Facebook to finally launch "Verified Apps" program (and more)

What makes a Facebook application good? The social network is going to try to make that clearer to users in the next few weeks, when it introduces a program it’s been talking about since last year, called Verified Apps. It will also shortly launch a revised application directory, a new application profile page and a new homepage stream of activity about any app you use.

The program, to review, involves an application process where Facebook … Continue Reading

Tencent's virtual goods revenues keep growing during recession

Asian web companies have been making millions from virtual goods for years — and that story doesn’t seem to be changing despite the current worldwide recession. Tencent , a publicly-traded Chinese web conglomerate comprised of an instant message client, a social network, and various other services, says it made $342.3 million in virtual goods in the first quarter of this year.

The numbers seem to indicate the resiliency of virtual goods — such as virtual … Continue Reading

Crash Bandicoot creators speak out on forming new game company

The Naughty Dogs are at it again. The co-founders of one of the most famous video game studios have created a new game production company, starting out with a focus on iPhone and Facebook games.

Naughty Dog co-founders Jason Rubin (top) and Andy Gavin (middle) are joining with former HBO executive Jason Kay (bottom) to create Monkey Gods , a three-person firm that will produce casual games made by contractors. They’re starting with an iPhone … Continue Reading

iPhone app revenue estimated at less than $45 million

Apple brags that more than a billion iPhone applications have been downloaded so far from its App Store, a successful online store of instantly installable iPhone software. But how much money has the App Store made for Apple?

The store, which offers both free and paid for-sale apps, nets Apple a 30 percent cut of all sales. Typical app prices run from 99 cents to $2.99, with a few priced higher.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist … Continue Reading

Google outage still way better than Twitter

Uptime is something most Internet users don’t actively think about. Yet they instinctively respond to it. One reason so many Web searchers use Google is it’s always there. Always available. Always delivering results.

Until this morning. Many Google websites were unreachable from around 7:45 A.M. Pacific until 9:20 A.M. The outage was widespread. PC World confirmed it affected France, Australia and China.

You can follow the popular reaction on Twitter by searching for #googlefail and … Continue Reading

Can Harry Potter save the day (and quarter) for EA?

Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Interactive announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game will be in stores worldwide on June 30.

The long-awaited launch should be a big deal for EA’s fiscal quarter that ends June 30, and the launch will be just ahead of the July debut of Warner Bros. Pictures film based on the sixth novel in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

In the game, Harry Potter will return to … Continue Reading

Vector Entertainment to launch 3-D Flash racing game site

There’s a common thread among most of the thousands of Adobe Flash-based games that have sprung up on the Internet in the last few years. The graphics almost always suck, or they’re deliberately cartoonish. But Vector Entertainment hopes to change that with fancy 3-D graphics in Flash games.

The San Rafael, Calif., company has built a 3-D gaming technology dubbed the V3D Engine on top of Flash 10, the latest version of Adobe’s ubiquitous media … Continue Reading

Loose Cannon Studios to launch original video games

The indie revival in the video game industry continues to gather steam as Loose Cannon Studios announced it has launched a new game development company focused on original console games.

While 60 game studios have laid off 8,450 people since July (according to Wanda Meloni of M2 Research), it’s interesting to see a brand-new company come out of stealth.

The company is waiting until E3 to announce its first games, but it has interesting founders. … Continue Reading

VideoSurf opens up its video search platform to others

VideoSurf announced a video search site last year with computer vision technology that could decipher what was in a video and find results quickly for users looking for particular video snippets. Now it’s opening up its platform so other developers can make it easier for users to find and watch videos online.

While there are multiple video search companies, San Mateo, Calif.-based VideoSurf says it spent years coming up with the computer vision technology to … Continue Reading

Sony reports first loss in 14 years, PlayStation 3 price cut hinted

Dashing hopes of a quick economic recovery, Sony reported its first loss in 14 years today, warned of a big loss coming, and dropped a hint it may cut prices on the PlayStation 3.

The strong yen and declining overseas sales are hurting the company’s bottom line. It is also in fierce competition with the likes of Apple, Nintendo, and Samsung.

The company lost $1.03 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31 and forecast … Continue Reading

SideStep alums launch Voyij, a search engine for travel deals

Everyone’s looking to save money when they travel, and the founders of a new site called Voyij say they’ve got one of the best ways to do that. What does Voyij offer? Lots and lots of deals pulled from sites around the web. With 15,000 to 20,000 deals on Voyij at any one time, co-founder and chief executive Brent Stewart says the site is orders of magnitude larger than the competition. Think of it as … Continue Reading

Roundup: Street View blinded, curtain to rise on new PS3 and more

Here’s the latest action:

It’s a pirate’s life for Asia — A new study indicates that software piracy is growing rapidly in Asia where the number of computer owners continues to skyrocket.

Street View’s prying eyes — Google must reshoot footage for its maps Street View tool in Japan after receiving complaints that the cameras were mounted high enough to see over residents’ fences. Earlier this week, the search company was banned from collecting images … Continue Reading

Californian grids are about to get a whole lot smarter

California’s biggest utilities all have major smart grid strategies in the works vying for a chunk of the federal stimulus bill’s $4.5 billion earmarked for revamping the country’s electrical grids . And these plans surpass the roll-out of residential smart meters that most people think of when they think smart grid.

Companies like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are all working on lower-profile grid projects like storage-minded … Continue Reading

RocketOn's Blerp adds a layer to the web with new widgets

RocketOn is one of the companies devoted to the parallel web, meaning it can take web sites and layer things on top of them, from virtual characters to message boards.

Today, the company announced a new web application, Blerp , that branches out from its previous platform, which was more like a virtual world on top of the web. With RocketOn’s first platform, you could create a character and literally walk around on other web … Continue Reading

Teen entrepreneur Catherine Cook says myYearbook's Lunch Money adds up

There’s been a lot of talk about virtual currencies recently, with Facebook reportedly testing a payment system for third-party applications and MySpace considering something similar. Meanwhile, teen social network myYearbook is already making a healthy amount of cash with its virtual currency, dubbed “Lunch Money,” according to co-founder Catherine Cook. The New Hope, Pa., company’s annual revenue is in the eight figures (for the math-challenged: that’s tens of millions of dollars), and about a third … Continue Reading

Gmail imports emails and contacts, killing another excuse for Hotmail

I don’t know anyone who still uses Yahoo Mail or Microsoft’s Hotmail for their webmail, but I realize that there are still plenty of you out there. In fact, according to data from comScore , there are far more Yahoo users and Hotmail users than there are Gmail users (although Hotmail numbers are falling while Yahoo and Gmail numbers continue to rise). Maybe a Gmail junkie like me is a wee bit biased, but it … Continue Reading

Hi5 begins giving developers access to its virtual currency

Facebook is planning some form of virtual currency that third-party developers can use, and so is MySpace — but smaller rival Hi5 has already beat them to it. It has just launched its first integration of its site-wide currency, “Coins,” in a game built by app developer RockYou, called “RockYou Pets.”

In the game, you can earn points by doing things like visiting your virtual pet every day, then you can use these points to … Continue Reading

Blyk and Vodafone: Possible partners of convenience in mobile ads?

Some business models are so implausible that it’s only a matter of time before they implode, or search for a crutch — as is the case for British company Blyk, a “free” mobile virtual network operator (basically a reseller of minutes bought wholesale from long distance companies) with an advertising-only revenue model. Today, reports emerged that the company is planning to shutter its retail operations in favor of offering its service through other mobile operators … Continue Reading

Starting up 101: Choosing your core collaboration tools

[Editor's note: This is the second in a series of practical advice for entrepreneurs -- things you're probably aware of but are likely to forget in the rush of launching a business.]
At the outset of starting your business, you’re likely collaborating with your cofounders via phone, in-person conversations and tools such as email, IM, iChat, etc. But how will you continue to collaborate into the future?

You could continue using rough tools for quite … Continue Reading