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Posts Tagged ‘currency’

It’s Time For Microsoft To Turn Itself Upside-Down

There was recently a little skirmish on the web regarding the question of whether or not Microsoft has stopped innovating — whether the internal corporate culture there has thwarted new ideas, and so on. Well, I think we can all agree that Microsoft hasn’t exactly been an innovation machine in recent years; although, with as little currency as the word “innovation” has these days, that’s not saying much — but the fact is that its products haven’t shown as much ingenuity as its competitors in nearly every arena. And like a dragon guarding its hoard, it has striven primarily to maintain its stranglehold on enterprise, which makes up the vast majority of Microsoft’s treasure intake. Who can blame them? You wouldn’t give up a goose that laid golden eggs either. But the the goose is getting old, and people are getting tired of eggs. What’s the next step?

Gates once famously said his greatest fear was “someone in a garage who is devising something completely new.” So the solution is simple: start building garages.

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Facebook Wants YOU To Advertise

When Facebook began rolling out its redesign at the beginning of the month, there was one change that stood out – the prominent display of “Credits Balance” on the menu used to log out and edit your friends and privacy settings. We thought this might signify a change coming in Facebook and today’s announcement of a “strategic relationship” with PayPal seems to confirm that Facebook is looking to move in new directions.

Facebook has made a number of changes recently, including the redesign and the revision of its advertising terms. And all of it seems to point to Facebook looking to monetize its biggest asset – its 400 million strong user base.

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As the press release states, “the option to pay with PayPal makes it even easier for advertisers, particularly small international companies, to run campaigns on Facebook”. Facebook recently dropped Microsoft as an advertiser because it doesn’t want to go in the direction of a small number of advertisers spending big dollars – it wants millions of small advertisers to take advantage of its advertising capabilities.

“We want to give the people who use Facebook, as well as advertisers and developers, a fast and trusted way to pay across our service,” said Dan Levy, director of payment operations, Facebook. “As our business has grown, offering local methods of payment has become increasingly important for advertisers who want to buy Facebook Ads.”

Facebook knows that it has the data to offer small businesses advertising that is targeted at the proper demographics and these businesses commonly use PayPal. The company will also be using PayPal to allow users to buy Facebook Credits, which can be used to purchase virtual goods and gifts.

We think that it’s only a matter of time before Facebook credits become the standalone currency for a greater number of goods, both virtual and real.

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Facebook Ad Terms Prevent Dirty Dealings with Virtual Goods

Online advertising can, at times, be downright villainous. We’ve all fallen victim to the misleading “X” that opened up more windows instead of closing the one, or lured by ads that seemed to know all our personal information. But today, Facebook released a new set of terms for ad and offer networks that looks to help prevent dishonest advertising.

David Swain, a spokesperson for Facebook, said that the new terms are meant to create more accountability and faster enforcement when things run afoul.

Sponsor

The terms are in addition to the already existing, so-called “Facebook Policies,” to which the ad and offer networks are already held.

What’s New?

In today’s release of “Platform Terms for Advertising Providers”, we see a common theme – accountability and protection for the user. Within the seven new term items, companies are required to keep open lines of communication with Facebook, provide “a clear and conspicuous method for a user to make a complaint” and “provide to Facebook the names, email addresses, and business addresses of all operators and employees of the ad provider.”

Overall, the terms appear to make a number of connections and communication channels and hold ad providers responsible, which is something we certainly won’t complain about. They prevent back-dealing and information swapping, especially for companies that run both ad networks and Facebook applications, and require companies to operate transparently. The terms also look to prevent companies from duping Facebook by using IP filtering to show different content to Facebook employees than other users might see.

Keeping Relationships Above Board

It also looks like Facebook is trying to avoid a repeat of past issues with advertisers, especially an instance in December, when a health insurance lobbying group reportedly paid Facebook users in virtual, “in-game” currency to send a letter opposing health-care reform legislation to their Congressional representative.

The fourth term reads as follows:

If the ad provider owns or operates an application on Facebook Platform, the ad provider may not make customer support contingent upon using such an application or require a user to share information with the application, and will not use any data it receives through operation of the application to tailor content (such as serving advertisements through an ad network).

This term seems to address that sort of situation directly, something we strongly agree with. Using the more addictive qualities of Farmville and the like should not create influence over political outcomes. What we’re saying is, an addict’s desire for virtual corn should not be for sale, especially in ways that force people to act and potentially cause real change in the world.

It is illegal to buy votes and it should be for companies to trade virtual corn for letters to congressman. We hope these terms help ensure that simple idea.

While Zynga was not implicated in the December debacle, we asked how it saw this term affecting its business practices, if at all. Zynga is, after all, the exact type of company described in the clause. We did not receive a response by press time.

On a less sinister note, this also seems to prohibit ads using friends pictures and other data collected from applications. While Swain reminded us that Facebook had already “prohibited user data [from] showing up in third-party ads,” we hope that these new terms keep that a reality.

In the end, the number of ways that Facebook tries to hold companies accountable is substantial and we hope that we never seeing an ad for a date with our mother ever again.

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MyTown’s uncanny success

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store

I posted a few things last year about Booyah, an app that promised a lot, but turned out to be not much more than your standard social networking/check-in app. And despite a little hype around its introduction, Booyah had some trouble finding an audience. But the developers (former Blizzard folks still supported by some execs there) came right back with MyTown [iTunes link], and this time, they appear to have hit gold — despite the app’s low profile, it already boasts more users than the well-known Foursquare and Gowalla apps. That’s probably because it’s more of an actual game; rather than just checking-in, the app has a currency to it, where you can “buy” places you check-in from, and then charge money to the next person that stops by. Imagine Foursquare mixed up with Monopoly — instead of meaninglessly becoming the mayor of some place you visit, you can actually own and make money off of other people showing up there.

It’s an interesting idea, and it seems to be working. MyTown has just reached version 2.0, increasing the number of levels you can earn and items you can buy with the virtual cash. It’s still a free app, and originally, we heard that Booyah was going to earn money by teaming up with retail and business partners — Taco Bell would pay them, and then they’d attach some promotion to checking in from a Taco Bell. But they haven’t moved on to that point yet, apparently; right now it’s just about building up a userbase and setting up a solid formula. And so far, while the original Booyah app may not have been able to do that, MyTown seems to be rolling right along.

TUAWMyTown’s uncanny success originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Galileo sat-nav system back on the map, said to be ‘up and running’ by 2014
Remember Galileo, Europe’s proposed GPS-like satellite navigation system? It’s back in the headlines, and according to the Telegraph, UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology and Germany’s OHB System have jointly secured €566 million (that’s $815 million in US currency) to build 14 more satellites. The funding continues until 2013, whereby 22 satellites will be order. Full satellite navigation requires 27, and ultimately the European Union wants 32 technological waypointers. Launch date? Apparently 2014 — we’re hopeful, but this road has been wrought with delays before.

Galileo sat-nav system back on the map, said to be ‘up and running’ by 2014 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Outnumbered presents an interesting twist on iPhone multiplayer

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Veiled Games sent word of their new game, Outnumbered [iTunes link], on the iPhone app store, and it seems intriguingly different. It’s basically a multiplayer arcade game, which pits two iPhones or iPod touches against each other via Bluetooth. One player takes over the role of the O.N.E., a singular robot armed with weapons and special attacks, and the other player controls M.A.N.Y., which is a top-down view where you can control waves of attacking units and robots. The two players duke it out, with the first controlling his robot around the arena, and the second overseeing the armies and buying new units with collected currency. When the single robot is dead, players switch sides, and whoever earns the most points while fighting (for attacking, moving, or a few other criteria) wins the game.

Interesting idea. Of course, you’ll need a friend with their own iPhone or iPod touch to do all of this, and you’ll have to be in the same room, as the connection only works (so far) over Bluetooth. If you’re still confused as to how it all works, there’s a nice tutorial video up (although that voice gets to be a bit much after a while) that explains how the game goes down. Most of the big iPhone titles we’ve seen this year mostly focus on single player gaming, so it’s cool to see an attempt like this to try something that more than one player can share. Outnumbered is available in the App Store [iTunes Link] right now for 99 cents, and a lite version (that will allow a second player to play along, although one of the two players must own the full version) is due out soon.

TUAWOutnumbered presents an interesting twist on iPhone multiplayer originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smartbook AG launches absolutely gaudy $3,000 Swarovski-laden netbook

Taking a break from making headlines over infringement rights, Smartbook AG has found an entirely new way to get our attention. Introducing the Zenid GC Crystal, a “smartbook” that’s, as Netbooknews.de points out, one of the most common Chinese ODM netbooks, the S40 — 10.2-inch WXGA LED screen, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N280, 2GB DDR2 RAM, WiFi, and so on. You can get a non-crystal version for 299 euros, but really, we know you’re wanting to go ridiculously lavish here, and that’s precisely where the Crystal variant doesn’t disappoint. Completely encrusted in Swarovski crystals, the asking price jumps to 2,001 euros, or approximately $3,000 in currency from across the pond. We’d like to point and laugh more, but deep down, we know there’s enough comically wealthy people out there to probably justify this.

Smartbook AG launches absolutely gaudy $3,000 Swarovski-laden netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation 2 finally launches in Brazil for the bargain price of around US $462
You read that right. Sony’s PlayStation 2, which the great majority of the world has been enjoying since 2000, is just now officially touching ground in Brazil. We’re pretty sure it’s been making its way into the country for many years by not-so-official means, but if you’ve gone the legit route, last-generation’s game console king can be yours for just 799 Brazilian Real, which we’re sad to say translates to about $461 in US currency. Yeah, we’re expecting this to just fly off the shelves.

Filed under: Gaming

PlayStation 2 finally launches in Brazil for the bargain price of around US $462 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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