TechCrunch
Zynga Sheds Three Top Execs As Its New CEO Shakes Up The Troubled Gaming Firm
In the last month, Zynga has quietly parted ways with three of its executive staff, early changes under the period of transition that the company’s new CEO, Don Mattrick, is currently leading.
Bloomberg first reported the departure of Nathan Etter, John Osvald and Jesse Janosov. TechCrunch confirmed their collective exit with a source familiar with the matter. Etter has already updated his LinkedIn page to reflect his new role as a vice president at Disney.
However, Osvald and Janosav have yet to update their digital profiles, which still list them as vice president-level executives at the social gaming company.
That Zynga is shaking up its management structure isn’t surprising, frankly. The company’s founder and then CEO Mark Pincus stepped down from that role, in an admission that things were unwell, and that his leadership hadn’t corrected the company’s course. The company ended up in its current situation because of the choices of its senior management. Some of those folks are now no longer with the firm.
It isn’t clear at this time if the three were fired, resigned, or some combination thereof. Mattrick, during Zynga’s second-quarter earnings call, stated that he intended to look at how the firm is “deploying people at all levels of the company.” That process appears to be already under way.
In its most recent financial quarter, Zynga reported declining revenue, a net loss, and falling daily and monthly active users of its various gaming titles. The company has a sufficient cash position to grant it some time to rebuild itself, but not too much. The new question is who Mattrick will bring in to fill the roles that the departed trio left. And if they will become Microsoft talent, as well.
Top Image Credit: Brian Cantoni
Vaavud Smartphone Wind Meter Now Available, Use Your Phone To Measure Windspeed Like It's The Future
Kickstarter success Vaavud is a thing of beauty. Created by a Danish team of enterprising inventors, it plugs into your iPhone or Android device’s headphone jack and connects with an app to tell you the current wind speed. It uses no power, and actually talks wirelessly to your phone via the built-in magnetic field sensor that ships with modern smartphones.
The Vaavud is shipping as of July 30, and goes on sale at bitemyapple, Grand St. and other fine purveyors of gadgets and gizmos, but I got a chance to test one out early. The Vavuud blew through its tests in fact (see what I did there?) and definitely told me how fast the wind outside was, or how effectively I was blowing on the thing when trying it out for my own amusement indoors. Which I did plenty, because it’s very fun.
The Vaavud ships with an internal mechanisms that works with most smartphones out of the box, and a kit to change it over to handle the Samsung Galaxy S2, which requires a slightly different design. It also comes with a soft carrying pouch complete with carabiner, since this thing is designed to be carted with you as you scale mountains or brave rapids.
You can use the Vaavud with the app created by the company itself, but third-party apps are also supported, starting with the first to leverage the API, Weendy. That app is about crowdsourcing weather conditions, and draws from people using Vaavud around the world to build wind speed profiles of locales. It’s the perfect integration, but as Vaavud is pretty niche, don’t go expecting a lot of that data to pop up for most spots just yet.
Data seems to be accurate, but it’s hard to compare as I don’t have any other kind of wind meter technology nearby to compare it to. The charts produced by the native Vaavud app are attractive and easy to read, and the fact that no batteries are required is pretty awesome in terms of using it in the outdoor and remote locales where it’s probably most useful. At €40.00 (roughly $61 U.S.) it’s a little pricey for a novelty, but anyone conducting environmental research or just really keen on weather will definitely get a kick out of it.
A lot of Kickstarter projects, both successful and not, aim at a particular niche; it’s part of the reason they aren’t good candidates for traditional funding channels. The Vaavud is likely going to appeal to a small segment of the population, but unlike most Kickstarter projects, it’s smartly executed, well-built and elegantly designed. If you think you need a Vaavud, don’t hesitate to go ahead and get one.
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