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Archive for March, 2009

Startup Diary – Marketing Tools

Posted by Tadhg | Mar 27, 2009 | Filed under Press, Startup Diary

Marketing for an internet startup (whether it be social games or some other venture) is a complex challenge. While the ease and cost of communication has fallen through the floor because of the internet it is becoming harder to reach an audience. There are many companies using the same free channels that we do to try and get their message across, and so the Internet creates a wall-of-noise.

Marketing is also not just broadcasting, it is research: Where are your audience, how do you find them? How do you engage with them? How does a social games startup manage its marketing, spread its message and engage with users?

This is an article about some ideas we’re trying out and how we’re looking to approach users.

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The #socialgames Tag For Social Games on Twitter

Posted by Tadhg | Mar 23, 2009 | Filed under News, Social Games

The hash (#) tag is a way to cut through Twitter’s noise to get to the conversations that you want to hear. We’re promoting the #socialgames tag on Twitter as of today.

Using Twitter’s own search facility or a tool like TweetDeck it is possible to filter out much of the noise and get to what you want. When Battlestar Galactica’s finale was broadcast a few days ago the place to be was on Twitter and watching the #bsg tag for comments and reviews. Similarly, every Friday Twitter now has a sort of party called #followfriday in which users suggest other users that they think everyone should follow.

So the #socialgames tag is to help gather shared links and posts about social games. The tag has also been added to the Tagalus tag dictionary (here). Read on for a simple guide on how to use the tag.

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8 Types of Social Game

Posted by Tadhg | Mar 20, 2009 | Filed under Personal, Research, Simple Lifeforms, Social Games

This article describes 8 kinds of social game operating today (mostly on Facebook) and provides many examples. We hope it does a better job of explaining what is going on in social games and why we’re so very excited by social games in general.

Social games as an industry is about the conversation. We realised recently that the  conversation about social games is still waiting to be had but it can’t be forced. Social games are still very unfamiliar terrain to most, and so this article is all about grounding that conversation so that it can begin.

We hope you find it useful.

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How do Massive Multi-Player Online Games (MMOs) Make Money?

Posted by Alan O'Dea | Mar 12, 2009 | Filed under News, Research

DFC Intelligence has recently released a report on the most commercially successful massive multi-player MMOs (MMO). World Of Warcraft, the most successful MMO has an estimated annual revenue of $500m. With the top ten MMOs in the world generating estimated combined revenues of $1,875m* there is no doubt they have matured into a highly successful commercial sector presenting considerable revenue and profits for their operators. Successful MMOs clearly can realise significant profits for their operators and investors. How?

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Will the Facebook Redesign Help or Hinder Applications Developers?

Posted by Tadhg | Mar 6, 2009 | Filed under Platforms, Research

Facebook announced a couple of days ago that they’re changing user’s homepages in a couple of significant ways to bring about more of a Twitter or Friendfeed-like environment of live sharing, and they posted some screenshots of what those updates will look like. Inside Facebook has the skinny here.

I like the redesign direction that Facebook is taking and think it will continue to drive their growth. However, as with all redesigns, alterations to the Facebook design cause changes in user behaviour and that can have unintended consequences. This is an article examining Facebook from the application discovery and retention perspective and asking the question of whether the new design will be an overall positive or negative influence.

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What’s Hot, What’s Not in Game Investments

Posted by Alan O'Dea | Mar 2, 2009 | Filed under News, Research

I saw this article on VentureBeat yesterday with VC Tim Chang talking about what’s hot and what’s not in games investment. It’s a good read and I’ve reposted it up here on the Simple Lifeforms blog.

Game and virtual world investments soared to $885 million in 2008, but the picture is likely to be a mixed one this year. Games are one of the few industries still growing at retail (13 percent in January), and online games are still a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.

But will the industry hold up in 2009? And will big investments in game companies still make sense this year? We talked about the state of game investments with Tim Chang, a principal at Norwest Venture Partners to get his take on those questions.

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