Categorie: social gaming

PopCap CTO & Veteran Adobe Exec Frits Habermann Joins Learning Platform Lynda.com To Help It Go Mobile, Global

edtech, education, Frits Haberman, Gaming, Lynda.com, popcap, social, social gaming, Startups, TC

lynda_com_logoOnline video learning platform Lynda.com is making a big addition to its management team today, announcing that it has hired of Frits Habermann as its new chief technical officer. Habermann joins Lynda.com from EA’s PopCap Games, where he was CTO and VP of social game operations and led the global technical growth of the company’s social, mobile and console game, including its most popular franchises Plants vs. Zombies, Bejeweled and BookWorm.

Lees meer

Grantoo Nabs $1.7M, Steals EA Canada CTO To Help Students Pay Tuition By Playing Social Games

brands, edtech, education, Fundings & Exits, Gaming, Grantoo, mobile, social, social gaming, Startups, TC, tuition

GrantooI don’t always play social games, but when I do, I like them to help me pay for my education. If “The Most Interesting Man In The World” were to endorse Grantoo, this might be his conclusion. Grantoo is a social gaming platform that allows college students to compete against each other to win tuition grants and donate to charity in brand-sponsored gaming tournaments.

Lees meer

BitRhymes On Track For $45M In Annual Revenue On The Strength Of Virtual Bingo

bingo bash, bitrhymes, Gaming, social, social gaming, TC

bingo-bashIf you had to take a guess at what has been at or near the top-grossing spot in the U.S. iPad App Store for the past month without looking, I’d bet a bingo simulator wouldn’t be high on your list. But India’s BitRhymes has proven that in fact users are interested in playing good old-fashioned bingo on their ultra-modern iPad devices, and revealed to TechCrunch that it’s currently tracking to realize an annual run rate of $45 million in revenue on the back of its premiere title, Bingo Bash for Facebook, iPad and iPhone.

That one of the best-performing social games on the App Store and Facebook right now isn’t from someone like Zynga is a sign that there’s still plenty of opportunity to be had in this space, but that it might be best explored by peering into corners that don’t immediately seem like winners. Bingo is traditionally seen as a game for octogenarians, but BitRhymes’ CEO Sumit Gupta said in an interview that surprisingly, there’s been lots of interest from younger demographics, and users have predominantly been women.

Lees meer

Facebook Says It Now Has 235M Monthly Gamers, App Center Hits 150M Monthly Visitors

advertising, apps, Europe, facebook, Gaming, King, mobile, Rovio, social, social games, social gaming, songpop, TC, wooga

facebook social gamesFacebook’s push for more engagement on its platform, to drive advertising and other monetization efforts (and to counterbalance that drooping stock price), is showing some gains, according to updated figures on both games and app usage released by the company today. Facebook now has 235 million people playing games on Facebook.com, up from 205 million a year ago and up 8.4% since January. And the App Center, Facebook’s newly revamped app marketplace launched in May, is now seeing 150 million monthly users, with 2.4 times more installs of apps compared to Facebook’s old directory/dashboard and a next-day return rate of 35% to those apps after the first install (17% likely to return within a week).

These numbers are on the rise, but they are also somewhat modest: usage of apps and games on the network still work out to less than one quarter of Facebook’s 955 million monthly active users, which paid Facebook 7.5 billion visits in the month of July alone, according to figures from Experian.

Lees meer

Bingo! Facebook Gambles On Games Using Real Money, Not Credits, To Engage Users

apps, ecommerce, facebook, Gambling, Gaming, social, social games, social gaming, TC

bingo slots and frenzy (facebook gambling)For the last three quarters, Facebook has been struggling to move the needle on its payments business, but today a new game has launched that could provide a clue to how that could change that in the future: the social network has, for the first time, allowed a gaming app on its platform that allows users to play with real money — not Facebook Credits. Called Bingo & Slots Friendzy, the app is an extension of the Jackpotjoy.com franchise from Gamesys, and will be available in the UK only, and only to users over the age of 18.

As with many other apps on its platform, Facebook is not directly involved in the creation and operation of the app. Rather, it has permitted Gamesys to offer the app, and that is a sign it is testing the waters for how it might allow for more games like this in the future. Financial terms of the deal, Facebook tells us, are commercially confidential, so it is not clear whether proceeds from the game will follow the 30/70 revenue split that applies to games using Facebook Credits.

Lees meer

RocketFrog Wants To Build The Largest Social Casino On The Web, Myspace Tom Joins As Advisor

casinos, facebook, free to play, Gaming, RocketFrog, social, social gaming, Startups, TC, Tom Anderson

Screen shot 2012-05-22 at 1.26.13 PMToday brings another entrant into the social gambling space with RocketFrog, which is setting out to bring casino entertainment to Facebook with the launch of a free-to-play online casino that offers players the chance to win real prizes. Traditionally, online casino players participate in the casino gaming experience recreationally, with the rewards being the opportunity to socialize with friends or earn a few virtual badges.

So, RocketFrog wants to change this by leveraging the Facebook platform — where all of your friends are already — to create social tournaments, where players can interact and compete against their friends to win real prizes, not just accumulate points on leaderboards or vie for meaningless status increases.

Lees meer

5 Tips To Start Strategic Intelligence Research On Social Media

competitive intelligence, Google Advanced Search, google plus, Hewlett-Packard, Jeremiah Owyang, LinkedIn, social gaming, Social Media

With the tremendous amount of information that is shared on social media, those who are in need of actionable intelligence must be prepared to have a structured approach to gather information from the rapidly expanding resource source on the web. Based on my experience in the field of competitive intelligence research using the internet, here […]

Lees meer

5 Tips To Start Strategic Intelligence Research On Social Media

competitive intelligence, Google Advanced Search, google plus, Hewlett-Packard, LinkedIn, social gaming, Social Media

With the tremendous amount of information that is shared on social media, those who are in need of actionable intelligence must be prepared to have a structured approach to gather information from the rapidly expanding resource source on the web. Based on my experience in the field of competitive intelligence research using the internet, here […]

Lees meer

6waves Lolapps’ CTO Rue and Chief Product Officer Sethi Step Down

6waves, Gaming, lolapps, social, social gaming, TC

arjun-sethiJust a few days after social gaming company 6waves Lolapps said it was laying off most of its development staff to focus on publishing, its chief product officer Arjun Sethi and chief technology officer Brian Rue have stepped down.

6waves Lolapps was born last July out of a merger between a Facebook game developer Lolapps and a publisher 6waves. The publisher had been instrumental to the success of Lolapps’ hit Ravenwood Fair, which was considered one of the best games on the platform in late 2010 and early last year.

Clearly, the merger didn’t work exactly as intended. But with the deal, 6waves Lolapps picked up some valuable technology that helped boost revenue per day from players across the publisher’s network of titles. Sethi said his resignation after more than four years at the company was planned ahead of the layoffs.

Lees meer