Call it Funware. That’s the name for applications with game-like mechanics and game-like behavior that really aren’t traditional video games. And Funware just might steal the thunder from video games, which may no longer have a monopoly on either interactivity or fun.
With new places to play — such as the iPhone, on Facebook, or even [...]
Dean Takahashi
Posts by Dean Takahashi
Dressing up as a person of the opposite sex and casting magic spells in a fantasy world has become a popular American pastime. U.S. online video game subscriptions are generating $1 billion a year in subscription revenue, according to market researcher NPD Group.
Those numbers include revenue from massively multiplayer online games (virtual worlds such [...]
Intel Capital chief Arvind Sodhani talked with VentureBeat today about why the world’s largest chip maker participated as an investor in the $12 billion Clearwire-Sprint deal. Intel, along with Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks invested a combined $3.2 billion into the new company. Intel’s share of that was $1 billion, which [...]
It’s a big day in video games.
Take-Two Interactive said worldwide sales of Grand Theft Auto IV have surpassed $500 million in its first week on the market. More than 6 million games have been sold at a retail value of at least $60 a copy. And id Software announced “Doom 4.”
On its opening day, GTA [...]
Adobe is launching an update to its free Photoshop Express image editing tool today, including support for Yahoo’s Flickr online photo service.
The public beta of the tool now includes changes based on feedback from the community. The company says that it will keep enhancing the web-based tool and that’s a good sign.
[Update: Adobe issued this [...]
MindTouch is releasing today a new version of its Deki Wiki open-source Wiki tool software which makes it much easier to manage web content in multiple languages.
The MindTouch Deki Wiki v8.05 is a web-based Wiki platform that lets web development teams build web pages that are much easier to create and maintain. One of its [...]
Mobile entertainment provider PlayPhone is announcing today that it has acquired Pitch Entertainment Group as part of its global expansion. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.
San Jose, Calif.-based PlayPhone aggregates mobile content and offers it directly to consumers, who can download it onto their mobile phones. Pitch Entertainment Group, based in London, does the same thing [...]
InnoCentive, a company that lets businesses post research problems for others to solve, has raised $6.5 million in a second round of venture capital.
Dwayne Spradlin is the CEO of the Waltham, Mass., spin-off from Eli Lilly.
Spradlin calls the site, where companies post problems and outsiders solve them in exchange for prizes, a “global [...]
Spot Runner, which lets advertisers place to local TV stations via an online service, has raised a whopping $51 million in funding
The move confirms our earlier report that Spot Runner was in the midst of a big raise with a high valuation. The company can do so in a tough economic environment because it has [...]
updated
Rearden Commerce, a Silicon Valley company that wants to become your personal concierge everywhere, including on your mobile phone, has raised $100 million in funding from some financial powerhouses.
So far, the company has worked for years on a web-based personal assistant service, which lets you do everything from book travel arrangements to manage your calendar. [...]
Fididel is new kind of auction site that aims to draw in buyers and sellers who aren’t happy with the lack of real-time negotiation on sites such as eBay or Priceline.com. The site gives buyers and sellers the ability to chat in real-time and quickly agree upon a sales price.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company, which VentureBeat uncovered a couple [...]
Online animations network Aniboom is seeing a real boom in demand for the animations its independent animators are creating. The Israeli company is announcing today that it has five new outlets for its online animations and has added a half-dozen mobile TV partners — all of whom will expose 360 million viewers to Aniboom’s videos.
We wrote [...]
Microsoft is announcing today that it has created a easy-to-use Popfly Game Creator, a software tool that makes it easy for anyone to create their own arcade-like video games.
The tool is based on Microsoft’s popular mashup tool Popfly, which is based on the Microsoft Silverlight multimedia platform technology that competes with Adobe’s Flash. It isn’t [...]
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