TriplePoint PR

Continuing our efforts to engage in real discussions with the leading members of the gaming industry and beyond,  TriplePoint recently had the opportunity to chat with IGN’s on-camera host and staff writer, Jessica Chobot.  Since 2005, Jessica has become a key influencer within the gaming community and we were fortunate to talk with Jessica on her quick rise at IGN, social media, and oh yeah, the infamous PSP photo.

TP:  How did you find yourself in your current roles at IGN and Maxim?

JC: How I got my spot here at IGN is a long and intricate story, so I’ll give you the semi-quick version. I was going through a quarter-life crisis and working as a model for quick pocket money and at EB Games for discounts. I had pre-ordered a PSP and the day it was released was the same day I had a photo shoot. On the way to the shoot, I stopped by EB to pick up the PSP, took it with me to the studio and during a break, showed it off to everyone and was screwing around and taking goofy pictures. One ended up being the “PSP lick” picture.

Now that Facebook apps can no longer send notifications to users, social game developers are implementing new methods of keeping in touch with their players. Here’s an overview of recent game updates from a few top social titles, as reported on FriskyMongoose.com.

First, in case you’ve been under a rock, the background: Facebook notifications will cease to exist in their previous form, starting this week. According to Mashable, developers of games and other Facebook apps will now be required to either send email updates to users (assuming they’ve agreed to receive them), or hope that users will read about their updates via fan pages and new feeds.

An additional counter feature will also be relied on, which displays the number of app related notices you have next to the application’s name in your left menu navigation on the Facebook homepage (for those applications you have bookmarked). However this is as close to universal notifications as the updated system comes, making those who were tired of logging in to see a big 20+ digit in the corner of their screens very happy campers indeed.

One of the most popular new features is an email alert system. Facebook games are rewarding players who register with all kinds of exclusive in-game items, like new recipes, shells and armor.

Have you heard of Bloom Energy lately? Perhaps you’ve just heard of them within the last week or so? For a company that has been around for the better part of a decade, Bloom Energy has gained quite the momentum only recently and in a very short period of time. So what’s all the fuss about? Bloom Energy recently announced to the world that it has created an efficient, clean, and renewable energy source. To be more specific, they have taken fuel cell technology and improved upon it to allow for an energy source that can, eventually, sustain itself while powering houses to buildings to Silicon Valley campuses. And the best part: these Bloom Energy Boxes are portable. Imagine, being able to power remote villages incapable of harnessing traditional means of power with this “magic box” of sorts? With the world focusing on becoming greener, it’s an exciting time to say the least.

To protect the innocent, names have been changed. In this publication, a once-faithful iPhone lover will be referred to with a fictional Twitter name: @madluv4iPhn.

A recent tweet:

@madluv4iPhn Dear iPhone – I’ve met someone new named the Nexus One. I’m strangely attracted to her and need a few days to figure this all out.

I initiated a conversation with @madluv4iPhn to understand his reasons for leaving his iPhone.  The first reason he provided is that the Nexus One serves as a much better telephone than the iPhone. Inconsistent coverage has been a general gripe of the iPhone user population. The Nexus One provides more consistent service with improved sound quality and fewer dropped calls.  To be fair, iPhone’s AT&T service is greatly responsible for the frustrating inconsistency of their calls. Interestingly enough, T Mobile has served the Nexus One very well so far, despite its general criticism for inconsistent coverage.

Earlier this week, New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Center played host to a convergence of two trade shows, as both the 107th American International Toy Fair and Engage! Expo welcomed a diverse group of exhibitors and speakers.  For certain attendees, the pairing of Toy Fair with the Engage! Expo, a conference that focused primarily on virtual goods, might have at first seemed somewhat out-of-place.  Beyond the giant stuffed animals, puzzle games, and highly popular robotic hamsters that populated much of Toy Fair, Engage! showcased  leading entrepreneurs in the new digital retail phenomenon – the virtual goods industry.

As reported by Inside Network and covered here on TriplePointPR.com, this year, the virtual goods industry is projected to drive $1.6 billion in revenue in the U.S. alone.  While the ability to purchase virtual goods has existed in online communities for quite some time now, the phenomenon that is social gaming hasushered in a brand new audience for microtransaction purchases – the general consumer.

While traditional retailers and toymakers struggle to survive the stormy and rather unpredictable economic recession, the virtual goods industry is booming.  Selling non-physical items, the providers of virtual goods have seen just as much (and presumably more) success than long time brands and veterans of the physical toy industry present at the Javits Center this week.  The reason for such success is simple – the provider of the virtual good, which can be looked upon as a modern toy manufacturer, is smarter and armed with more consumer information than the producer of the antiquated physical retail toy.

Social Gold, the premier virtual economy platform, has recently shared some intriguing facts on users’ spending behavior within social games. Social Gold offers users a seamless in-game payments experience so players can purchase virtual goods without disrupting gameplay. New stats that were recently  posted on Social Gold’s blog show that their virtual economy platform increases conversion and drives repeat purchases.

Some of the most forward-thinking leaders within the entertainment industry attended the Future of Media conference today at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the media industry. The discussion panels covered topics including the future of interactive entertainment, television and film, social media and news, music, and entrepreneurship within the media landscape. It seems that while the future is uncertain, business leaders and innovators within the space see a shift toward more interactive entertainment as the long-standing distinctions between creators of content and distributors of information are expected to break down.

Yesterday, google announced a plan to build its own ultra high-speed broadband network with speeds more than 100 times faster than what we have now.

This is great news!

But not for us, right now anyway. This network is just a test that will be rolled out slowly to at least 50,000 and up to 500,000 homes in select communities. The test is not a toe in the water of the ISP cesspool, but “rather an effort to push the industry into offering faster internet access at a lower cost.” That sounds like a noble deed to me, so thank you google.

Imagine what we could do with internet speeds up to 100 times faster than what we have now.

Facebook is staggeringly huge. They have over 400 million active users, half of whom log in on any given day, over 500k active applications, and can rattle off plenty of other impressive totals for those who’d like to listen. As an open platform, they have provided companies like Zynga and PlayFish with millions of dollars in revenue, and provided many other developers with a shot at financial success. Despite these achievements, and despite an estimated company valuation that extends into the billions, monetization remains the one aspect of Facebook’s business that hasn’t matched their growth. With this week’s sure-to-be-critiqued changes, that last piece of the puzzle may be ready to fall into place. But first, a bit of background…

Video games challenge players to solve problems, overcome obstacles and, in many cases, learn. While some argue that games can be extremely effective education tools, researchers have just started to scratch the surface of what actually happens in our brain when we play games.

Cerebral Cortex, a research journal for papers about the study of the cerebral cortex, published a recent report by the University of Pittsburgh’s Kirk Erikson, Assistant Professor of Psychology, about certain regions of the brain that seem to facilitate advanced understanding of interactive media. In other words, Erikson discovered four distinct areas of the brain that might actually make us better at playing video games.

Inside Network recently released a report that the virtual goods market is expected to drive $1.6 billion in revenue in the U.S. in 2010. The market is driven in large part by virtual items sold in social games, which account for $835 million of the total sales projected. While publishers such as Zynga, Playfish, Playdom and Serious Business are hard at work creating the content and engagement mechanisms to drive sales, payments solutions such as Social Gold (online), Zong (mobile), Open Network Entertainment, Inc. (prepaid cards) and the newly launched Kwedit (cash) are striving to help customers purchase those virtual goods seamlessly.

Financial Times technology reporter Joseph Menn has written a captivating account of “The Hunt for the New Crime Lords that are Bringing Down the Internet” in Fatal System Error (Public Affairs, 2010).  ”Cybercrime” is something that for now rings as more terrifying to the imagination than it has yet to be in practice.  With some minimal consideration of what programs one installs or what emails one answers and making sure your anti-virus software is up to date, it’s pretty unlikely an individual is going to be a victim of it.  Identity theft, one of the more frequent and noxious strains possible from Cybercrime, still largely originates from stealing unshredded documents in the trash or (physical) mailbox.  When it does happen electronically, such as the four-million strong theft at Hannaford Supermarkets, only 1800 false charges were subsequently made on the stolen credit cards.

Got a small business, blog, group, class or cause? Appanda has an app for that… I recently had a chance to sit down with Chris Przybyszewski, CEO of RESOLUTE, the Memphis-based iPhone developers behind a variety of original and for-hire games and apps.

RESOLUTE’s latest release, Appanda is making it easier than ever for small businesses to create and launch their own mobile apps (iPhone and Android). Here’s the inside scoop on Appanda, do-it-yourself iPhone development and more – enjoy!

Give us an overview of RESOLUTE – who are you and what do you do?
RESOLUTE builds software platforms that help everyone create their own mobile device app, such as an iPhone app or an Android Marketplace phone.

Yesterday, Apple unveiled its much anticipated and highly rumored iPad to the masses and easily stole the media thunder from President Obama’s State of the Union address as well as becoming a top trending topic on Twitter, not including all the joke references to feminine hygiene products. After all the hoopla settled though, many tech editors started to really break down exactly what was revolutionary about the iPad and the general consensus seems to be that, well, there is nothing incredibly outstanding.

At first glance, the iPad looks like a pageant winner. It boasts the same sleek, attractive contours as the iPhone, which has lured many to purchase it based on aesthetics alone. iPad’s larger screen with its 1024×768 resolution is, of course, very much welcomed in a society that loves to do everything bigger and better. And lets not forget about that enticing price point beginning at $499. Apple could set its retail at twice as much and fanatics would still buy the new peripheral in a heartbeat.

Netflix and Nintendo recently announced plans to bring a little more joy into the world. To the delight of twenty-six million US Wii owners, Netflix’s online streaming video service will soon be available through Nintendo’s Wii gaming console. Netflix, based in the Bay Area, boasts eleven million subscribers to its DVD-by-mail business. Fifty percent of those users are also viewing movies and shows online – an enormous growth from the twenty percent that used the service when it was first offered. Netflix attributes its dramatic growth to the streaming media technology.  It’s a no-brainer that adding Wii to the mix will contribute to a steady growth in the service.

If you’re not hip to the Netflix jive, here’s how it works:  On Netflix, internet video streaming, notated as “Watch Instantly” on the site, is available free with regular subscription service. This functionality enables viewers to watch movies directly on a PC or TV. Videos can also be viewed on Blu-ray players, Roku set-top boxes, and gaming consoles.  Wii, the gaming industry’s most popular console, will be the third console to offer the service.