With Flash Gaming Summit (FGS) and Game Developers Conference 2010 (GDC) now over, we’d like to take the opportunity to reflect on some of the key takeaways. One of the most discussed areas was career opportunities in the gaming industry, particularly in the area of social gaming. Here’s a few of the opportunities gleaned from various sessions, panels and interviews last week.
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If you are looking for a job in social games, you better be ready to be guided by metrics and not just your creative genius. That’s what Scott Jennings told a small groups of gaming enthusiasts and curious minds during a conversation led by him and James Au at SXSW 2010. It was in response posed to him by Social Times about what specific skills social game developers need that traditional game developers don’t have.
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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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According to four panelists at the FGS 2010 Flash Gaming Summit in San Francisco, if you’re designing and developing a social game, there are a few critical elements to be considered if you want it to be a success. The panel, entitled “4 Keys to Successful Social Games that All Game Developers Should  Know,” was moderated by Sana Choudary of Traffichoney.
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Last week we formally announced our upcoming Social Developer Summit in San Francisco, however some people are still confused about the event. This post offers some clarifications. In the social web economy, many use the term “developers” when describing organizations that build applications on top of platforms. While it’s not inaccurate to use this term, it has unfortunately replaced the true “developer” term which is a reference to software engineers.
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Social Media Week, five days in which all online networking junkies and “gurus” can come out behind their TweetdDecks to play, is scheduled for Feb. 1-5. Toby Daniels, the New York City-based head of Twestival, produced last year’s events after discovering there were at least four other social media-related happenings set for the same week.
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Let’s be honest, listening to people talk about tweeting for 8 hours gets kind of annoying. Given that I had never previously attended a Twitter conference I thought I would at least give one a shot. Thankfully the people over at Modern Media brought a Twitter conference to D.C. and it wasn’t as hype-filled as one would expect. At the end of the day though what we’re always listening for is valuable anecdotes and Twitter is the perfect platform for sharing those.
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Thummit, the real-time Twitter event tracker, has set up a dedicated page to follow tomorrow’s inauguration. Seeing as Twitter has proven to be a good way to share information about a given event, as well as offer the world real-time updates pertaining to a particular event, the concept behind Thummit’s tracking service seems to make a lot of sense.

Tomorrow will be one of the biggest events of 2009, so it’s no wonder Thummit is looking to get a little buzz going. You see, Thummit is currently in private beta, but the company is taking full advantage of the inauguration to show off what its tracking service can do.
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Frank Gruber has been kind enough to give readers of Social Times with a $25 discount for the upcoming Tech Cocktail Conference. The event is in Chicago on May 29th. I’m going to be headed out there to speak at the event. Other speakers includes Jason Friend from 37signals, Dick Costolo from FeedBurner, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV and a number of other speakers.

This is the first Tech Cocktail Conference ever. The focus of the conference is taking a “non nonsense” approach to building a business that can flourish by leveraging technology and the web. If you are looking for a great conference to attend where you can actually talk directly with the keynote presenters as well as learn a ton about building your business, this is a great one to attend.

If you’d like to attend and get a discount, use the code: socialtimes when you register via the conference registration form. I hope to see you there!

There are a few upcoming D.C. events that I wanted to draw attention to. The first one is this week’s social media club which is being hosted at Viget Labs in Falls Church, VA. Ann Bernard of WhyGoSolo will be speaking about the creation of her startup and how WhyGoSolo can be used as a social media platform. Social Media Club is a meeting of people for the “purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and for promoting media literacy.” It’s a great event which I’ve attended before and I highly recommend it.

The second event is next Monday. JobMatchbox will be hosting a networking event and panel about starting your own business. The panel includes myself, Robert Nellbauer (JobMatchbox.com), Keith Casey (WhyGoSolo.com) and Victor Prince (MiddleSon.com). The main purpose is to expose American University students to the D.C. startup community and also provide them with the opportunity for internships and possible future jobs. If you are interested in attending the event go register via the event registration form. This is event’s expected attendance is approximately 100 people.

Finally, the weekend of the 18th will be PodcampDC. This event is sure to be popular with already hundreds of people registered. The event is being hosted at the Art Institute of Washington. Podcamp DC is an “unconference” focused on educating participants on how to use, implement and share any/all new media tools including, podcasts, videocasts, blogs, Second Life, Facebook, and YouTube.

It’s an awesome event and great opportunity to learn from other people in the local community. If you are interested in attending, go sign up via the PodcampDC registration form. I hope to see you there! Also, if I missed your event please post it in the comments below!