SGN’s iBasketball Taking Wii-Like Games Too Far?
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 24th, 2008 1:01 PM
Like to play basketball? Then you probably won’t like the new iPhone app from SGN, called iBasketball. Even though it’s a fun game, it’s Wii-like movements with your iPhone aren’t good substitutes for the real game. I know that could be said about the majority of the Wii-like games made for the iPhone, but in testing the game out myself and speaking with a few other seasoned game players, the movement of shooting a basketball with the iPhone is a little more drastic than say, bowling.
Are mobile game makers over-doing the apps that require movement mimicking the real sport? Is the mobile market really the best venue for such games, seeing as there are a limited number of places in which most people will feel comfortable “throwing” their phones around in the act of playing basketball?
Read the rest of this entry »
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...
Facebook Thrown Out of Tree After Caught Kissing With Twitter
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 24th, 2008 10:25 AM
At Web 2.0 Summit a couple weeks ago, John Battelle asked Mark Zuckerberg about a potential acquisition of Twitter. Zuckerberg essentially avoided the question and Caroline McCarthy, suggested such a notion was ludicrous. This morning, Kara Swisher revealed that acquisitions discussions were actually taking place but eventually ended in failure.
Read the rest of this entry »
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Give Up Your Web Anonymity. Can Obama Do That?
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 24th, 2008 10:18 AM
Obama was one of the first politicians to really leverage online social media to its full potential during his campaign for the presidential election, so you’ve got to admit that he knows a thing or two about maintaining an online reputation. And now that Obama is the president elect, he expects the rest of his administration to disclose some of their online information, according to an article in the New York Times.Â
In a 7-page questionnaire, prospective White House employees will need to list their aliases and handles used to communicate on the Internet, among other expected questions pertaining to government new hires. Now, communicate is a broad term, especially when it comes to the Internet. For the questionnaire’s purpose, it even includes names used for comments posted on blogs and websites. Not only is that a daunting task, depending on your level of online activity, but it also crosses a privacy line that has not yet been addressed on this political level.Â
Read the rest of this entry »
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...MySpace Blackberry App Sees 400,000 Downloads in First Week
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 21st, 2008 12:38 AM
In a relatively surprising turn of events, MySpace experienced over 400,000 downloads of their application among Blackberry’s in the first week. According to MySpae this is the most downloads in the first week for both RIM and MySpace. Over 15 million messages were sent and received and over 2 million statuses and moods were updated.
Read the rest of this entry »
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Who Likes Mufins when You Can’t Share?
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 20th, 2008 3:50 PM
Mufin, the music search and recommendation engine that suggests music based on an algorithmic analysis of music, has launched its public beta today. Of course, the biggest point of interest is the lack of human editing when it comes to Mufin’s recommendations, setting it apart from the likes of Last.fm and Pandora. Even though many systems such as web search queries have been after the all mighty algorithm that works as well as (if not better than) a human, none have really come close to replacing the human element.
Granted, Mufin’s recommendations do work rather well. Perhaps this is because matching music can be more readily turned into a mathematical representation than say a search query for the best restaurants in Union Square. But Mufin seems to lack the human touch in its entirety. There’s no tweaking you can do for the recommendations Mufin offers, indicating how well of a match a song really is. And the social implications on Mufin’s main site are minimal, limited to a top playlist of songs that have been viewed, searched or played by others.
Read the rest of this entry »
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...A Clash of Idealists and “Realists” Becomes Apparent
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 20th, 2008 2:44 PM
There’s been something bubbling in D.C. for the past year or two and more recently, it’s become boiling hot: the convergence of the technology crowds from around the area. It’s something that I’ve been pushing for at least two years and a number of other people have been supporting as well. Something that has increasingly become apparent is that there are simply people that get it and those that don’t.
Read the rest of this entry »
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...comScore Can’t Keep Up with Changing SocNet Ads
Posted by Kristen Nicole on November 20th, 2008 12:11 PM
Yesterday Nick mentioned on All Facebook that Facebook has modified ad formats throughout the social network yet again, now displaying three ads, up from two per page. This was just the latest in a string of changes made to Facebook ad display options, which has also included video ads on the homepage. But who’s keeping track? comScore is trying.
According to Red Herring, comScore is under-counting ad traffic on Facebook because of the constant modifications made to the ad formats. For instance, counting display ads and not content-laden marketing ploys could mean that a portion of advertising methods aren’t being efficiently included in reports reflecting Facebook’s potential to deliver ads to users.
Read the rest of this entry »
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...In a World of 99 Cent Millionaires
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 19th, 2008 3:05 PM
Over the past few years there has been a tremendous shift toward open platforms and now there are limitless tools to connect with your friends, increase your productivity, and waste your time. Facebook was a tremendous catalyst for this but now there are millions of applications on the web, some useful, some not, most of which now provide developer APIs. For those of you not aware of what APIs are, they enable developers to quickly integrate their own features directly into another service or build upon existing application functionality.
Read the rest of this entry »
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Smule’s Ocarina Soothes the Soul
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 19th, 2008 9:00 AM
I have been holding off on buying the Ocarina application the iPhone despite it’s rise to the number one application as I couldn’t get myself to spend the 99 cents for an unknown application. After seeing Mike Arrington’s post on it this afternoon, I had to download it. The application is spectacular in that it enables users to play any song in any tone and has all of the features of a standard wind instrument (aside of course the lack of a place for air to exit to increase reverberations).
Read the rest of this entry »
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...GlamApps Validates BuddyMedia’s Appvertisement Model
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 18th, 2008 7:13 PM
Today, Glam media announced the launch of GlamApps a service for advertisers to generate interactive content that publishers can leverage to generate revenue. The service also leverages OpenSocial, expanding the service to one of the largest blog networks on the web. Rather than have publishers create their own interactive tools, advertisers are encouraged to build their own services which bloggers can embed and then the advertiser can display ads on.
Read the rest of this entry »
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
