GameString helps mobile developers achieve cross-platform success

The diversification of the mobile marketplace is bringing unparalleled opprotunites to both consumers and developers these days. But, every good opportunity comes with challenges, doesn’t it? With five major manufacturers jockeying for pole position in the market (Android, Apple, BlackBerry, Windows and Nokia) and a host of also-rans nipping at their heels, freedom of choice is offering a major headache for developers — how can they make cross-platform content in a cheaper, easier, quicker way?

One solution may be lurking in Vancouver; it’s a company called GameString, a subsidiary of Aftercad. GameString is an open source software tool that allows game developers to build a game once and then deliver it to any platform while retaining a high-quality user interface and experience no matter which platform the user has. Reliability and flexibility on any web-enabled device are what GameString brings to the table, and through this, they hope to empower developers to improve their monetization of digital properties.

Vancouver's AXYS Technologies makes offshore wind power more viable

According to a recent study by the U.S. Department of the Interior, wind energy off the Atlantic coast of the U.S. could provide up to 25 per cent of America’s energy needs. This vast resource is virtually untapped, thanks in part to the massive bureaucratic and regulatory red tape that surrounds projects like these.

One aspect of the approval process for new wind generation is a common-sense study of the area — after all, there’s not much point in building a wind farm if there’s no wind, is there? Normally, this study is extremely expensive and time-consuming: a meteorological mast, costing $5–10 million and requiring a full season to build once regulatory approval is obtained, is the conventional way to do it.

But a Vancouver company, AXYS Technologies, has a better solution: they’ve designed a nautical buoy that contains all the data-collection instruments of a mast, and with a price of $1 million, their WindSentinel buoy is a significant savings when compared to conventional masts.

The first purchaser of the WindSentinel is Fishermen’s Energy, a wind farm developer that is currently exploring a new project off the coast of New Jersey. Fishermen’s will use the WindSentinel to collect all manner of data about their site, 12 miles off the shore near Atlantic City. Everything from wind speeds to avian activity will be recorded by the buoy.

“We are excited about working with AXYS Technologies and are very anxious to see the wind assessment data,” said Mike Madia, Chief Operating Officer of Fishermen’s Energy, in a press release.

For more info on AXYS, click here.

When it comes to reading online, don't forget your vegetables

In this day and age, everyone has had experiences with predictive technology. Google helps you fill in the blanks when you search. Netflix, TiVo and others suggest TV shows to you. Heck, Facebook even tries to tell you who your friends are.

One place that predictive technology is really being heavily utilized is with mobile apps that provide reading material. These apps analyze what you like to read, and suggest new material based on past choices. Sounds pretty convenient — but is this really a good thing?

Dan Misener, host of CBC Radio’s Spark questions how good apps like these are. He argues that apps like Zite, produced in Vancouver, narrow our horizons sometimes, and provide us with reading material that is low in value, since we read so much of it already.

Battle of the band websites: Bandzoogle acquires Sayvee

Big news last week from Bandzoogle: the company has acquired Sayvee, a website builder platform from Vancouver. Bandzoogle plans to absorb many of the features of Sayvee into their own web builder platform, and will be giving customers of Sayvee a free trial of the Bandzoogle service.

“We have been hard at work this year upgrading Bandzoogle’s core platform and features to make sure we meet our members’ expectations and help them navigate the heavily disrupted music landscape” said Bandzoogle CEO David Dufresne, in a press release. “We are excited about working with the Sayvee team because they created an intuitive way to design a beautiful and slick web presence, and because they have built a solid member base of serious and motivated artists that will fit in nicely with our member community.”

Bandzoogle and Sayvee are companies that are quite similar. Both provide easy website construction tools to artists, Bandzoogle focusing on musicians and bands, while Sayvee is a little more diverse; they advertise their services to graphic artists, photographers, painters, etc. along with musicians.

Along with adding Sayvee’s features and website templates to their own platform, Bandzoogle gains Sayvee’s entire user base, which is valuable beyond the dollars and cents that these users will generate in subscription fees; Bandzoogle will also have a large influx of new members to their community forums, which will facilitate better collaboration and communication amongst Bandzoogle users.

For more info on Bandzoogle, click here.

Online news the only source of growth in journalism

Times are tough for journalism as a field. I work in it — so believe me, I know.

It’s not easy to miss: newspapers are folding, assets are being sold off and converged, journalists are being laid off. Ratings are down for network news, advertising is down in the paper, and some people think that radio is a dying medium.

That said, there was one area of growth in the past year that does lend some hope: online journalism. As the Globe and Mail reports, online has overtaken print for the first time ever, and as consumers are getting more and more advanced devices, the consumption of online news media will only grow. That is, according to Project for Excellence in Journalism director Tom Rosenstiel, if media organizations are smart enough to get on board:

People are just becoming accustomed to having the Internet available in their pockets on phones or small tablets, he said. In December, 41 per cent of Americans said they got most of their news about national and international issues on the Internet, more than double the 17 per cent who said that a year earlier, the report said.

In January, 7 per cent of Americans owned electronic tablets, nearly double what it was three months earlier. Rosenstiel said it's the fastest-growing new digital technology, ahead of cellphones when they were introduced.

From a business standpoint, however, the growth in Internet news consumption hasn't been harnessed by news companies. The project didn't have numbers available but said online ad revenue was expected to surpass print newspaper ad revenue for the first time in 2010.

“The news business used to be the intermediary,” Rosenstiel said. “You needed newspapers and TV stations to reach your customers. In this age, it's the device makers and software developers.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

Netflix looking to start producing original, exclusive content: report

According to online entertainment magazine Deadline, Netflix is making an aggressive move towards producing original content for their video streaming service. The report suggested that Netflix had bid $100 million for the rights to remake the BBC political drama House of Cards, a series about a senior advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as U.K. prime minister.

From the CBC:

The rights to the series, in which Spacey plays the chief of staff to former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, are being auctioned by Media Rights Capital. With 20 million subscribers, Netflix Inc. took in more than $1.6 billion in revenue during its last completed fiscal year.

A report in the entertainment business website Deadline (which has since been picked up by other news agencies) says Netflix has outbid Time Warner Inc.'s HBO, which made its name as a broadcaster by airing popular shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire, and Boardwalk Empire, for the rights to the show. The reports say Netflix has bid in excess of $100 million for the first run of 26 episodes.

Just last month, the company signed a $200 million deal with U.S. network CBS to air some of the network's stable of shows. And last summer, the company made a 5-year, $1-billion, deal with movie studios Paramount, MGM and Lions Gate for the online streaming rights to their movies.

This could be the start of an exciting time for Netflix. Imagine if Netflix, or companies like Netflix, became networks in their own right, not only selling content made by others, but a vast array of original content exclusive to their own streaming service. Imagine if Netflix had its own procedural dramas, late-night comedies, news programs or even live coverage of sporting events. They could have everything a conventional network has with infinitely better selection and user choices.

What do you think? Should Netflix stick to movies and network shows, or would you watch programming produced by the streaming company in-house? Sound off in the comments section.

High price of software, media in developing nations makes piracy a breeze for Canadians

A study released today casted doubt on the effectiveness of the Conservative’s Bill C-36, a motion before the House of Commons that will increase penalties for copyright violators in an effort to modernize Canada’s copyright laws.

According to the study, ttougher sentences won’t stop Canadians from downloading free versions f\of software and media because piracy from emerging economies like Brazil and South Africa is so widespread. The high price of media in those countries makes software piracy far more socially acceptable, and until the market can address such problems, Canadians will have an easy source of pirated material online thanks to these countries.

The study, conducted by the New York Social Science Research Council, concludes

From the CBC:

"The failure of legal markets to provide access to goods at prices that are affordable in terms of local incomes fuels a situation in which high piracy becomes the primary form of media access," said study editor Joe Karaganis.

According to the study, a copy of Microsoft Office is five to 10 times more expensive in an emerging economy like Brazil or South Africa, compared to prices in the U.S. or Europe.

The council's data shows that a decade of increased copyright enforcement has not slowed piracy. It suggests that piracy rates as high as 90 per cent will continue until better competition pushes prices down.

The study notes that in the developing world, prices are so high that piracy has become the most common way for citizens to get digital content. As well, open source and online tools that provide services similar to what commercial vendors do for a fraction of the cost — or no cost at all — often limit the amount large software firms can charge for their wares.

You can check out the study here.

An open letter to WP7 app developers seeking inspiration

Dear WP7 app developers,

My birthday is coming up soon. Well, not my birthday — it’s my son’s birthday. Well, actually, I don’t have a son — it’s my dog’s birthday. Okay, it’s actually my neighbour’s dog. But that’s pretty much my birthday, right? It takes a village and all that, you know?

Okay, just work with me here.

The point is, I need some gifts. So why not a few presents in app form? Here are a few things that I haven’t seen in the mobile space that could be supremely useful in my daily life:

My father is pushing 60, and like a lot of blue-collar guys his age, computers are not his strong suit. Any way you can get him an app that helps with PC tech support? I know it sounds like I’m a bad son here, but I’ve spent way too much damn time helping him to fix his Outlook inbox.
How some support for the home team? How about a way for little league teams to design simple team apps of their own? When I was in little league baseball (Port Coquitlam Demons, represent!) everyone got baseball cards with their faces on them. These days, I’ll bet you kids today would get a kick out of being featured on their team’s official app, just like the pros.
Okay, if I could really nerd out for a minute here, there can never be too many role-playing games with atypical settings. Fallout? Earthbound? Shadowrun? Classic menu-based games that could really benefit from touchscreen technology and WP7’s PC and Xbox 360 integration. I’m not saying to license these franchises (unless you’ve got a few briefcases full of money kicking around), but RPG makers should be encouraged to think beyond sword and sorcery.
Okay, now here’s one for my mum: how about an app to remind people to water their plants? Set a schedule, get a reminder as needed. Let’s just say our cacti are doing better than the tropical ferns.
I know there are a million restaurant apps, but as a coinnesseur of the finer things in life, I value one thing about a venue of gastronomy above all others — where the hell are the free wings? Seriously, give me a frequently updated listing about when and where the cheap wings are, and you’ll see downloads of your app skyrocket faster than my cholesterol.

Hey, if I knew the next million-dollar app, you think I’d still be writing for a living? All I’m saying is that there are still tons of apps just waiting to be developed, and with WP7, the field is a hell of a lot less crowded than the other mobile platforms.

So, good luck, WP7 developers; the (mobile) world is yours.

If you’ve got that million dollar idea, you could win $10K to get your idea off the ground. Find out how Microsoft is helping mobile developers with the Great Canadian Apportunity.

WP7 developers offering more content with more variety

They say to never mix business with pleasure, but with all the gaming apps coming up for the Windows Phone 7, business might soon be the furthest thing from your mind.

Microsoft has always had a reputation as being a company with the worker first in mind, but by broadening the horizons of their apps in the Marketplace, WP7 is achieving balance in their offerings, in no small part to the expanded selection of games available for download.

And why shouldn’t they? Because Microsoft’s Zune software allows users to access their content on their phones, PCs, and even on their Xbox 360s, Microsoft is able to bring users content anywhere and everywhere they play games. It’s a level of cross-platform penetration that no other platform can match.

Back in August, Microsoft sent developers a list of 41 categories and sub-categories that they want third-party apps to fall under. While for the most part the listings are what anyone would expect for a mobile device — e-reader, travel tools, productivity, photos, social networking, etc. — the full range of games is quite striking. Action/adventure, shooter, sports, racing, Xbox companion; these are the kinds of games that are meant for a powerful console, not a rinky-dink device that seems more suited to Tetris and solitaire. Yet, there they all are.

Of course, the other apps are here too: apps that give mobile versions of websites, apps with entertainment info, apps for translation, even apps to help with hangovers. But the common thread here is fun: fun in a variety of ways, and fun across all formats. And as the number of developers for WP7 grows, the number, and more importantly, variety of apps will grow too. There are still plenty of niches to be filled, though, so it remains to be seen what future developers bring to this still-evolving mobile platform.

Want to see what WP7 developers are currently working on? Check out the ideas section on the Great Canadian Apportunity competition site.

What a week for StumbleUpon: $17m in series B funding and a new revenue stream

In case you haven’t heard, last Wednesday saw the success of StumbleUpon’s latest round of fundraising. $17 million in new capital from companies like Accel Partners, August Capital, DAG Ventures, and Sherpalo Ventures was finalized last week.

The company produces a namesake browser extension (and more recently, mobile app) that takes user recommendations and analyzes them to suggest new content. As Reuters reports, the company’s flagship product has been seeing tremendous growth over the past few years:

Even though the toolbar has been around for a while, traffic is still growing at an impressive pace. The San Francisco company says it now has more than 14 million registered users making more than 800 million content recommendations per month. It also says that its iPhone and Android applications have been downloaded more than 1 million times.

But that wasn’t all StumbleUpon was up to this past week; on Sunday, they announced a new advertising revenue generator called StumbleUpon Paid Discovery. Basically, it allows advertising companies to pay to have their results show up for users more often, kind of how Google gives sponsored links preference in results rankings on their searches.