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This morning Google announced a new Blue
Dot feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search that shows whether a product is
in-stock at nearby stores. This seems to pose a threat to startup Milo, which highlights local inventory in product search results both on
the web and mobile devices. Milo’s co-founder Ted Dziuba subsequently responded to our post
with a Tweet that read “Google
Product Search has availability for 5 retailers vs. Milo’s 49. Super cool web service,
bro.” At launch Google only has partnerships with Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery
Barn, and West Elm. Milo’s list of merchants includes a range of retailers, from BestBuy
and Nordstrom to Midwestern regional department store Blain’s Farm and Fleet.
When we asked for an additional response, Milo sent us this amazing set of pictures below.
Milo’s Palo Alto office’s are located at 165 University Avenue, in the same space as
Google’s first office back in 1999. Look closely at the picture and you may even see a few
of the famous faces from Google’s original team. The building itself is legendary in Silicon Valley and has also
housed PayPal. Here’s a 2007 New York Times article detailing the
building’s history and apparent lucky karma. The picture of the Google employees was given
to Milo by one of its investors.
Milo CEO and co-founder Jack Abraham was quick to respond that they are not implying that Milo is
the next Google, but just meant to inject some light-hearted humor into the situation. In all
seriousness, Abraham said that Milo has a tremendous amount of respect for Google and its Product
Search but aren’t scared of the search giant entering the market and actually welcomes the
competition. Abraham and his team have been working for the past two years to scale their product
and feel that their offering is more comprehensive than Google’s Blue Dot specials. While
Milo is steadily expanding its merchants both regionally and nationally, the startup is also
looking to partner with mom and pop shops in cities. Currently, Milo indexes 2 million products.
And Forrester reports that the “online research, offline buying” consumer market
represents
$917 billion in consumer spending, which is 30 percent of all U.S. retail sales. Online,
e-commerce spending accounts for less than 5 percent of U.S. sales. With those numbers, it comes
of no surprise that Google wants a piece of the pie. But perhaps there’s enough room for a
number of players to monetize from this space.
Google has announced the initial roll-out of a new feature for its mobile product search: Local
inventory checks. This means that you can look for a product and then find out if a store near
you has it in stock.
To try out the new “in stock nearby” feature, go to Google.com on your iPhone, webOS,
or Android phone (basically anything that uses Mobile WebKit) and then select
“Shopping” from the “More” link. As long as you have enabled your
location, when you search for a product, it will let you know in the results if a store nearby
has it in stock.
For instance, I want to get a new Blu-ray player for my bedroom, and I’m thinking about
getting the LG BD-570. Searching for this tells me that Best Buy carries it and that it is
in-stock nearby. When I click on that link, I get a listing of stores based on their proximity to
where I am, and whether or not the product is in stock. From here, I can either get directions to
the store or call them directly.
It’s a pretty cool concept, albeit limited with only a few stores in the program right now.
It certainly adds a more useful element to local shopping, especially while on the go. We’d
love to see this rolled into the Google
Shopper app for Android too.
What do you think of being able to check inventory levels from Google? Do you use Google’s
mobile product search? Let us know!
This is a guest post from Gregor Schauer,
who has worked in tech in Silicon Valley since 2000. Gregor has also recently spent 2
years in equity research at JMP Securities and Jefferies, covering the Internet sector and
enterprise software. You can follow him on Twitter
here. Disclosure: Gregor owns Apple and Google shares.
One of the more curious things about the patent infringement lawsuit that
Apple filed against HTC is why it didn't file one against Palm first. There had already
been a lot of speculation about Apple
suing Palm, but virtually no one saw them taking on HTC first. Interestingly, an
unintended consequence of this lawsuit is that it potentially increases the value of Palm's
patent portfolio, and strengthens the case for them to be acquired.
So what is the market valuing Palm at? After the huge smack on the head that the
stock got after the company's recent miserable revenue guidance, it's $759 million for WebOS
+ all of Palm's patents + their existing business. This is the enterprise value of the
company, or what the company would cost to an acquirer if it was purchased for its current market
value. (Though, a buyer will likely have to pay a premium.)
At the Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2010 Media Summit, Condé Nast's vice president for business
development, Julie Michalowski, bashed the idea of pay walls,
(Fishbowl NY reports):
Without the government
bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, the U.S. auto industry would likely have two
fewer domestic automakers and hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs would be history. The
Detroit News reports that ex auto task force chief Steve Rattner recently told an audience at
a bankruptcy conference that the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit would have faced
municipal bankruptcy if Chrysler and GM were liquidated.
Instead, Rattner claims the government bailout not only saved untold thousands of jobs and two
enormous American car companies, but the price tag for the government is shrinking as time goes on.
Initial estimates by the task force showed that the auto bailout would cost U.S. taxpayers $20
billion or
$30 billion after GM and Chrysler's initial stock sale, but Ratner claims that the current
price tag is $10 billion or less. The estimated loss has gone down due in part to the fact that old
GM's assets are worth more than previously estimated and The General is turning around its
operations more quickly than originally thought. If GM continues to surprise and delight, the
government may even make some money when it goes public with a stock offering this year or
next.
Would the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan have gone bankrupt if GM and Chrysler were
liquidated? There is no way to be sure, but if the government hadn't stepped in and bailed them
out, its inaction would have probably cost taxpayers untold billions of dollars as well.
Google Product
Search was already a handy shopping aid, but today's addition of local inventory info makes it
essential. And like most great ideas, it's only going to get better with time. More »
Google Product
Search was already a handy shopping aid, but today's addition of local inventory info makes it
essential. And like most great ideas, it's only going to get better with time. More »
With Mini 5, Opera Software has managed to make a cross-platform browser that provides an almost
uniform experience across all the operating systems it runs upon. Today's release on Android
feels almost identical to the version I tested last week.
However, with Android we're taking a different look at Opera and its comparisons to other
browsers. It's easy to say "Oh, Opera is faster than IE Mobile, but not as comprehensive as
Skyfire," when comparing browsers on Windows Phones. Everybody does that.
Because there are four different versions of Google's mobile operating system in circulation
right now, there are at least three different native Android browsers to compare Opera Mini 5 to.
Android versions 1.5 and 1.6 have an older version (v.04) of the Android browser, while Android
2.0 and up have a browser with a new UI and new features. Android 2.1 has the same browser as
2.0, but it is endowed with multi-touch gestures.
We tested Opera Mini 5 against the two main Android browsers.
Opera Mini 5 on Android 1.5 & 1.6
For devices that run upon the "Cupcake" and "Donut" builds of Android, Opera Mini 5
provides a number of different experiences from the stock browser. First, Opera provides an
actionable address bar which can just be clicked upon to enter URLs. In Android Browser 4, the
user has to hit "Menu > Go" to bring up the address bar. Secondly, Zooming in and out with the
Android browser is done with the preview tool and magnifying glass buttons, but Mini 5's is
mostly pre-ordained. If you set it to "mobile view," pages are formatted to fit your screen so
you don't have to do too much resizing. However, Mini 5 defaults with mobile view off and full
screen mode off, so your pages are first going to load very quickly, but will require zooming
(done by double-tapping the screen, a gesture that Android Browser version 4 actually lacks.)
When considering Mini 5 on interface alone, It's not a significant improvement over the stock
browser, however there's much more to love about Opera than its UI, so we'll talk more about that
later.
Opera Mini 5 on Android 2.0+
Devices running Android 2.0 and beyond are generally equipped with stronger processors, so
browsing with the stock Android browser is a tough experience to compete with. Fortunately for
Opera Mini 5, the experience it provides on these devices actually holds up quite well thanks to
some of the features it adds that Android lacks across the board.
Principal among these is tabbed browsing. In all Android browsers, your browser tabs are a whole
sub-screen which pulls you out of your current window and into a new one. In Opera Mini, browser
tabs appear as an overlay in your main window with a rack of thumbnails that can be chosen from.
This adds a lot to the feeling of continuity within Opera and is an area where the Android
browser suffers.
Another major complaint about the Android browser is that it does not sync your mobile bookmarks
with anything. They're currently something of a dead end. This has been a big argument in favor
of the Dolphin browser, which offers that feature. Even better, however, is Opera Mini 5, which
actually can sync to your desktop version of Opera with Opera Link. So if you're a desktop Opera
user, not only will your Speed Dial screen be automatically populated, but it also gives you
instant access to your bookmark folders and RSS feeds.
The final issue to mention when talking about any of Opera's products is the addition of
server-side rendering. Pages in Opera Mini 5 are digested on an Opera server before they hit your
device's screen, so browsing is sped up considerably. Though browsing on a 3G connection is
enjoyable on all Android devices, Opera Mini 5 can knock out pages appreciably faster.
So what's the bottom line on this beta?
It's a "Must Have" if:
You're a desktop Opera user using Android 1.5 or 1.6.
It's a "Must Try" if:
You're in an area with poor 3G coverage using Android 1.5 or 1.6.
For everyone else, it will be worthwhile to play around with it and see if you like what Opera
does. After all, it is the most popular mobile browser in the world.
Opera Mini 5 beta can be downloaded today in the Android market.
Google just launched a new feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search which could
take local shopping search startup Milo out at the knees. Whenever
you do a Google product search from a mobile phone, blue dots will appear next to items which are
in-stock at nearby stores. The image at right is from a search I just did for
“HDTVs.” Â The blue dots are subtle, but they certainly distinguish those
results. Google has partnerships with Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West
Elm to show local inventory, and it is inviting other merchants to apply to
participate as well.
Highlighting local inventory in product search results is exactly what Milo does, although it
works on the Web as well as mobile. Milo will have to try to keep one step ahead of Google now
that its business has been targeted as a feature of Google Product search.
The good news for Milo is that nobody really uses Google Product Search. It is not even
highlighted as one of the products on the Google iPhone app, for instance. Maybe that will
change, now that it has a geo-enabled set of results.
When you are looking for stuff to buy, it always helps to know where you can buy an item nearby.
The vast majority of people who shop on the Web actually
just use it for research, and then go local to buy.
Google just announced
that the mobile version of Google Product Search
can now tell you if a certain product is in stock at nearby stores. Currently, Google is only
working with a handful of retailers, including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and
West Elm, but the company is actively looking for
more partners. To see these results, just browse to Google.com on
your mobile phone (Android, WebOS or Android), click the "more" link and then "Shopping." The
local inventory will be updated in real time and is currently only available for users in the
U.S.
Sponsor
Google obviously thinks that providing the best local results
possible is the future for a large number of its services. Now that most modern mobile browsers
can forward your location data to web apps, it's become even easier for Google to offer these
kinds of local results and Google's initiatives around Google Maps and Place Pages show how
serious the company is about local search.
For now, with this small number of participating retailers, this isn't necessarily the most
useful feature yet. If Google actually manages to get more businesses to use this feature (and/or
to expose their inventory through an API), then Google Product Search - which has remained
relatively underused - could easily establish itself as the go-to local shopping service.
For more details about the mobile version of Google Product Search, have a look at this video (the
introduction of Product Search starts about 19 minutes into the presentation)
In January,
private company stock marketplace SecondMarket
published data on private company stock sales that they helped complete in 2009. And
February’s report showed the transactions that took place in January, which showed a
strong demand for consumer products and services startups. The majority of transactions in
January were sales of Facebook stock. SecondMarket just released its February report, which you
can download here.
Transactions more tripled in February, from $13 million in sales to $43.8 million in sales last
month. A full 48% of the transactions were sales of Facebook stock, compared to 38% in January.
And last month, we reported that sales are being completed for as high as $40 per share (or a
$17.6 billion valuation). But we learned this week that Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg is in no rush to take the company public. LinkedIn took 18% of the transactions,
and sales of both Twitter and Zynga stock were each 15% of the total. LifeLock rounded the group
out with 4% of the total.
The transactions concentrated mainly in consumer products and services (85%) and media and
entertainment (15%). Similar to January’s trends, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter attracted
the most transactions on SecondMarket.
On the buying side, Facebook led the way with one-third of all buyside demand followed by Twitter
(7%) and LinkedIn (5%). Interest in Zynga (3%) also rose in February. On the seller side,
ex-employees of start-ups stepped up their selling activity in February, comprising over 80% of
sales, the highest percentage in the past nine months.
Noticeably missing from the report was Tesla, which filed for a
$100 million IPO in late January.
I had gotten some very well-informed and interesting replies when I asked you guys about the
stock market, so I figured I would try my luck again with something at least as shady, scammy
and rife with get-rick-quick artists: Google AdWords
affiliate marketing.
The basic idea, to those of you unfamiliar with the concept: Company A offers its product for sale
(say, an anti-virus). If I get them a paying customer, they give me a cut of the deal (percent or a
set cash amount). In this setup, I'm called an affiliate, and It's up to me to drive them
traffic. One of the most common ways for an affiliate to get traffic is by using AdWords: I pay
Google, and if enough people buy the product, company A pays me back and I cash in. This is in
theory.
In looking into the subject recently, I was unsurprised to find that it is full of some of
the most shoddy and untrustworthy materials. In fact, it is so full of crap, I had a hard
time finding anything valuable. So I ask you: are there any valuable resources here? Or is it
totally "trial and error"? Do you know anyone who actually made money with this, or is it mainly a
losing proposition?
NOTE: Needless to say, any affiliate links in the comments (even valuable
comments) will get the comments deleted, and if severe, may get you banned. This is a strictly
non-commercial avenue. If you reply, reply because you want to help the other readers, not
because you're trying to market something. I will be checking every link. Share
Google Mobile Blog: In stock
nearby? Look for the blue dots. — Vic Gundotra, VP of
Engineering, demonstrated last December a preview version of Product Search for mobile with local
inventory, which lets you see right in your search results whether items are in stock at nearby
stores.
Last December, Vic Gundotra, Google Vice President of Engineering,
demonstrated a preview version of Product Search for mobile devices with local inventory, which
lets you see right in your search results whether items are in stock at nearby stores. And today,
Google has announced that this feature is available - featuring products that is sold by
participating retailers including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn or West Elm.
Just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it's available in a local store
around you. Tap on the adjacent "In stock nearby" link and you'll see whether the item is "In
Stock" or has "Limited Availability" near you.
Until now, Android users have been stuck with Opera Mini 4.2, a thoroughly lackluster browser that
really doesn't compete with either the stock WebKit browser or Dolphin. With Mini 5, Opera becomes a serious contender for the
growing Android device market. Initial reviews suggest that Opera Mini 5 is quick and handy, but
doesn't seem to render either JavaScript or Flash content -- I doubt it's going to replace your
default browser for the time being. But give it time, it's just a beta!
If you want more details, PCMag has a
hands-on review with the new browser, but it's probably easier to just install Mini 5 and give
it a go yourself. If you're reading this on your Android phone, just visit m.opera.com/next!
Opera's Mini 5 beta finally hit Android in the wee hours of this
morning and, while writing about what it looks like is nice, we thought a little walk-through
to demonstrate the impressive speed of the thing was worthwhile. So we have a short video for you
below, with a comparison against the stock Android browser, plus some impressions of just how it is
to use. So, click on through, won't you?
Andy Kessler has one of his standard thought-provoking opinion pieces discussing the economy of the
past decade, suggesting that the real lesson learned from the past decade is the dangers of bad gov't policies leading to misallocated capital. Starting with bad
telco regulations in the 90s that drove a bubble in unnecessary and misguided investment in
infrastructure, some of which overflowed into a ridiculous dot com gold rush: The late '90s
Internet love fest was crazy enough, driven by former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt's misguided telecom
reform that had the effect of keeping data rates artificially high. This created a gold rush to
install fiber and build applications that didn't make economic sense (though electronic commerce,
online banking, as well as wireless and broadband deployment would eventually prove productive over
the next decade). Bad policy meant capital got overallocated and too quickly, as momentum mutual
funds (momos) and day traders furiously drove up stock prices of every company with dot-com in its
name for no fundamental reasons. Wall Street trading was broken. But, he notes, there was a
core of a good idea in there. What made the investment in the internet and new technologies make
sense was that it actually did drive productivity. The proper use of such tools increased
productivity, decreased costs and opened up new markets. But with the flood of misallocated money,
a lot of that got obscured in chasing sock puppets selling pet food.
Following this, there was a combination of bad policy decisions -- Greenspan flooding the system
with money out of fear of a Y2K problem, combined with Enron freaking people out and leading to
Sarbanes Oxley -- and a new mess was created: Instead of finishing what the dot-com era started
to deliver--a productive, wealth-producing economy--capital was seduced into the financial lair of
private equity and real-estate mortgages. Trillions were pumped into unneeded housing stock. Fannie
and Freddie fanned the flames, and then fizzled and failed. And leveraged buyouts reigned. Even in
2007, one Blackstone private equity fund raised almost as much money as all of the venture capital
industry. The key point here is that venture capital tends to (though, certainly not
always...) invest in real innovation, nurturing concepts from idea to market and beyond. Private
equity, however, is more about just moving money around and looking for quick hit opportunities to
get increasing returns. One grows the economy. The other does not. But, by punishing the capital
markets that fund real innovation and company growth via Sarbanes Oxley, money that used to go to
venture investment went towards the east coast private equity world, where it was shuffled around,
rather than invested productively. And, tragically, it doesn't look like anything the government is
doing is designed to fix this: Today, we are still left with almost no initial public
offerings. While private equity fund-raising was down 68% in 2009 to $96 billion, venture capital
barely raised $13 billion.
Capital gains taxes are set to return to 20% on Jan. 1, 2011. And worse, investing is as uncertain
as ever. No one wants to fund health care, medical devices or even much biotech if they can't
figure out how they are going to be paid via reimbursements from ObamaCare. Energy investing is
also a mess. And while "green" investing is booming, with few exceptions that is about efficiency
rather than productivity. There's a big difference: You can make the Post Office more efficient
while email makes us more productive and wealthier.
Big regulated oligopolists control our communications infrastructure. Startups are nowhere to be
found. Few are willing to take the risk of true venture investing.
It's been 10 long years since the economy has created real wealth, as opposed to easy-credit
induced real-estate or paper wealth. Amidst all the current confusion over health care and tax
rates and energy and banking reforms, maybe it's time that the market transitions back to
investments that drive productivity and increase living standards rather than just paper
profits. Reaching back to our economic parables, it's a question of whether or not our
government has been making a giant broken window
fallacy. It's not working on plans that fund actual productivity and economic growth. The
government is focused, instead, on getting money moving around again, and all that means is it will
move into another unproductive bubble, until we align the incentives properly again.
L'apparition d'une nouvelle catégorie et l'ajout d'un album photo est peut-être
quelque peu prématuré, je vous le concède, mais ces petits restes de laine
auxquels on rend une seconde vie tout en faisant autre chose, en papotant, en co-pilotant ou en
regardant (écoutant, plus exactement) une série télé, voire en
fabruant des mondes imaginaire avec un acrobate, ça me plaît! et ça tombe pie
au bon moment: vous l'aurez remarqué, je couds une fois par mois, et encore, les mois
fastes - situation temporaire, évidemment, mais néanmoins douloureuse...
Après l'écharpe de l'acrobate, qui rend beaucoup mieux que ce que j'avais
imaginé, je crochète pour moi (Mr Chat ayant fort peu diplomatiquement
décliné mon offre d'une mirifique écharpe en camaïeu crocheté)
des grannies dans des tons de gris. J'ignore encore ce que cela deviendra, soit une
écharpe ou une étole, soit, si mon stock de laine grise le permet, un chauffe
épaule...
J'aime dans la versatilité du corchet, sa labilité,qui permet de
réfléchir à la forme définitive du machin tout en y travaillant...
J'imagine les tricoteuses authentiques gloussant à la lecture de ma naïve remarque et
hurlant, sans interrompre leur infernal tikeuticlactikeuticlak, que le tricot aussi c'est ludique
et évolutif... Sauf que le tricot me paralyse tandis que le crochet m'éclate!
J'accepte égalment les ricanements moqueurs des croceteuses expérimentéesqui
trovueront que pour s'éclater sur du granny, il faut être un peu simplette.. Pas
faux... Mais je m'échauffe, les filles, je m'échauffe!
Forbes has released its annual list of the world’s billionaires and when it comes to technology, the list includes many
of the same faces we see year
after year.
After regaining the throne last year, Bill Gates has once again been displaced as the
world’s richest man — this time by Carlos Slim (who held that post back in 2007), but
he remains the richest man in tech by a wide margin with an estimated net worth of $53
billion.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who fell
off the list last year, has rejoined, tied with 20 others at #212 with an estimated net worth of
$4 billion.
Check out how some other tech heavyweights weighed in:
Larry Ellison: $28 Billion
The Oracle founder and CEO is the sixth richest person in the world this year, sitting pretty
with $28 billion as his estimated net worth.
Sergey Brin & Larry Page: $17.5 Billion Each
The two Google co-founders both place 24th on the list with $17.5 billion in estimated net worth.
Steve Ballmer: $14.5 Billion
Thanks to a rise in Microsoft’s stock price, Ballmer saw his net worth rise and he sits at
#33 on the overall list.
Paul Allen and Michael Dell: $13.5 Billion
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen might appear to spend money like its water, but he’s still
ranked at #37 on the list, tied with Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell.
Jeff Bezos: $12.3 Billion
The Amazon founder and CEO is ranked #43 with $12.3 billion in estimated net worth. That’s
a lot of eBooks!
Eric Schmidt: $6.3 Billion
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is ranked #117 this year, tied with News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Steve Jobs: $5.5 Billion
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has watch his company’s stock price soar over the last
twelve months. He’s ranked #136 with an estimated $5.5 Billion.
Pierre Omidyar: $5.2 Billion
The eBay founder is ranked #148 on the list.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg:Â $3 Billion each
While most filmmakers don’t necessarily fall into the category of technology players, I
think we can make an exception for the guy who gave us Jaws, E.T. and
Minority Report and the guy that gave us Star Wars and Howard The
Duck. Both directors are tied at #316.
Jerry Yang: $1.3 Billion
Hey, being ousted wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Yang — Yahoo’s stock was
up 26% in the last year, buoying the co-founders net worth along with it.
Sporadic play describes a game where mechanics intentionally limit how often a player interacts
with a persistent game world. We’ll talk about history with it, why it is a good thing,
design concepts, and a bit about the future.
HISTORY… IN REVERSE
Most obvious place to start — Facebook. Look at the top 20 games here. Farmville is #1 and
uses sporadic play. Mafia Wars, Petville, YoVille, 16 of the top 20 are sporadic play games. If
you add up the MAU, you get 332m people, which is kinda BS, but just in the top 20.
It has also been around in console and traditional PC games. Animal Crossing, a game where as
time went on in real life, events like Christmas happened in the game too. Seasons, real time,
limiting what you can do based on the real time of the real. Another one was Kingdom of Loathing
in 2002, a web game, limited number of things you can do based on action points.
Another recent example is play by email or play by forums. You may be familiar with Gaia Online
— a game in the form of a forum. There are also RPG forums and PBEM RPGs.
And Tradewars 2002 — which came out in 1984, when 2002 was THE FUTURE. You flew around to
different planets, traded, had fights. And at the end of your actions for the day, you had to
leave your spaceship online while you had your day, vulnerable. So you would park your ship in
the deepest darkest corner of space.
29.9m players of fantasy sports in 2007… pick rosters, teams, and then you get delayed
results and watch what happens. Has been around since 1960. You are playing a game as a metagame
around another game.
Going further back… play by mail. Peaked in the 1980s, but started as mail rules for
Diplomacy by John Boardman in the 1960s. There were three magazines devoted to playing games by
mail.
And then there is chess, by correspondence. Since you had so muh time you could do research, look
up moves in books, and pick the optimal period. On this sheet people would mail back and forth
there were choices for “I can’t read your handwriting” — a 2 month delay
in a move! This goes back to the middle ages, kings sending moves back and forth.
The conference game this year is BackChannel, which is betting on keywords that will be tweeted
during the show… a high tech sporadic version of Buzzword Bingo.
The stock market is also premised on sporadic play. Limited interaction, persistent world…
been going on since 1602 in Amsterdam and 1309 in Antwerp.
And evolution: from a species point of view it is a sporadic play game. You get limited
interaction, then 9 months later, a result… slow feedback… but hey after billions
of years, we think we won.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
It does not mean casual. People lump them together, and there is overlap, but consider Bejeweled
Blitz. You can keep playing it as much as you want.
Key differences…
* depth of gameplay — stock market is a deep game.
* Variability of learning curve. Casual games have smooth ones… sporadic games vary a lot.
* Potential time commitment. Bejeweled Blitz can eat 4 hours… but a sporadic play game
intentionally CAP you, so the potential for time commitment is lower.
* Persistence… the world persists in some way, and does not reset.
* Sporadic does not necessarily mean asynch multiplayer. It focuses on the relationship between
the player and the game. It frequently USES asynch multiplayer of course.
WHY CARE?
Millions of people play sporadic games on social networks. People tend to talk about these in
terms of viral tricks and we wanted to talk about it differently.
Also, reaching broad audiences. We were traditional gamers who didn’t have time anymore but
still want to play.
Then there is the multitasking gamer. It is more common now to find gamers who are playing
multiple games at once.
Then there are non-traditional gamers. They are looking for “something to do” with
low time commitment and barrier to entry.
All of these audiences can be served by the same sporadic game.
This is also a new lens for designers — lens in the sense of Jesse Schell’s lenses in
ART OF GAME DESIGN. Many games now are sporadic but we don’t think of them that way.
We believe sporadic play can be added to existing games and allow them to reach broader
audiences.
SKYRATES
We made this back in 2006 at ETC at CMU. In 2008 it won an award at the IGF, and also some awards
from JayIsGames.
You play a character, build up skills, you have a plane. Buy weapons, etc. You fly places, you
click on the combat icon, and fight some pirates in real time action. But mostly, you just fly. A
screen with the plane bobbing up and down. Flight in the game is in real time. You trasport goods
like fish from one town to another. But the entire time for this trade route is 11 hours and 32
minutes… you can see a timeline of a traderoute with multiple stops stretching into the
future.
The game used to SMS players when an attack happened, interrupt you while you were doing your
taxes or whatever. Fights with pirates accumulate, so you can catch up whenever you come back.
So it is a game where you spend the majority of your time not playing it. But there’s a
persistent world, with brief interaction. My avatar in the game keeps doing my action queue while
I go on with my life.
Now, Skyrates is not perfect. But it taught us a lot about these sort of games.
WHAT IS SPORADIC PLAY GOOD FOR?
Respecting player’s time. (WoW screenshot… two guys who have played for 3
weeks… one an hour a day, and one 20 hours a day… “I HATE this latter
guy”). But in sporadic play, even if you have 20 minutes a day you feel competitive. Also,
it isn’t about player position, but about velocity — how well are you using your time
every day, how efficiently you are using your time.
We did some analytics, showing players the other players using the same plane they had, comparing
yourself that way, on efficiency.
Managing obsession. Everyone loves cake, but it can be too awesome. Players often play to the
point of oversaturation… they get exhausted, who burn out beause the game allows them to
play as much as they want. They play until they are sick of it. Remember the old showbiz rule:
always leave them wanting more.
Developer benefits: it extends the life of your content. With 20 minutes of time, they run
through content at a metered rate. It gives you more time to develop. And you an develop more
based on consumption trends — watch where they go and what they consume and develop in
response to that. You can “prune” your procedural content towards what players want.
Some examples… in Kingdom of Loathing or FB games they use metrics to decide on content.
And in WoW they added daily quests, adding ways to block the rate of consumption. Indirectly
turning it into more of a sporadic game. These are elements allowing you to play it sporadically
of you need to.
It lets you internalize a game… a constant drip feed of interaction reminding you to
re-engage. Email, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, “I should check in.”
EVE Online demonstrates that sporadic play does not need to be casual. Skill learning in EVE is
sporadic — from a few minutes to a month to learn something. There are players who just
research, and don’t play the game in any other way.
When a game is internalized, it becomes a regular activity… like checking your email, but
it takes less time. Check in between classes, or at work. Keeps it in the back of your mind all
day. It makes your life a little more exciting.
Sporadic play gives us new revenue models. Time is the most valuable resource, and we let people
pay for the fourth dimension! Time is worth way more than their money. Having a more lucrative
use of the time you have is really powerful. I might pay for a 50% luck bonus or 10% boost to Xp
for a day.
Also paying to avoid the parts of a game you don’t like. Buy a mining robot to avoid the
dull mining. So people pay you to play your game less, which also frees up server load.
DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR SPORADIC PLAY
* Time currency. Some sort of point that is gained over time. Action points, moves, health. You
can play with the rate it accumulates. Mafia Wars gives you a point every five minutes. Others
like Legends of Zork gives you 30 once a day.
Can you go past a maximum? Save them up? Can you adjust the rate with variation (more on
weekends?)
Basically, this is about managing the obsession, you decide how often you want them playing with
this mechanic, and how long an experience is.
* Scheduling things. Groups of actions that occur as time passes. You can sequential —
queued movement. Parallel actions — like cultivation in farming games.
A question is who is doing the scheduling. You can make it directed and tell the player, or give
them the option to pick different schedules.
And when is the player notified of rewards? As soon as you finish the action, and then you have
to wait for action points to accumulate? Then there’s no suspense. On the other hand, if
you hold off the feedback on success, whether the action worked, that means two hours of
wondering what the outcome will be.
Then there is the question of how many items can be scheduled. How many fields do you have, how
long a queue?
* Uncertainty.
Weighing the chances on whether an action may happen. Predicting the state of the game in the
future… since this is a persistent world, the state can change over time. So if I send
things in a direction which will take 5 hours, there’s the possibility that stuff changes
in the 5 hour interim.
A question to ask is how much do you want players to look ahead. You have to ask yourself how
much complexity you want. And how powerful do you want to make prediction? In Skyrates everyone
was moving goods… so you tried to move goods to somewhere that was a good place to sell,
but other players could see it too…
There is also real life uncertainty, whether real life obligations can interfere.
* Punctuality.
Player attention to the schedule. It ties into how players make choices. You plant crops, if you
set up the game so that they get double crops if they show up on time, or spoil if they take too
long. If it takes a ouple of days to spoil, that is a lot easier for players.
These elements add risk and analysis to the game for players.
The design question is do I want to reward punctuality, punish for being late? Determines how
hardcore the game feels, how risky decisions are.
And is there insurance? You could make a really bad deal in Skyrates where your guy did stuff
poorly because you set it up in advance and things changed… so they added an insurance
mechanic to prevent a bad decision by the bot.
* Multiplayer.
How do player affect one another? Competition via leaderboard is one way. Trading in Skyrates was
indirect comptition, or Mafia wars attacks when you are not looking.
Cooperation is possible too — ways to help people via asynchronous play. The funny thing
about the current games is that some of them do this via asynchronous synchronous play, as in
Mouse Hunt. Tournaments happen on a schedule, people who are on at the same time do make a
difference. It forms some player relationships.
Roleplaying is another form… an event that triggers synchronous activity as a periodic or
optional thing.
THE FUTURE
Engagement customization… a game that understands when I have time to dig in, or when I
don’t. Most games just split this up. Games that adapt to how much YOU want to play. This
goes beyond single player and into multiplayer. You see some games where there is a core that is
there for every fifteen minute timer, and others who play at longer intervals. Is there a way to
trade time, loan things, or otherwise play together within limits and be important to one
another?
Elegantly handling the desire to quit. Netflix lets you put an account on hold, but lets you set
a reminder to come back in the future. A way to maintain a bit of a connection to them.
Let’s say you are going to drop out for three mnonths, can the game play itself for you in
that time so you come back thinking that it has still been there for you?
Shared time currencies is the notion that action points could be shared between games or gamers.
Ways to use the points you earn across multiple titles from one developer.
Or you can’t play again until your whole group finishes?
Or real life metrics — you play the weight loss game, lose one real life pound, that gives
extra action points?
Community consensus. You can join a faction in wow, but so? Identity as part of a larger gorup
isn’t that important. But think of voting… it is sporadic in real life, and based on
that our community arrives at consensus. Can there be a sense of working together in this
sporadic sense to shape the notion of what a group is?
Multi-engagement gaming. The idea that the same player can play differently on different devices
is not new. “Keyhole interaction” — complex game, like stock market, but simple
interactions, buy and sell. But multi-engagement means adding a companion to
existing IPs. Casual players supporting hardcore players, for example. Think about a Call of Duty
World Conquest strategic game on Facebook that ties into the CoD FPS? Add a Yellow Ribbon mobile
app — add my gamertag to your yellow ribbon on your phone. If you launchy the app daily, it
means you are thinking about me, it boosts my character.
IN CONCLUSION
Sporadic play has been around for hundreds of years. It can be integrated into many types of
games. It can be used to create companion experiences for existing games. It can help small
developers extend their content, and it respects the players’ time.
Pendant qu'Internet bruisse d'une hypothétique séparation au plus haut
sommet de l'État (il y en a qui vont avoir de gros problèmes), le Mercredix se
penche sur les duos : couple d'un jour ou paire de longue date, une sélection de chansons
où - la plupart du temps - tout se joue à deux. Bref, à deux c'est mieux -
Furtif me souffle "A trois, c'est cool aussi !", euh oui, lâche ma cuisse, on verra
ça une autre fois.
1 - The Velvet Underground - "I'm Sticking With You"
Sur un album qui aura mis presque trente ans à être publié officiellement,
Moe Tucker pousse la chansonnette avec Lou Reed et inventent sans le savoir la twee pop. Et
même si ce morceau se retrouve sur la BO d'un film pro-life très en vue, cela ne
suffit pas à le rendre moins plaisant.
Le cow-boy bientôt exilé en Suède monte une fresque pour la fille d'Ol'Blue
Eyes. Sûr qu'il aura moins de problèmes avec la famiglia qu'en lui faisant
chanter des trucs kinky du style "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'". Le
mètre-étalon du genre.
3 - Nick Cave The Bad Seeds, Kylie Minogue - "Where The Wild Roses Grow"
A l'époque, il était très bizarre de lire une brève à propos
de ce duo improbable entre l'Elvis de la Mitteleuropa et la bimbo estampillée "Stock
Aitken Waterman". Et pourtant, ça fonctionne toujours à merveille.
4 - Tindersticks, Isabella Rossellini - "A Marriage Made In Heaven"
Dexuième version d'un duo qui liait originellement Stuart Staples et Niki Sinn (des riot
grrls de Huggy Bear). L'ours ne change pas mais la poupée prend les traits d'Isabella
Rossellini. Classieux, comme dirait l'autre.
5 - Bertrand Belin & Barbara Carlotti - "L'Aube posée"
En parlant de classe, j'ai longtemps cherché un couple homme/femme français qui
puisse tenir la dragée haute aux neuf autres titres sélectionnés ici. Or, je
garde souvent à portée de main quelques disques fétiches - dont La
Perdue. Pourquoi aller chercher plus loin ce qu'on a sous la main ?
6 - Sparklehorse - "Piano Fire" / 7 - Moonshake - "Just A Working Girl"
Autant je n'ai jamais été un fan de PJ Harvey (tout en reconnaissant l'importance
de son oeuvre), autant je me dois de saluer la pertinence du moindre de ses duos : avec Nick Cave
bien sûr, ou comme ici avec Mark Linkous (disparu trop tôt, comme on dit dans les
nécros officielles) ou encore avec le grand Dave Callahan au sein de Moonshake,
spécialistes des rythmiques incongrues.
8 - Morrissey & Siouxsie - "Interlude"
Ce devait être le duo. Comme d'habitude, le Moz a soigneusement
sélectionné les chansons avant de les proposer à sa star adorée
(moins que Sandie Shaw, certes). Une fois le morceau enregistré, le single va devenir
aussi maudit qu'une bio de Don Quichotte réalisée par Terry Gilliam : refus de
promo des intéressés et par conséquent refus de promo d'EMI (qui comptait
sur tout un album du duo, la bonne blague...), pas d'accord sur une éventuelle
vidéo, etc. Pour couronner le tout, et même (ou surtout) en étant indulgent,
on a du mal à percevoir ici autre chose que la juxtaposition de deux individus. Une belle
occasion ratée.
9 - Alain Bashung & Noir Désir - "Volontaire"
Au contraire de la sélection précédente, ceux-là étaient faits
pour s'entendre. Avec les sons que Serge Teyssot-Gay tire de sa guitare, on peut même
parler de trio. "Volontaire" rime avec exemplaire.
10 - Simon & Garfunkel - "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
Celle-là a longtemps dormi dans un hypothétique Mercredix "10 chansons tire-larmes"
: des paroles simples, la voix d'enfant de choeur de Garfunkel et comme si ça ne suffisait
pas, celle de Paul Simon qui vient s'ajouter pour la deuxième partie ("Sail on silver
girl, sail on by") - celle qui vous anéantit si ce n'est déjà fait. Le
troisième temps enfonce le clou, c'est la phase spectorienne : une batterie et des cordes
enregistrées à fond de reverb' et la mélodie qui s'envole. En principe,
ça calme son homme.
Pour écouter cette sélection, on clique sur
ce lien.
Amazon has an interesting BD-related "lightning deal" going on now: for a very limited time, you
can buy The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)
for only $27.99 (60% off MSRP). This offer expires today at 2 p.m. PST, or when stock runs
out....
Le HTC Legend (4 langues préinstallées FR EN NL DE et garantie Europe 2 ans) est
d'ores et déjà disponible en stock au prix de 489 Euros auprès du distributeur
Bluetrade.
Le Legend embarque en son sein Android 2.1 (Eclair) poussé par un processeur de 600 MHz. Il
est entouré d'un boitier monobloc en aluminium brossé. Un écran AMOLED HVGA de
3.2 pouces multipoint et capacitif. Ajoutons que le mobile profite d'un trackpad optique, d'un
nouvel environnement graphique HTC Sense, et ses sept bureaux, ainsi qu'un lot de nouvelles
applications et widgets.
Ce mobile est commercialisé avec une carte mémoire de 2 Go (capacité maximale
32 Go). Il offre un APN de 5 Mpixels avec autofocus. On retrouve les fonctionnalités
habituelles comme le lecteur MP3, la radio, les MMS photo ou vidéo, etc. L'appareil abrite
un slot Micro SD HC et une connexion micro USB.
Pour rappel l'appareil sera également proposé très prochainement chez SFR.
Le HTC Legend (4 langues préinstallées FR EN NL DE et garantie Europe 2
ans) est maintenant disponible en stock au prix de 489€ auprès du distributeur
Bluetrade.&nb...
The S-Network Global Gaming Index℠ (TICKER: WAGR) will add two new components, effective
6:00 PM (ET) Sunday, March 21, 2010. One stock will be deleted from the index, changing the
number of index components to 57. (PRWeb Mar 10, 2010)
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Google has announced the 
This is a guest post from Gregor Schauer,
who has worked in tech in Silicon Valley since 2000. Gregor has also recently spent 2
years in equity research at JMP Securities and Jefferies, covering the Internet sector and
enterprise software. You can 
Google just 
Google obviously thinks that providing the best local results
possible is the future for a large number of its services. Now that most modern mobile browsers
can forward your location data to web apps, it's become even easier for Google to offer these
kinds of local results and Google's initiatives around Google Maps and Place Pages show how
serious the company is about local search.
In January,
private company stock marketplace 
Last December, Vic Gundotra, Google Vice President of Engineering,
demonstrated a preview version of Product Search for mobile devices with local inventory, which
lets you see right in your search results whether items are in stock at nearby stores. And today,
Google has announced that this feature is available - featuring products that is sold by
participating retailers including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn or West Elm.
Just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it's available in a local store
around you. Tap on the adjacent "In stock nearby" link and you'll see whether the item is "In
Stock" or has "Limited Availability" near you.
Opera has just
released 
Forbes has released its annual list of the 
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