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Gamasutra - Features - Building the Foundation of a Social Future
To say that social games are booming is an understatement. After having been in existence for only a scant few years, games on social networks like Facebook and MySpace are gaining users explosively. There are now over 200 million monthly users playing the top 10 Facebook games alone -- up by 50 million from August to September.
Investors have certainly taken notice and, even in the depths of a recession, startups have been popping up left and right. With competition comes conflict and social gaming has been no exception -- already the space is a mire of me-too clones and lawsuits, with companies so busy looking over the shoulders of their neighbors that they've lost sight of the bigger picture.
Rather than dashing headlong into this new space, throwing money, resources and litigation blithely and blindly, it may behoove us to pause for a moment and consider: just what is a social game? A little critical thought up front might open more opportunities and alleviate some of the pressure to borrow from the competition.
FarmVille’s Parent Company Valued at $1 Billion?
That number is based on the recent deal that Electronic Arts made to acquire Playfish for up to $400 million, a multiple of 3-4x its revenue according to another analyst cited in the report.
Insanity? Perhaps, but Zynga has shown no signs of slowing down and seems to be able to replicate the same concept over and over again successfully. The company recently introduced “FishVille,” an underwater version of the FarmVille game, and today, launched FarmVille.com, a destination site for the game that utilizes Facebook Connect.
Online FarmVille game ploughs new fields of revenue - Times Online
The cash spent by Zynga’s players on micropayments within FarmVille is one reason why Zynga is generating revenues of more than $150 million (£91.4 million) this year.
Virtonomics :: Economic online game
Business simulation game - I delicioused it because some time ago I had a similar idea
SCORE | Counselors to America's Small Business | SCORE
Look a little like brazillian SEBRAE, but is maintained by volunteers. Someone on answers.onstartup mentioned that SCORE provides advices on formulating contracts.
Start Your Online App with FairSoftware; Find iPhone Developers; Share Revenue
A little too utopic, but the idea is connecting great ideas with great developers in exchange for a part of the gains.
Registrar sua Marca (P.A.P.) » .marcamaria
Você tem duas opções para registrar uma marca:
Procurar um procurador para fazer isso por você (e gastar um belo dinheiro) e não se preocupar e parar de ler esse texto aqui; ou
Você mesmo ser o seu procurador e pagar apenas as taxas que o INPI pede.
Chile Wants ... Your Tech Entrepreneurs
Chile may not become an outsourcing powerhouse. But this South American gem could very well morph into the new land of opportunity for immigrants in general and export-centric tech entrepreneurs. The Chilean government has put together an incredible slate of incentivesfor technology-based companies that export their products. The government wants you to invest $500,000 over 5 years, but is pretty flexible about how you do this.
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But first, you want to check out the country, right? The government will give you 60% of your due diligence costs, or up to $30,000, to visit and explore Chile. And they’ll grant you another $30,000 to launch your company in Chile. If you work from one of their tech centers, the government will pay for 5 years of rent (up to $1 million) or split the costs if you want to locate elsewhere in this gorgeous country.
How about workforce incentives? Chile has you covered. The government will pay you (as an approved entrepreneur) up to $25,000 for the first year of “training costs” for any locals you hire. By the way, Chile has some excellent engineering schools so it’s not terribly difficult to pick up a good Java or C# programmer. They typically make $15,000-30,000 per year. Can’t find the local talent you want? Chile will subsidize your efforts to bring folks from Sunnyvale, Mumbai or wherever you may find them. And you can train these folks on Chile’s dime as well. And if you decide to buy some land and build your own labs or offices, they’ll give you 40% of your costs up to $2 million. How about for H-1B immigrants or other talented folks who want to move to Chile? Simple. Get a legitimate tech job and they’ll give you a visa, no questions asked. Are you starting to get my drift? (Note: If Chile took even one-quarter of all the H-1B holders current working in tech jobs in America, they would probably come close to doubling the size of their technology workforce).
Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner: Eric Ries, Author - Evangelizing for the Lean Startup
Speaker, author, and entrepreneur Eric Ries shares rapid fire wisdom on building nimble, responsive, and efficient online software-based businesses. He also offers his wisdom on streamlining processes and progressing engineering systems, and puts forth front line insight into why some new ideas succeed where others have failed.
MP3: Graham on Start-ups, Innovation, and Creativity | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty
Paul Graham, essayist, programmer and partner in the y-combinator talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about start-ups, innovation, and creativity. Graham draws on his experience as entrepreneur and investor to discuss the current state of the start-up world and how that world has changed due to improved technology that makes it easier to start a software company. Graham talks about his unusual venture firm, the y-combinator, and how he and his partners work with start-ups to get them ready for more advanced funding. Along the way, Graham discusses why hackers are like painters and how to survive high school.
Joel Spolsky's talk at Business of Software 2008 on being number one - Business of Software Blog
How come you can recognise the tune of the number one song of 1968 as being Hey Jude by the Beatles, but not the number two song?
Why has the iPod had the success that the Zune has been denied?
Why are Herman Miller chairs cool, but their functionally equivalent competitors lame?
Why is Ruby hip but Java square?
Why are clean code, usability and basic marketing just hygiene factors? How come they can get you to the number two spot, but not to number one?
In this video from Business of Software 2008, Joel explains the three important factors behind getting to number one. Along the way, he talks about anthropology, psychology, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And kittens.
How to Change the World: The Art of the Start Video (Guy Kawasaki)
An honest speaker will tell you that she has “on” days and “off” days. The result of a truly “on” day is a standing ovation. I had a very “on” day at TiECon on May 13, 2006. This is the annual meeting of The Indus Entrepreneurorganization.
I’ve provided postings of audio and video of my speeches that covered the topics of innovation and evangelism, but this is the first one of “The Art of the Start.” It’s the first one, frankly, because I’ve been waiting until I did it very—standing ovation—well.
Handmark Launches New On-Device Store for Windows Mobile Customers - FierceWireless
Handmark®, a world-leading creator and provider of mobile content for smartphones, today announced HandMarket® Apps - a new downloadable application store for Windows Mobile® customers. The store is immediately available to download free at www.handmark.com.
Independent Games Sales: Stats 101
A presentation for the Indie Games Summit at Game Developers Conference 2009 by Simon Carless.
Gamelab 2009: V Feria Internacional del Ocio Interactivo (online lectures)
Incluye de Noel Llopis: iPhone: El renacimiento de los desarrolladores independendientes
Dúvidas frequentes sobre o registro de marcas – design.blog.br
1. Já tenho meu registro na Junta Comercial. Preciso registrar a marca?
Sim. O registro na Junta Comercial tem abrangência estadual; a marca registrada no INPI tem abrangência nacional. Além disso, o registro da marca no INPI pode cancelar o registro na Junta Comercial.
2. Qual a vantagem de ter uma marca registrada?
Basicamente a marca é registrada de forma defensiva ou ofensiva. Ou seja, você pode registrar uma marca para evitar que alguém tente impedi-lo de usá-la (caso das pequenas empresas) ou para evitar que os outros usem essa marca (geralmente estratégia de empresas médias e grandes).
Gamasutra - Features - The Facebook Doctrine: Gaming And The Future
The potential for Facebook to be a massive platform for game development seems difficult to understate as of mid-2009. Already, it's host to a huge number of games, several of which pull in millions of users on a regular basis.
In fact, several game on Facebook have surpassed World of Warcraft's subscriber base in terms of monthly unique players, as recent charts have shown. Of course, none of the social network-based MMOs charge $15 a month to play -- and many of the players never buy virtual items, which monetize these games. But many do, as the landscape rapidly evolves, and it's becoming clear that you can build userbase for online games incredibly fast using social networks.
Flourish! Open Source Conference 2009 - Matt Hall - (Android Data)
A mention of some sort of commercial data for Android at last:
Their recent Android game Retro Defense was the number one paid game on Android for almost a month and is currently at number 2.
Hacker News | Ask HN: Sales stats for Android paid apps?
Were any concrete sales figures ever disclosed by any Android developer? This kind of info is easy to find for iPhone (albeit mostly the freaky successes) but it seems very tough to find any commercial data from the Android Market.
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