Archive for March 10th, 2010

UNO, a family card game which has growing in popularity over the last 30 years, has been adapted to a great Facebook game (which you can play here) that seamlessly integrates real-time multiplayer gameplay and pleasing graphics.  The game has been gaining momentum on Facebook, hovering around 3,700,000 monthly active users and is listed consistently in the top ten for “Card Games” on the Facebook Games dashboard.  We review the popular game below.
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Today, MySpace announced a revamped games homepage, available at www.myspace.com/games, which helps users discover and share games virally. The new Games section also improves application engagement and analytics tools for game developers. In addition, MySpace introduced the “MySpace Neon iPhone” application that gives users access to their MySpace games on the iPhone.
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At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010 this year, Amitt Mahajan, a lead developer of Farmville, revealed that the entire development of Farmville took five weeks, that Zynga has a clear understanding of their userbase, and that they are integrating developers into the design process.  These achievements are not common practice to the console gaming industry and gaming world at large, and it seems as if console game makers should start applying some of these lessons to their own games and development.
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Following shortly after the launch of Portalarium two weeks ago, game design legend Richard Garriot has taken his first big step and launched the Portalarium Player for Facebook. The Portalarium player allows games that were developed on various engines, consoles and platforms to run as applications within Facebook.  Judging by the quality of their flagship title, Sweet @$! Poker’, Portalarium games may successfully bring the console game experience to Facebook.
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Google has released a new weapon for its quest to conquer the cloud computing space dubbed the Google Apps Marketplace. Google describes its Apps Marketplace as

products and services designed for Google users, including installable apps that integrate directly with Google Apps

These installable apps are easy to use because they include single sign-on, Google’s universal navigation and some even features that integrate with your domain’s data. Although I’m could not really see any use for those apps as I’m not an administrator of our company’s enterprise computing system, I checked the Google Apps Marketplace nonetheless. What did I find? Several cool online web apps that would really be useful if you’re running an enterprise system that uses Google Business Apps. Read the rest of this entry »

RockYou are today launching their “Deal of the Day” (DOTD) ad unit, which gives flash game developers the ability to offer and monetize deals on virtual goods and services. This offering is part of RockYou’s ad network, which reaches 280 million people across most of the major social networks. Lisa Marino, Chief Revenue Officer at RockYou, in an interview with SocialTimes, provided a bit of insight.
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