VentureBeat |
- Angry Brids triples its downloads on Christmas day
- RIM drops most-expensive BlackBerry PlayBook models to $299
- RIM may oust co-CEOs as co-chairmen, says report
- Print your Minecraft designs as 3D models using Mineways
- Dylan’s Desk: The most revolutionary products you’ll see in 2012
- Nintendo says it has sold more than 4M 3DS units in the U.S.
- Internap acquires Voxel for $30M to add cloud power to lineup
- Uh oh, Google may be in trouble for fishy Chrome sponsored post campaign
- Google+ had its best month ever in December with 49M U.S. visits
- Joyent’s CTO dishes about and defines “the cloud” (video)
- Star Wars: The Old Republic drops 30 spots on the UK sales charts
- Last year’s deals: 2011 saw fewer exits, younger companies & more money
- Apple planning iBooks and publishing NYC event for January (updated)
- Audiophilic startup SoundCloud raises a reported $50M
- Resolution: Learn to code in 2012. Here’s how you can start
- Crysis 2 leads the list of 2011′s most pirated games
- Shiny, happy company: Why happiness is the new metric for startup success
- Google launches political hub for 2012 elections
- How Facebook will take over the rest of the world in 2012
| Angry Brids triples its downloads on Christmas day Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:58 AM PST
The numbers show that the popular bird-slinging game hasn’t lost its allure for smartphone and tablet users, even though the games have already been downloaded hundreds of millions of times. The numbers are almost as big as the total number of phone activations on Christmas. "We're really excited to have such a massive number of new people get acquainted with Angry Birds over the holidays — we have exciting new releases lined up for 2012, and can't wait to introduce them to the public," Rovio's Ville Heijari told AllThingsD. Rovio’s downloads include a mix of paid and free downloads for three titles: Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. Overall, the Christmas holiday week saw a huge growth in apps downloaded. Analytics firm Flurry said that 6.8 million smartphones were activated on Christmas day. And the number of apps downloaded in a week crossed the 1 billion mark for the first time last week, for the seven days ended Dec. 31. Overall, in 2011, Apple’s App Store is expected to exceed 10 billion downloads and the Android Market is expected to hit life-to-date downloads of 10 billion as of December. Filed under: games, mobile        
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| RIM drops most-expensive BlackBerry PlayBook models to $299 Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:54 AM PST
RIM had already cut the price of its 16GB PlayBook model to $199 during the holiday season, but now it is taking the cost cutting further by making its more-expensive 32GB and 64GB models $299. The 16GB model is also listed at $299, but with all model prices the same, there’s no reason not to get the 64GB model. The 64GB model originally retailed at $699 and the 32GB version was $599. The sale lasts through Feb. 4 and appears to apply to PlayBooks purchased directly from RIM’s online store. Best Buy, which lowered prices on the PlayBook during the holiday, still lists the tablet’s three models at their original prices. The PlayBook has had an especially difficult time competing with Apple’s iPad, new e-reader tablets from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and various Android tablets made by Samsung, HTC and Motorola. In early December, RIM said it have to write off $485 million and lower its guidance for the year because it couldn’t move PlayBook units. RIM had a dismal 2011, with its stock price losing more than three-quarters of its value after various blunders like a disastrous worldwide outage and a long delay on a much-needed PlayBook software update. Hopefully the major PlayBook sale will mark the beginning of a better 2012. Are you interested in a $299 PlayBook or is it still too much? Filed under: mobile        
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| RIM may oust co-CEOs as co-chairmen, says report Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:42 AM PST
In their place, RIM is considering anointing Barbara Stymiest, a former COO of the Royal Bank of Canada who has been on the company’s board since 2007, sources tell the Financial Times. That would make Stymiest the first independent chairman at RIM, and it would also reduce the influence of Lazaridis and Balsillie, who have been heavily criticized for the company’s performance in the post-iPhone era. Seven independent directors of RIM’s board — including Stymiest, but not including the co-CEOs — have been exploring the board’s structure, according to the FT. In particular, they’re considering the “business necessity” for Lazaridis and Balsillie to hold significant board roles, as well as the need for a lead director (a role currently served by John Richardson since 2007). RIM is expected to issue its full report on the matter at the end of the month. The board shakeup was sparked by investor outcry at the company’s last shareholder meeting (though honestly, it should be self-evident by now that some sort of change is needed at RIM). Balsillie and Lazaridis notably own 12 percent of the company’s outstanding shares, making them the second and third largest shareholders, the FT points out. That has allowed them to deflect previous efforts to remove their from their co-chairmen and co-CEO roles. But it’s unclear if they’ll be able to resist further attempts after the company’s dismal 2011, wherein its stock fell 75 percent. RIM certainly needs to shape up somehow to survive 2012. The company’s long-awaited BlackBerry 10 devices were delayed until the end of the year (and are already being called a failure), which will likely be too little, too late for it to gain considerable ground against the iPhone and Android. Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Print your Minecraft designs as 3D models using Mineways Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:36 AM PST
The open source Mineways program, by Eric Haines, allows you to pick a chunk of your Minecraft world, and export it in a format suitable for sending directly to a 3D printer. You can also choose to edit the model using 3D modelling software, such as Blender, prior to printing. Haines has created a video that takes you through the process of capturing your Minecraft creation and uploading it to Shapeways, a service which will print out your model and ship it directly to you. There are plenty of tips to get the best from the software on Haines’ dedicated Mineways page. He also gives an idea of how much models might cost to print, and how best to minimise your financial outlay. According to Haines, a large detailed model of his Minecraft spawn area measuring 15.0 x 3.9 x 9.8 inches, would cost $633.14 to print in color. This is about largest color model you can create on a ZPrinter 650 printer (at least in terms of base area). By contrast, a small Minecraft Eiffel Tower model, measuring 4.8 inches high, would only cost around $25 to print, in color. To make life easier, the Mineways program has a built in scaling option, where you can specify a budget for your model, such as “aim for a budget of $50″. Even if you don’t play Minecraft, you can still mess about with the Mineways program, by using maps made by other people, from a site such as Minecraft World Map, which features a nifty Google Maps preview function. You can also buy models of Haines’ own creations from his Mineways shop at Shapeways. This marriage of 3D printing technology and Minecraft creations seems made in heaven, and will no doubt further cement the Minecraft community’s love for the indie game sensation, that has sold over 4 million copies to date. Filed under: games        
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| Dylan’s Desk: The most revolutionary products you’ll see in 2012 Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST Anyone can pick most interesting phones of 2011, but it takes real foolhardiness to predict the most revolutionary products of the coming year. Call me a fool. I’m placing bets on these five products that will revolutionize technology in 2012. I made these predictions recently in a TV segment on Bloomberg West with host John Erlichman. Click the picture above if you want to watch the video. And now, on to my predictions. 5. Lytro Camera
Until recently, the technology was only available in the lab and required supercomputer-like processing to work. Lytro has made an ambitious attempt to turn this into a working product. At $400, it’s an expensive gimmick right now, and it doesn’t actually produce particularly good images yet. But if the Lytro camera doesn’t change the game, other cameras using similar technology may do so — with potentially revolutionary effects on photography. 4. Kindle Fire 2
Still, Amazon has shown that it knows how to learn from its mistakes and make the second version of a product far better. Its first Kindle was pretty good, but the second version really blew away any remaining competition. Look for the company to pull the same trick with the second act of the Kindle Fire, whatever they decide to call it. (My suggestion: Kindle Bonfire.) Because Amazon is one of the few companies (other than Apple) to pull off the complete integration of content, apps and software with its tablet hardware, I think an improved Kindle Fire could be an incredibly powerful competitor in the tablet market. 3. Tesla Model S
If the company can ship the Model S in 2012, it ought to do quite well. And if it does well, it will be a vindication of Tesla’s market strategy. Unlike most electric car makers to date, which have started at the bottom of the market and then worked their way up, Tesla started with its fast, powerful, sexy and expensive Roadster. Once it demonstrated the technology with a high-end car, it started work on a midrange sedan. In essence, it used its luxury model to subsidize development further down the market. That approach has paid off with the Model S’s promised range and speed, and could potentially give Tesla a huge advantage for years to come. 2. Nokia Lumia
The Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 are the two first fruits of the partnership, and they’ll be coming to American shores in early 2012. The Lumia 800 is competitive with other high-end smartphones, but I’m especially interested in the potential of the 710: It’s a cheaper ($100 with contract) smartphone that could really shake things up on the low end of the smartphone market. Up to now, those who want cheap smartphones have to put up with crummy, out-of-date Android models. A cheap phone that doesn’t suck would be a welcome alternative for many of us. 1. Apple’s iTV
It will likely be based on the company’s existing Apple TV, but integrated into an actual television set, so we’ll call it iTV to distinguish it from the current set-top box. To make this work, Apple will have to find a way to bridge the navigation of Internet- and locally-stored video content (which the Apple TV already does) with the ability to watch real-time TV from cable, satellite or over-the-air sources. I expect that the iTV won’t initially be aimed at replacing the big-screen home theater TV that many people have: Instead, it’ll be intended for use as a second (or third) screen, in a kitchen or a bedroom, where you might also want to get access to games, recipes, weather, stock reports or other apps. In short, it’ll be a TV but it will also play to the strengths of Apple’s iOS. NOTE: Subscribe to my newsletter and you can read these columns a whole day before they appear on our website. Filed under: VentureBeat, video        
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| Nintendo says it has sold more than 4M 3DS units in the U.S. Posted: 03 Jan 2012 07:57 AM PST
The strong surge during the holidays show the 3Ds isn’t dead, even though many wrote it off after its weak debut in March. In its first nine months, Nintendo said it sold more 3DS units than it did during the first nine months of sales for its popular Wii game console. The good sales came after the launch of a series of big titles for the handheld, which can display imagery in stereoscopic 3D without the need for glasses. The top sellers included Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. Both of those titles have sold more than 1 million units each in the U.S. Nintendo also said that its big console game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, also broke launch records with more than 1 million units sold for the Wii in the U.S. Nintendo needs those kinds of results to ward off competition. Sony is launching its rival PlayStation Vita in the U.S. on Feb. 22. That system has high-end graphics, a high-quality screen and multiple control schemes. It will debut for $249 and $299 for a 3G version. The system launched two weeks ago in Japan and sales haven’t been stellar so far. The bigger threat for the 3DS comes from Apple’s iOS (iPhone, iPod and iPad) devices, as well as Android devices. Nintendo launched the 3DS at $249 but slashed the price to $169 in August to boost sagging sales. Scott Moffitt, exective vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America, said the company has a massive first-party and third-party line-up of games coming in the first part of 2012. Those include Mario Party, Pokemon, and Kid Icarus games. During 2011, Nintendo sold more than 12 million hardware units in the U.S. That is down from prior years, but Nintendo said that is the fifth year in a row that Nintendo has done so. The units included 4.5 million units of the Wii, more than 4 million 3DS units, and 3.4 million units of the Nintendo DS. To date, Nintendo has sold more than 39 million Wiis in the U.S. and 51 million DS family units. Mario Kart for the Wii has sold a total of 11 million units in the U.S., and New Super Mario Bros. has sold 10 million units on the Wii. Filed under: games, mobile        
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| Internap acquires Voxel for $30M to add cloud power to lineup Posted: 03 Jan 2012 07:51 AM PST
Internap provides “intelligent IT Infrastructure solutions” for enterprises and uses a variety of solutions to lower IT costs, including Colocation, Enterprise IP and Hybrid Hosting. With Voxel’s inexpensive VoxCLOUD cloud hosting services and data centers all around the world, Internap is picking up extra resources to stake its future on the cloud. “As IT Infrastructure outsourcing advances, enterprises increasingly seek service providers to support myriad applications and workloads throughout their entire IT lifecycle,” said Eric Cooney, president and CEO of Internap, in a statement. “This acquisition of Voxel increases Internap’s market share and growth rate, accelerates our product roadmap and creates an unmatched competitive position as an IT Infrastructure services provider.” The deal between Internap and Voxel concluded on Dec. 30, with an all-cash transaction of about $30 million. Internap has also offered up an “additional potential $5 million in cash tied to the delivery of specific objectives during the next two years.” Translation: if Voxel makes a boatload of cash in the short-term, key investors are getting a nice extra payday. New York City-based Voxel was founded in 1999 and serves more than 1,000 customers. Voxel’s presence in North America, Europe and Asia will help Atlanta-based Internap with global penetration. Voxel was backed with a $5.5 million round by New York-based Seaport Capital. Internap’s share price on the Nasdaq exchange is almost unchanged on the news and sits at $5.95 per share. Filed under: cloud, deals, enterprise        
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| Uh oh, Google may be in trouble for fishy Chrome sponsored post campaign Posted: 03 Jan 2012 07:02 AM PST
More than 400 such posts, which contain the phrase “This post is sponsored by Google,” were first uncovered by SEO Book’s Aaron Wall, which led Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan to do even more digging. Why the hubbub? Google expressly forbids the use of paid links to influence search rankings, and last year it penalized companies like JC Penney and Overstock for using such links. If a sponsored post does link back to an advertiser’s site, it must use the “nofollow” tag so that it doesn’t influence search rankings. The company notably also penalized itself, including Google Japan and Google-owned Beatthatquote, last year for breaking its own rule, Sullivan points out. That means, in the worst case, the company may have to ban the Chrome download page from its search engine. That certainly won’t help Chrome when it comes to taking on Internet Explorer and Firefox, especially among general users. The company has also been promoting Chrome heavily in more legitimate ways via online and TV ads — efforts which may be wasted if Chrome disappears from Google search. Google hasn’t yet officially commented on the matter, ostensibly because most employees had yesterday off. But the company is definitely aware of the issue, as Chrome vice president Linus Upson commented last night on Sullivan’s Google+ thread, “News to me. Looking in to it.” That Google hasn’t immediately denounced the news means that the company may indeed be involved with these posts, albeit unwillingly. It’s possible that a lone wolf within the company, desperate to increase Chrome’s profile on the web, began this sponsored post campaign to shine additional light o the fast growing browser. The campaign appears to have been run by Unruly Media, a third-party firm, Sullivan points out. What’s worse for Google is that much of the paid posts seem to be of extremely low quality, something the recent Panda update for Google Search was meant to minimize. Unruly CEO Scott Button responded to the controversy by saying it’s not actually violating Google’s rules, reports All Things D:
Button admitted that one post didn’t properly use the nofollow tag in a link, but that was eventually fixed. Of course, he didn’t comment on the fact that many of the posts appear to be poorly written junk. We expect Google to respond to this issue later today, so stay tuned for updates. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| Google+ had its best month ever in December with 49M U.S. visits Posted: 03 Jan 2012 06:44 AM PST
Several pundits previously wondered if Google+ would become a graveyard after several studies showed traffic declines, with one eye-popping Chitika study in October had traffic falling 60 percent. But Google’s decision to incorporate the network into other products like Gmail and Google Reader have paid off with traffic and more steady interest in the network. And while it doesn’t begin to touch Facebook’s staggering traffic in the slightest, Google+ at least is growing. Experian Hitwise first revealed the details of Google+’s steady growth in a tweet with an accompanying chart. The tracking company notes that Google+’s traffic in December was up about 55 percent from November traffic and collected more than 49 million U.S. visits. No doubt CEO Larry Page and Chairman Eric Schmidt are smiling at those numbers. Unofficial Google+ statistician and Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, who has been previously accurate in his tracking, said last week that Google+ now had about 62 million registered users and is signing up 625,000 new users per day. Allen estimates that based on the rate of growth, Google+ should expect to see 100 million users by the end of February, and it could potentially end 2012 with 293 million members. A full look at Experian Hitwise’s Google+ traffic chart can be viewed below: Filed under: social        
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| Joyent’s CTO dishes about and defines “the cloud” (video) Posted: 03 Jan 2012 06:26 AM PST “The cloud” is a term often as nebulous as the images it evokes. But while some companies take advantage of that vagueness and use the opportunity to cloudwash their products (to great financial effect), others attempt to bring clarity and feet-on-the-ground solutions that, while a bit complicated for layfolk to understand, make up the best in today’s cloud technologies. In a recent chat in VentureBeat’s video studio, Joyent CTO and founder Jason Hoffman talks with us about the real cloud, the “cloud” of consumer-facing companies and the Internet of Things — the coming world of universal device connectivity. Filed under: cloud        
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| Star Wars: The Old Republic drops 30 spots on the UK sales charts Posted: 03 Jan 2012 06:25 AM PST Electronic Arts and BioWare’s long-awaited, big budget Star Wars: The Old Republic has seen an unprecedented drop down the UK sales charts. According to Chart-Track, the licensed massively multiplayer online game plummeted from 10th position all the way to 38th during the week ending on December 31. The steep decline is not a good sign for the momentous MMO, largely accepted to be one of the most expensive games ever made. Released on December 20, The Old Republic quickly reached one million registered users globally. Leading up to its release, the game was expected to either be the first real threat to Blizzard Entertainment’s monopoly over the MMO space, or a massive failure a la most other titles in the genre, including Sony Online Entertainment’s oft-troubled Star Wars: Galaxies, whose servers were recently taken offline. While retail copies in the UK took a hit, the game is also available for purchase digitally on EA’s Origin service. GamesBeat has reached out to EA for an update on total sales and will add that information to this story if and when it’s made available. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Last year’s deals: 2011 saw fewer exits, younger companies & more money Posted: 03 Jan 2012 06:13 AM PST
Overall, the year saw a 14 percent drop in deal activity between 2010 and 2011. Dow Jones VentureSource‘s data shows 522 total exits for the year — that’s 69 deals fewer than in 2010. However, companies in 2011 were exiting earlier than yesteryear’s counterparts. They took less capital along the way, and they also generated more money during their exit events than did exiting companies in 2010. Throughout the past year, all exit activity combined brought in $53.2 billion, representing a 26 percent increase in capital raised from similar deals in 2010. Also, the median price paid for an acquired company rose by 77 percent to $71 million in 2011. "Despite a slower acquisition pace capped with an uncharacteristic drop in deal activity in the fourth quarter, there are some positive signs heading into the new year,” said VentureSource global research director Jessica Canning in a statement. “Acquisitions of companies liquidating their assets were halved in 2011 and companies are benefiting from lower start-up costs by taking capital farther toward a larger acquisition.” Venture-backed startups that exited in 2011 raised a median of $17 million in venture capital each, a 12 percent decrease from exiting companies in 2010. These startups had a median age of 5.3 years, a slight drop from a 5.4-year median age startups that exited in 2010. Despite heavy turbulence in the general market beginning in August, 2011, the $5.4 billion raised from 45 startu IPOs in 2011 was higher by a significant percentage than the $3.3 billion raised by 46 such events in 2010. Although a record number of IPOs were delayed in the week following the U.S. credit downgrade by Standard & Poor’s (and although a few IPOs went overseas), the year ended on a high note largely due to two IPOs: those of Groupon and Zynga, which raised $1.7 billion between them. "The IPO market saw some gains through the first half of the year, but the momentum was not strong enough to survive the volatility in August," said VentureSource editor Zoran Basich said in a statement. "During 2012 we'll get a sense of whether the last two years of flat IPO activity is the new normal for the industry or if there's room to grow." Finally, 2011 saw a slump in fourth-quarter acquisition activity. Acquisitions in the fourth quarter were below third-quarter activity for the first time in five years. For all of 2011, 460 venture-backed startups were acquired for a total of $46.4 billion. These figures represent a 13 percent decrease from the number of M&As in 2010, but the amounts were up from 2010′s $35.6 billion total. In 2011, buyouts accounted for 17 deals and $1.4 billion, both figures down from 32 deals and $3.4 billion in 2010. Filed under: deals, VentureBeat        
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| Apple planning iBooks and publishing NYC event for January (updated) Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:44 PM PST
Most likely, the event will center on a media-related announcement since Apple SVP of Internet Software and Interactive Services Eddy Cue is said to be involved, reports All Things D’s Kara Swisher. Cue, who was Apple CEO Tim Cook’s first major appointment as SVP, spearheads Apple’s media properties, including iTunes, iCloud, the App Store, and iAd. Update: TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis reports that the event will focus on improvements to iBooks, as well as additional publishing-related announcements. Prior to the TechCrunch report, I assumed the event would have something to do with iAd, Apple’s struggling mobile advertising solution. The company purchased the mobile ad firm Quattro Wireless for $275 million in 2010, which was then refashioned into iAd, but never quite caught on with publishers. Given that most of the buzz around iAd has been negative over the past year, Apple certainly needs to shine a good light on the mobile advertising service. It could be announcing new major publisher deals, or changes to iAd that will be more tempting to ad buyers. The departure of former Quattro head Andy Miller from Apple in August was yet another blow for iAd, which still lacks direct a replacement for Miller. Filed under: media, mobile, VentureBeat        
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| Audiophilic startup SoundCloud raises a reported $50M Posted: 02 Jan 2012 03:43 PM PST
The round, which was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, may have been as large as $50 million, TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher reports. A SoundCloud rep confirmed all the details except the amount in an email exchange with VentureBeat this afternoon. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker will join the SoundCloud board. GGV Capital also participated in the round, which the startup hopes to use to aid in more rapid expansion. SoundCloud’s service was first focused toward professional musicians who needed better options for sharing music online. Currently, SoundCloud is used to distribute podcasts, audiobooks and more. SoundCloud is free for most users and offers paid plans for more hardcore customers. “SoundCloud has seen exponential growth this year in terms of users and greatly evolved our product offerings,” said SoundCloud founder and CEO Alexander Ljung in a blog post today. “With Kleiner Perkins’ impeccable track record for recognizing and investing in companies with a long-term view, and their understanding and support for the potential of sound, we couldn’t be more excited about working together.” SoundCloud was founded in late 2008 and has taken two previous rounds of funding totaling roughy $16 million. Previous funding came from Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures and Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Over the summer of 2011, SoundCloud reported it had reached the significant milestone of five million users, four million of whom joined the service within the past 12 months. SoundCloud is headquartered in Berlin and opened a San Francisco office mid-2011. Filed under: deals        
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| Resolution: Learn to code in 2012. Here’s how you can start Posted: 02 Jan 2012 03:23 PM PST
Codecademy is a startlingly easy-to-use code-teaching website that debuted last year at Y Combinator’s Demo Days. It’s easy enough for a complete beginner to use; just type code snippets as directed in the interactive console. Now, the young hackers in the Codecademy have launched Code Year. Codecademy co-founder Zach Sims writes to VentureBeat that the new site is “the beginning of an initiative… to get more people to learn to code in 2012.” Through Code Year, Codecademy will be sending out new courses each week. The courses will be simple and interactive, just like Codecademy’s main offering on its website. Budding developers who sign up for the courses will be able to track their progress. As of this writing, more than 55,000 people have signed up for the challenge. Sims says that at one point during the day, around 100 people per minute were signing up. Codecademy is joined by partners such as Y Combinator, TechStars, HackNY and Girl Develop IT in this project. “We’re working with a bunch of other organizations to make sure 2012 is the year that programming begins to enter the mainstream consciousness,” says Sims. Codecademy raised its first round of funding late in 2011. The $2.5 million chunk of change came from Union Square Ventures, O'Reilly AlphaTech, Thrive Capital, SV Angel and individual investors such as Dave Morin and Naval Ravikant. The company launched in August. At that time, Sims told VentureBeat, “While the entrepreneurial community has exploded within the past year or two, there's a constant shortage of developers and a tremendous number of businesspeople trying to learn to code … Programming literacy is going to be an incredibly important skill in the next few years, and we hope we can bring that to new groups of people." Codecademy lessons currently include instruction in JavaScript and jQuery. Filed under: dev        
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| Crysis 2 leads the list of 2011′s most pirated games Posted: 02 Jan 2012 12:59 PM PST Editorial ‘game of the year 2011′ picks favored the likes of Uncharted 3 and Skyrim, but the pirate vote went to Crysis 2. According to statistics published by BitTorrent blog TorrentFreak, the PC version of Electronic Arts’ first-person shooter was the most-pirated game of the year 2011 with an estimated 3.92 million downloads. The fact that Crysis 2 was more popular in the bootleg department than the year’s biggest-selling game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (which came in second with 3.65M BitTorrent downloads) could be attributed to the fact that an advance copy of Crysis 2 leaked to the internet one month ahead of its launch at retail. But according to TorrentFreak, downloads of this version only reached the tens of thousands, “the real boom came when the full version was released in March”. Rounding out the top 5 list for the PC are Battlefield 3 (3.51M downloads), FIFA 12 (3.39M) and Portal 2 (3.24M). TorrentFreak also compiled rankings for console games that saw the greatest number of BitTorrent downloads. On the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1.28M) was ahead of Mario Sports Mix (1.09M), while on the Xbox 360 Gears of War 3 (0.89M) outgunned Modern Warfare 3 (0.83M). Some BitTorrent download numbers were ‘helped’ by long gaps in game releases between different territories. The third most pirated Wii game was the European version of acclaimed role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles. Until recently, Nintendo had no plans to publish the game in North America, which saw its BitTorrent download numbers rise to 0.95M. Last December it was finally announced that Xenoblade Chronicles would see a North American release in April 2012. One can’t help quoting Valve’s Gabe Newell, “Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem”. TorrentFreak compiled the list using several sources including public BitTorrent trackers; all numbers are estimates. According to the blog, the PlayStation 3 is among the platforms that “get considerably less downloads and are excluded for that reason.” This might be attributed to higher ethics standards among the system’s user base or – more likely – larger file sizes due to the Blu-ray disc format. Top PC game downloads on BitTorrent in 2011:
Top Wii game downloads on BitTorrent in 2011:
Top Xbox 360 game downloads on BitTorrent in 2011:
Source: TorrentFreak.com Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
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| Shiny, happy company: Why happiness is the new metric for startup success Posted: 02 Jan 2012 12:45 PM PST
Years of studying neuroscience and psychology has led me to believe those are truly insightful mottos that should be instilled not just in high school students but company employees as well. In 1998 I was sitting in my partner's home office, brainstorming names for our brand new educational video game company. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, perhaps reflected in the fun name we came up with: Mudpuppy Studios. That happiness later deteriorated into pessimism and politics that undermined our company's productivity and strategy. Three years later I was sitting with my partners telling half of our employees "I'm so sorry everyone, but we have to lay you off. We just don't have the business to keep you on payroll." Within months we were shutting down the company entirely, one of the lowest moments of my life. If I knew then what I know now about optimal brain function, I might have been able to sustain the happiness and productivity we had at the beginning. According to S. G. Post's 2005 paper Altruism, Happiness, and Health: It's Good to Be Good (published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine) scientific data suggests doing things for others boosts happiness and health. Various studies have shown that happiness increases productivity. A 2009 study by A. J. Oswald, E. Proto, and D. Sgori for example found a 12% boost in productivity due to increased happiness. Those who work "not for one's self" in your office will be significantly more productive than those who are more self-focused. If my partners and I had instilled Non Sibi in our company culture, we would have been a more productive company. Similarly, Finis Origine Pendet, or "the end is determined by the beginning," has wisdom to offer startups. How a meeting, day, or company starts will largely determine the end. Starting a meeting positively, with recognitions and other expressions of gratitude, puts brains in a positive state. (See the 2003 study by P.C. Watkins, K. Woodward, T. Stone, and R. L. Kolts for more on how gratitude boosts happiness.) Numerous studies suggest that positive brain states lead to better creativity, insights and success (see for example The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success? by S. Lyubomirsky, L. King, and E. Diener.) By starting positively, success follows. Finis Origine Pendet. Negativity and fear, on the other hand, are the enemies of optimal brain function. When negativity and fear are intense, your brain goes into "fight or flight" mode. You decide between fight, flight, or freeze. You hear less about this third option because it doesn't rhyme, but in fact this is the brain's first option when faced with immediate threat. If you see a tiger, if you shut up and hold still, maybe the tiger won't see or hear you, and you'll survive. If it becomes clear that won't work — the tiger sees you and is approaching — then you choose between fighting it off (good luck) or running away (maybe you're with someone slower than you are). What you won't do under fear is think creatively. In fact, you won't use much of your brain's prefrontal cortex at all. Your prefrontal cortex is the layer of your brain immediately under your forehead; it's one part of your brain that distinguishes you from all other mammals. Our limbic systems, on the other hand, are quite similar to those of all other mammals. Our limbic systems are so good at keeping us alive under immediate threat, that they take over when we are excessively stressed or afraid. It's as if your limbic system (amygdala and other parts of your mid-brain) says to the rest of the brain, "We're under threat here, and I'm in charge. I know we have only three good options for staying alive, so I'm going to decide between fight, flight, or freeze. I'll take most of the oxygen and glucose coming to the brain now." Innovative, insightful thinking ("Hey, that tiger's stripes would be a cool design for our new product logo") doesn't keep you alive, so the creative parts of your brain are relegated to the brain's background. It's hard to be creative and successful when you are feeling negative or afraid. Start positive and stay happy to have productive brains and successful finish. Will your company have a positive, bright future? Or will fear and negativity undermine your success to the point of failure? How you start will have a significant effect on the outcome. Science suggests that my high school had some very good advice: work not for yourself to boost your happiness, and remember the ending is determined by the beginning. Non Sibi. Finis Origine Pendet.
Top image courtesy of Nora. Filed under: Entrepreneur Corner, VentureBeat        
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| Google launches political hub for 2012 elections Posted: 02 Jan 2012 11:18 AM PST
As the country prepares for a hot presidential race later this fall, the web is flooded with news, videos and events related to our collective political goings-on. Google.com/Elections organizes information for voters, politicians and journalists all in one centralized dashboard. “There's no question that the Internet is set to deliver more political information, opinion and news than any other medium throughout the 2012 U.S. elections,” writes Googler Eric Hysen on the company blog. Hysen says the new portal is “an election hub where citizens can study, watch, discuss, learn about, participate in and perhaps even make an impact on the digital campaign trail.” Each person in the race has his or her own page in the hub. On each individual’s page, you can see news items and videos as they become available. Those who want a fix of real-time stats can check out the Trends section of the hub, which shows searches by volume for each candidate as well as YouTube views and mentions in Google News stories. If you click the “Play” button in the top left corner of the page, you can even see how each trend played out over time. Trends can be viewed by day, week or month and also by state. Each particular trend for a particular candidate can be expanded to show more detail. YouTube.com/Politics brings its own variety of data. This section of Google’s video site shows the top five politics-focused clips from each month as well as a sweet-looking graph showing how each of the candidates compares in terms of video views. Google’s hub also has a Maps-powered section called On the Ground, which shows news events as they happen on a timeline and on a map. For now, the map centers on Iowa, where the first Republican caucuses will take place tomorrow, January 3, 2012. As more and more barometers of success pop up on the web, we have increasingly democratic tools for parsing our candidates’ popularity. Google’s Elections hub is just one more way of tracking who is winning Americans’ hearts and minds, but who will win the Republican primary — and the presidential election — is still anyone’s guess. Filed under: VentureBeat        
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| How Facebook will take over the rest of the world in 2012 Posted: 02 Jan 2012 09:56 AM PST It's hard to believe that in 2009, Facebook was insignificant compared to the rest of social media. Even harder to fathom is that one year later, Facebook asserted its dominance and became the undeniable leader of the social landscape, representing more than 50 percent of all time spent on social websites. It wasn't certain whether Facebook's fame would be fleeting, especially in the wake of privacy concerns, but in 2011, this doubt was put to bed when Facebook became the only social platform that mattered. Facebook now represents 95 percent of the time spent on social services and boasts nearly one in seven of the world's population as users. Facebook's dominance in social makes Google's dominance in search look like child's play. The question for 2012 is whether or not any other company with skin in the social game can matter again. Both Twitter and Google+ have released new versions to compete with Facebook, even on the brand-focused Pages side. Perhaps they will generate enough activity to snag 20 or 30 percent of the time spent on social. Perhaps Google will figure out their only hope is to buy Twitter. But most likely not. While 2011 was the year Facebook unquestionably dominated social media, 2012 will be the year Facebook takes over the world. Facebook marketing is more than fluff.In 2010, Facebook marketing was all about acquiring fans. In 2011, it has been all about engagement. In 2012, it is going to be all about performance and monetization. Enough of the social metrics and indicators: brands want true return on investment. Brands are tired of assessing ROI using fuzzy metrics like trying to put a CPM value on earned media or determining a monetary value for fans and multiplying that number by their fan base. Facebook advertising is growing up and speaking in adult terms, like cost per acquisition and average order values. In 2012, brands will be using the same language with Facebook as they do with email, search and the other lucrative forms of digital marketing. The campaign results will be competitive with these other channels, and Facebook advertising will offer a true, measurable, competitive marketing value. In fact, these campaigns are already in the works, as we’ve seen with with several of our clients at Webtrends. Testing and validation are under way to establish best practices across verticals ranging from Fortune 500 CPG brands to specialty ecommerce retailers to B2B brands. It's an app world.More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook, and 500 million people use an app on Facebook every month. During 2011, FBML (Facebook markup language) apps gave way to iFrame apps, making development on the platform more accessible. However, in 2012 the explosive new areas for Facebook apps are outside of Facebook.com. At this past year's f8 developer conference, Facebook announced custom Open Graph actions and objects. Apps like Spotify, Hulu, and Netflix now all share the activity that occurs in their apps to the ticker and timelines of their users. The value of this integration is in its infancy. Look for a new breed of external apps to become massively successful by leveraging custom Open Graph connections and timeline apps. Facebook is the dominant ad network.Out of the top five display ad networks in the U.S., only Google and Facebook have grown their market share in the last three years. The other players (Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo) have now formed an alliance to sell their inventory together. Facebook has been outpacing Google in its growth of market share, but it hasn't even played its trump card yet. While some of Google's display inventory is from Google properties like YouTube, Google Maps, etc., most of it is from the million plus websites that are a part of Google's AdSense program. Facebook in 2012 will likely launch its equivalent of Google's AdSense, opening a ton of new opportunities for advertisers on Facebook. Think about retargeting and IAB standard ad units. When this happens, Facebook's ad dominance will reach ridiculous proportions. Google has no such trump card left to play, unless it wants to acquire one or more of the tumbling top-five display ad networks. What about Google+?A big technology company spends big money to try to get into a lucrative space that it knows it missed out on. Sound familiar? While Google+ is arguably a better user experience in certain areas such as friend segmentation with circles, it came to the party too late. Like Bing, Google+ continues to slowly make progress, but it's measured in single percentage growth year-over-year and may never be profitable. But wait — since the tech gurus are all on tGoogle+ here and touting it as the next big thing, won't it be? Didn't the early adopter tech crowd make Twitter a big thing? The Twitterati become less predictive.Despite adoption rates to the contrary, the old vanguard of the Twitterati have migrated to Google+ and are touting the platform as the next place to be. Robert Scoble is included in 202K circles, and Jason Calacanis is in 243K circles. These follower numbers are huge for Google+ just like they were when they were on Twitter. But these same early adopters and thought leaders also tried to go to FriendFeed and claimed it was the next party after Twitter. And let’s not forget, Calacanis thought Google’s now-defunct Buzz would be the next party and eat Facebook's lunch. The truth is, celebrities (real celebrities, not high-caliber tech geeks) are the taste makers now. They surpass our geek royalty follower numbers on the first day they sign up. Do you think Conan O'Brien wants to tell his audience of 4.6 million Twitter followers to move to Google+? Be wary of geek leaders telling you that Google+ is the next big thing. Recall that geek culture went through collective vetting of "how things work" on Twitter developing the first rule set to dominate its feeds. But when Twitter became a mainstream consumer platform, the rules established by the tech elite were lost. The general public made its own rules about hashtags and following back. And the Twitterati set out to start their own LAN party elsewhere, but this time the mainstream didn't follow. These guys are still driving adoption on new platforms, but that doesn’t mean that these new networks will follow the same consumer trajectory that Twitter did. Mainstream doesn't need the next big thing. Google+ today and in 2012 will remain a self-segmented group of tech insiders. As a side note, Facebook in this story is the “popular” kid at school. She doesn't want to be BFFs with the geeks. Facebook got its popularity in the halls of Ivy League schools, then high schools, then businesses and then the public. Its roots were with the cool kids, which is why it is dominant today over Twitter. But if Twitter can leverage its celebrity and media connections with their more accessible user experience, it might be able to take a run at the blue mountain. Which leads me to my next 2012 prediction… Facebook’s IPO: Say hello to Silicon Valley’s newest billionaires.With the Facebook IPO slated for early summer, we can expect a lot of wealthy techies. We can expect this to drive a ton of innovation outside of Facebook as vested Facebookers break off to start their own companies and venture capital firms. Innovation will be driven further inside of Facebook as well, thanks to the cash infusion. They can start to pay family wages and not just fresh-out-of-Stanford wages, which means:
2012 is Facebook's fairy tale year.Facebook's ad network is growing at a rate 125 percent greater than Google’s ad network did. Facebook also own more of the market share in social than Google did for search. Facebook is about to have the largest tech IPO in history. It is going to release the equivilant of AdSense and a mobile platform next year. So is there really anything else of significance happening in social media next year? Probably not by comparison.
top image courtesy of Jolie O’Dell. Filed under: social, VentureBeat        
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In what will likely be the first of many major power struggles at BlackBerry maker 
A series of low-quality posts meant to increase the search ranking of Google’s Chrome browser, which also appear to have been sponsored by Google, could put the search giant in hot water for violating its own rules.
Apple apparently has a big event in store for New York City this month — though it’s not the announcement of the iPad 3, or the rumored Apple television set.
The seal of the high school I attended contained two Latin mottos: Non Sibi and Finis Origine Pendet. Despite seeing those words everywhere, I paid little attention to them. I later learned they mean "Not for one's self" and "The end is determined by the beginning", respectively. 
Scott Crabtree helps organizations attract, engage, develop, and retain top talent by applying neuroscience and psychology with workshops, coaching and consulting. Contact him through 
Google has launched a hub for keeping track of the (increasingly digital) U.S. elections.
Justin Kistner is the director of social products at 
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