Duty game yet. All of that is friendly competition. But against this backdrop is a legal battle that has engulfed the players as well. Activision Blizzard fired the founders of its wholly-owned Infinity Ward game studio — the developer of Call of Duty games — for allegedly plotting to create a new studio financed by EA. EA has been dragged into the multiple lawsuits spawned by that dispute. The founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, have started a new game studio, Respawn Entertainment, in partnership with EA. If they emerge from the litigation unscathed, then EA could have yet another team on hand to attack Call of Duty. Overall, EA is the underdog, with a market value of $6.7 billion, while Activision Blizzard is worth $13.4 billion. But we’ll see how that changes when the games launch in November. Companies: Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts People: John Riccitiello
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Forbes' 
T-Mobile's newest flagship Android superphone, LG's dual-core G2x, finally has a release date: it'll be available online on April 15, and in T-Mobile stores on April 20, for $200 with a two-year contract (and after a $50 mail-in rebate).
San Francisco startup 
This discussion about mobile economy is one of the five themes we will be focusing on at the
As the conversation shifts away from download data to engagement data, it's clear that the winners in the next three years will be those brands that have figured out how to drive engagement and create a conversation with their users through their apps.
Warner Brothers: Warner Brothers build apps for its successful film franchises. Think "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings" and "The Dark Knight." What Warner Brothers has realized is that mobile is a new channel for delivering content, new and existing. The studio prompts moviegoers to install the related app while in the seats at the theater. When they walk out after the film, they are taking the Warners brand on their phones and they are ready to engage with the franchise through game play and updates about the next installments.
Scott Kveton is the CEO of 
Fewer than 1 percent of website visits come directly from a social media URL according to research just released by customer satisfaction analytics experts 
The social media budgets of marketers is constantly increasing as the survey data to the right shows. Forsee Results’ research showed that the resources companies put into social media and the results they receive vary wildly. Spending more money does not automatically lead to higher numbers of visits to websites, brand awareness or sales.
Microsoft executives are battling internally whether it should open more retail stores, 
There’s no shortage of ways to find flights online, but what if you’re traveling somewhere that’s best-reached by train? Or ferry? Well, there’s a new travel search engine launching today called 
It’s about a week late, but Google’s Android head Andy Rubin has 
Imagine browsing the web without having to worry about viruses, spam, and spyware. Imagine you could log in to see your favorite web sites from any location, without being tracked.
But Cocoon has a clever scheme for letting you get around that. When you log into Cocoon’s SE Linux-based secure servers, everything you do is encrypted. Your browsing history, personal information, and passwords used on web sites are all protected. When you visit Amazon, no data is revealed about your computer, your internet connection, your service provider or your location. But you can still sign in via a kind of proxy.
The solution was to recreate the browser so that you don’t touch the internet directly, tapping instead the benefits of virtualized and cloud computing. And you can do what you normally do. If you want to download a game, you can still do so. But soon Cocoon will scan that download for you first to check to see if any viruses are in it. You can visit a Flash web site and enjoy the rich animation without worrying that it is going to deliver a virus. And you can browse the web without worrying that a site like Facebook, or perhaps a government spying agency, is tracking your every move.
Computer maker 
RockYou
Video game retail giant 
In the multibillion-dollar first-person shooter video game business, the war of words is on. 
“This November, we’re launching Battlefield 3,” Riccitiello said. “It’s going up against the next Call of Duty, which is presently the No. 1 game in the game industry,” he said. “A game that last year did $400 million dollars in revenue on day one. [Battlefield 3] is designed to take that game down.”| You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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