TriplePoint PR

Last Thursday, we stopped by the Automattic Lounge at Pier 38 in San Francisco to hear a panel of venture capitalists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs answer the question—are we blowing another bubble? Moderated by VentureBeat’s Owen Thomas, discussion began by asking how to spot signs of a bubble. Panelists included Paul Martino, chairman of Aggregate Knowledge; Christine Herron of First Round Capital; Corey Reese, CEO of Trumpet Technologies; and Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners.

Sign of a bubble:
• Big rush of capital into any particular market, whether or not market can absorb that capital
• More jobs or resumes floating around
• Look at valuation of jobs market: people getting lots of job offers versus a more challenging market
• Software developer who’s never done programming taking programming jobs
• Look for broadness of activities rather than deepness
• Grandma asking about tech stocks
• Cheese sommelier serving personally sliced fine cheese at corporate events (note: there was no cheese sommelier at the Automattic Lounge)

As part of the TriplePoint speaker series, we hosted a private luncheon with Mick Bobroff, Audit Partner at Ernst & Young LLP, in which he presented general observations and principals on the accounting policies applied by companies using free-to-play/virtual goods-based business models. Additionally, Bobroff provided an overview on the different models that have recently emerged for recognizing revenue on the sale of virtual goods.

Bobroff brings to the table over 13 years of experience specifically focused in software and internet media industries, including social networking. Over the past several years, as the social gaming industry has rapidly expanded, Bobroff formed Ernst & Young’s positioning on how revenue should be recognized on the sale of virtual goods. Additionally, they recently released a white paper that gives an in-depth overview of the firm’s views on revenue recognition, and the presentation that Bobroff gave during our luncheon provides a summary of this white paper.

New Speakers and Panels Announced for the Digital Media Law Conference in San Francisco on April 29

The conference will commence with keynote speaker Mick Bobroff, partner in Ernst & Young’s Northern California Technology practice, examining revenue recognition models for the sale of virtual goods. Additionally, speakers will address a range of vital topics at the Digital Media Law Conference, such as protecting intellectual property, contract negotiation, digital music licensing and consumer privacy.

Featured panels throughout the afternoon will prepare business leaders for new challenges and developing legal concerns in the digital media space. The Digital Media Law Conference will be held on April 29, 2010 from 12:00pm until 6:30pm PDT at the Commonwealth Club.

In addition to virtual goods revenue recognition, speakers will address a range of vital topics at the Digital Media Law Conference, such as intellectual property, digital music licensing and consumer privacy. New speakers will join the following panel discussions:

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.

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.

Ross Miller, Engadget

In our continued efforts to turn the tables around on journalists all over the tech industry and put them in the interview hot seat, today’s spotlight is with Ross Miller of Engadget. Currently, Ross is an Associate Editor for the leading tech blog and is Engadget’s only contact in California. He has been reporting on all sorts of gadgets and gizmos for the better part of a decade and has an extensive tech-related educational background. We had the opportunity to chat with Ross about his work at Engadget, some things to look forward to in 2010, and poker winning strategies.

TP: First off, thank you for making time for this interview. With the holidays and CES just around the corner, things sure are chaotic.

RM: Very much so. My inbox has begun to rebel against me. It’s creating passive aggressive labels just to get my attention.

Owen Good, Kotaku.com

In terms of respect in the gaming industry, sports videogames sometimes get, for lack of a better term, “the shaft.” Despite the massive annual sales and worldwide appeal of perennial juggernauts such as EA Sports’ Madden and FIFA series, sports videogames arguably do not receive the proper attention in terms of critical analysis and recognition that they deserve from the gaming community.

One person who has made recent breakthroughs in the way sports videogames are received and covered is Kotaku’s Owen Good.  Owen is the voice behind Kotaku’s sports coverage, satiating readers’ appetites for in-depth coverage and discussion of issues within sports gaming through daily updates and his Saturday sports column, “Stick Jockey.”  To further explore the latest issues in sports gaming, Owen was able to sit down with us and share some of his thoughts.

Michele Steele is a Chicago-native who now lives in New York City and works as a reporter for Bloomberg TV. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, Michele quickly made a name for herself as a reporter on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, covering stocks and the economy for over 100 local stations which broadcast Bloomberg business reports. Now focusing primarily on the business of media, tech and entertainment, you can see Michele on Bloomberg Television segments worldwide.

TP: Tell us a bit about your position at Bloomberg. What are your areas of coverage?

The iTunes App Store is a booming marketplace, full of opportunity for independent developers. At an Apple press conference earlier this month, Steve Jobs said that over 30 million iPhones and 20 million iPod Touch devices have been sold to date. There are over 100 million customers on iTunes, and they’ve been busy – downloading over 1.8 billion apps since the App Store launched in July 2008. But with over 75,000 apps and counting (more than 21,000 in the game category alone), it’s a sink or swim space. The unique iPhone platform is luring talented designers from top names in the traditional video game development industry – ambitious artists, code-monkeys and entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes looking to try their hand at a new medium, and take on whatever responsibility necessary – including new shoes they’ll learn to fill along the way.

There are already more than 100,000 third-parties in the iPhone Developer Program, and the App Store marketplace has created a community mindset among many of these smaller independent companies, who are willing to share some of their “secrets” and learn from their competitors to further their cause and to coexist symbiotically, if you will. One such indie developer is Rock Ridge Games. I had a chance to pick the brains of Rock Ridge’s president and VP, Mike Mann and P.J. Snavely, on what it takes to make the transition from licensed, big-budget console game development to the DIY world of iPhone app development – here’s what they had to say…

Can you give us a little background on Rock Ridge Games and your experience in game development?
Rock Ridge Games was started in April of this year with the goal of developing interesting and fun original  games for the incredible new smartphones hitting the market. There are only two of us (Mike Mann and PJ Snavely) but we’ve got almost 30 years of combined experience in game development, having come from the console side of development. We’ve worked on everything from multi-million dollar licensed sports games to small independent titles for XBLA. The iPhone is our new frontier.

For the fourth installment of the TriplePoint speaker series, Anastasia Goodstein, Founder and Editor in Chief of Ypulse.com, joins us to discuss the challenges and current trends in online marketing to teens and tweens. Anastasia is an award-winning blogger and often-quoted expert on American tweens, teens and early twentysomethings, and has worked in media for the past 15 years, helping launch youth oriented web and television properties for brands like Oxygen, AOL and Current TV. Anastasia is organizing the 2009 Youth Media Marketing Mashup coming up on June 1 – 2, where today’s top brand, corporate and social marketers, media professionals, educators and non-profit organizations gather to share and learn best practices, research and latest strategies on marketing to youth with technology. For more information, visit: http://mashup.ypulse.com/.

Last week we were fortunate enough to meet with Sid Shuman, senior editor of GamePro, who joined us to discuss the used video game market and the future of digital distribution. As the senior editor of GamePro, Sid meets with many industry leaders who are actively building the groundwork for the future of video game entertainment. As such, his opinions are not only extremely well informed, but quite valuable to anyone involved in the gaming industry. I hope you enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed making it.

Matthew Le Merle, who brings nearly twenty years of consulting, corporate executive and investing experience to the gaming industry, joined the TriplePoint staff to talk to us about funding early stage gaming start up companies. As the Chairman of Mindfuse and CEO of Gameplay Holdings, Matthew’s experience in advising and funding new digital entertainment companies is unparalleled, and having him impart some wisdom on us was truly a pleasure. If you happen to be attending The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco the week of March 23, you can see Matthew’s presentation for yourself during his session, Early Stage Funding for Video Game Start Ups, taking place on Wednesday, March 25 at 4:00 pm in room #2002 in the West Hall of the Moscone Center.