Roundup: Building43 launches for net enthusiasts, Twitter verifies accounts and more
Here’s the latest action:
Nintendo fends off patent trolls — The game industry leader just won yet another patent suit, this one falsely claiming that the Wii can play DVD movies.
Rambus settles with EU — The memory chip designer has agreed to cut some of its royalty rates to settle antitrust charges in Europe. Bloomberg has the story.
Building43 launches, inspires glee in internet groupies — Robert Scoble’s latest project, an online community for … Continue Reading
Bloomberg on Zipcar IPO: Just take our word for it
Did Zipcar chief executive Scott Griffith accidentally announce that the car-sharing service is planning an initial public offering for 2010? Or is Bloomberg guilty of a “gross misinterpretation”? A day after a dispute broke out over Bloomberg’s story reporting Zipcar’s supposed IPO plans, it remains a case of one side’s words against the other’s, and neither company is doing much to clarify things.
To recap: Bloomberg ran a story saying Zipcar was planning an IPO, … Continue Reading
Has the Palm Pre already beaten the iPhone?
The Palm Pre is a tad young to threaten the established and massively popular iPhone. But some Silicon Valley developers are saying the Pre’s operating system is far better to develop on.
If that’s true, it raises significant questions about the balance of power in the sexy smart phone industry. Palm may soon draw scrutiny from bigger players. Already, analyst Ashok Kumar has stirred the market, suggesting Dell should buy it (Dell’s stock price even … Continue Reading
Social game company Zynga says it's not planning for IPO
Rumors circulated earlier today that leading social game company Zynga could have an initial public offering within 18 months. Here’s what chief executive Mark Pincus says in response: “Zynga is a young company focused on building great social games and creating a sustainable long term service business. IPO is not our goal nor our focus.”
Along with rivals like Playfish, SGN and Playdom, Zynga has a network of games that in total get tens of … Continue Reading
Study: iPhone users were an elite group … more than a year ago
Owners of Apple’s iPhone are younger, richer, more educated and more likely to access the web from their phones compared to other smartphone owners, according to a new study released today by Forrester.
You can find the study on the Forrester website, but it costs $749 to download. Luckily, AppleInsider and Apple 2.0 both highlight the major findings. The most dramatic difference between your average smartphone owner and your average iPhone owner seems to be … Continue Reading
Dell makes small fortune from once-a-day Twitter account
Dell has 34 Twitter accounts, some of which post links to special offers. The company claims 600,000 followers. Once you know these numbers, it doesn’t seem crazy that Dell racked up $3 million in sales through Twitter so far. More than a million of those dollars came in within the past 6 months.
Three million is nothing to Dell, which posted $12.3 billion in revenue during Q1 of 2009.
Dell’s press release quotes Gartner analyst … Continue Reading
6 essentials for turning sales page visitors into clients
While getting traffic to your website is important, the most essential goal is turning that traffic into sales. If visitors are not buying your products or service, then it’s time to evaluate your website. There may be some roadblocks on your site that might be preventing visitors from becoming customers. Review these six essentials that a website sales page must have to ensure that it is positioned for profitability.
1. Less clicks
How many times … Continue Reading
What’s next: A Pandora for fashion?
In recent pieces for VentureBeat, I’ve been proposing ideas for new companies. This next one was proposed by PayPal writer and fashionista April Van Scherpe.
Style is like pornography: you know it when you see it, but few can do it well. It’s a skill of creativity and pattern recognition, knowing the working combinations of color, line, and form. Many of us would like to have it but don’t have the time or inclination and … Continue Reading
Apple sees 11 million Safari 4 downloads in three days
The number is already outdated as I write it, but Apple said this morning that more than 11 million copies of Safari 4 have been downloaded in the first three days of its release.
That includes 6 million copies of Safari for Windows, which should be a wake-up call to Microsoft about improving Internet Explorer.
The latest version of Safari, a free browser announced Monday at the Worldwide Developer Conference, has a new Nitro JavaScript … Continue Reading
Electronic Arts exec foresees shift to digital game distribution
John Pleasants has stayed behind the scenes at Electronic Arts as its No. 2 executive. He is president of the global publishing organization and chief operating officer, running everything except EA’s game development studios themselves. Recruited by EA chief executive John Riccitiello, Pleasants joined in 2008 with the mandate to make EA embrace new business models and services as the Internet rips apart the old ways of selling games. We caught up with him at … Continue Reading
Free pricing triumphs as Free Realms online game hits 3 million in seven weeks
Sony’s Free Realms has scored 3 million registered users in just seven weeks, making it a true hit for the free online games business model in the U.S.
The “free to play” games, where players start playing for free but can purchase virtual goods with real money as they add new capabilities, has taken off in Asia, where companies such as Shanda and Nexon have pioneered this new way of doing business. But until now … Continue Reading
DEMO-VentureBeat meetup in Palo Alto — on Monday
Join DEMO co-executive producers Chris Shipley and myself for a casual evening of cocktails and conversation Monday at Nola in Palo Alto.
The first 40 folks through the door receive a drink ticket good for beer or wine. Make sure you register. We’re starting at 6pm sharp, and going until at least 8pm.
Chris and I are searching all over for the best technology companies and products to showcase at DEMOfall 09, the upcoming conference … Continue Reading
Is Zipcar planning an IPO? Depends who you ask
A bit of a kerfluffle has sprung up around car-sharing service Zipcar, and whether Bloomberg misquoted chief executive Scott Griffith that he’s planning an initial public offering for 2010. You’d think it would be a relatively easy dispute to settle, but there’s no clear answer yet.
The Bloomberg article in question was published yesterday, and while it provides a wide-ranging view of the car-sharing service’s success (for those of who don’t know what Zipcar is, … Continue Reading
Virtual goods might not be real, but their purpose still needs to be
[Editor's note: Lora L. Abe is the director of marketing for Gambit, a leading payments engine for online games. She writes articles on monetization for social games at blog.getgambit.com, where it was originally published.]
In real life, we make decisions every day on what to buy, and we base those decisions on how we feel our purchases will enhance our lives. We buy this detergent because it’ll clean dishes more efficiently and that overstuffed chair … Continue Reading
Video game sales still in a slump versus a year ago
Video game sales fell for the third straight month in May. Even though the industry can’t beat the extraordinary numbers it turned out a year ago, it’s not quite time to panic. The recession is a drag, but the blockbusters for this year are expected in the second half, whereas a few huge titles debuted in the spring a year ago.
Overall U.S. video game hardware, software and peripheral sales fell 23 percent in May … Continue Reading
Trying to sell shares in a private startup? Join the club!
SharesPost is just the latest in a host of companies that are trying to make it easier to buy and sell shares in private companies.
Until recently, the assumption for most startups was that they’d get sold or go public in a reasonable amount of time — say six or seven years. That meant founders and executives of these companies didn’t really worry too much about finding an early way to sell shares.
But the … Continue Reading
How I created my very own Trojan malware today
Today I wrote a computer virus that could steal your passwords, drain your bank account, spy on your private emails and even let me peek at you with your own computer’s webcam. But don’t turn me into the cybercops just yet.
In an effort to show just how bad malware is spreading online and how easy it is to make, McAfee called in a group of journalists today for a demo. Using a couple of … Continue Reading
PaperG: The right local ad solution for struggling newspapers?
Wily entrepreneurs know that a crisis is just an opportunity in disguise. While the downturn has forced many local businesses to move their advertising dollars online, no one has come up with an efficient way to display ads from small advertisers with limited budgets across multiple platforms. While many players have ventured into the local advertising market, few have dared to change the game.
PaperG plans to fill that void with its flagship Flyerboard product, … Continue Reading
Facebook gives blue ribbons to top guinea-pig marketers
As someone who did 4-H as a kid, I can appreciate Facebook’s new “blue ribbon” award program for marketers. Awards spur healthy competition and winners become models for rivals.
Facebook’s still young-and-growing site is trying to make money in part from a suite of services targeting brands and their marketing agencies, including sponsored groups and events, analytics tools, and other services. It wants more marketers to use it to reach its 200 million-some monthly active … Continue Reading
AT&T knows a lot about you, and now it wants you to know that
For most people (including me), privacy policies fall into the same category as “terms of service” documents — they contain important information, but are usually so long and impenetrably written that they’re not worth the effort of reading. AT&T says it’s trying to take a different approach with a draft privacy policy that it published this morning, one that’s actually comprehensible to your average reader.
AT&T’s Chief Privacy Officer Dorothy Attwood tells The New York … Continue Reading
