Lolapps merges with 6waves to build social gaming powerhouse

Two leading social game companies — 6waves and Lolapps — are merging today in order to form a more powerful challenger to market leaders such as Zynga and Electronic Arts.

It’s a sign of the inevitable consolidation in social games, where the reach to a large number of users matters the most. In this case, the combination could create an entity that has a versatile business strategy, publishing both internally-produced social games as well as … Continue Reading

Anonymous readies its own social network after Google+ ban

Hacker group Anonymous plans to launch a new social network called AnonPlus where there will be “no fear of censorship,” after Google+ banned several accounts related to the group.

“As some of you know we got banned from Google+ due to some of our content,” wrote YourAnonNews in a blog post. “What we didn’t know at the time is that we were just one of a handful of Anonymous accounts that was silenced. This is … Continue Reading

Apple tops Nokia for mobile ad requests in Europe

For the first time ever, Apple has screeched ahead of Nokia devices to be the top manufacturer when it comes to European mobile ad requests, according to ad network InMobi‘s latest Mobile Insights report.

“The Q2 2011 results show another major inflection point for mobile advertising in Europe,” writes InMobi’s Rob Jonas, VP of Europe and Middle East operations. “Smart devices, driven by iPad, iPhone, and Android devices, are now defining the mobile experience for … Continue Reading

Mobile game discovery isn’t ready for primetime

Even high-quality games are still getting lost amid the thousands of apps on the various mobile app stores.

Getting your app discovered is still a lot harder to do on a mobile platform than it is on a social game platform such as Facebook. That’s not news to us, since VentureBeat has held two DiscoveryBeat conferences and identified dozens of ways to get apps noticed. But bright minds continue to focus on this problem, which … Continue Reading

Coping with the coupon crush: Schedulicity helps manage daily deals

Daily deals sites Groupon and LivingSocial can be a big help to local businesses, or a major pain. Success rates vary, to put it delicately, and the sites (there are now more than 350 of them already) have love/hate polarizing effect among merchants using them.

One segment in particular has it rough: appointment-based businesses like hair salons and massage therapists. More than 45 percent of daily deals conducted in 2010 were by appointment-based businesses, according … Continue Reading

Exent launches all-you-can-eat mobile game subscription service

Mobile game discovery is a huge problem, since it’s easy for great games to get lost in overcrowded app stores. So Exent is giving mobile games a boost today with its GameTanium Mobile all-you-can-eat subscription service.

If consumers like the $4.99 a month service, then mobile carriers can use it to barge back into the mobile commerce business, taking back a role in selling consumer apps that platform owners such as Apple took away from … Continue Reading

Malwarebytes quietly becomes a big player in anti-malware software

Chances are you haven’t heard about Malwarebytes. The company has quietly become a force in security technology, achieving more than 100 million downloads of its anti-malware product since 2008. Now the profitable company is adding a million users monthly for its Malwarebytes software, which cleans infections off computers.

That growth rate — fueled all by word of mouth — has been possible because of the combination of the explosion in malware and the popularity of … Continue Reading

American Express signs Sprint to promote its Serve digital payments platform

American Express has signed Sprint to help it promote its Serve digital wallet platform.

The deal will give American Express a high-profile partner that can help it move from the age of credit cards to the age of digital payments. With Serve, users will be able to “spend, send and swipe — online, offline, and mobile.” People can use Serve to use their phones to pay for lunch (pictured above) or buy virtual goods in … Continue Reading

Apple likely to announce big gains in quarterly earnings this week

Apple reports its third-fiscal-quarter earnings after the market close on Tuesday and analysts are expecting it to be a big quarter.

Apple has become the world’s most valuable tech company, with a market capitalization of approximately $344 billion (Google Finance: AAPL), and as a result, analysts and investors closely watch its earnings as a sign of health for both the computer and mobile device businesses.

In addition to its computer business, the company also dominates … Continue Reading

American smartphone customers are consuming lots of media

The smartphone has finally gone mainstream in the U.S., and cell phones aren’t just for calling and texting anymore.

A new study indicates there’s a dramatic shift to “smartphone culture,” where people are using social networks and downloading media such as games on their phones, according to Magid Media Futures: Mobile 2011. Among the findings, smartphone users spend more on virtual goods in games than social networking users do.

“We are seeing a smartphone culture … Continue Reading

Adobe acquires electronic-signature startup EchoSign

Adobe has acquired electronic signature startup EchoSign for an undisclosed price.

EchoSign is a web-based provider of electronic signatures. The technology will be integrated into Adobe’s document exchange services platform to ensure secure delivery of documents for universal access, review and approval. If this kind of technology takes off, it could finally kill the fax machine and paper contracts.

That’s the goal, at least. Paperless offices were predicted long ago, but we’re killing more trees … Continue Reading

SeaMicro drops its third low-power ‘atom bomb’ on server makers

For the third time in nine months, SeaMicro is announcing a new line of servers that can pack an awful lot of computing power in a sixth of the usual space and a quarter of the electricity.

SeaMicro shook up the world of data center computing by making energy-efficient servers built around Intel’s low-power Atom chips, which are usually used in netbooks and laptops.

“This is more computing power in a given space than anyone … Continue Reading

BuyWithMe acquires loyalty program service Edhance

BuyWithMe, a daily deals service, has just announced the acquisition of Edhance, a company that provides card-linked loyalty programs to merchants. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

With Edhance, BuyWithMe merchants will now be able to create ongoing loyalty and reward programs for customers outside of just offering a single daily deal. The acquisition also eliminates any physical or mobile vouchers. Customers are asked to connect their credit cards to an account and … Continue Reading

Facebook appears to be testing a mobile phonebook app

A Facebook user has accidentally discovered an app called Facebook Phonebook. We’re not sure what it is, but it looks like the social network company is testing the app in Canada before a general rollout.

Facebook has been working on a number of mobile technologies and this looks like one of the newest features that it plans to include in its mobile app.

This photo, taken by a friend of VentureBeat editor-in-chief Matt Marshall’s, shows … Continue Reading

Week in review: Microsoft’s secret social project Tulalip leaked

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news. First, the most popular stories published by VentureBeat in the last seven days:

Oops: Microsoft accidentally reveals secret social project — Microsoft is working on a social/design project called Tulalip, according to details from a splash page that was accidentally published to Socl.com recently.

Google on today’s massive Google+ spam influx: “We ran out of disk space” — Many Google+ users saw a massive amount of … Continue Reading

Google+ is no Buzz or Wave, says trend data

Google+, the social network Google launched three weeks ago, is off to a much stronger start than the company’s failed Wave and Buzz offerings, according to a Google Trend comparison of the services built from an analysis of search trends.

“It’s early yet, so I don’t think that Google+ has ‘peaked’ in terms of news or search by any means (if it’s successful),” writes Discovery’s Razib Khan, who first reported on the data. “But it’s … Continue Reading

The rise of tablet gaming

Tablet gaming could be a huge market, disrupting traditional game hardware markets.

With more than 25 million units sold, the iPad has become much larger than a number of other historic game platforms (the Sega Dreamcast sold about 8 million units). As such, it’s helping Apple to swing developers back into its fold, according to a recent survey by Flurry. Android tablets are expected to catch on at some point as well.

“I think this … Continue Reading

Entrepreneur Corner: New rules for the bubble and incorporation choices

Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner.

Where should you incorporate your LLC? – The lures and temptations of certain states are like a siren song to some entrepreneurs, but attorney Curtis Smolar warns that there are some important factors you’ll need to keep in mind before leaping to a decision on the matter.

4 ways to create innovative business software that sticks – For every piece of business software that finds a userbase, there … Continue Reading

Reflections on GamesBeat 2011 and the road ahead in mobile games

Our well-attended GamesBeat 2011 conference took place this week, and here’s what you missed.

As I noted in a preview story on mobile games, the conference was all about the wide-open battle for control of the emerging mobile gaming market. The highlights below follow the chronological appearance of the speakers. It’s a long story, but it will tell you what the conference was like in case you missed it.

Fireside chat with Brian Farrell

Brian … Continue Reading