VentureBeat

Zynga crosses 100 million users and expands beyond Facebook games

Zynga said today it has crossed more than 100 million unique monthly users for its social games on Facebook.

Thanks to the popularity of its casual Facebook games such as FarmVille, which has more than 65 million players, the San Francisco company has become the biggest developer on Facebook and the leading company in the emerging social games market.

That’s a pretty good achievement for a startup founded in 2007 and one that is surrounded by multi-billion-dollar… Continue Reading

Backflip proves indie iPhone developers can create multiple hits — and make money

Backflip Studios has managed to defy the odds on the iPhone by coming up with games that have become big hits over and over.

The Boulder, Colo.-based game studio has just six employees and has been around only seven months, but it has already made more than $1.75 million — by selling game applications in multiple forms, serving ads in them, as well as offering virtual goods. The success shows that with the right games and… Continue Reading

Intel and Sprout launch a consumer-powered Facebook promotion

Facebook reaches so many people now that big brands are trying to figure out how to reach its audience. Intel is using social media firm Sprout to launch a new kind of marketing campaign today that promises to drop Intel laptop prices if consumers sign up to be fans of Intel’s latest page on Facebook. The more fans sign up, the lower the price of the laptops will be when they go on sale on… Continue Reading

Roku adds 10 new free content channels for its set-top video players

Roku offers a trio of set-top boxes that can download movies and TV shows from the web and show them on your TV. Now the company is adding 10 new free content channels to its service.

You can use a Roku box with a Netflix subscription or the Amazon Video on Demand service to watch movies or TV shows on your TV. You connect a Roku box to both your TV and the web. Then you… Continue Reading

5 O’Clock Roundup: Nook sold out, Sony launches online store, Bing gets slammed

We’ve been a little behind with roundup lately. Our apologies. Here’s the latest action:

Barnes & Noble Nook sold out — The bookseller’s entry into the eBook reader market is under way. The B&N Nook is out of stockk on the company’s web site and it is now taking orders for devices that will ship next year. Analysts say that the Nook wasn’t ready for shipment in huge quantities and B&N probably launched it anyway to head… Continue Reading

New speakers, sponsors for DiscoveryBeat; today is last day for early-bird discount

We’ve got some great momentum for VentureBeat’s upcoming DiscoveryBeat event, which will attack the problem of how to get attention for an app in the midst of a lot of noise.

One of our newest speakers is Randy Breen, chief operating officer at Social Gaming Network, where he oversees game development, business development, strategy and executive management. He has worked in the game industry since 1986 at companies such as Electronic Arts, LucasArts and Emotiv Systems.

Today… Continue Reading

French game maker Gameloft ditches the Android platform

[Updated] French mobile phone games publisher Gameloft said it is giving up on the Google Android platform.

The company said it is cutting back investment in making games and other apps for Android-based cell phones, even though Android has won a lot of attention lately with new models from Motorola and Sony Ericsson, according to Reuters.

“We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others,” Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said… Continue Reading

Playhaven creates lots of fan communities for iPhone game developers

Playhaven is making it easy for gamers to create fan communities around iPhone games. It does so by creating online forums for fans on its web site, with a new fan section for every iPhone game. Developers can then claim those game communities as official fan sites.

To date, 40 developers have launched official communities at Playhaven in its first month. Fans can join the online communities for free, and developers can claim the communities for… Continue Reading

Facebook bans offer providers Gambit and Tatto Media due to questionable ads

Facebook has banned offer providers Gambit and Tatto Media from providing offers in games and apps on the social network.

The development is one of the results of the recent scandal around the quality of offers in social games and apps. Some of the offers have been tainted as scams because they don’t tell consumers about hidden obligations or fees. Earlier today, Offerpal said that it was issuing a set of standards for its advertisers to… Continue Reading

eBay completes sale of Skype at $2.75 billion valuation

eBay said it has completed the sale of a 70-percent stake in Skype communications service for an amount that values the company at $2.75 billion.

The buyer is an investor consortium led by Silver Lake Partners, the private equity buyout firm. It includes participation from Joltid, the company founded by Skype’s founders. Other members include Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

eBay is getting $1.9 billion in cash and a note from buyer… Continue Reading

Offerpal Media sets standards to lock out scam offers

[Updated with interview]

Burned by a scandal in its offer business over inappropriate promos, Offerpal Media is moving to set standards that forbid offers that are misleading, deceptive or otherwise objectionable.

The action is the first move the company has made since it brought in a new chief executive, George Garrick, a couple of weeks ago. The CEO transition happened in the midst of a debate over scam offers that were allegedly duping users into mobile subscription… Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Where will the VC money flow on the Smart Grid?

Venture capitalists and investment bankers are fascinated by the potential of making money from Smart Grid investments and initial public offerings in the coming year, judging from the latest panel at VentureBeat’s GreenBeat 09 event today.

In spite of a difficult IPO market and the recession’s drag on the industry, Smart Grid companies are starting to get attention from both VCs and acquisitive technology giants, according to the speakers on the Follow the Money panel, moderated… Continue Reading

Microsoft’s Xbox Live chief on banning modders and browsing Facebook photos on TV

Microsoft launched Xbox Live as an online gaming service in 2002 amid great skepticism. It didn’t really take off until Halo 2 launched in 2004, but now the service is huge.

There are now more than 20 million active Xbox Live subscribers (both free users and those who pay $50 a year for multiplayer gaming). That means that more than two out of three Xbox 360 owners use the service. The company has added popular new… Continue Reading

Boku gains momentum with mobile payments for social games

Mobile payments provider Boku has gained a lot of momentum as a provider of alternate payment for social games.

The company said in September that it’s service was seeing big growth, but it has made more progress now. It’s announcing today that 12 more game developers have signed up to use its mobile payments system. These new companies alone will help Boku reach 200 million more customers who play 250 social and casual games.

With Boku, game… Continue Reading

Game ad firm NeoEdge merges with game developer, hires new CEO

NeoEdge, a company that offers a way to insert video ads into online games, is going through some big changes — in part driven by the recession in the online ad market, but also by the proliferation of other, cheaper games.

Today, the company is announcing that is merging with casual game development firm Offspring. And Offspring’s chief executive Lesley Mansford will become NeoEdge’s new CEO. Mountain View, Calif.-based NeoEdge will continue to focus on serving… Continue Reading

Flurry launches AppCircle to help apps get discovered

With 100,000 apps in Apple’s AppStore, it has become ridiculously hard to get an app discovered. At any given time, perhaps 100 apps are easy to find on the featured apps or top apps lists. That’s why analytics startup Flurry is launching a new platform, AppCircle, whose aim is to get iPhone and iPod Touch apps noticed.

The platform is a natural extension of the analytics business that has become very popular. With AppCircle, Flurry can… Continue Reading

Olive Media launches new way to serve music to home stereos

High-end audio is moving into the digital age. Olive Media announced today it has created an audiophile’s music storage system that can deliver digital music to home stereos.

The San Francisco-based company is launching the Olive 4HD, a high-definition Hi-Fi Music Server. The system serves as a control center for high-quality audio — with 24-bit sound and 96 kilohertz sample rates. It can store 6,000 CDs on its two terabytes of hard disk space. That’s also… Continue Reading

Livescribe launches an app store for its Pulse smart pen platform

Inspired by Apple, every hardware maker is creating an app stores these days. Today, Livescribe is launching a beta platform that allows developers to create apps for its Pulse smart pen. There are already 30 cool third-party apps available in the Livescribe store, which is open for shopping.

The smart pen turns ordinary writing into a digital experience. With the smart pen, you can record a lecture as you take notes on a special paper that… Continue Reading

Cloud antivirus company Immunet raises $2M

Cloud antivirus solutions, which tap web-based computing resources, are becoming more popular as security firms seek better ways to protect consumers from malware attacks.

That’s evident in the funding announced today by Immunet, a cloud antivirus startup that has raised $2 million in funding from Altos Ventures and TechOperators. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Immunet launched its first product, Immunet Protect, in August. The product harnesses the growing power of sharing networks to create a community of people… Continue Reading

Is Google working on its own Android phone?

Google isn’t content making the Android software that runs on cell phones and other devices. Now it is apparently working on its own Google-branded Android phone, according to Techcrunch.

The upcoming Android device would be thinner than a Motorola Droid (another recently launched Android phone on Verizon), this phone is called the Google Phone. We don’t know if the rumor is true. Google declined comment.

It’s always an interesting choice when a platform creator chooses to make… Continue Reading