VentureBeat

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• Game startup Gimmie launches rewards platform for mobile apps
• 5 cloud trends you won’t want to miss in 2012
• Stephan Paternot’s Slated aims to disrupt Hollywood as the AngelList for film funding
• Let’s look at the all the spectrum T-Mobile is getting from AT&T
• State of the Union proves “Spilled Milk” is something to tweet about
• Social ad startup 33Across buys Tynt, taps into the power of copy and paste
• Modern Warfare 3 DLC schedule revealed: 12 maps, 6 missions, 2 game modes
• Dylan’s Desk: It’s the season for Monday-morning quarterbacking
• Review: The futuristic OnLive Desktop runs Windows apps on the iPad
• Privacy’s state of the union: Google follows Facebook down the path of no return
• Skyfire gets $8M to stream mobile videos without any wait
• Tapjoy’s Android Fund invests in 130 game makers
• Watch out Craigslist: ShopSavvy launches Savvylistings, a dead simple mobile marketplace
• How Graphicly is paving the way for self-published digital comic books
• THQ launches a Margaritaville Online Facebook game
• Tiny Tower devs are happy to inspire Zynga’s new game, Dream Heights (image)
• Obama calls for reforms to support the “next Steve Jobs”
• Megaupload kingpin Kim Dotcom denied bail in New Zealand
• LEGO Minecraft sets to become a reality, as project gets green light
• Guidewire Software seeks $115M IPO, debuts tomorrow
• Google changes privacy policy to make the company one big product
• Node at scale: What Google, Mozilla, & Yahoo are doing with Node.js
• Audiobooks.com lets you fill your ears for $25 per month
• Yahoo revenue down 13 percent in Q4, CEO says better execution needed
• Apple’s staggering Q1 earnings by the numbers
• Movie backed by Irish tech investors is nominated for an Oscar
• Apple sells record 37M iPhones in Q1 2012
• Apple smashes Q1 estimates with $13B profit; record iPhone, iPad, Mac sales
• One-time charge pushes AMD’s solid results for fourth quarter into the red
• Freelance marketplace Elance secures $16M in funding

Game startup Gimmie launches rewards platform for mobile apps Posted: 25 Jan 2012 09:00 AM PST Gimmie, a startup created by season game developers, is launching a new rewards program for users of mobile apps. San Francisco-based Gimmie has launched an incentives platform. It can boost in-app revenue, where users buys something like a virtual good inside an app, by giving game players real rewards for using apps or games. The company was started by Roy Liu, chief technology officer and one of the original developers at PopCap Games, and David Ng, chief executive and previously from China Cache. The company is launching its in-game incentives program today in a beta test with 10 mobile app developers and consumer brands. Liu was the lead developer for Plants vs. Zombies, one of PopCap’s most popular titles. They saw that earlier incentives forced users to leave an app to fill out a survey in exchange for benefits. With Gimmie, they wanted to work in reverse, rewarding users with items outside the app for performing actions within it. "The biggest part of developing a good mobile game is creating the best user experience, and so often mobile ads get in the way of this," said Jason Citron, founder of OpenFeint and an advisor. "Gimmie is the first monetization platform I’ve seen that doesn’t interfere with the game, and it provides a whole new way to help developers increase engagement that is fun for everyone. It's a dramatically different approach from any other platform I've seen." Peter Relan, chief executive of social/mobile game maker CrowdStar, offered a similar endorsement.  Gimmie works by letting mobile app users earn Gimmie points as they use apps. They can save and redeem the points by getting free or discounted real world products. Gimmie users can search for any rewards they want in a marketplace. The developer gets to make all of the decisions about how to implement the incentives. The programming is easy enough so that the developers can do it in a matter of minutes. Gimmie lets its brand partners target mobile app users that they want to reach via options for coupons and free products. The company has raised $200,000 in seed capital from the Tandem mobile incubator in Silicon Valley. The company was founded in late 2011 and it has five employees. Rivals include Tapjoy and Kiip. Filed under: games, mobile This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

5 cloud trends you won’t want to miss in 2012 Posted: 25 Jan 2012 08:50 AM PST Industry analysts like to refer to 2011 as “the year the cloud arrived.” But now that it’s here, what are we going to do with it? We’ve got a few ideas. Vendors are tripping over themselves to bolster their product lineups with cloud-hosted software and services, while customers in the public and private sectors alike are realizing the cost saving benefit of letting someone else worry about their servers and applications. And that’s not even mentioning the burgeoning consumer cloud market, where even Apple sees ample opportunity. Despite the hype, there’s a lot of substance to the cloud. Here are five trends that you’ll want to keep an eye on this year. Hybrid clouds Pop quiz: You’re an IT administrator at an insurance company, where strict internal mandates and Federal regulations alike require you to keep sensitive customer data on-premises and in your care. But you want to take advantage of affordable, scalable, externally-managed public cloud services, too. Enter the hybrid cloud. Every vendor has their own definition of what exactly “hybrid cloud” means, but at the core, the idea is that on-premises resources and the public cloud are joined for the best of both worlds. That way, data and applications that need to stay local can do so, while those apps that can be outsourced can get many of the benefits of the public cloud. As cloud computing picks up steam in 2012, more and more businesses are going to find that they need this mixed approach to meet their security and privacy guidelines. And vendors are ramping up to meet the challenge. On stage at CloudBeat 2011, Oracle technology product marketing VP Rick Schultz listed hybrid cloud enablement as a key priority for the recently-unveiled (and succinctly-named) Oracle Public Cloud. And speaking of CloudBeat, a survey we took at the event found that IT pros had hybrid clouds on their minds. Also, Cloud operating system Nimbula makes hybrid cloud management its specialty. With this much momentum, it seems likely that plenty of other vendors are going to be putting the hybrid cloud model into the spotlight this year. Consumer cloud services Unlike hybrid clouds, this is a trend you can see every day. Chances are pretty good you already have a Dropbox or a Box account for cloud file storage and sharing. Everyone has their choice of Google Apps or Microsoft Office Web Apps for everyday document creation and editing in their browsers. Android devices can choose between Amazon Cloud Player or Google Music for MP3s on the go. And perhaps most influentially, the Apple iPhone 4S brought with it the Apple iCloud, enabling the hordes of iOS customers to keep their music libraries, bookmarks, calendars and other files in sync wherever they go. As XKCD presciently pointed out, people are increasingly finding that all they need is a browser to get stuff done. If you need proof that 2012 is only going to make that ball rolling, then just look at this month’s CES coverage. As usual, where Apple goes, the technology market follows, and Acer took the lid off AcerCloud, its shameless iCloud competitor. LG and Gaikai are teaming up to bring video gaming straight from the cloud into your television set. Even Mercedes-Benz is putting a cloud-connected console straight into the dashboard. And so on. Pretty soon, there’s going to be no escaping the cloud, whether you’re at home, at the office, or even in between. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Before CES, I would have pegged this as another enterprise-focused, behind-the-scenes kind of avenue of cloud innovation. But then OnLive, best known for streaming video games from the cloud, debuted OnLive Desktop, and opened the door for the consumer, too. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is an acronym that pretty much what it sounds like: Essentially, it gives you a remotely-accessible virtual desktop that simulates a computer that doesn’t (physically) exist. For businesses, the value can be immense: Rather than buy five hundred desktops, just build a VDI cloud or contract one out from a third-party provider, and a dozen people can share one computer’s worth of resources. As an added benefit, employees can often log on from any computer that has an Internet connection and have their exact same work desktop waiting for them wherever they go. And when the size of the workforce changes, it’s easier and cheaper to provision and delete accounts than it is to buy a new machine or reformat it for a new user. Plus, in the rising “bring-your-own-device” era of IT, the ability to run any enterprise app on a tablet or smartphone is too good a bonus to pass up. OnLive isn’t the only company that sees market potential here. Startup dinCloud kicked off 2012 by raising a cool million in seed funding for its cloud-hosted VDI service, with investors no doubt drawn by the fact that it launched with support from major players like NetApp. But that’s small potatoes next to the $70 million Goldman Sachs invested in AppSense in the early part of 2011, as it predicted that the VDI market would hit $2 billion over the next several years. And as the Google Chromebook, the Apple iPad and other mobile devices continue to rise in popularity this year, VDI is in a good place to help make them business-worthy, since what’s under the hood matters a lot less than the strength of the network connection. Open source and open standards The OpenStack open source cloud platform may have started in 2010, but 2011 was the year that it really kicked into high gear. Built on community-contributed code, OpenStack aims to let any enterprise deliver its own infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform on standard hardware. OpenStack project founders Rackspace and NASA were joined by a community of over 110 other vendors, including heavyweights like HP, Dell and Citrix, as it debuted no less than three major feature releases. And while OpenStack’s leadership openly admits that there’s still a ways to go before it can compete with entrenched vendors like Microsoft and VMware in the data center on its own terms, the platform is maturing quickly and 2012 is going to see many companies build real, functional, salable cloud offerings on top of OpenStack. But OpenStack isn’t the final word on open source in the cloud by a long shot: Apache Hadoop came out of beta earlier in January, giving companies tools to manage huge amounts of data, and the Oracle Big Data Appliance is already using it. The Open Data Center Alliance is going to continue its mission of improving and standardizing more efficient cloud facility designs. Node.js is only getting more popular for developing web applications. Even US Federal Chief Information Officer and Administrator Steven VanRoekel has publicly trumpeted the development of open standards in the cloud as a priority for his office. And there are many more initiatives out there, besides. Vendors are moving to both open up and standardize the cloud, with an end goal of completely eradicating the concept of cloud vendor lock-in – which has stood as one of those major obstacles to cloud adoption mentioned before. Cloud legislation Here’s where things get a little sticky. There’s a reason Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier was originally slated to testify against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on January 18th – though with the January 17th announcement that the debate over the controversial would be tabled for a month, Napier never wound up following through. As a prominent cloud service provider, Rackspace stands to suffer in unforeseen ways under the act. If a customer stores infringing material in their cloud, is Rackspace liable? If so, would they be required to turn off that customer’s access with no warning? And so on, and so forth. SOPA is problematic in many ways, and 2012 is going to bring a lot of confusion before it brings answers. Meanwhile, across the pond, European businesses are rethinking their own cloud migrations for a reason you may not expect. It turns out that any data stored with a cloud provider based in the USA is legally vulnerable to the Patriot Act, granting American authorities essentially unlimited license to potentially sift and analyze it without ever letting the customer know. Microsoft signed the EU model clauses for its Microsoft Office 365 cloud productivity suite as a way to quell fears, but several analysts have found it to be an insufficient safeguard against that kind of privacy breach.  The debate over legal issues in the cloud is only going to heat up as we find more questions and fewer answers. And it seems only a matter of time before someone somewhere introduces legislation to try to address these issues. What do you think? The cloud’s a busy place these days, and there’s more going on than just five things. Where do you see the cloud going in 2012? Let us know in the comments below. [Image courtesy of NASA/Flickr] Filed under: cloud This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Stephan Paternot’s Slated aims to disrupt Hollywood as the AngelList for film funding Posted: 25 Jan 2012 08:47 AM PST Stephan Paternot Hollywood and the tech industry have come to view one another as an existential threat. Many in the tech industry thought SOPA and PIPA, bills backed by the entertainment industry, would destroy the internet. In response Paul Graham, the svengali of of the startup community, posted an essay calling for ideas that would kill Hollywood. “What you’re seeing with Hollywood is the result of a dysfunctional incumbent desperate to save itself,” said Stephan Paternot, founder of Slated. “What we need is not just new methods of distribution, like Netflix and Hulu, but going farther up the food chain, to find new platforms for creating big budget independent films.” Parternot has long been ahead of the curve. He founded The Globe, one of the earliest attempts to build an online social network. It was the most spectacular IPO of the dot-com boom, and also one of the biggest busts when the bubble burst. His experience with the public markets got Paternot thinking about alternative systems for funding. “I’ve been investing in ideas around crowd sourcing for a while now. I backed IndyGoGo and Lending Club.” Paternot told Venturebeat by phone. ‘To me, finding more efficient ways of allocating capital is going to be the next big wave of successful internet companies.” Inspired by AngelList, Paternot founded Slated, a private marketplace for accredited investors to track and back independent film projects. Just like AngelList, its needs to establish a critical mass of well respected talent and investors if it hopes to succeed. So far its signed up producers from notable indie films like The Kids Are Allright, Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth, and The Station Agent. On the actor side it has projects starring names like William H. Macy, Sam Rockwell, Liv Tyler, and Felicity Huffman. Slated claims to have over $100,000,000 in capital lined up on the investor side already. Why can’t the small studios and speciality divisions of Hollywood handle this business? “Unfortunately, Hollywood remains inefficient, insular and opaque, always acting as an agent between investors and the projects that need their capital and collecting its ‘fees’ on the backs of investors,” Paternot declared. “Combine this gatekeeper mentality with the closed communication silos of the agencies and studios, and the results are massive inefficiencies across all levels of the industry, especially in the movement of capital.” Paternot is an investor in SecondMarket and conversely, SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert is an investor in Slated. “What we have right now is phase one of Slated, which is close to the AngelList model.” But while that helps to allocate capital, it doesn’t change a system in which theaters and distributors get paid before the producers who took on the most risk investing in the creation of a film. “Phase two will be closer to SecondMarket, where we act as registered broker dealer and make sure that the investors who risked the most on producing these films get to see their fair share of the rewards.” It’s far two early to tell if the film industry will take to this new marketplace. But if the growth of pledges on Kickstarter and shares on SecondMarket is any guide, there is very healthy appetite for new channels through which to invest in the private projects which were once the domain of Wall Street and Hollywood. Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Let’s look at the all the spectrum T-Mobile is getting from AT&T Posted: 25 Jan 2012 08:47 AM PST With the AT&T-T-Mobile merger dead, AT&T is lined up to give away precious mobile spectrum that covers 128 cellular market areas to T-Mobile. But what exactly does that look like on the U.S. map? The fine folks at GigaOM and spectrum expert Andrew Shepherd have developed a handy map, seen above, that shows exactly where T-Mobile will be getting new spectrum additions, which will help the company improve its own 4G offerings. As noted on the map, cities that will be getting a boost in T-Mobile coverage include Boston, San Francisco/Oakland, Washington, D.C., Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., San Jose, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City. AT&T very carefully picked which cities it could give up spectrum to make sure it could still launch a decent-size 4G LTE network in those cities. The catastrophic break up fee from the AT&T-T-Mobile merger not only included the spectrum noted above but also will give T-Mobile a broad 3G roaming agreement that will make life easier for T-Mobile customers out of range. On top of doling out valuable spectrum and the roaming agreement, AT&T had to pay $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom. With this loss of spectrum, AT&T has little choice but to look to new deals to get its hands on more spectrum. One option could be for AT&T to buy Dish Network. Dish owns lots of wireless spectrum to deliver its television service to customers and it even has talked in the past about partnering with T-Mobile to offer wireless phone service. Previous reports suggested that AT&T could pay as much to $50 a share for Dish, which would be considerable premium on its stock. Filed under: deals, social This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

State of the Union proves “Spilled Milk” is something to tweet about Posted: 25 Jan 2012 07:59 AM PST When it comes to significant events that are shared across the country (and sometimes the world), Twitter is getting increasingly good at making sense of the real-time data collected from tweets. Take for example last night’s State of the Union address, which racked up 766,681 tweets during the full 95-minute event. Twitter has previously reported moments of unusually high activity, such as pop singer Beyonce's pregnancy announcement during MTV Video Music Awards, a tense U.S. women's soccer team game, and Japan's New Year's Eve 2010 celebration. The most frequently cited metric Twitter uses during these events is "tweet's per second" (TPS), which is determined by measuring the number of times the world mentions a specific subjected over the course of a single second in time. Although during President Barack Obama’s address, the company thought it more relevant to use a Tweets per minute (TPM) metric. According to Twitter’s analysis, the most frequently tweeted minutes included a mention of Education / College Tuition (12,870 TPM) at 9:35 p.m. ET, Innovation / Steve Jobs (13,956 TPM) at 9:38 p.m. ET, and — oddly enough — a joke mentioning “Spilled Milk” (14,131 TPM) at 9:51 p.m. ET. The core themes mentioned in Tweets during the address included education (35, 972), energy (27,215) and jobs (22,502). Also, Twitter counted 548 total tweets sent by members of congress during the address. While the data is definitely interesting, I’m more impressed with Twitter’s quick turn around as well as the relevant metrics identified. The company is definitely planning to use its real-time data to show genuine behavior, and the demonstrations presented from the State of the Union address are likely barely scratching the surface. Following the data results, Vice President Joe Biden announced that he would participate in his first Twitter discussion tomorrow (Jan. 26.), undoubtedly with the aid of a tech-savvy intern or administrative aid. For a more detailed look at the data, check out the infographic from Twitter embedded below. (Click image to enlarge.) Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Social ad startup 33Across buys Tynt, taps into the power of copy and paste Posted: 25 Jan 2012 07:38 AM PST Like a match made in social data heaven, social ad targeting startup 33Across announced today that it has snapped up Tynt Multimedia, a company that helps publishers track reader engagement through the age old technique of copy and paste. Combined with its own extensive data on brands, 33Across says that the acquisition gives it “the largest social and brand graph in the world,” thanks to the 500,000 publishers using Tynt’s technology. Tynt alone reaches 1.25 billion people worldwide — or about three-quarters of the global online audience — more than Google or Facebook’s reach. (If you’ve ever copied text from a website and found a URL with your pasted result, that’s all Tynt.) “The reason why we bought Tynt is that we think publishers are struggling, and we think we can help,” 33Across CEO Eric Wheeler told VentureBeat in an interview. “Social is transforming the world, publishers need to understand the data, actions, and graph around their readers… to understand how all of the data is being shared,” he later added. Tynt’s publishers will now be able to take advantage of 33Across’s Brand Graph, letting them track their social influence across the web, while 33Across will be able to use Tynt’s reach in future ad solutions. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Wheeler mentioned that the deal was a private stock transaction. 33Across will be acquiring all of Tynt’s assets, patents, and employees. Tynt will continue to function independently as a 33Across company. “The overwhelming majority of this is an offensive move,” Wheeler said. “We think the future is about big data and big social , real-time all around a brand.” Filed under: deals, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Modern Warfare 3 DLC schedule revealed: 12 maps, 6 missions, 2 game modes Posted: 25 Jan 2012 07:25 AM PST Activision has outlined its downloadable content (DLC) schedule for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 during 2012. There are 20 pieces of DLC due in total, which will be made available to Elite Premium subscribers over a nine month ‘content season’. The DLC is key to Activision Blizzard’s ability to charge a monthly fee for its new Call of Duty Elite service. Premium members who pay $4.99 a month can get the “content drops” for free. Getting players engaged in year-round playing, rather than just buying a game once a year, is key to shifting the games to a service-based business model. In addition to the Liberation and Piazza maps, released on Xbox 360 this week, there will be ten further multiplayer maps added to the game during the year. Activision has also revealed that there will be two new game modes appearing, one in June and one in August, along with a total of six new Special Ops missions. This content will be released in 20 'drops' for subscribers to the paid Elite Premium service, which costs $50 a year. Non-Elite customers will also be able to purchase the maps, which are being developed by Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software, at a later date. The price for the standalone DLC has not yet been announced, but map packs, typically containing five maps, have previously cost $15, or 1200 MS Points. The 2012 DLC calendar, at least for Xbox 360 Elite subscribers, is as follows: January: Two new maps (Liberation and Piazza) February: New map March: New map, two new Spec Ops missions April: Two new maps May: New map, new Spec Ops mission June: New map, new Spec Ops mission, new game mode July: Two new maps August: New map, new Spec Ops mission, new game mode September: New map, new Spec Ops mission While many PS3 and PC players are also signed up to the Elite service, there has been no official word on when they will receive their DLC. Microsoft and Activision signed an agreement in 2010, which gave all Call of Duty DLC timed exclusivity on the Xbox 360 platform, and this agreement is still in place. When questioned on Twitter about DLC timing, Robert Bowling, Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward said, "I don’t control release dates, however I can assure [you] that every platform will get the same amount of content and months of content." This lack of clarity hasn’t helped diffuse the anger of many PS3 and PC players, whose Elite membership has left them feeling anything but elite. Dean gave his hands-on impressions of the new Piazza and Liberation maps yesterday. The official trailer for the two maps is embedded below. Filed under: games, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Dylan’s Desk: It’s the season for Monday-morning quarterbacking Posted: 25 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST If you subscribe to my newsletter you can read these columns a whole day before they appear on our website. And check out my other essays in the Dylan’s Desk series. As the San Francisco 49ers fumbled their shot at a Superbowl appearance on Sunday, you could almost hear the Monday-morning quarterbacks warming up their complaints. It’s no different in Silicon Valley, where the competitive sport is tech business instead of slamming heads together. Just like in football, anyone who’s not on the field has a strong opinion about how each play should have gone down. That’s especially true for the plays that end badly. Take Research in Motion, for instance, which this week announced that its two CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, would be stepping aside. Everyone in California, where software is king, has been chortling about how slow RIM has been to wake up to the new reality. To be honest, we’ve been shaking our heads about RIM for over a year now. At a panel I spoke on at CES earlier this month, the moderator asked us whether Microsoft should buy RIM. My answer was “Why?” I honestly couldn’t think of any reason why Microsoft would benefit from that acquisition. But it’s easy for me to say that Lazaridis and Balsillie have driven the company down the wrong road. If I were in charge of RIM, what would I have done differently? It’s not easy to see where the company went wrong. Sure, its PlayBook was a brain-dead attempt to make a captive tablet, and the product managers who dreamed up the idea of a tablet that can’t do email or contacts should be fired. But the PlayBook didn’t kill RIM. Nor did the lack of a touchscreen phone, as the company’s Storm line has been delivering an innovative touchscreen experience for several years now. If anything, the thing that killed RIM was simply that it was RIM. Its entire value has been built upon the tight integration of its hardware, software, and a data network that was, until recently, the fastest, most reliable and most secure way to get email via a mobile device. The company couldn’t replace any piece of that tightly-integrated vertical stack (switching to Android, for instance) without bringing the whole edifice down. And as long as the business was generating cash, it would have been fiscally irresponsible to do so. Similarly, it’s easy to mock Yahoo for being behind the times, slow to figure out where its true value lies, and stupid for outsourcing its core search technology. As I write these words, Yahoo hasn’t yet released its earnings (scheduled for Tuesday of this week), but I would be flabbergasted if the company showed anything other than a depressing slide in most of its important metrics. And yes, there are some obvious places where Yahoo needs to improve: Eliminating a huge number of underproductive middle managers, for starters. (As the old joke goes, “How many people work at Yahoo?” Answer: About half of them.) But Yahoo, for all its faults, has an enormous audience, 700 million strong by some estimates, and a wide array of compelling products. Many of those customers are regular users who come to the portal every day for news, entertainment, or to connect with their friends through services like Yahoo Groups. Sure, many those products are probably built on top of 15-year-old code, haven’t been updated since the day Yahoo acquired them, and are ugly as sin, but they still work pretty darn well for their core audience. Anyone who tried to turn Yahoo into the next hip social network company, a la Foursquare, would instantly alienate its core audience (suburban parents) and drive a stake through its revenues. So what would you do if you were in new CEO Scott Thompson‘s chair? The path forward is not as obvious now as it will appear three years from now, in hindsight. Plus, the whole idea that giant companies get too slow and stupid to adjust to the times is just naive. In reality, it’s the classic innovator’s dilemma: A company with a huge, proven revenue stream is not going to sacrifice it in order to make a bet on unproven future revenues. It reminds me of the pundits who smugly talk about how massive companies can’t adjust to the new times because they misunderstand their true value. Railroad companies couldn’t manage the transition to the automobile-centric world, these experts say, because they didn’t understand they were in the transportation business. Similarly, newspapers are dying because they failed to understand that they’re in the information business. Bull. Railroad companies are in the “laying track and sending trains along it” business. Similarly, newspapers are in the “putting ink on newsprint and throwing it on your front porch” business. Both were fantastically profitable businesses, while they lasted, because they offered virtual monopolies. When new technologies chipped away at those monopolies, the companies had no incentive to invest in the new technologies because to do so would be injurious to their fat profit margins. It’s only when the monopoly runs out and the company is hanging over a cliff that it makes sense to change its way of doing things, and by then, it’s too late. So what should companies like RIM and Yahoo do? What should Kodak have done before it hit Chapter 11 last week? How about HP, whose many hapless CEOs helped send the company from Silicon Valley cornerstone to local embarrassment in little over a year? If you have the answers, let me know. I’ll compile the best responses into a future column. Photo: Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Review: The futuristic OnLive Desktop runs Windows apps on the iPad Posted: 25 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST The current state of computing is always under scrutiny and speculation. For years laptop and desktop computers have been proclaimed dead, most recently in the face of smartphones and tablet computers. OnLive Desktop may be the first sign of an evolution for everyday PC computing, one that would silence naysayers and utilize all types of application-driven computing devices. OnLive Desktop – from OnLive, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based cloud-gaming company – is a Windows 7 work environment, streaming from the cloud, as a simple downloadable app. Using the same technology from its OnLive cloud gaming client, OnLive Desktop promises to deliver a desktop computing experience on tablets and smartphones. In this way, all devices do is display what's on the Windows desktop and provide touch feedback. All of the processing is done on the backend. OnLive CEO Steve Perlman unveiled OnLive Desktop at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. The significance of OnLive Desktop is that, in time, users will be able to have a full Windows computer in the cloud, as long as they have a free app and an Internet connection. Currently the service is limited to the iPad, though it is scheduled to be released for Android, other iOS devices, Windows, and OS X. This review is of the OnLive Desktop Standard edition. Pro and Enterprise versions will release in the near future with more features. A Veritable Windows Machine OnLive Desktop isn't just a bare Windows 7 workspace. It comes with applications available for immediate use, including Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, along with basic Windows applications such as Paint, Media Player, Notepad, Calculator, etc. All of the basics you would expect from a Windows 7 machine are immediately available through OnLive Desktop. There are a few key differences, mostly from the operating system. It isn't your typical Windows 7 Home or Premium edition; instead, it's Windows 7 Touch, designed specifically for touch-enabled devices. We'll get to touch performance later on, but that means is that the entire OS works similar to the Microsoft Surface table: a multi-touch surface in a Windows environment. Several Surface applications are included, such as Microsoft Surface Collage, and a handful of Surface games. After a basic login screen, users are dropped at the standard Windows 7 desktop. The available Office applications, a folder of Surface apps, sample Office documents and the Getting Started Guide are all that sit on the desktop. For all intents and purposes, it is a Windows-based machine on an iPad. However, there are specific features missing on the Standard version of OnLive Desktop. There is no web browser. OnLive has struggled to find a solution to provide a web browser that handles all the data on their servers, but simultaneously doesn't go to dangerous websites that could harm the servers. OnLive Desktop Standard does not have a built-in web browser, but then again iPad owners can just switch into the iPad's Safari web browser, and go back into the OnLive Desktop when done. The bigger letdown is that copied material isn't saved to the Windows clipboard, so copied text or images can't be pasted to Windows. Settings cannot be adjusted for the Windows machine either, at least not yet. I found the touch cursor is slightly off, but there is no way to adjust it. No other functions can be adjusted whatsoever. Documents and data can be transferred to the OnLive Desktop through any computer by uploading directly to OnLive's website. After logging in, users can upload up to 2GB of data (pay-for subscriptions will include more space). Solid, but Mediocre Video Compression The biggest difference between a native Windows computer and the OnLive Desktop app is, of course, that the latter is streaming. Unlike OnLive's gaming client, which streams games through computers, tablets and smartphones, the video compression algorithm is different and made more suitable for standard desktop computing. It makes sense from a theoretical standpoint – videogames are far more intensive than, say, a Powerpoint presentation, which is almost constantly static. The video compression, or how Windows looks on the iPad, is solid, but rarely clear or crisp. While typing several articles using Word, sometimes the text would be too difficult to read on the screen, even with an excellent Wi-Fi connection. In fact, how strong the connection is makes almost no difference in the quality of video, unless it's a poor connection to begin with. What lowers the screen quality is, in fact, heavy use of the app. Typing articles, for instance, using an external keyboard (the Windows on-screen keyboard is absolutely awful; to take full advantage of everything OnLive Desktop has to offer, use a Bluetooth keyboard) constantly sends data up and down, to and from OnLive's servers. It may be just a few bytes at a time, but the constant hounding seems to lower quality of video regularly. Every minute or so the screen quality dropped severely, but would return to visible quality in a few seconds. To get crisp, clean visibility requires users to not upload data consistently. In other words, the less you do – for instance, the less you use the touchscreen or the less you type – the less data is uploaded to OnLive's servers and slowing down the connection. Watching videos, reading documents, and showing Powerpoint presentations all provide high quality visuals. More intensive applications like Microsoft Surface Collage, where users can manipulate photos by touch, don't appear as distorted or pixelated as text-based apps. Graphically-intensive applications also have data processed by more powerful servers, though for now it's too difficult to tell whether or not that is occurring here. Lag time is, for the most part, nonintrusive. Typing documents, creating Powerpoints, and almost every other task has slight and noticeable lag, but it isn't a bother. Lag is most visible when using apps like Paint, where it may take a half-second for the paintbrush to reach where you've drawn. The lag currently present will not cause any workflow problems, at least for the currently available applications. Potentially Disruptive Today, OnLive Desktop is a solid application client that has all the basic functions of a Windows computer freely available for all iPad users. Along with the basic Office apps and the Windows 7 Touch environment, OnLive Desktop has the potential to change the way we use tablets and smartphones, and perhaps even PCs. With a Windows-based machine as readily available as an internet connection, this technology may be paving the way for the future of cloud computing. There are, however, severe limitations with what can be done currently with the service. File support is minimal, there are only a few applications currently available, the display quality is mediocre regardless of the internet connection, and there is no personalization whatsoever. Even with these misgivings, as a free service for anyone with an iPad, and soon with an Android or iOS based device, there is nothing like OnLive Desktop anywhere. VPN offers a similar solution, but it isn't cloud based and requires a separate computer for users to manage. With OnLive Desktop, someone else handles everything. And an exceptional side effect to the service is because it runs on tablets, which generally have excellent battery life, running OnLive Desktop actually lasts longer than a traditional laptop. For now, OnLive Desktop Standard shows a taste of what's to come with future service plans. There are plenty of improvements to be made on the service today, but I recommend all iPad owner download the free application and try it out. OnLive Desktop opens the first gateway into actual cloud computing, with a full desktop workspace. Apple may believe that it is cannibalizing Windows PCs with monstrous sales of iPads, but with a service like this, more people than ever may start using Windows in ways never before imagined. Filed under: cloud, games, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Privacy’s state of the union: Google follows Facebook down the path of no return Posted: 25 Jan 2012 06:07 AM PST It will always be with you Google made some sweeping changes to its privacy policies yesterday. It let users know it will be combining data from all of its services, from search to email to photos. This will give Google a much more detailed picture of its users, allowing it to deliver more relevant services, and of course, more targeted advertisements. People have a right to be angry about this. Faye Kakia, a fashion designer who creates virtual clothing to sell in Second Life, used Google’s blogger service to showcase her outfits. She was upset when Blogger began leading people back to her Google+ profile, revealing her true identity. By combining its services, Google makes anonymity more difficult. But for Google to survive in the long-term, the company had to make this change. Google’s revenue comes almost entirely from advertising, and advertisers are increasingly turning to Facebook, because it enables them to target users based on their personal information and social graph. That’s why Larry Page has reportedly been telling employees who are unhappy about integrating social results into search, “This is the path we’re headed down, a single, unified, beautiful product across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work somewhere else.” As I wrote over the weekend, Google has the raw material to build a powerful social network. There are hundreds of millions of people who use Gmail. The service can already recognize the difference between my friends, my family and my co-workers. Through Picasa, it can automatically recognize them in photos, just as Facebook does. And with Android it is beginning to chart the most intimate social graph, the people we call and text with. It’s important to remember among all this hysteria that Google won’t be getting rid of its original search product, which is completely agnostic when it comes to social relevancy. With a single click users can turn off all the social mojo and have the old-fashioned search results they are used to. And as Kashmir Hill points out, since 2005 Google has stated in its privacy policy that it combines information from different services to get the best picture of users. Google will be in for some major headaches down the road. Just like Facebook, it will experience intense public backlash every time it deepens its collection of people’s personal data. Idealistic alternatives like Diaspora have appeared, but so far no one has created an alternative business model for the social web, one that leaves users personal data alone, and also grows a profitable business at scale. Filed under: social, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Skyfire gets $8M to stream mobile videos without any wait Posted: 25 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST Mobile browsing and video optimization company Skyfire announced today it has raised $8 million in its third round of funding. Verizon Investments led the round, with participation from current investors Matrix Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Skyfire gained popularity as an alternative to the stock browsers on Android and iOS devices. Since Apple does not provide Flash support for its mobile devices, many people flocked to Skyfire's browser apps to watch in-browser Flash videos on their iPhones and iPads. "The game plan from the beginning of the company has been to learn from the consumer market, hone our customer experience and use that as a proving ground for our carrier technology, which we believe will drive our revenue growth," said Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck in an interview with VentureBeat. Beyond delivering Flash content to phones, Skyfire's recently launched Rocket Optimizer tool makes videos faster on mobile devices and less data-hogging. Rocket Optimizer uses cloud technology to optimize video content from nearly any source to prevent congestion on mobile networks. Skyfire can detect when bandwidth congestion occurs and intervene to keep cell towers from becoming overloaded. "We can use the network to determine where congestion is and route all the video through our cloud adaptation engine," said Glueck, "We're not trying to touch all the video going through a 4G network, we are looking for bottlenecks so we can intervene." Another Skyfire product, Rocket Toolbar, is set to launch in late 2012. Rocket Toolbar is a scrollable toolbar embedded into a phone's default browser that uses content from webpages to make recommendations and enhance the browsing experience. Cell phone carriers can choose the content that ends up in the toolbar — Facebook, news outlets, mobile shopping sites, carrier-specific content, app recommendations — and the cell phone owner can personalize the content to meet their needs. "The carrier can customize the default content on the toolbar, but it's very important for the user to fully customize the toolbar, download any app they want, or even turn it off," Glueck said. Skyfire will use the new round of funding to keep up with growing demand from wireless carriers with increased engineering, sales, and support efforts. Skyfire is expanding into Europe with this new funding by opening an office in London and has plans to expand into Asian markets as well. Skyfire uses cloud technology to enhance mobile web browsing and video streaming. The company is based in Mountain View, CA and has about 50 employees. To date, Skyfire has raised $31M from Matrix Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Filed under: deals, mobile This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Tapjoy’s Android Fund invests in 130 game makers Posted: 25 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST Tapjoy said today that its $5 million Android Fund has invested in 130 game developers over the past seven months. The fund provides both expertise and money for game developers to port their existing apps to the fast-growing Android platform. Tapjoy said it received hundreds of applications for the fund. It did not say how much each company received. Tapjoy also says that its Android network grew from 171,000 monthly active users in January 2011 to more than 25 million in December. That’s huge growth, enabled in part because Tapjoy shifted its strategic focus to Android after Apple cracked down on its incentive-based install program. If you recall, Apple banned the lucrative pay-per-install apps, where developers could take out ads as part of Tapjoy’s ad network, which would place ads into popular mobile apps. Those ads would reward gamers with virtual goods in their favorite apps if they agreed to download another app. Apple never explained its rationale, but it appeared to do so because too many app makers were buying their way to the top 25 lists of most popular apps. After the crackdown, Tapjoy shifted quickly to Android, where pay-per-install programs weren’t banned. It also set up the Tapjoy Android Fund. Tapjoy said it has launched several big hits from its Android Fund portfolio. The company can promote its apps to an ever-increasing base of Android users who are eager to discover new and relevant apps. The fund includes hit titles MachineWorks Northwest's 3D Hunting: Alaskan Hunt. That game had more than 1 million total users. Other hits include Duke Nukem, which reached the top of the charts for Arcade & Action games; Craneballs Studios' Overkill (pictured at top), with more than 900,000 users; Making Fun’s Santa's Village, which has 680,000 users. Developers in the fund include CerebralFix, Sneaky Games, SkyVu, Bushi-Go, Galatea, Candella Software, Liv Games, Mention Mobile, Veraxon, Digital Harmony, PixoFactor, and Stark Apps. More apps will be launching in the coming weeks and months. "Our goal for the Tapjoy Android Fund was to help enhance the Android ecosystem by bringing great games from Facebook, iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) and other platforms to the Android Market," said Rob Carroll, director of publishing for Tapjoy. "Our fund is unique in that we don't ask for creative control and we don't push developers to adopt one strategy over another; we simply identify talented teams and arm them with the tools and resources they need to quickly build their apps and then turn them into top hits." The Tapjoy Android Fund offers monetary and discovery support, or getting games noticed. Developers who join it can get access to large-scale distribution through Tapjoy’s performance-based ad network, which recommends apps based on a user’s interests. Developers can use Tapjoy’s virtual currency platform to monetize their virtual economy, where users play a game for free and pay real money for virtual goods inside the games. Tapjoy offers analytics and other services, essentially becoming a one-stop shop for publishing mobile games. Tapjoy said that it has grown a lot in both Asia and Europe. One example of that is the partnership with Turkey’s Craneballs Studios. Tapjoy is backed by top-tier investors including J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Rho Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, InterWest Partners and D.E. Shaw Ventures. Filed under: games, mobile This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Watch out Craigslist: ShopSavvy launches Savvylistings, a dead simple mobile marketplace Posted: 25 Jan 2012 05:00 AM PST Even with the advent of online marketplaces like eBay and Craigslist, it’s far too easy to accumulate junk that you’d be better off selling. Now there’s an easier way to sell your aging and neglected collection of vintage records. ShopSavvy, maker of the popular mobile bar code scanning apps, is today announcing SavvyListings, a service that will let you offer anything for sale simply by scanning a bar code. Afterwards, you only need enter the price (ShopSavvy offers recommendations for prices of similar products in your area) and product condition to make it available to the company’s 20 million users. There’s no need to add a lengthy description or product photos. Adding the ability to sell items right from within the ShopSavvy app was one of the company’s most request features, co-founder and CEO Alexander Muse told VentureBeat in an interview. Coming hot off a recent funding round of $7 million and a major app update, Muse said that the company wanted to deliver a valuable new feature to tide over users as it worked on tablet and web versions of ShopSavvy. The new service shows that ShopSavvy still has plenty of room to grow and experiment — not bad for something that started out as a fairly simple Android app. Now ShopSavvy is one of the most widely used shopping comparison apps around. The first iteration of SavvyListings functions like a mobile-focused version of Craigslist, as Muse describes it. The service focuses on local interactions, since it’s far easier to sell things to people who live nearby, and it also offers an obfuscated way for buyers and sellers to communicate. Best of all, ShopSavvy is offering the service completely for free, and it won’t be taking any fees from transactions. Muse says the company is also working on adding product buyback capabilities to SavvyListings eventually, so if nobody wants to buy your iPhone at your set price, you’ll be able to sell it back to the manufacturer or a gadget reseller right from within the app for less. The company has formed an agreement with the same firm that powers the popular reseller Gazelle, which means the buyback feature will likely function smoothly once implemented. Eventually, Muse says that SavvyListings will be able to complete the entire transaction from within the app. ShopSavvy has offices in San Francisco, Calif. and Dallas, Texas, and has thus far raised a total of $11.5 million. It’s most recent funding round was notably led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

How Graphicly is paving the way for self-published digital comic books Posted: 25 Jan 2012 04:58 AM PST While technology has certainly made it easier for people to self-publish comic books or graphic novels, the same isn’t true when it comes to digital distribution — or getting self-published “indie” comic books into multiple online stores so people at least have the option of making a purchase. Basically, the lack of affordable distribution options for self-published comic books makes it difficult for creators to turn their work into a business. But with over 300,000 self-pubilshed creators expected to begin selling their own comic books and graphic novels in 2012, digital comic book startup Graphicly sees a huge opportunity for growth. In addition to Graphicly’s web and Facebook distribution channels, the company recently opened up its platform for self-published comic book creators to sell their work across several different digital bookstores, including Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon’s Kindle store, the Android Market, Barnes & Noble, and other. Creators pay an initial “conversion fee” for each comic book they want to distribute, and retain most or all of the revenue depending on the distribution channel. Sales made through Graphicly’s online store or integrated Facebook store are free, but sales through channels like the iBookstore still incur a revenue sharing fee. Considering the extremely high costs associated with making a single self-published comic book series available across all of the aforementioned stores/platforms, Graphicly’s “distribution as a service” model makes perfect sense for most self-publishers. The company estimates that it can implement a new comic book into all the appropriate distribution channels a week after receiving a PDF file of the book itself. Self-published comic book creators also gain access to a useful set of analytics tools, which measure things like the average length of time people read a book, number of total readers, what platform people are using, social activity, and much more. This kind of information will definitely be useful to self-publishers with limited resources for marketing and promotion. And since the analytics tools measure a customer’s behavior, it could drastically change the way stories are told, according to Graphicly CEO Micah Baldwin. “From our initial testing with the analytics tools we discovered that most people read an average of 3 to 4 minutes for each full length comic book before putting it down,” Baldwin said in an interview with VentureBeat. Having been a serious comic book reader for decades, I determined that this length of time is roughly about how long people need something to read while sitting on the toilet. And while Baldwin jokingly agreed, he went on to explain how future creators might want to publish a new issue after three or four pages rather than the currently industry standard of 22-pages per monthly comic book. “The only reason 22-pages is the standard length of a comic book is because most artists can typically finish drawing one page per day… So, 22 pages spread out over the entire month, they would have enough time to finish the whole issue,” he said. For example, if a self-published comic book creator determined that people only read five pages at a time based on Graphicly’s analytics, it might change the frequency of distribution. That in turn might improve reader engagement, which could impact sales. Why Graphicly’s self-publishing model will disrupt the comic book industry Previously, Graphicly concentrated on its own distribution channel for a handful of major comic book publishers like Image, Marvel and IDW as well as a variety of smaller and creator-owned publishers. The distribution channel can be integrated within a Facebook company page or official website, which gives it an advantage over competitors like comiXology because it combines the marketing efforts of publishers with Graphicly’s own promotional efforts. Graphicly generates revenue by taking a cut from each comic book sale, much in the same way that both Apple and Amazon do with their respective digital book stores. The inherent problem with this strategy is that people inevitably favor the platform with the most “complete” collection of media in its library, which often contains exclusive content unavailable to competitors. For example, Netflix has the largest library of streaming video content and the most streaming video subscribers. As for digital comic books, comiXology has the largest selection of content from all the major publishers and likely the highest base of customers among digital comic book distribution channels. While Graphicly has more content available by a much larger number of publishers, it still lacks inventory from DC Comics, which brings in the majority of all comic book sales (digital and print). And since digital purchases are only stored within each individual distributor’s platform, its likely that people will end up choosing the platform with the most complete selection of content available for purchase. Rather than solely compete with comiXology or others like it, Graphicly decided to tweak its business model. The startup will continue offering popular comic books within its own distribution channel for publishers with a high volume of sales and taking a percentage of the revenue. But now, smaller publishers and self-published creators will pay a base fee for each comic book ($150 per book) they want to distribute through Graphicly and keep all the revenue. “The beauty of this model is that we don’t need DC Comics to succeed,” Baldwin said. “Hopefully, DC and other big publishers will eventually see the value of Graphicly’s distribution and analytics,” which will bring them on board, he added. Essentially, if you can generate at least $150 in sales from your self-published comic book, you are earning a return — excluding any other operating costs. And since the Graphicly platform makes the book available on all major digital bookstores it improves the possibility for higher sales. Compared to printing costs, the “conversion fee” is also a cheaper means of distribution — making it possible for more independent creators to publish books. (It’s worth noting that Baldwin said the $150 fee is “beta pricing” and will likely change to better fit the needs of each small publisher as the platform gains steam.) The new publishing platform is available to current Graphicly publishers, with a full roll out coming in the next few weeks. The Boulder, Colorado-based startup closed a $3 million funding round in January 2011 led by DFJ Mercury, with participation from 500 Startups, Dundee VC, Ludlow Ventures, and individual angel investors. The company was incubated by TechStars and previously raised $1.2 million from DFJ Mercury and others. It has 20 employees and has raised a total $4.2 million to date. Filed under: media, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

THQ launches a Margaritaville Online Facebook game Posted: 24 Jan 2012 10:52 PM PST In a major attempt to diversify, traditional video game publisher THQ is launching its Margaritaville Online social game on Facebook today. Inspired by the Jimmy Buffett song, the game is an escapist fantasy and a major release for Agoura Hills, Calif.-based THQ. The has been making traditional PC and console games for more than a decade, but it’s struggling to set itself apart by creating unique games in a market where it has huge rivals. Games like this one are experimental, but they’re also meant to show that THQ’s management, led by longtime chief executive Brian Farrell, can adapt to the times. One way that THQ can help distinguish this particular game from the thousand of other Facebook immatators, is with the well-known Jimmy Buffett affiliation. Buffett’s 1977 song Mararitaville was a smash hit when it came out and has now been drilled into the memory of anybody older than 40, which is one of the biggest audiences for Facebook games. The song’s lyrics paint a picture of the laid-back (drunken) lifestyle in a beach community, but it has become synonymous with the good life in paradise. Buffett went on to write novels that have also been tapped for content by the game designers. “The Margaritaville laid back state of mind is inherently social, and this game has captured the spirit of that lifestyle,” said Jimmy Buffett, who consulted on the game. “With Margaritaville Online, fans across the globe can party together any time and any place.” The title will be available at the outset on Facebook and the iPad, with an iPhone version coming soon. Besides Zynga, THQ’s rivals include Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive, which are also among the hardcore gamer makers. The Margaritaville game is yet another big test as to whether the upstart indies or the big traditional game makers will succeed in the new social gaming world. At the beginning of the game, you create your character and then go into a bookstore seeking shelter from the rain. Eventually, you come across a book by Jimmy Buffett, the singer who popularized the Margaritaville song. You’re then transported to an tropical paradise called Margarita Island, where you are greeted by Captain Frank. Frank asks you to pick up trash on the beach, which starts the game play. Then you go on to complete tasks such as shooting slingshots at pirates who invade the shore. The animations in the game are pretty good and the art is vivid and colorful — considering this is a Facebook game. In the scene pictured in the image on the right, it looks very three dimensional.The water effects are very well done, as you can see from the distorted reflections of the house and the moving fish below the surface.All the while some Caribbean music plays in the background. The game is two-dimensional, played from a 3D-like overhead perspective. In that sense, it ups the ante for Facebook games, which are dominated by Zynga. With the Margaritaville game, friends will be able to play and party with great music and frozen concoctions in an open easy-going world. The game has exotic adventures, customized bars and outfits, boats, and playful mini-games. I suppose you could say it’s a celebration of drinking, but I don’t think THQ is going to market it that way. While there are bars and alcoholic beverages for players over 21, the focus of the game is the “social paradise vibe,” THQ says. Michael Lustenberger, vice president of global brand management at THQ, said that the cross-platform game will allow players to switch between platforms easily and still enjoy a high-quality, rich experience, whenever they feel like they’re in the “Margaritaville state of mind.” He also said the Jimmy Buffett brand adds authenticity to the escapist brand, taking people to a better place than where they are. The game has more than 150 quests, 30 zones and a dozen mini games. The game was developed over the past 10 months by Vancouver, Canada-based Exploding Barrel Games and published by THQ as a free app. Uses can opt in to buy in-game premium items as well as a one-time Parrothead Membership upgrade. The iPhone app will be a companion app that allows players to access mini-games from the Facebook and iPad versions. Most of the development team came from EA Canada and worked on console games like Skate and Need for Speed. They used the Unity Technologies Unity 3D engine to create an island with both 2D and 3D adventures. Lustenberger said that Facebook will feature the game on various promotional games. Players can also share it with their friends. It will also be featured at various Jimmy Buffett concerts, Margaritaville hotels, restaurants, casinos and resorts, as well as cross promotions with our friends at Anheuser Busch (Landshark) and Caesars. There is a Margaritaville Online boat sailing on Las Vegas Boulevard (The STrip) in front of the Margaritaville casino and restaurant in Las Vegas. “We plan on traditional tactics like search, social, advertising, and community outreach, as well as many acquisition and retention initiatives including Margaritaville Moments, a mobile companion application for iPhone that connects the virtual gaming world with the real living world,” Lustenberger said. “This will provide in-game rewards for out-of-game engagement based on people and players living the Margaritaville lifestyle. Players will earn badges by sharing real-world Margaritaville moments with friends, such as drinking a margarita, watching a sunset or eating a cheeseburger in paradise. The application will also feature several mini-games that directly tie back to the Facebook and iPad versions.” Filed under: games, social This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Tiny Tower devs are happy to inspire Zynga’s new game, Dream Heights (image) Posted: 24 Jan 2012 09:47 PM PST Zynga is synonomous with ripping off other developers’ games, but very rarely do they get called out for it. In fact, Zynga has even tried to sue people for copying their games – ironically enough.  The company’s latest game, Dream Heights, bears more than a striking resemblance to 2011′s iPhone Game of the Year (an honor awarded directly by Apple) Tiny Tower. And as you can see from the image below, at least one person seems to have noticed. While the image speaks for itself, Tiny Tower developer Nimblebit proceeded to comment about the game’s similarities on Twitter earlier today. “Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anyway,” Nimblebit wrote in an update. It’s worth noting that Zynga attempted to purchase Nimblebit last year, but the indie studio turned the offer down. Filed under: games, mobile, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Obama calls for reforms to support the “next Steve Jobs” Posted: 24 Jan 2012 07:55 PM PST In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama recognized startups and entrepreneurs for innovating and creating new jobs, while calling for reforms that would support everyone who “aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.” The speech focused heavily on leveling the playing field between the U.S. and other countries so that America’s economy could be more competitive, and included key calls to action that would directly affect the startup community. He asked for an end to regulations that prevent entrepreneurs from getting financing, tax breaks for small businesses creating jobs, immigration reform, and more training for technology jobs. There were some Silicon Valley notables in the audience. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger was a guest, mostly likely invited to drive home the dual points that startups create jobs and responsible immigration reform creates startups. Also in the First Lady’s box was Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow. Obama name-checked the Apple co-founder while talking about the importance of encouraging talented people in business: An economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country… we should support everyone who's willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs. Obama wasn’t the only one to drop the late Steve Jobs’ name for dramatic effect. In the Republican response immediately following the State of the Union, Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana used him as an example of the kind of businessman Obama is supposedly against. Contrary to the President’s constant disparagement of people in business, it’s one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs, what a fitting name he had, created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. On the topic of startups and innovation creating jobs, Obama had this to say: Innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let's pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs. Obama cited the need for job training to meet our current needs, applauding existing partnerships, like those between companies such as Siemens and community colleges, that provide specialized job training: Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job. Obama asked for immigration reform for non-citizens already in the country, especially children and educated immigrants with skills and ideas that could contribute to the economy. The solution, a law that allows them to earn citizenship, isn’t a new idea. The DREAM Act, which would give some immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors a path to citizenship, was reintroduced to the Senate in May 2011. Hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren't yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. The President also announced the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit to crack down on practices by other countries that he feels have negative impact on the U.S. economy. The unit will focus on counterfeit goods and monitoring unfair trade between the U.S. and other countries, with a special focus on China. It's not right when another country let our movies, music, and software be pirated. No mention was made of the recent pushes by lawmakers to crack down on pirating of American movies, music, and software with the SOPA and PIPA bills. Filed under: Entrepreneur Corner, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Megaupload kingpin Kim Dotcom denied bail in New Zealand Posted: 24 Jan 2012 07:22 PM PST Larger-than-life Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was denied bail in a New Zealand court on Wednesday morning after his hearing was delayed Monday. Dotcom (pictured) and several other Megaupload employees were named in a 72-page indictment issued last Thursday by the Department of Justice. The indictment against Megaupload alleges it is connected to a vast criminal enterprise that has caused more than $500 million in harm to copyright owners. If convicted, the company and its executives could serve many years in prison and forfeit $175 million in assets, including 15 Mercedes, a Maserati, a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce. New Zealand Judge David McNaughton denied bail to Dotcom, saying he is flight risk. “With sufficient determination and financial resources, flight risk remains a real and significant possibility which I cannot discount and bail is declined,” Judge David McNaughton said, according to Reuters. Dotcom has said he is innocent of charges and is not a flight risk because the government has seized his assets and because his wife is pregnant with twins. Dotcom will remain in custody until Feb. 22, when he will face an extadition hearing that could bring him to the United States for trial. Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken told VentureBeat this past Friday that the company would "be assembling a worldwide team of top-notch lawyers, intellectual property lawyers and tech lawyers to defend this. There's a good chance Megaupload will prevail in this case." Since then however, one of MegaUpload’s high-profile lawyers, Robert Bennett, has withdrawn, citing conflict of interest. Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

LEGO Minecraft sets to become a reality, as project gets green light Posted: 24 Jan 2012 04:12 PM PST Seemingly a match made in heaven, a proposed collaboration between LEGO and hit indie game Minecraft has now been given the official green light.  A proposal for the idea was submitted by Minecraft developer Mojang back in December, and LEGO has now announced that it is "developing a concept that celebrates the best aspects of building with the LEGO system and in Minecraft." To get to this stage, the LEGO Minecraft project went through the official selection process at community site LEGO Cuusoo. This site allows anyone to submit their own LEGO ideas, which are then voted on by community members. The LEGO Minecraft project quickly received the 10,000 supporters that it needed to be considered further, and it has since been reviewed by a LEGO jury, to assess its viability as a retail product. An announcement on the LEGO Cuusoo blog earlier today said, "Until now, the project has been in the LEGO Review—a stage before product development begins where a LEGO Jury evaluates the idea's feasibility as a product and makes a decision. We’re happy to announce that the Minecraft project on LEGO Cuusoo has passed the LEGO review." LEGO sounds excited about what it has in store. "We can't wait to show it to you—but it isn’t ready just yet. These things take time, so we appreciate your patience. More details are to come." Minecraft was officially released in Nov 2011, but had been available to play for over two years prior to that. Developer Markus Persson recently revealed that the game has 20 million registered users.  If even a fraction of that playing community is interested in picking up LEGO Minecraft sets, then this collaboration looks set to have a healthy future. LEGO Minecraft is one of the few Cuusoo projects to have successfully passed the support and review stages. The first project to be approved was the Shinkai 6500 set, based on “Japan’s proud creation of the world deepest diving manned research submarine”, which went into commercial production in Feb 2011. Other projects still in the submission stage also make for interesting viewing. The LEGO Back to the Future set is currently the most popular project on the site, with 2928 supporters. It still has a long way to go before it reaches that magic 10,000 figure though. A proposal for LEGO Legend of Zelda is another popular suggestion, and LEGO Link has 1747 supporters behind him at the moment. Filed under: games, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Guidewire Software seeks $115M IPO, debuts tomorrow Posted: 24 Jan 2012 03:38 PM PST Insurance software company Guidewire will begin trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) tomorrow. It has raised $115 million in the initial public offering by selling 8.85 million shares at $13 apiece. That’s well above the 7.5 million shares at $10 to $12 that the company had planned. Guidewire provides software targeted at insurance companies that provides property, workers' compensation and casualty insurance to its customers. Its software product includes a web-based claims system, an enterprise application for transactions and other administrative tasks. Founded in 2001, the San Mateo, California-based company brought in $190M in revenue in the past year (ending Oct. 31). The company’s net profits were $38.5 million in the twelve months ended October 31, 2011, while sales increased 51 percent to $52.4 million in the most recent quarter. According to Guidewire, about 90 percent of the more than 7,000 insurance companies are still using outdated technology systems originally developed over 30 years ago, meaning there are still plenty of potential clients available. The company currently has more than 100 customers, including major insurance company clients, including Nationwide, CNA and American Family Insurance. Guidewire, which filed its IPO paperwork in September, will use GWRE for its stock ticker. Two of the company’s biggest investors — U.S. Venture Partners and Bay Partners — have shown interest in purchasing up to 400,000 shares of common stock at the IPO price, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Filed under: deals, enterprise This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Google changes privacy policy to make the company one big product Posted: 24 Jan 2012 03:15 PM PST Google is changing its privacy policy, consolidating 60 different policies into one. You cannot opt-out of it unless you stop using all Google products. Many of us know that Google is not just a web search company. It creates a mobile operating system, is collaborative office software, a Skype competitor, a social network, and a virtual map creator. All of these different products had separate privacy policies, which controlled how much information you wanted to give and to whom. Now, however, Google considers itself one big product, not just a compilation of smaller ones, and is collecting data based on one, company-wide policy. Google says this will help it provide people with more personally curated results in search, advertisements, spell-check, adding contacts to calendars and more. Recently, the company introduced its new Search Plus Your World, which gave a sneak peak at how Google might use data it acquires from you on different products. Search Plus Your World takes Google+ data, Google social network, and integrates it into search results on the regular Google search website. You see photos Google+ friends have uploaded, posts and people that are relevant to your search. This brought up recent anti-trust accusations as social competitors such as Twitter complained that their results were not also included. What may stir some is the inability to opt-out of this sharing of data across Google’s products. Google specifically says at the end of its blog post announcing the policy changes that it upholds “data liberation,” and says “if you want to take your information elsewhere you can.” The change will officially take effect on March 1st. You can login to http://www.google.com/dashboard to see most of the data Google has accumulated on you. It does not include everything, however, such as server logs, cookies and advertising data. We are looking further into the privacy policy and will update you as we find out more. Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Node at scale: What Google, Mozilla, & Yahoo are doing with Node.js Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:48 PM PST When the scale of your application is “everyone on the Internet,” you have to think a bit differently about adopting new technologies. At the Node Summit today, a bevy of “big boy” company executives gathered to chat about Node.js, the server-side JavaScript technology that’s been taking the developer world by storm. Representatives from Google, Yahoo, Mozilla, and startup i.TV were on hand to talk about using Node when instability is not an option. One overarching note: Everyone onstage said they used Express, the Sinatra-like Node.js framework. However — and definitely stay tuned for more news on this — Yahoo said that due to multiple issues its engineers experienced using Express, the company will be open-sourcing its own Node framework within the next few weeks. We’ve already pinged the company for more details and will write a separate update on that subject as soon as we know more. Yahoo and Node Yahoo’s developers started playing with Node.js in early 2010. “we’d been trying to figure out server-side JavaScript for a while,” said Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz is Yahoo's platform vice president, referencing the home-brewed query language Yahoo uses, known as YQL. When the company’s devs found Node, he said, “They were using it for things like file uploads.” Eventually, the company decided to make a bigger investment. “We wanted to maintain the same code base on the client side and the server side,” said Fernandez-Ruiz. “Node.js was the way to go. We invested over 12 months in this.” And at the end, the company released Cocktails, a project intended to eliminate the multi-language scenarios that introduce complications for developers. One Cocktail, Mojito, uses JavaScript and Node to run a single codebase both on client and server side. Another is Manhattan, a Node.js hosted environment for Mojito. “The use of JavaScript and the fact that Node was growing was interesting, and the latency was good,” Fernandez-Ruiz said. “The fears that it won’t stay up… it has required a lot of hand-holding, when you’re going beyond a reasonable number of requests… It’s freaking hard engineering.” Google and Node Ask a Googler what the company is doing with Node (I have!), and you’ll get the same answer every time: No comment. But given the company’s longtime focus on JavaScript and its well-tended garden of competing products, it would be utterly facile to assume that “No comment” means “Nothing.” Googlers are definitely working on Node projects — perhaps even something big that will be released to the public in the near future. They’re just not ready to talk publicly about what that might be. Ilya Grigorik, a Googler who uses the professional title “Instigator,” said that while developers within the company do use Node, “There are parallel efforts in Google, as well.” That would be Dart, a new language for structured web programming that Girgorik said “takes something like JavaScript and makes it more object oriented.” Google also has Go, an experimental programming language focused on speed and efficient programming. “I think there are a lot of interesting alternatives to Node,” Grigorik said. However, Google isn’t truly pitting its own languages against Node. Node has a huge community and a lot of support from developers — it’s the most popular repo on Github, after all. “Of course, Google doesn’t have the same commuity in the web space,” Grigorik admitted. And on top of its own programming language projects, said Grigorik, “Google has built a lot of apps that are very heavy in JavaScript… Gmail is something like 450,000 lines of JavaScript.” All that means that Google is likely less anxious to find an entirely new language for its most popular web apps and more likely to find more and better ways to work with JavaScript itself. The Googler also said that while “a lot of people tend to focus on [Node's] performance, what’s more interesting is the set of constraints it imposes on a developer and what it enables… You can’t shoot yourself in the foot in any way.” Finally, for a company like Google, “No problem is small,” Grigorik said. “One of the interesting things about building services at scale is figuring out how much you can squeeze out of one CPU core,” he said. “When you’re building a set of services at planet scale, you don’t have one data center. Disasters would happen,” he said, continuing, “[The Node community] could do a lot to assist with that.” Finally, Grigorik concluded, “We’re approaching it from all angles… it’s a hard problem to solve, and it’s a real problem.” Mozilla and Node Mark Mayo is a principal engineer at Mozilla; he’s working on BrowserID, a cross-platform sign-in technology. “Mozilla is using Node,” Mayo began. “It’s a big deal when you’re going to expose a service to a browser that has half a million installs.” Mayo continued, “We concretely decided to do Node for two reasons: One was the memory footprint… Browser ID was designed out of the gate to support half a million users, that was going to be financially difficult [at the pre-Node memory footprint size].” The other reason, Mayo said, was all about cryptography. “We had to pioneer a bunch of crypto in JavaScript… it was advantageous to be able to use the same language on the server side as we as the client side.” Mayo, who was formerly the CTO of Node sponsor Joyent, did express frustration over the fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Node in the enterprise crowd. “Stop saying that Node is a nascent technology or that it’s immature,” he told the Node Summit audience. “It’s at a point where it’s stable. “That being said, we have had some challenges,” he concluded, noting that the transition from v0.4 to v0.6, which presented some pretty significant changes, was a battle for Mozilla. Although Mayo said “the invisible state of the debug” was disconcerting (“It’s almost impossible to know what your Node program is doing at all times, which is scary”), he finished by saying that for the Mozilla team, “It’s super empowering for the whole team” to have everything in a single repository of JavaScript, no dependencies or other languages required. Node at iTV i.TV is a small startup with a big userbase. Its TV guide app is the most-downloaded in its class, and it also powers AOL TV. The company’s platform is all Node-powered. “We needed massive scale, and for engineers work on both the client side and the server side,” said CTO Sean Hess from the summit stage today. One thing Hess noted that we’ve heard from a lot of companies that make a whole-hog switch to Node is that the technology doesn’t come with all the tools you’d need right out of the box. “There isn’t yet a set of best practices for application code organization in Node,” Hess said. “It’s not baked in like with Rails. We had to invent all this tooling ourselves.” But Hess said that he and his team didn’t mind the extra work. During the “exploration” phase of coding, as he called it, they got to experiment and test new ideas without bothering with organization too much. “You do end up with a robust code base, and it happens at a good time… at a time when maintenance isn’t important yet,” Hess concluded. LinkedIn and Node Another large company using Node.js is LinkedIn. When the professional network launched its gorgeous (and fast) new app, VentureBeat sat down for an exclusive chat with Kirin Prasad, the company’s mobile chief, who said that Node’s performance benefits were undeniable. "On the server side, our entire mobile software stack is completely built in Node," said Prasad. "We use a ton of technologies at LinkedIn, but for the mobile server piece, it's entirely Node-based… Node showed us huge performance gains compared to what we were using before, which was Ruby on Rails." When we asked Prasad about his concerns with moving an at-scale application to a somewhat new technology, he admitted that LinkedIn did have some misgivings. "We did an analysis of a number of platforms — Ruby, Node, Java, Scala. We'll continue to use it and see how it does. That's how we'll make our technology choices. “In our culture, we're encouraged to try new technologies. No one's going to shoot you in the head for trying something new." And at least at large tech companies such as those onstage for this talk, we’re sure that aspect of engineering culture is universal. Filed under: dev, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Audiobooks.com lets you fill your ears for $25 per month Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:28 PM PST For those who prefer to read with their ears, Audiobooks.com is offering unlimited streaming of audio books for a flat monthly fee. For $25 a month, you can stream audio books onto any computer or mobile device through the Audiobooks.com HTML5 web app, which works on most major browsers. Since the books are stored on Audiobooks.com’s servers, you can pause in the middle of a chapter on one gadget and pick up exactly where you left off on any other devices — much the way multi-platform e-book readers like Kindle and Nook work with text. As with all streaming media offerings, a downside to not downloading the files is that you can only listen to books when you have an Internet connection. Audiobooks.com competitor Audible has similar monthly plans, but with Audible you are limited to a set number of books: one title for $15 a month, or two titles for $23 a month. The $25 monthly cost for unlimited audio books on Audiobooks.com is steep when you consider that audio books are often eight hours or longer (Moby Dick clocks in at 25 hours and 30 minutes long), so you’re unlikely to read a ton of books in any given month. For comparison, an unlimited monthly Netflix streaming subscription costs $8 a month. On the other hand, individual audio books can cost as much as a hardback book: For example, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography costs $35 on Audible. If you listen to more than two audio books a month and are always connected to the Internet, an Audiobooks.com subscription is a good deal. However, keep in mind that the company is still expanding its library and doesn’t have a huge selection of books just yet (that means no Harry Potter). Via Mashable Rainbow books image via ShutterStock Filed under: media, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Yahoo revenue down 13 percent in Q4, CEO says better execution needed Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:02 PM PST Yahoo‘s revenue dropped 13 percent compared to the same period last year, the company reported today. In its quarterly earnings’ announcement Tuesday, Yahoo reported $1,324 million in GAAP revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011, while costs increased by 10 percent. Excluding traffic acquisition costs from Yahoo’s partnership with Microsoft and others, the company brought in $1,169 million — down just three percent compared to last year. The numbers aren’t very surprising as Yahoo continues to lose ground in online advertising to Google and Facebook. The company’s search engine also recently dropped in popularity to third, behind Bing and search-leader Google. The company’s revenues have declined consecutively over the past three years, including the 24 percent drop for third quarter 2011. Meanwhile, the overall U.S. online advertising market grew 23.5 percent to $9.2 billion in Q4 2011 compared to last year, according to eMarketer. The analyst firm also estimates that Yahoo’s share of overall U.S. online ad market revenues declined to 11 percent last year, down from 13.3 percent in 2010. Over the past year, the company has also had its share of management turbulence. In September, Yahoo’s board of directors fired CEO Carol Bartz after she failed to push the company forward. Earlier this month, the board named former PayPal President Scott Thompson as the new CEO — a move that investors hope will help stabilize the company and give it some much needed direction. And last week, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang announced his resignation from the board. “We need better execution and better monetization of user engagement,” Thompson said during the quarterly earnings call. “In 2012 we will be aligning resources behind key areas of focus to enable us to move aggressively in market and grow our business, bringing innovative new products and experiences to both our users and advertisers.” Thompson said the company needs to prioritize its efforts in not only in the areas of media consumption and advertising, but also the company’s collection data, which he calls one of the company’s “single-most underrated, under appreciated, and underused assets.” For the first quarter of 2012, the company expects revenue (excluding traffic acquisition costs) to range between $1,025 million and $1,105 million. Here are some of the highlights from the earnings release: Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was $1,169 million, down 3 percent from the fourth quarter in 2010, which was $1,205 million. GAAP Revenue was $1,324 million, down 13 percent from $1,525 million in Q4 of 2010. Income from operations was $242 million, up 10 percent from $220 million compared to the same quarter last year. Net earnings were $296 million, down five percent from $312 million in Q4 2010. Net earnings per diluted share stayed flat at .24 cents compared to Q4 2010. Display revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was $546 million, a 4 percent decrease compared to $567 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. GAAP display revenue was $612 million, a 4 percent decrease compared to $635 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Search revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs was $376 million, a 3 percent decrease compared to $388 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. GAAP search revenue was $465 million, a 27 percent decrease compared to $640 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. Filed under: deals, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Apple’s staggering Q1 earnings by the numbers Posted: 24 Jan 2012 02:01 PM PST Apple investors jumped for joy at the company’s first quarter earnings report today, with results that beat high Wall Street expectations. The company earned a record net profit of $13.06 billion on revenue of $46.33 billion and sold a record 37 million iPhone units. Apple notably missed Wall Street's expectations for the first time in a long time during its last earnings report. But the company changed the release of its iPhone launch schedule by a quarter and consumers were holding out for a new iPhone model, so expectations were simply too high at that time. Apple righted that with today’s numbers. Here's a brief look at Apple's staggering numbers from the first quarter: Revenue: $46.33 billion, compared to $26.74 billion in the year-ago quarter Net income: $13.06 billion, compared to $6 billion in the year-ago quarter Earnings per diluted share: $13.87 per share, compared to $6.43 per share in the year-ago quarter iPhone sales: 37.04 million units, a 128 percent growth over the year-ago quarter iPad sales: 15.43 million units, a 111 percent growth over the year-ago quarter Mac sales: 5.2 million units, a 26 percent growth over the year-ago quarter iPod sales: 15.4 million units, a 21 percent decline from the year-ago quarter iTunes store revenue: $1.7 billion ($120 million worth of media and apps sold on Dec. 25 alone) Apple store revenue: $6.1 billion, up 69 percent from last year ($17.1 million average per store revenue) Apple-with-money-inside image: Vitaliy Krasovskiy/Shutterstock Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Movie backed by Irish tech investors is nominated for an Oscar Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:53 PM PST Are you an early-stage, technology investor? Is there a certain lack of glamour and red carpets in your life? Then follow in the footsteps of early-stage tech investors Lough Shore Investments who partly funded a short film called “The Shore”, which has just been nominated for an Oscar. “The Shore” is directed by screenwriter and director Terry George who was previously Oscar-nominated for his screenplays for “In the Name of the Father” and “Hotel Rwanda“. Lough Shore Investments is based in Belfast in Northern Ireland, which also happens to be George’s home town, and is a seed investor in Irish startups. Lough Shore wouldn’t reveal the exact amount of the investment but said that it was relatively small. “The chance to fund a business plan/project that we felt had a strong probability of getting to the Oscars was simply too good an opportunity to turn down,” said Lough Shore partner Danny Moore. “The Shore” follows Joe Mahon on his return to Belfast with his daughter Patricia, having fled from the conflict 25 years earlier. In his absence Paddy, Joe’s childhood best friend, has married Joe's former fiancée Mary. The short was shot entirely on location in Coney Island, Co. Down, and the investors saw it as a great opportunity to showcase Northern Ireland abroad. I asked Moore if the risk-reward analysis on this investment was very different from the fund’s tech investments. “Having someone like Terry George leading the project was obviously a huge factor for us. I suppose in start-up terms he's a serial entrepreneur with a history of delivering success.” So does Moore have any advice for other tech investors who want to break into show business? “Find a director like Terry George,” he counsels. Lough Shore Investments was founded in 2010, is based in Belfast, Ireland and its last exit was cloud startup WorldDesk, which was acquired by DeskStream. Filed under: deals, media, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Apple sells record 37M iPhones in Q1 2012 Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:39 PM PST Apple sold a record 37.04 million iPhone devices in the first quarter of 2012, a startling figure that puts the newest iPhone model, the 4S, on track to be one of the most popular smartphones ever produced. We suspected the phone would be mega-popular from Apple’s announcement that more than 4 million iPhone 4Ses were sold its first weekend of availability. The iPhone 4S in particular has been so desirable that it is eating heavily into Android's coveted market share among those who've purchased smartphones recently. And earlier today Android-friendly Verizon Wireless confirmed that it had sold 4.2 million iPhones alone for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company’s record results today confirmed what many analysts expected. Its sale of 37 million iPhone units represents a 128 percent growth spike over the year-ago quarter. Besides the iPhone 4S’ staggering sales numbers, the iPhone 3GS is also worth considering because it was sold by AT&T for free on a 2-year contract and that price was hard to beat for penny pinching consumers that wanted a taste of Apple’s tech for cheap. In perspective, iPhone sales dipped during the fourth quarter this year, as many consumers were anticipating the release of a magical iPhone 5. But, as we predicted earlier, the iPhone 4S' performance during the holiday quarter more than helped Apple make up for much of those earlier lost sales. One feature that likely helped propel the iPhone 4S to top-tier status was Siri, the phone’s heavily-advertised voice assistant. Another feature was likely that phone’s stellar 8-megapixel camera, which is already the second most popular smartphone camera on Flickr after the iPhone 4. Do you think Apple will continue to dominate with the iPhone 4S throughout 2012? Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Apple smashes Q1 estimates with $13B profit; record iPhone, iPad, Mac sales Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:37 PM PST After disappointing Wall Street last quarter, Apple has made a massive comeback reporting record net profit of $13.06 billion on revenue of $46.33 billion for the first quarter. Analysts have been speculating since December that this would be a blowout quarter for Apple. Meanwhile, Wall Street expected earnings of $10.07 per share on revenues of $38.76 billion, according to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster. Simply put, Apple blew pretty much every estimate out of the water. The big problem last time around was that Apple missed the mark on iPhone sales due to the October release of the iPhone 4S. Consumers ended up delaying their purchases in anticipation of the new model, and to make things even worse iPhone 4S sales weren’t counted for that quarter. The first quarter of 2012 therefore had the benefit of all the iPhone 4S sales (remember Apple sold 4 million units alone in the first weekend), as well as the typical holiday shopping bump. It’s also a major improvement to this time last year, when Apple saw profit of $6 billion on revenue of $26.74 billion. The company reported record sales all around for the quarter: 37.04 million iPhones (a 128 percent jump over last year; also, we told you so), 15.43 million iPads (a 111 percent jump), and 5.2 million Macs, up 26 percent. iPod sales didn’t fare as well, with Apple reporting 15.4 million units sold, a 21 percent decline from a year ago. Apple says it generated $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the first quarter, which gives it $97.6 billion cash and securities on hand. The company is “actively” looking for uses for the cash, but “we’re not letting it burn a hole in our pockets,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said during the earnings call today. For the next quarter’s guidance, Apple expects to see revenue of $32.5 billion and profits of $8.50 a share. Apple money image via Shutterstock Filed under: media, mobile, VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

One-time charge pushes AMD’s solid results for fourth quarter into the red Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:30 PM PST In its first full quarter under a new CEO, Advanced Micro Devices reported solid fourth quarter operating income, but a one-time charge threw it into a loss. AMD reported a loss of $177 million, or 24 cents a share, compared with 14 cents a year ago. Revenue was $1.69 billion, compared with $1.65 billion a year ago. Rory Read (pictured), left the No. 2 job at AMD customer Lenovo to take the position as chief executive of AMD at the end of August. Analysts expected the company to report a profit of 16 cents a share on revenues of $1.72 billion. The results included a $209 million non-cash impairment charge for the change in value of Globalfoundries, the manufacturing company that AMD spun out as a separate company. On a non-GAAP basis, not counting the charge, AMD reported fourth quarter net income of $138 million, or 19 cents a share, and non-GAAP operating income of $172 million. Besides the one-time impairment charge, AMD  reported restructuring charges of $98 million related to cutbacks in the fourth quarter. Revenue was short due to graphics chip salesthat were weaker than expected. In a statement, Read said he was encouraged by the success of AMD’s line of Fusion processors, which combine a microprocessor and graphics on the same chip. To date, AMD has sold 30 million accelerated processor units (APUs), or combo chips. Read said AMD’s Brazos low-power APU platform is the company’s fastest-growing one ever. The server business has regained momentum, and AMD”s goal is to “consistently deliver on its commitments.” In a conference call with analysts, Read said that the PC supply chain has proven to be very resilient despite flooding in Thailand that hurt shipments of hard disk drives. He said that the graphics chip business was hurt in part by that supply chain impact, but he noted that servers have now grown for the past couple of quarters. For the full year-ended Dec. 31, AMD reported revenue of $6.57 billion, net income of $491 million, or 66 cents per share, and operating income of $368 million.  Full year non-GAAP net income was $374 million, or 50 cents per share, and non-GAAP operating income was $524 million. AMD is the perennial underdog to Intel. This morning, AMD’s market value was $4.55 billion, compared with $136.51 billion for Intel. About a year ago, AMD’s highly respected CEO Dirk Meyer left the top job after a dispute with the board. On Meyer’s watch, AMD outwitted Intel in server chips with the 2003 launch of its Opteron server microprocessors, and he also settled antitrust litigation with Intel, extracting a $1 billion from the bigger company. But Intel bounced back strong in both server chips and laptops chips, and AMD’s market share hovered around 15 percent to 20 percent. While Intel shifted its focus into low-power chips, AMD bet heavily on combining graphics and microprocessors in the same chip. It launched that family of chips last year under the Fusion name, but Intel also matched it with a less-capable but adequate combo chip dubbed Sandy Bridge. Meanwhile, AMD has been sparring back and forth with Nvidia to provide the fastest graphics processor, a title that AMD says it now owns. AMD said its newest family of APUs will be offered by one of the world’s biggest computer makers in early 2012. Read now has AMD readying its slate of chips for the introduction of Windows 8, the new operating system from Microsoft that is expected to hit the market later this year. Graphics chip revenue declined 5 percent from the previous quarter and 10 percent from a year ago, mainly due to a decline in mobile graphics chip sales. But the company did say that it launched the world’s fastest desktop graphics chip in December. AMD’s gross profit margin was 46 percent. The company has $1.9 billion in cash now. Dean McCarron, an analyst at Mercury Research, said, “As appears to be the case with Intel, server products provided stability in the quarter. So both companies appear to have experienced a weaker client market, consistent with impact from hard disk availability and early indications of an economic downturn. Graphics was down, and attributed to weakness in mobile. This is consistent with mobile having seasonal weakness in Q4, compounded by the drive availability issue and some OEMs (original equipment makers, or computer makers) leaning out inventory in preparation for the spring platform refresh cycle.” Filed under: VentureBeat This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Freelance marketplace Elance secures $16M in funding Posted: 24 Jan 2012 01:13 PM PST Elance, a freelance marketplace that connects clients and freelancers, announced Tuesday it has raised $16 million in funding. Stripes Group led the funding, with participation from New Enterprise Associates and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “Elance has experienced tremendous growth over the past two years by enabling access to a flexible and independent online workforce,” CEO Fabio Rosati said in statement to VentureBeat, ”The additional funding will allow us to continue to build our platform and expand our client and contractor networks around the world.” Elance is an online marketplace that helps clients find freelancers for writing, programming, design, marketing, legal, and finance projects and hourly jobs. Clients post the details of job they need done, complete with how much they are willing to pay and how much time they have to it get done. Freelancers then submit a proposal for the job and if they are a good match, the client can hire them. The company sure makes sure both parties are happy and the freelancer gets paid on time. Elance even provides project management tools such as Tracker; a desktop client that logs the amount of hours the freelancer works and takes periodic screenshots, so the client can keep tabs on the project. Freelancers can demonstrate their expertise by taking skill tests related to their field and getting recommendations from past projects, so clients can have confidence in their abilities to do the job. 2011 was a strong year for the freelance marketplace, with more than 120 percent growth in freelance workers over 2010.  Elance reports freelancers have earned nearly $500 million to date with the service. Elance will use the funding to keep up with demand of its services. Elance is based in Mountain View, CA and Oslo, Norway. Filed under: deals This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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