VentureBeat

Electronic Arts makes a huge bet with Dante’s Inferno

Fresh off the success of Mass Effect 2, Electronic Arts is launching one of its big bets on a brand new video game as it debuts Dante’s Inferno.

The game goes on sale today. EA spent an estimated $3 million or so on a Super Bowl commercial touting the game. EA chief executive John Ricciteillo said the ad helped drive more than 3 million downloads of content related to the game as well as strong...

Yahoo developing “Search via SMS” with ads?

SMS (text messaging) technology is getting a bit long in the tooth these days, but it still has the potential to be useful in developing markets. Take, for example, the news from GoRumors about Yahoo developing a potential “Search via SMS” feature with ads. Yahoo has had an SMS search feature in the US for some time, but the addition of ads to the service could allow Yahoo to roll out SMS search to many...

Facebook helps the news industry, but it’s no white knight

Facebook is assuming its rightful place in the Internet ecosystem as a significant distribution channel for media properties.

Hitwise reported today that the social network now drives the fourth largest amount of traffic to media properties behind Google, Yahoo and MSN. Facebook’s public relations team also has started encouraging users to set up ‘News’ channels. (Facebook’s Malorie Lucich explains how to do it here).

So this inevitably begs the question: will Facebook be the savior that...

Obama forges ahead on nuclear as leaks, risks come to light

The debate over nuclear energy is heating up again. While many argue that it’s unsafe, just as many people see it as the only viable option to combat climate change. President Barack Obama has taken up this second position, calling for “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country,” last week during his State of the Union address.

But his remarks may have been unfortunately timed. Just as he was touting...

EC Roundup: The need for speed – and three little words to help you succeed

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

Ask the Attorney: What issues do I need to consider when forming a start-up? – In part two of this column, attorney Scott Edward Walker looks at the things you need to address as you’re ramping up your company, including IP, management and employment issues.

50 Three-word phrases that can make your start-up a success – The best advice is digestible advice – not long rambling statements. Serial...

Victory: A ranking system for what makes a social game into a blockbuster

Alok Kejriwal, chief executive of Indian game firm Games2Win, shared a couple of interesting charts with me that describe a way to rank social games by benchmarking how they stack up in a variety of important features such as the quality of the game play, the virality of a game, which makes it spread faster, how original it is, whether it has international appeal, and how addictive or habit forming the game is.

Kejriwal’s own...

International partners, competitors react to iPad launch

While most carriers and handset vendors in Europe and other international markets have yet to comment on the Apple’s introduction of the iPad yesterday, here is a quick summary of some carriers and handset vendors’ reactions in the last 24 hours.

Fujitsu may sue over the iPad name
Clearly, Apple’s entry in the tablet PC space is a serious threat to vendors such as HP, Toshiba, Fijitsu, and Motion Computing. One of the most severe...

Fashion4Home launches social furniture site in the US

Updated.

Furniture site Fashion4Home, which launched in Germany in November of last year, is launching in the US today. The site will offer US shoppers 80 models of contemporary furniture across 12 categories, including exclusive designs, at 30-50% lower than traditional retail prices [update: a spokesperson for the company, tells us its prices are actually 50-70% lower than retail]. The launch comes just a few days after China-based on-demand furniture maker Myfab announced its own...

Week in review: Apple tablet rumors gather, Seesmic launches Look

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

Apple tablet roundup: Who’s going to use the thing? — Apple’s tablet has provided no shortage of rumors. Everything from design specs to pricing have flooded the internet from various media outlets and sources. To gain a better perspective on the scope of rumors, we put together a snapshot below of the most...

OnLive gets a bad review from sneaky blogger, but it’s off the mark

OnLive, the ambitious games-on-demand service that is in beta testing now, went through a bit of a media tempest today, and for no really good reason.

Blogger Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective managed to get a password from a friend of a friend and sneak into the closed beta test of the company’s games on demand service. And it turned out to be a bad experience. Shrout wrote about it, and a number of sites...

Apple tablet roundup: Who’s going to use the thing?

Apple’s tablet has provided no shortage of rumors. Everything from design specs to pricing have flooded the internet from various media outlets and sources. As the mysterious January 27 “special event” comes closer, many wonder if the rumors will finally be answered. To gain a better perspective on the scope of rumors, we’ve put together a snapshot below of the most recent speculations.

I can’t think of anything more that defines a product like its name....

Venture capitalists are bullish on the future of game funding

Game investing is still going strong, even though it did take a hit during the recession. We calculated that game companies raised $600.5 million in 2009, down 36 percent from the year before. But game-savvy venture capitalists are still bullish on games. We did a roundtable Q&A with some of the best-known investors, in conjunction with the launch of Interactive Age, a new magazine focused on the business of games. The magazine is edited by...

Google Earth, GeoEye bring satellite photos of Haiti’s devastation

Satellite images of the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake are now available on Google Earth. The search giant partnered with imagery specialist GeoEye to provide a markup that shows satellite photos of Haiti from around 7:30 a.m. Pacific time today.

The company lets you download the markup here and open it in Google Earth. There’s also a browser plug-in here.

Pictured right is a birds-eye view of the National Palace before and after the quake....

WaveMarket signs up AT&T to deliver third-party location-based apps

Location-based services provider WaveMarket announced today that it has added AT&T, its second major U.S. carrier, to its Veriplace Location Platform Initiative, making it possible for more than 1,000 third-party mobile application developers to create and distribute GPS location-based apps to AT&T’s 80 million subscribers.

WaveMarket — which develops its own location-based mobile apps while also operating the Veriplace platform — previously landed a similar deal with Sprint, which brought its 50 million subscribers on...

Predictions for 2010: Tablets will fail, Google will pummel Microsoft

Updated: Apple tablet estimated price, AT&T’s projector-phone maker.

After plenty of posts chewing over 2009, VentureBeat is looking ahead with 10 predictions about the year to come, covering tech giants, tiny startups, and of course Twitter. As in the past, these predictions represent the thoughts of individual writers, not the VentureBeat Hive Mind.

Tablet computers will fail to become the Next Big Thing — They’ll get lots of attention, for sure. Apple’s tablet, unless the entire...