Tech News

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Steam Gauge Gauges The Size/Price Of Your Steam

The value of my Steam account is $ 492.65, and the sum of it requires 155.02 GB of space storage space. Awesome. And my Dad said I would never do anything worthwhile.

Steam Gauge is the product of Hacker News user jprusik and is worth several minutes of your time. It pulls data from public steam accounts through the Steam Web API and aggregates everything into a sortable and exportable list. You can even share the data on Twitter and Google Plus. And since it pulls public accounts, you can check up on your buddies’ obsession, too.

There are some caveats. It’s not 100% accurate. While my account might have a face value of $ 492.65, I didn’t spend that much. Steam Gauge clearly doesn’t pull how much you paid for each game, just the value of each game. For instance I know I didn’t pay $ 39.99 for Half Life 2: Lost Coast.

Hopefully future builds will show play times, which is the most telling stat available through the Steam client. I’m particularly proud of the time I’ve put into Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

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Percolate Partners With Getty Images And Aviary To Help Companies Create And Share Images

Percolate, a startup that helps clients create and share content, is taking a big step in what co-founder James Gross calls the company’s “visual strategy.”

Obviously, images are a big part of what businesses want to share on social media. While they could do that by sharing through Percolate already, the service didn’t include many significant features to make the process easier. That’s changing today, with the launch of integrations with Getty Images and Aviary.

Thanks to the Getty Images partnership, Percolate customers now have access to a broader library of photos, a library where they don’t have to worry about whether or not they have the rights to use the images (because they already know the answer is yes).

And that library is automatically sorted using Percolate’s technology, which tries to understand what topics are relevant to a company at a given time, and highlights photos based on those topics. Gross said the goal is to make the process as easy as possible, but if the algorithm doesn’t surface the image you’re looking for, you can also search the photos based on things like tags.

Once a client has found a photo that they want to share — either from the Getty Images library or from the images they’ve uploaded themselves — they can use Aviary’s photo-editing tools from directly within Percolate. Gross edited a couple of images for me, adding filters and text in just a minute or two, giving the photos a bit more flair as well as adding a relevant company or hashtag.

“Brands are trying to make photos look more and more organic, more and more like people are used to,” Gross said. “Adding any sort of filter can have a very powerful effect on what might be a very standard photo.”

In exchange for the simplicity of the interface, Percolate users are giving up some of the features included in a product like Photoshop, but Gross said, “They don’t need all the tools of Photoshop with 95 to 100 percent of these images.”

The Getty Images photo library and Aviary editing tools are now available to Percolate clients as part of the basic package. The company is also announcing that it has partnered with LinkedIn, so its clients can now share content on that network, as well.

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Apple's iWatch Is Actually Just A Wrist Band That Attaches To Your iPhone, iPad

The much-rumored Apple iWatch isn’t as exciting as you might have thought.

We’ve heard rumors of flexible displays and Siri integration, but it appears that Apple’s iWatch is actually just a band meant to connect with the Apple device of your choice.

According to this leaked video, which uses stand-ins for rehearsal instead of real Apple execs and designers, the band lets you slap your iPhone or iPad onto the strap and conduct your business directly from your wrist. The band will sell for $ 249, to compete with other smart watch offerings on the market, and use will require the purchase of an iPhone or iPad.

We’ve reached out to Apple regarding availability, but haven’t heard anything yet. Analysts predict the iWatch will land in July, alongside the next-generation iPhone.

While the firm wouldn’t comment on availability, they did mention that users have the option to use latest generation MBAs and MBPs with the smart watch as well, for a more fully featured computing experience.

“We don’t want the iWatch to be all about consumption, as many have labeled iPhone and iPad,” said an Apple representative who wishes to remain anonymous. “So we’ll be letting users attach their laptops to the band.”

Apple expects a high uptake from designers and other creative types.

It’s worth mentioning how users will deal with the one-handedness of the product. The larger the iThing that you attach, the harder it will be to walk and move and perform tasks on the device. However, rumors are swirling that Apple may be releasing a handful of exercise-related devices to measure weight loss while using the heavier “smart watch.”

This comes fresh on the heels of Samsung’s foray into quantified self, wherein it will offer a HRM and a scale that pairs with the Galaxy S IV.

Still, it’s quite a shock to see that Apple’s famous iWatch will be more of an accessory than a computing device. On the other hand, it should save quite a bit on production and R&D.

Perhaps Apple is managing expectations on purpose, as they did with Maps. Unfortunately, only time will tell.

Editors Notes: Pre-orders for the Apple iWatch begin today, April 1, and will end tonight at midnight, because this is clearly a joke.

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Now With 3 Million New Users, Google Reader's Heir Apparent Feedly Relaunches On iOS & Android, Reveals How It Plans To Make Money

Feedly, the RSS feed-reading client which is rapidly becoming the one to beat following the planned Google Reader shutdown, is today launching new versions of its Feedly Mobile client for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android phones and tablets. This update, built in response to user feedback, is focused on improving search, productivity, discovery, and sharing. But the feature which is likely to appeal to ex-Google Reader users the most is the new “title only” mode, designed to make headline scanning more efficient.

The startup says it has now seen 3 million new users sign up for its service in the wake of Google’s announcement that it’s shuttering Google Reader on July 1, 2013. Prior to this, Feedly had grown its own user base organically to 4 million users since its founding in 2008, to give you some perspective on how rapid this growth has been.

“We are thankful that so many Reader refugees have selected Feedly as their new home, and we will strive to make it the best home we can for them,” says co-founder Cyril Moutran. “Our main priorities over the next 90 days are to keep the service up, listen to new users for suggestions, and keep adding smaller features weekly.”

Feedly has been moving quickly to capitalize on the attention Google’s announcement brought the company, which has benefitted Feedly in terms of app store domination in particular, where its native clients have been topping the charts. The company has also been reassuring users that not only did it expect the Google Reader shutdown, it already had a transition plan in place – all you have to do is sign up for Feedly before Reader is gone, and you’ll be set.

Clearly, many people have followed that advice. But today’s changes are more about keeping those users around for the long haul.

What’s New

For starters, Feedly has revamped its search and discovery engines, a mostly under-the-hood improvement which improves the speed of searching, and brings over 50 million RSS feeds to the search engine’s index. A “smart topic completion” feature helps you find new feeds faster on mobile’s small-screened interface, as it means less typing is involved. Meanwhile, Feedly is now tapping into its community’s behavior to improve its search algorithms – recommending feeds based on popularity. This feature is designed to improve over time, the company says, noting that the more you use Feedly to search, categorize, follow and favorite feeds, the better the feature becomes.

Another new section called “Must Reads” allows you to track your most-watched feeds without the need for special folders. This now appears in the sidebar navigation next to the “Today” and “Saved for Later” sections. Moutran clarifies that, for now, this section is meant for personal organization purposes only – it’s a way to have quick access to the feeds you “absolutely want to see all updates from,” he says. However, he adds that Feedly might use this data in the future for search engine relevance improvements, but only in aggregate – it won’t show others which posts you’ve indicated are “Must Reads,” that is.

Sharing improvements have also been introduced, with support for Google+, and settings which let you pick which sharing options (including Pocket and Buffer, too) will appear as a shortcut on the main toolbar.

The company says it tested the beta of this new mobile release with over 500 users over the past ten weeks, giving a special shout-out to Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Casalena, who has offered his own feedback as well.

As noted above, the biggest benefit to Google Reader users, who are just looking to duplicate their same Reader experience elsewhere, is the more compact title-only view.  Feedly has already been working to make it easier on those transitioning to its web client, and this is the continuation of those efforts.

Feedly’s Biz Model: Freemium

Most importantly, perhaps, Feedly is finally talking publicly about its business model. And yes, it will ask some users to pay.

“We’ve been asked the question of Feedly’s viability a lot recently,” Moutran says. “We have heard from a significant proportion of our users that they would be willing to pay for Feedly. They love and depend on our service, and want to make sure Feedly will be there in the future,” he tells us. “We have also heard from our power users that they would like deeper integration with other services they use and pay for, like Evernote and Dropbox. We intend to launch a premium version of Feedly this year, on a  subscription basis, that would include new features for power users.”

Moutran also notes that Feedly has been working with publishers on efforts which would allow its users to discover, purchase and access premium content, such as those behind “paywalls,” or only available on a subscription basis, for example.

The updated Feedly mobile apps are appearing in their respective app stores as of 9 AM PT, or you can download them from here.

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Now With 3 Million New Users, Google Reader's Heir Apparent Feedly Relaunches On iOS & Android, Reveals How It Plans To Make Money

Feedly, the RSS feed-reading client which is rapidly becoming the one to beat following the planned Google Reader shutdown, is today launching new versions of its Feedly Mobile client for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android phones and tablets. This update, built in response to user feedback, is focused on improving search, productivity, discovery, and sharing. But the feature which is likely to appeal to ex-Google Reader users the most is the new “title only” mode, designed to make headline scanning more efficient.

The startup says it has now seen 3 million new users sign up for its service in the wake of Google’s announcement that it’s shuttering Google Reader on July 1, 2013. Prior to this, Feedly had grown its own user base organically to 4 million users since its founding in 2008, to give you some perspective on how rapid this growth has been.

“We are thankful that so many Reader refugees have selected Feedly as their new home, and we will strive to make it the best home we can for them,” says co-founder Cyril Moutran. “Our main priorities over the next 90 days are to keep the service up, listen to new users for suggestions, and keep adding smaller features weekly.”

Feedly has been moving quickly to capitalize on the attention Google’s announcement brought the company, which has benefitted Feedly in terms of app store domination in particular, where its native clients have been topping the charts. The company has also been reassuring users that not only did it expect the Google Reader shutdown, it already had a transition plan in place – all you have to do is sign up for Feedly before Reader is gone, and you’ll be set.

Clearly, many people have followed that advice. But today’s changes are more about keeping those users around for the long haul.

What’s New

For starters, Feedly has revamped its search and discovery engines, a mostly under-the-hood improvement which improves the speed of searching, and brings over 50 million RSS feeds to the search engine’s index. A “smart topic completion” feature helps you find new feeds faster on mobile’s small-screened interface, as it means less typing is involved. Meanwhile, Feedly is now tapping into its community’s behavior to improve its search algorithms – recommending feeds based on popularity. This feature is designed to improve over time, the company says, noting that the more you use Feedly to search, categorize, follow and favorite feeds, the better the feature becomes.

Another new section called “Must Reads” allows you to track your most-watched feeds without the need for special folders. This now appears in the sidebar navigation next to the “Today” and “Saved for Later” sections. Moutran clarifies that, for now, this section is meant for personal organization purposes only – it’s a way to have quick access to the feeds you “absolutely want to see all updates from,” he says. However, he adds that Feedly might use this data in the future for search engine relevance improvements, but only in aggregate – it won’t show others which posts you’ve indicated are “Must Reads,” that is.

Sharing improvements have also been introduced, with support for Google+, and settings which let you pick which sharing options (including Pocket and Buffer, too) will appear as a shortcut on the main toolbar.

The company says it tested the beta of this new mobile release with over 500 users over the past ten weeks, giving a special shout-out to Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Casalena, who has offered his own feedback as well.

As noted above, the biggest benefit to Google Reader users, who are just looking to duplicate their same Reader experience elsewhere, is the more compact title-only view.  Feedly has already been working to make it easier on those transitioning to its web client, and this is the continuation of those efforts.

Feedly’s Biz Model: Freemium

Most importantly, perhaps, Feedly is finally talking publicly about its business model. And yes, it will ask some users to pay.

“We’ve been asked the question of Feedly’s viability a lot recently,” Moutran says. “We have heard from a significant proportion of our users that they would be willing to pay for Feedly. They love and depend on our service, and want to make sure Feedly will be there in the future,” he tells us. “We have also heard from our power users that they would like deeper integration with other services they use and pay for, like Evernote and Dropbox. We intend to launch a premium version of Feedly this year, on a  subscription basis, that would include new features for power users.”

Moutran also notes that Feedly has been working with publishers on efforts which would allow its users to discover, purchase and access premium content, such as those behind “paywalls,” or only available on a subscription basis, for example.

The updated Feedly mobile apps are appearing in their respective app stores as of 9 AM PT, or you can download them from here.

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Facebook's Mobile Platform Ambitions Come As Messaging Apps Gain Traction With Youth

Facebook is making an announcement this Thursday, and our own Josh Constine reports that at this event we’ll see the company unveil its own slightly tweaked flavor of Android, to power select HTC smartphones. But why would the company do that, and why now? A new report from Reuter provides very good motivation: Facebook sees a potential threat in the growing success of mobile-first messaging platforms that make the social networking experience more about conversation and less about broadcasts.

In the article, Reuters flags a number of successful mobile-first startups and companies that have managed to attract a very sizeable user base, and which it claims are especially popular among a younger demographic, including KakaoTalk, LINE, WeChat, Kik and WhatsApp. These apps mostly seem to succeed by focusing on brief one-to-one or group communication, with provisions that also allow for direct sharing of media like YouTube clips, audio and games, where Facebook and other web-based social networks before it have emphasized one-to-many broadcasts, and a less direct model of social interaction.

Facebook has obviously seen the effect of this shift, and has altered its product to try to anticipate or react to it, with moves like the Beluga purchase in 2011, which led to the launch of Facebook Messenger. It also built a Snapchat clone, over the course of just a few days, in a move that seemed to be little more than a display of power: the big dog saying essentially, ‘if this is what people want, we can do that too, and without breaking a sweat.’

But there’s reason to suggest Facebook is sweating. The Reuters piece cites Kik’s recent introduction of Kik Cards, a means for sharing content on the messaging platform quickly and easily, and most importantly, without cluttering the core experience. I spoke with Kik founder Ted Livingston twice about Kik Cards, once before their launch and once shortly after, and he agreed with me that there’s a huge opportunity out there for someone like Kik or another mobile-native startup to take things further and become a full-fledged mobile-first social network, possibly even one to usurp Facebook’s dominant position.

Kik has 40 million users, however, and event WeChat’s 400 million users is a far cry from Facebook’s more than 1 billion monthly active users, 680 million of which are active on mobile. Others like LINE and KakaoTalk, which have been primarily successful in Asia so far, still only have 120 million and 80 million users respectively. Point being, according to the numbers in black and white, Facebook still has an immense lead on its mobile competitors, and one that isn’t likely to suffer a huge reversal in the immediate future.

But Facebook’s Thursday announcement (which is where it tellingly directed Reuters when the pub sought comment for its story today) suggests that even if its crown isn’t under immediate threat, the company is thinking hard about how to woo mobile users in a meaningful and lasting way. Building Facebook DNA into the very core of the OS could be a good way to do that, and one that others might find hard to replicate owing to Facebook’s stronger influence. The bottom line is that Facebook is looking ahead to anticipate a time when it might not be in a position of power, and a strike at the young, mobile demographic right where they feel most at home could help considerably in avoiding that future.

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Ambitious Startups Could Signal The Coming Of A Second Space Age

In late March, the American Geophysical Union announced that the Voyager I space probe became the first man-made object to leave our solar system. Just a few hours later though, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shot down that claim noting that the tell-tale sign of hitting interstellar space (a “change in the direction of the magnetic field”) hasn’t been detected yet.

Still, this whole thing got me thinking: NASA launched Voyager I in 1977 to peer more closely at the outer planets. By late 1980, the probe had completed its tour of Jupiter and Saturn and made a gravity-assisted beeline for the edge of the solar system. In the 40 or so years that Voyager has toured the outer fringes of the solar system, our focus on space has grown more limited, and in many ways it’s a new breed of space-based startups that are helping to spark imaginations the way NASA has done for decades.

You see, back on Earth, some people are looking to the heavens with renewed vigor — emphasis on “some.” There’s still plenty of work to be done in low Earth orbit, with SpaceX and a handful of other companies crafting and perfecting their cargo-ferrying space taxis for trips to the International Space Station. But the U.S. government’s drive to search out newer and farther frontiers in space has been seemingly tempered by political pragmatism and a dearth of available funds.

Ventures like Curiosity’s Mars landing were highlights in the history of space science and exploration, but these days NASA can’t even maintain its public outreach programs thanks to recent budget cuts.

That’s why the promise of privately operated space startups is so captivating: national priorities have shifted since the sixties, but that hasn’t kept some ambitious entrepreneurs from almost literally reaching for the stars. SpaceX founder Elon Musk famously noted that he hoped to establish a full-fledged colony on Mars, and at least one mildly kooky organization is looking to get people living and working on the Red Planet as soon as possible by way of a televised spectacle meant to raise funds and select the first batch of Martian astronauts. Mars isn’t the only floating hunk of rock that entrepreneurs are currently eying up, either. A startup called (unimaginatively enough) Planetary Resources has received backing from some serious names and aims to explore/hopefully mine nearby asteroids for precious materials with a fleet of specialized robots.

It’s not as though every space startup has ambitions as wild-eyed as those listed above. Altius Space Machines took home the top at NewSpace 2011′s business plan contest for its vision of simplifying the process of wrangling out-of-control satellites and the like. Meanwhile, SpaceGround Amalgam won that same prize a year later for its inflatable antenna concept — they fold up for easy storage during launch, and can inflate and harden once in orbit. These sorts of less-flashy startups are just as important as SpaceX and Planetary Resources — should their long term visions pan out, they could help lay the groundwork (spacework?) for more majestic, horizon-expanding ventures to come. Even the Startup Weekend guys are getting into it: the very first SW event dedicated solely to space is slated to kick off in late May with the goal of coaxing would-be space entrepreneurs into cooking up the next great space startup.

Some of the plans above sound like spurious tales of science fiction, pages ripped from a pulp novel, but they shouldn’t be immediately discounted just for that. I suppose the notion that a device of mankind’s creation would break free from the influence of the sun would’ve sounded like science fiction a few decades ago, so who’s to say what the next few years will bring.

Speaking of the next few years, Voyager doesn’t have much longer to live. At the probe’s current rate of power consumption, it has enough juice in its plutonium-powered generators to keep it going until about 2020, when NASA will begin to remotely shut down Voyager’s instruments one by one. Ultimately, Voyager will continue to drift in the sea of interstellar space, but humanity will lose contact with its most far-flung explorer in short order — here’s hoping that some savvy startups help to kick off a second Space Age before then.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Pre-Sales Start At AT&T On April 16, Priced At $249.99 On 2-Year Agreement

AT&T has just posted an update to its Consumer Blog revealing pre-order details of the Samsung Galaxy S4. The phone will be available for order beginning April 16, for $ 249.99 with a two-year commitment. Samsung had previously announced that the Galaxy S4 would be coming to the U.S. sometime in Q2 2013, and didn’t reveal launch pricing at its event earlier in March.

The ship date of the AT&T Galaxy S4 wasn’t revealed this time around, so there’s still no guarantees about when consumers will be able to actual hold the hardware, which boasts a 5-inch 1080p display, in their hot little hands. Based on Jordan’s initial impressions, the Galaxy S4 looks like a worth successor to Samsung’s flagship smartphone role. The hardware specs include either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, but AT&T hasn’t yet specified what exactly you’ll be getting for your $ 250.

Pricing for the Galaxy S4 at AT&T is interesting, since it puts the smartphone above the starting on-contract price of the iPhone 5 ($ 199.99 with contract), and also carries a lot more sticker shock than the $ 99 downpayment it’ll carry with T-Mobile when it launches with that carrier beginning May 1.

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What Games Are: My Three GDC Themes

Editor’s note: Tadhg Kelly is a veteran game designer, creator of leading game design blog What Games Are and creative director of Jawfish Games. You can follow him on Twitter here.

The Game Developer’s Conference was, as expected, a whirlwind. Folks from all across the games industry and associated media came together, ate, drank, talked, queued, played, partied and even danced with wild abandon, and everyone’s takeaways from the event were different.

GDC is so big that nobody is able to objectively summarize what it is, but the separation between the talk and the business sides is palpable. If you mostly hung around in Moscone West and North then your GDC was probably all about education and big ideas. If you stayed more in the Expo, Moscone South or around the W hotel, it was more likely a sea of business cards. Depending on where you spent your time, there were whole parts of GDC you’d never see, news that you heard indirectly, rumors and issues which emerged on one side that the other either misunderstood or was completely unaware of.

This year I found myself straddling the divide, with many meetings and talks filling my calendar to bursting. I saw some things, learned some stuff and met some people, and some themes emerged for me. No doubt others who attended had a completely different experience.

My first theme was the increasing voice of women in games. The role, perception and treatment of women in the industry has been a long-standing issue. The most visible sign of this is the use of booth babes at trade shows to promote games, but it goes way beyond that. Female game makers have long felt that they have to struggle twice as hard to be taken seriously. They also feel woefully underrepresented by the industry’s output – even though women make up the majority market for casual and social games, for example, representations of women are often anodyne at best.

As a result of the #1reasonwhy meme of last year (which saw many female game makers express their frustrations on Twitter) this issue of women in games was the subject of the #1reasontobe talk. It also featured heavily in the “microtalks” and “rants” sessions, with Leigh Alexander talking about the tone-deaf practises of game marketing and Anna Anthropy advocating that male conference panelists should refuse to participate on a panel that doesn’t feature at least one woman. (As someone who participated on an all-male panel this year, this talk in particular has made me think hard about the unconscious culture in which I participate.)

Yet these noble expressions were undermined by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) party, which featured skimpily dressed female dancers. A catastrophic misjudgment of sentiment, the party – sponsored by Yetizen – led to many outbursts on Twitter and the subsequent resignations in protest of many high-profile IGDA members. Most notable was Brenda Romero, who only hours previously had been the leading light of the #1reason talk. It seems that the issue of women-in-games has gained much (rightful) traction on the Moscone West side of the conference. However it has yet to permeate through to the Expo side, the people who run marketing departments and PR events. Calls such as Anthropy’s are a start, but there is still a great deal to do to get those who aren’t really aware of the issue to care about it.

My second theme was microconsoles. There were two parties, one for OUYA and another for GameStick, where unveilings and announcements were made. Perhaps most impressively, Julie Uhrman announced that OUYA had shipped in March as the original Kickstarter had promised, that a much larger network of retail partnerships have been formed than most industry insiders expect, and that there are around 100 games available at launch (including a mix of vintage titles like Canabalt along with brand-new games). The GameStick event was also apparently very interesting (I wasn’t there) and it too is set to ship very soon (June, by all accounts). And there are other microconsoles in the pipeline.

However the resistance from the main industry to an app-style console that costs little and runs free, free-to-play and cheap games is very high. Many really don’t see what the fuss is about, comparing the microconsole to the console in a like-for-like comparison. Many question who the devices are for exactly, and what they are supposed to achieve. Personally I think this resistance comes from the same mindset that led many game developers to misunderstand the importance of social games, netbooks, tablets and a whole host of similar left-field market movements. It will probably take a year for a Supercell, Zynga or Rovio to emerge on microconsoles for game developers to suddenly realise that they’ve missed the boat.

The more relevant question is whether any of the existing microconsole contenders will be the ones to ultimately win. A rumour surfaced, for example, that Apple is almost ready to release a dedicated iOS game controller – which led some tweeters to tell me that this means microconsoles are already dead when it actually validates the idea. There is also the haunting feeling that Samsung and some of the other big Android handset makers are eyeing the space. Could Amazon get in on it? It’s entirely possible.

My final theme was the idea that real-money gaming is becoming respectable. This is a time when many publishers are facing up to the hard reality of making money in online gaming (and many are still advancing deals that will likely lead to game-a-day or vertical operations down the road), while retail games are capable of selling 3.4 million copies and still not meeting expectations. Real-money wagering, betting and the like were prevalent in back-channel talk at the conference. There is the expectation that at some point the United States will legalize real-money gaming in the form of small wagering, sports betting and similar, and various companies are poised to provide solutions when it does.

What surprises me is how less stygmatized that idea has become. There was a time, perhaps five years ago, when the games industry considered itself entirely separate from real money, but not quite so much any more. Perhaps as a result of free-to-play gaming starting to go indie (such as through games from Nimblebit and Spry Fox, both of whom talked about their experiences), sensitivity to the very idea of real-money seemed a little more confined to sensitivity about predatory practises. Provided the model is well-managed and controlled, some game makers seem quietly open to the idea. Personally I’m not sure how I feel about that yet, but the sentiment on the Expo side was palpable.

I wonder whether the ethics, morality and practise of real-money gaming will be next year’s hot button issue in Moscone West.

(PS: if there’s one GDC game that I recommend you look at Jason Rohrer’s The Castle Doctrine.)

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Twitter Announces “Twttr” - Will Start Charging $5 A Month If You Want To Tweet Using Vowels

Vowels aren’t really necessary in today’s digital age, are they? Twitter doesn’t think so, as it announced a new “two-tiered” service including its free model called “Twttr.” You can only tweet without vowels though. Want the vowels back? Pony up $ 5 a month. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Luckily, Twitter really cares about its users and will offer up the “sometimes Y” free of charge…forever. Also free are vowels in link URLs. Whew.

If you’ve seen the text messages from anyone under 25 years old, you know that vowels often get left out already. This is pretty forward-thinking of Twitter, as it attempts to monetize its older set of users who can still speak and write using a real language.

Here’s what Twitter had to say about the disruptive approach to scl ntwrkng:

We’re doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and “dense” form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream.

Here’s a mockup, with a condensed version of the legendary Barack Obama re-election tweet:

Take that, Fcbk.

How did they come up with this amazing concept? Michael Sippey, Twitter’s VP of Product shared the brainery that went behind this genius move to beef up its revenue before next year’s IPO:

I was carpooling home after Twitter’s seventh birthday party with my head filled with images from our past, like our early logo where we spelled it TWTTR, in neon green toothpaste. And then Prince’s song “I would die 4 U” came on the radio. I felt like there was something there, but I wasn’t sure what or how to bring it to market.

Then later that night, I was watching “Wheel of Fortune” with @adambain, and a contestant yelled out ‘I wanna buy a vowel’. Everything just sort of clicked. Adam and I turned to each other and high-fived. It was one of those product moments that just felt like magic.

The company had some other revenue-producing ideas up its sleeve and will introduce extra characters, past 140, for a price:

In addition to our normal suite of Promoted Products for advertisers, we are now also offering a single character extension, expanding the length of a Tweet to 141 characters, for those moments when you need just one more character to finish your thought. The price of the extra character is based on a bidding system reflecting the popularity of the character you would like to add.

All of this will be rolling out slowly to a “small percentage of users” who actually believe things that are announced on April Fool’s Day. Twitter has some advice to get yourself prepared:

We recommend that you practice using only consonants (and “y”) with the hashtag #nvwls (or if you have paid for our premium service, use #icanhasvowels).

Go here to have a play.

Ws gng t typ ths ntr pst n MGHRD spk bt thr s n wy n hll tht y’d ctlly b bl t rd t. Thrfr, ths prgrph wll hv t d.

It’s kind of neat seeing the old Twttr name used for something again. As you know, it was the original name of the service.

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/google-introduces-gmail-blue-its-completely-blue-because-brown-was-a-disaster/3569

Google Introduces “Gmail Blue” - It's Completely Blue, Because Brown Was a “Disaster”

The Google April Fool’s train continues with the announcement of “Gmail Blue.” Yes, it’s a version of Google’s email service where everything is the color blue. The YouTube one from earlier was OK, and the Nose one was just so-so, but I’d actually use this product if it existed, especially since it took six years to “develop the technology.”

Can you imagine something like this actually happening? Some people flipped out about the new compose screen becoming the default, so they’d lose their mind if Google changed all of the colors in the email service.

The real bit of news here? Gmail turns nine tomorrow. Yes, we’re all old.

The video for Gmail Blue is pretty damn hilarious and worth checking out. Be sure to count the number of buzzwords used:

I can’t help but wonder if this is a not-so-subtle poke at Facebook, which of course is well-known for having the color blue all over the place within its apps and site. One of our readers, Edd Friedman, smartly suggested in the comments that this could be Google making fun of Microsoft Windows Blue. Makes sense. The line about brown being a disaster? Commenter syntaxsyntax999 thinks it’s a riff on the Zune.

Regardless, hearing Googlers have a sense of humor about themselves and their “moonshot thinking” was enjoyable.

Get ready for more April 1st funnery from Google, and the rest of the Internet, tomorrow.

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/twitter-announces-twttr-will-start-charging-5-a-month-if-you-want-to-tweet-using-vowels/3567

Twitter Announces “Twttr” - Will Start Charging $5 A Month If You Want To Tweet Using Vowels

Vowels aren’t really necessary in today’s digital age, are they? Twitter doesn’t think so, as it announced a new “two-tiered” service including its free model called “Twttr.” You can only tweet without vowels though. Want the vowels back? Pony up $ 5 a month. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Luckily, Twitter really cares about its users and will offer up the “sometimes Y” free of charge…forever. Also free are vowels in link URLs. Whew.

If you’ve seen the text messages from anyone under 25 years old, you know that vowels often get left out already. This is pretty forward-thinking of Twitter, as it attempts to monetize its older set of users who can still speak and write using a real language.

Here’s what Twitter had to say about the disruptive approach to scl ntwrkng:

We’re doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and “dense” form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream.

Here’s a mockup, with a condensed version of the legendary Barack Obama re-election tweet:

Take that, Fcbk.

How did they come up with this amazing concept? Michael Sippey, Twitter’s VP of Product shared the brainery that went behind this genius move to beef up its revenue before next year’s IPO:

I was carpooling home after Twitter’s seventh birthday party with my head filled with images from our past, like our early logo where we spelled it TWTTR, in neon green toothpaste. And then Prince’s song “I would die 4 U” came on the radio. I felt like there was something there, but I wasn’t sure what or how to bring it to market.

Then later that night, I was watching “Wheel of Fortune” with @adambain, and a contestant yelled out ‘I wanna buy a vowel’. Everything just sort of clicked. Adam and I turned to each other and high-fived. It was one of those product moments that just felt like magic.

The company had some other revenue-producing ideas up its sleeve and will introduce extra characters, past 140, for a price:

In addition to our normal suite of Promoted Products for advertisers, we are now also offering a single character extension, expanding the length of a Tweet to 141 characters, for those moments when you need just one more character to finish your thought. The price of the extra character is based on a bidding system reflecting the popularity of the character you would like to add.

All of this will be rolling out slowly to a “small percentage of users” who actually believe things that are announced on April Fool’s Day. Twitter has some advice to get yourself prepared:

We recommend that you practice using only consonants (and “y”) with the hashtag #nvwls (or if you have paid for our premium service, use #icanhasvowels).

Go here to have a play.

It is kind of neat seeing the old Twttr name used for something again.

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/facebooks-android-homescreen-could-expose-apples-inflexibility-5/3565

Facebook's Android Homescreen Could Expose Apple's Inflexibility

The mainstream has had little reason to care that Android gives developers much more customization freedom than iOS. But if Facebook’s fabled Android homescreen is a hit, the stubbornness of Apple’s closed mobile platform could be framed as a drawback after years of its cohesive design and ease being seen as assets.

Cheapness and handset/carrier choice are two of the biggest factors convincing people to pick up Android phones today. There’s its premier integration of Google’s app suite and the “rebel without an iPhone” attitude too. But Android’s flexibility for app developers has been more of a selling point for geeks and early adopters than for the average Joe.

Meanwhile, the straight forward “it just works” aspect of iOS that leans on its rigidity has made it a popular introduction to smartphones for hundreds of millions of people. There just hasn’t been a killer brand name app to grab the mainstream’s attention that depends on Android’s cooperative architecture and that iOS won’t support. No one has forced the issue of open vs closed on the common man.

But six years after the iPhone’s debut, the average mobile consumer has matured. They crave more personalization through homescreen widgets and custom launchers. They want to make their phone truly theirs. The mobile world may finally have reached the turning point where the benefits of Android’s customization outweigh the benefits of iOS’ simplicity. And it’s Facebook homescreen for Android that could crystallize this moment.

Last week, Facebook sent out invites to a big press event to “see our new home on Android”. My sources got us the scoop that Facebook plans to unveil a new homescreen for Android that pipes in its news feed content and notifications for instant access. We’re told this experience will be debuted on an HTC handset running a version of Android that’s been modified by Facebook. The homescreen replacement is also likely to make its way to other handsets, either in the form a launcher app that can run on standard Android builds, or through Facebook partnerships with other OEMs.

The kicker is that Facebook’s homescreen cannot run on iOS as it exists today.

Now, for any of this to actually alter the mobile landscape, Facebook “Home” as it may be called will have to be a real success. Not just “Oh that looks cool”, but “I need to have that on my phone”. A lot people will never say that, because they just don’t care that much about Facebook. Beyond that, it may be tough to add a lot of value on top of the full-featured Facebook For Android app that’s just a few taps away.

Still, it’s possible that Facebook’ heads up display, a sixth sense for your social life, could be good enough to shift the balance in the Game Of Phones. Even if not directly or immediately, the mere existence of Facebook Home could bring the open/closed debate into the sphere of public consciousness. In that sense, it could at least begin to generate momentum for Android’s “do as you please” ecosystem.

Apple is typically resistant to diverging from its roadmap to head off potential threats. As I’ve said, Apple doesn’t care what competitors do. But if it stays locked down, we might outgrow its hand-holding. For all Google’s talk off Android being open, it could take Facebook to make us realize its liberty we really want.

–

Read more about Facebook’s big new Android project:

Facebook To Reveal “Home On Android” Sources Say Is A Modified OS On HTC At 4/4 Event

Facebook’s “Home” On Android Could Give You A Sixth Sense For Your Social Life

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-gaming-ma-may-be-in-a-lull-as-a-new-generation-grows-up-3/3563

All Quiet On The Western Front: Gaming M&A May Be In A Lull As A New Generation Grows Up

When you step off the elevator into Kixeye’s new downtown San Francisco office, a guy in military fatigues has you sign an NDA. After you do (I didn’t), a receptionist with a lot of piercings takes your name, while The White Panda’s “Foolish Monsters” blares in the background. Kixeye has whale harpoons stapled to its office walls, bad oil paintings (see left), ceiling-to-floor drawings of fire-breathing dragons and jacked unicorns, a 3-D printer of questionable purpose and little desire to answer to anyone else.

All while remaining profitable, the midcore social gaming company has quintupled its headcount over the last year to more than 450 employees. The company says it has “several” times the $ 19 million in capital they raised stowed away in the bank.

Too expensive for acquirers and still too small and unproven for public markets, privately-held gaming companies like Kixeye are chugging along profitably and doing things their own way.

“We don’t talk about exit scenarios here. The employees are not here for that,” said Brandon Barber, who is Kixeye’s chief marketing officer. “Most people are here because they love making games and that’s what they want to do. Focusing on that stuff at this point in our trajectory is super distracting.” (If you want to know what Kixeye really thinks of everyone else in the industry, watch this video.)

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, other privately-held gaming companies such as Finland’s Rovio and Supercell, the U.K.’s King and Germany’s Wooga are also growing profitable businesses.

Buyers Beware

That feeling is mutual on the buyers’ side too. Warner Bros said last week that it would be opening a gaming studio in San Francisco. In other words, it is choosing to build, not buy.

“Every time we looked at a company that was really interesting, we found that the price tag was more money than we thought was reasonable to pay,” said Greg Ballard, who is Warner Bros. senior vice president of digital games.

Similarly, EA is holding off after some big ticket deals in the last few years to buy Seattle’s PopCap for up to $ 1.3 billion.

“With regards to a large acquisition, we’re probably OK for the time being,” said Nick Earl, who oversees most of EA’s free-to-play games as a senior vice president there. “If the right deal presents itself, we would make that deal. But we’re not actively seeking it.” He said his arm of EA’s business, the All Play label, is putting more effort into a smaller number of games this year.

Likewise, Zynga’s COO David Ko emphasized a more “disciplined” approach toward acquisitions in an interview with me last month. Zynga’s shares were burned after the $ 180 million deal to buy Draw Something-maker OMGPOP. After some layoffs and a hard pivot to mobile platforms, Ko said the company is a lot more rigorous about what it looks for. Since OMGPOP, Zynga has only done a few talent deals with startups such as A Bit Lucky.

Basically, buyers and sellers are at odds over what these companies should be worth. Sellers want several times annualized revenues — based on the months where they have hits. Buyers have limited cash and are aware of how difficult it is to integrate acquisitions and retain talent in such a competitive market. GREE’s U.S. CEO Naoki Aoyagi told me in a panel at an event put on by investment bank Covert & Co. earlier this week that the company was much more careful about structuring retention with the $ 210 million deal to buy Funzio compared to the time that they spent $ 104 million to buy OpenFeint. He said he was much “happier” with the Funzio outcome, given that the co-founders have stayed on.

“Just a few years ago top media companies would pay high multiples for game companies on emerging platforms whose ultimate profitability was still unclear,” said Kristian Segerstrale, who just stepped down as executive vice president of EA’s digital business and came to EA through the $ 300 million acquisition of Playfish. “Most large media companies are still digesting past acquisitions and can simply not afford a reasonable multiple on today’s stars.”

Why Sell?

At the same time, if you can run a creative business that generates loads of cash when you have a hit, why work for anyone else?

On the back of two hit iOS games “Clash of Clans” and “Hay Day”, Finland’s Supercell is opting for a massive round of more than $ 100 million over acquisition conversations, sources tell me.

“There is a set of profitable, cash generating companies that feel they have a very legitimate shot at challenging the existing cadre of public game companies as the industry’s next leaders,” added Segerstrale, who didn’t comment specifically about Supercell. His early-stage firm Initial Capital is one of Supercell’s largest shareholders.

What that means is that is that the M&A market for big gaming deals might be quiet in the short-term — at least in the West. (The Japanese market is an exception with deals like GREE’s deal to buy Pokelabo, Nexon’s acquisition of Gloops and Softbank’s recent investment in Gung Ho Entertainment.)

It’s possible that the big gaming companies could start to feel comfortable with public markets in a few years, if they have a broad enough portfolio of hit franchises. Companies like San Francisco’s Kabam, Seattle’s Big Fish Games and Finland’s Rovio already regularly report basic revenue figures to generate interest — either from future public shareholders or buyers.

On top of that, it looks like this year is the first one where a single mobile game’s revenues could rival that of a traditional console blockbuster. Japan’s Gung Ho Entertainment published a financial statement a few days ago suggesting that its iOS game Puzzle & Dragons made somewhere between $ 62 million and 86 million, all in a single month and all from Japan. That company’s stock has surged by more than 2,000% in the last year because of that single title, and Gung Ho is now worth more than $ 4.8 billion, according to its market capitalization.

IPO Window Still Feels Closed

But none of these companies are going out to market now, especially considering that Zynga shares fell by almost three-quarters in the first year after the company went public.

Instead, this generation of gaming companies is biding its time, riding the wave of surging iOS and Android revenues and making sure that their businesses are more hit-proof.

“IPOs are fine, but there have also been scenarios where it was too much of a focus. Ultimately, they’ve been very destructive to companies that were doing notable and amazing things,” Barber said. “Those variables have to be weighed super carefully, so we’re not in a rush.”

King, an arcade-gaming company that started more than a decade ago, just made the leap to mobile last fall. Its game Candy Crush Saga has been competing with Supercell’s “Clash of Clans” for the top-grossing spot in the U.S. That single title blew through all of the’s company 2013 financial targets in a single month and brought them more mobile daily active users than Zynga had last quarter. They’ve quadrupled their headcount in the last two years ago, haven’t taken funding for eight and have always been profitable.

“We’re not planning to be acquired. There’s a bright future for us, whether we will do an IPO or not,” said King’s CEO Riccardo Zacconi. “We’re just working on execution.”

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/facebooks-android-homescreen-could-expose-apples-inflexibility-4/3562

Facebook's Android Homescreen Could Expose Apple's Inflexibility

The mainstream has had little reason to care that Android gives developers much more customization freedom than iOS. But if Facebook’s fabled Android homescreen is a hit, the stubbornness of Apple’s closed mobile platform could be framed as a drawback after years of its cohesive design and ease being seen as assets.

Cheapness and handset/carrier choice are two of the biggest factors convincing people to pick up Android phones today. There’s its premier integration of Google’s app suite and the “rebel without an iPhone” attitude too. But Android’s flexibility for app developers has been more of a selling point for geeks and early adopters than for the average Joe.

Meanwhile, the straight forward “it just works” aspect of iOS that leans on its rigidity has made it a popular introduction to smartphones for hundreds of millions of people. There just hasn’t been a killer brand name app to grab the mainstream’s attention that depends on Android’s cooperative architecture and that iOS won’t support. No one has forced the issue of open vs closed on the common man.

But six years after the iPhone’s debut, the average mobile consumer has matured. They crave more personalization through homescreen widgets and custom launchers. They want to make their phone truly theirs. The mobile world may finally have reached the turning point where the benefits of Android’s customization outweigh the benefits of iOS’ simplicity. And it’s Facebook homescreen for Android that could crystallize this moment.

Last week, Facebook sent out invites to a big press event to “see our new home on Android”. My sources got us the scoop that Facebook plans to unveil a new homescreen for Android that pipes in its news feed content and notifications for instant access. We’re told this experience will be debuted on an HTC handset running a version of Android that’s been modified by Facebook. The homescreen replacement is also likely to make its way to other handsets, either in the form a launcher app that can run on standard Android builds, or through Facebook partnerships with other OEMs.

The kicker is that Facebook’s homescreen cannot run on iOS as it exists today.

Now, for any of this to actually alter the mobile landscape, Facebook “Home” as it may be called will have to be a real success. Not just “Oh that looks cool”, but “I need to have that on my phone”. A lot people will never say that, because they just don’t care that much about Facebook. Beyond that, it may be tough to add a lot of value on top of the full-featured Facebook For Android app that’s just a few taps away.

Still, it’s possible that Facebook’ heads up display, a sixth sense for your social life, could be good enough to shift the balance in the Game Of Phones. Even if not directly or immediately, the mere existence of Facebook Home could bring the open/closed debate into the sphere of public consciousness. In that sense, it could at least begin to generate momentum for Android’s “do as you please” ecosystem.

Apple is typically resistant to diverging from its roadmap to head off potential threats. As I’ve said, Apple doesn’t care what competitors do. But if it stays locked down, we might outgrow its hand-holding. For all Google’s talk off Android being open, it could take Facebook to make us realize its liberty we really want.

–

Read more about Facebook’s big new Android project:

Facebook To Reveal “Home On Android” Sources Say Is A Modified OS On HTC At 4/4 Event

Facebook’s “Home” On Android Could Give You A Sixth Sense For Your Social Life

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/facebooks-android-homescreen-could-expose-apples-inflexibility-3/3560

Facebook's Android Homescreen Could Expose Apple's Inflexibility

The mainstream has had little reason to care that Android gives developers much more customization freedom than iOS. But if Facebook’s fabled Android homescreen is a hit, the stubbornness of Apple’s closed mobile platform could be framed as a drawback after years of its cohesive design and ease being seen as assets.

Cheapness and handset/carrier choice are two of the biggest factors convincing people to pick up Android phones today. There’s its premier integration of Google’s app suite and the “rebel without an iPhone” attitude too. But Android’s flexibility for app developers has been more of a selling point for geeks and early adopters than for the average Joe.

Meanwhile, the straight forward “it just works” aspect of iOS that leans on its rigidity has made it a popular introduction to smartphones for hundreds of millions of people. There just hasn’t been a killer brand name app to grab the mainstream’s attention that depends on Android’s cooperative architecture and that iOS won’t support. No one has forced the issue of open vs closed on the common man.

But six years after the iPhone’s debut, the average mobile consumer has matured. They crave more personalization through homescreen widgets and custom launchers. They want to make their phone truly theirs. The mobile world may finally have reached the turning point where the benefits of Android’s customization outweigh the benefits of iOS’ simplicity. And it’s Facebook homescreen for Android that could crystallize this moment.

Last week, Facebook sent out invites to a big press event to “see our new home on Android”. My sources got us the scoop that Facebook plans to unveil a new homescreen for Android that pipes in its news feed content and notifications for instant access. We’re told this experience will be debuted on an HTC handset running a version of Android that’s been modified by Facebook. The homescreen replacement is also likely to make its way to other handsets, either in the form a launcher app that can run on standard Android builds, or through Facebook partnerships with other OEMs.

The kicker is that Facebook’s homescreen cannot run on iOS as it exists today.

Now, for any of this to actually alter the mobile landscape, Facebook “Home” as it may be called will have to be a real success. Not just “Oh that looks cool”, but “I need to have that on my phone”. A lot people will never say that, because they just don’t care that much about Facebook. Beyond that, it may be tough to add a lot of value on top of the full-featured Facebook For Android app that’s just a few taps away.

Still, it’s possible that Facebook’ heads up display, a sixth sense for your social life, could be good enough to shift the balance in the Game Of Phones. Even if not directly or immediately, the mere existence of Facebook Home could bring the open/closed debate into the sphere of public consciousness. In that sense, it could at least begin to generate momentum for Android’s “do as you please” ecosystem.

Apple is typically resistant to diverging from its roadmap to head off potential threats. As I’ve said, Apple doesn’t care what competitors do. But if it stays locked down, we might outgrow its hand-holding. For all Google’s talk off Android being open, it could take Facebook to make us realize its liberty we really want.

–

Read more about Facebook’s big new Android project:

Facebook To Reveal “Home On Android” Sources Say Is A Modified OS On HTC At 4/4 Event

Facebook’s “Home” On Android Could Give You A Sixth Sense For Your Social Life

[projectopentva-blog]

New Post has been published on Tech News

New Post has been published on http://projectopenhand.biz/facebooks-android-homescreen-could-expose-apples-inflexibility-2/3559

Facebook's Android Homescreen Could Expose Apple's Inflexibility

The mainstream has had little reason to care that Android gives developers much more customization freedom than iOS. But if Facebook’s fabled Android homescreen is a hit, the stubbornness of Apple’s closed mobile platform could be framed as a drawback after years of its cohesive design and ease being seen as assets.

Cheapness and handset/carrier choice are two of the biggest factors convincing people to pick up Android phones today. There’s its premier integration of Google’s app suite and the “rebel without an iPhone” attitude too. But Android’s flexibility for app developers has been more of a selling point for geeks and early adopters than for the average Joe.

Meanwhile, the straight forward “it just works” aspect of iOS that leans on its rigidity has made it a popular introduction to smartphones for hundreds of millions of people. There just hasn’t been a killer brand name app to grab the mainstream’s attention that depends on Android’s cooperative architecture and that iOS won’t support. No one has forced the issue of open vs closed on the common man.

But six years after the iPhone’s debut, the average mobile consumer has matured. They crave more personalization through homescreen widgets and custom launchers. They want to make their phone truly theirs. The mobile world may finally have reached the turning point where the benefits of Android’s customization outweigh the benefits of iOS’ simplicity. And it’s Facebook homescreen for Android that could crystallize this moment.

Last week, Facebook sent out invites to a big press event to “see our new home on Android”. My sources got us the scoop that Facebook plans to unveil a new homescreen for Android that pipes in its news feed content and notifications for instant access. We’re told this experience will be debuted on an HTC handset running a version of Android that’s been modified by Facebook. The homescreen replacement is also likely to make its way to other handsets, either in the form a launcher app that can run on standard Android builds, or through Facebook partnerships with other OEMs.

The kicker is that Facebook’s homescreen cannot run on iOS as it exists today.

Now, for any of this to actually alter the mobile landscape, Facebook “Home” as it may be called will have to be a real success. Not just “Oh that looks cool”, but “I need to have that on my phone”. A lot people will never say that, because they just don’t care that much about Facebook. Beyond that, it may be tough to add a lot of value on top of the full-featured Facebook For Android app that’s just a few taps away.

Still, it’s possible that Facebook’ heads up display, a sixth sense for your social life, could be good enough to shift the balance in the Game Of Phones. Even if not directly or immediately, the mere existence of Facebook Home could bring the open/closed debate into the sphere of public consciousness. In that sense, it could at least begin to generate momentum for Android’s “do as you please” ecosystem.

Apple is typically resistant to diverging from its roadmap to head off potential threats. As I’ve said, Apple doesn’t care what competitors do. But if it stays locked down, we might outgrow its hand-holding. For all Google’s talk off Android being open, it could take Facebook to make us realize its liberty we really want.

–

Read more about Facebook’s big new Android project:

Facebook To Reveal “Home On Android” Sources Say Is A Modified OS On HTC At 4/4 Event

Facebook’s “Home” On Android Could Give You A Sixth Sense For Your Social Life