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Seriously Is A New Mobile Gaming Entertainment Venture Started By Former Rovio Execs, Seriously
Rovio built an empire out of a silly little physics-based game called Angry Birds. 1.5 billion downloads later, the company is thriving as an entertainment and merchandising brand thanks to licensing deals and distribution strategy, as well as a solid game.
Today, however, Andrew Stalbow, who was the man in charge of partnerships, licensing, animation and distribution at Rovio, alongside Petri Jarvilehto, Rovio’s former EVP of Games, has announced a new venture called Seriously. Seriously.
The Rovio magic remains in tact, as Seriously is aiming to use mobile gaming as a platform for entertainment franchises, though the new company is keeping mum about what these games will look like.
“We’ve got some excellent ideas we’re beginning to put into development, so we should have a game out by next year,” said Stalbow.
But the games themselves aren’t the important part. Though Seriously has a lot to live up to with the instant success of Angry Birds at Rovio, the company sees a greater challenge in taking on the same distribution and marketing strategy as Rovio.
“One of the most amazing experiences at Rovio was taking intellectual property and developing on top of it, or against it, like the launch of Angry Birds Star Wars for example,” said Stalbow. “Our experience in partnering up with different companies around the world has helped us understand integrating our own stuff into existing IP.”
Seriously will have two branches, one in Los Angeles dedicated to business developing and marketing, and the other in Finland where the games will be developed.
The major difference between Seriously and Rovio is that Seriously is taking a hard line on free to play mobile games, and banking everything on the entertainment experience that follows, whether it be merchandise, movies, TV series’, etc.
So far, founders Stalbow and Jarvilehto have seeded some of their own money into the investment, and begin shopping for institutional investment today.
Wrike Reveals New UI And Time-Broadcasting Feature To Keep Employees On Task
Wrike has updated its workplace productivity application Graphite, rolling out a new minimalist user interface and also the ability to broadcast the current work in real-time. The emphasis on a well-structured task view is designed to encourage workers to come back to the app and staying there longer.
The Graphite update has applied a crisp coat of Web 2.0 paint to the tired Windows Explorer style interface, and also heralds new features: project infographics, denser notification emails, and HTML5 desktop popup notifications.
The design changes and features are aimed at creating a more engaging interface that will encourage users to create and manage tasks, and collaborate on projects. However, it aims to do this in a subtle manner where the experience is not cluttered or bloated with features. Further, the ability to monitor what your colleagues are working on creates a reason to continually check into the application.
Wrike CEO Andrew Filev said the changes were designed to accommodate user habits while improving productivity. Earlier this year, it added real-time update capabilities to let employees manage tasks offline and online, to enhance the ability of workers to collaborate on documents both inside and outside of the app.
The user interface has emerged as a new front in the battle for worker productivity.
A collaboration tool for marketing professionals Brightpod is adding real-time updates to the activity stream, as well as allowing users to manage their marketing workflows public.
And major competitor Asana recently released announced integration with timesheet app Harvest, which allowed the users to track time by simply clicking a little stopwatch in the taskbar. This information is recorded in the user’s corresponding Harvest account. The looming clock creates an urgency to stay on track and complete a particular task. The startup, cofounded by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and with $38 million investment at its disposal, also released a version targeting enterprise customers, as a number of users were demanding the ability to expand the application into other parts of the business.
Chromecast Gets An iOS Setup App, Reminding Us Google Doesn't Care What Platform You Use It With
Google is doing a good job of trying to make Chromecast have a degree of cross-platform appeal that AirPlay can’t offer; today, it’s launching an iOS app for managing the Chromecast device’s settings, and for setting it up in the first place, so that you can more easily use the $35 streaming player if you’re generally an Apple device fan.
The app for iOS devices is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users, and will automatically scan for existing local Chromecast devices, as well as allow you to set up a new one to add to your Wi-Fi network. It also lists compatible apps, which for now include both YouTube and Netflix on iOS, from which to broadcast content.
Google recently got some flack for shutting down a third-party app that allowed users stream anything on a user’s Android smartphone, true AirPlay mirroring style. Google then issued a statement saying the app broke mostly due to the evolving nature of the still-in-development SDK, and not necessarily because of any direct attempt to block its functionality.
The iOS app released today is basically equivalent to the Android version released in mid-August, which means Apple users will likely get support for the device in time with or slightly behind their Google-favouring counterparts. If Google can expand the Chromecast beyond its limited feature set and see it embraced as a fairly universal standard by app-makers, this could be the sleeper media streaming hit of the decade at $35, but that’s still a very big “if”, and many early reviewers seem unconvinced by the gadget’s current limitations.
Amazon Opens Its Associates Affiliate Program To Mobile App Developers
Amazon today announced it’s expanding its long-running Amazon Associates program to mobile app developers. The affiliate program, which allows members to advertise and link to Amazon products for percentage of the sales, will be made available to participating developers through a newly launched Mobile Associates API. In addition, the company says that it will also offer the ability for mobile app developers to sell physical products from Amazon through in-app purchasing.
The Mobile Associates API will be made available to Android app developers building apps and games for the Kindle Fire and other Android devices, and will offer developers from 4 percent up to 6 percent on qualifying customer purchases. The items can include either physical and digital products which Amazon sells.
This opens up another avenue for monetizing mobile applications, Amazon explains, saying that before developers have been limited to in-app purchases, ads, and subscriptions.
In the company’s announcement this morning, Mike George, Vice President of Amazon Appstore, Games and Cloud Drive, provided an example of how this could work, saying “imagine a developer of a nutrition and fitness app can now offer their customers the ability to purchase vitamins, supplements and fitness gear within the app, directly from Amazon.com. It offers the customer a more relevant experience and provides the developer with a new source of revenue.”
After a test with Activision’s “Skylanders Cloud Patrol” last year, which offered toys of the game’s characters, Amazon moved forward with its plans to roll out the API to others. Early testers of the program include Animoca, Fismos, Days of Wonder and Spring2Partners, which are integrating the program into their apps and games.
Days of Wonder will offer a version of its game “Ticket to Ride” in both a digital and physical version. Animoca’s “Thor: Lord of Storms” will feature relevant goods in its game, like Thor’s hammer and action figures. Frismos’s “Creatures of Olympus” will tie in mythology-themed products with its game, and will also be taking advantage of a “Digital Bundling” feature to allow customers to use the virtual currency in the game for the purchase of products in the app.
Spring2Partners’ SpringPad app, an Evernote-like personal assistant, will integrate the new API in the app to connect customers’ plans, ideas, and other saved items to purchases, like books, movies, home improvement goods and even travel-related items.
The app publishers are able to direct their customers to a mobile checkout experience through in-app purchases, says Amazon. Here’s how it works for end users: a customer initiates a purchase from within an app and is then presented with a dialog box showing the product details and cost. The customer can then complete the purchase using Amazon’s 1-Click purchasing, and then the items will be shipped directly.
Developers can either sell a single item, showcase a category of goods, or bundle a physical product with digital content within their application. To implement the API, app makers choose from a specific set of ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Number), search terms, or use the Amazon Product Advertising API to query a list of ASINs and product information.
While many companies and startups already use affiliate programs in their applications – for instance, some e-commerce aggregators and product recommendation services point to Amazon.com and take a percentage of those sales. Some note-taking apps also send customers to related sites to make purchases, when need be, including Amazon and iTunes, among others.
But Amazon is today making it easier for developers to integrate this behavior into their applications, while also likely decreasing cart abandonment rates by handling the checkout experience through Amazon 1-Click. The company has a big advantage in that it already has the credit card details for million of customers on file, as well.
Amazon’s move to physical goods comes shortly after Facebook ended its plans to sell physical goods via Facebook Gifts, to instead focus on digital gift codes and its own gift card. At the time of Facebook Gifts launch in September 2012, it was believed it might challenge Amazon on gift sales. That turned out to be far from the case, as the sales were slow and minimal.
A Quick Start Guide for the new Mobile Associates API, sample code, and documentation is available here on Amazon’s site.
The Time Warner Cable TV App For Xbox 360 Is Now Available, With Access To 300 Channels
The TWC TV app for Xbox Live, which was announced back in June, is now available for download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. Microsoft’s partnership with Time Warner Cable is a significant part of its efforts to position the Xbox 360 as the definitive one-stop solution for TV and movie streaming, and demonstrates the company’s continuing commitment to the console even as it prepares for the Xbox One’s launch later this year.
Now available to viewers with an existing Time Warner Cable subscription in the U.S. as well as an Xbox Live Gold membership, the TWC TV app will allow users to access up to 300 TV channels, including AMC, BBC World News, Bravo, the Cartoon Network, CNN, Comedy Central and the Food Network, depending on their specific subscription. It also enables users to navigate through TV shows, music and movies using voice and gesture control through the Kinect peripheral.
Xbox 360 owners already have access to apps from content providers including Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video, as well as streaming live TV through networks like HBO GO, Fox News, NBC News, MTV and Nickelodeon.
Microsoft’s efforts to take its Xbox consoles beyond gaming will continue with the Xbox One, which has already has a partnership with the NFL for exclusive content and fantasy football integration, and will also feature access to an exclusive TV series based on the Halo video game franchise that will be directed by Steven Spielberg.
Though the Xbox’s move away from its original gaming base stirred up controversy, it underscores how important streaming video is for tech companies as they compete to take over the living rooms of customers. Earlier this month, for example, Apple’s purchase of video recommendation site Matcha.tv was disclosed, a move that is in line with the company’s recent efforts to add new content and channels to Apple TV. Nintendo’s Wii U added access to Hulu Plus last year, while Google’s $35 Chromecast HDMI dongle works with apps like Netflix, YouTube and Google Play Movies and TV.
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