Written on May 3, 2008 – 11:24 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
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It’s difficult for us developers, with tags such as ‘OCD’, ‘aspergers’ and ‘nerds’ to detach the word Macromedia away from Flash. But Flash has been playing Frogger for many years. Formally known as Splash, it has been jumping logs for a long time and with each new release and throughout its management changes, this single star has jumped itself into becoming one of the most dominant and integral players on the Internet today.
With each jump there has been thousands of dedicated and obsessive devotees simultaneously having ejaculations (metaphorically speaking) as the gravity settles to the new possibilities that the latest incarnation makes possible. These would not be apparent to a ‘normal’ person, for only those with the above mentioned tags have the capacity to really grasp the essence of the bifurcation immediately.
Flash has explored every area of the landscape, looking for acceptance, adoption and for an audience that truly appreciates their quests. I say quests because the team behind this baby are ruthlessly exploring new worlds, as and when they find a new feeding ground, they evolve with the terrain leaving little resemblance of their previous incarnation intact. This is one team that is highly interested in natural selection and breeding with aliens!
It is of little surprise that when Adobe Flash announces that they will now explore the mobile market further (code name: Open Screen Project) that when the fruits of this initiative are ripe, we will no doubt have strange new gadgets not even predicted by Philip K Dick, that we will use to navigate the new world around us, with unprecedented access to information and communication, but in an international timezone that has no on/off switch.
So what is it that Adobe’s crystal ball is saying this time about the future. Here are some predictions of scenarios that come to mind when I dare let my imagination go wild with the inevitable consequences of the Open Screen Project.
(more…)
Written on March 13, 2008 – 11:54 am
Reinout te Brake, online gaming expert
Hey you, yes, you! You are responsible for that huge buzz about online casual games! Since you are playing online games everywhere, whenever and so many times, you were helping in the past years to get a whole industry started. Do you actually know the term “casual games”, “ingame advertising”, “return on investment” and “venture capital”? We do. We, as in the online casual gaming industry. We are building games to please you as a player and make money of it. We try to understand your behavior in every way so we can develop specific games for men, women, boys and girls. Strategy games, role playing games, multiplayer games, arcade games and many more. You just have to choose or did we already know what you would choose?!
The online casual gaming industry has grown the last years significantly because more and more sites are offering games to the public at large. Not only you will find these games on specific games portals like Miniclip, GamesGames, and Pogo, but you will find more of these games in social communities like for example Facebook.com. Every day millions of games are being played online and therefore lots of companies did start to develop (often flash-based) games. These companies are located all over the globe, from China to USA, from Holland to India.
So I ask you just take a moment to think about it. What kind of games do you like? Where do you normally go to online to find these games? Do you (want to) pay for games or do you accept advertising around these games? All of these questions went already through the heads of those smart game developers and their marketing teams. They figured that these games are interesting marketing tools. You probably consider them just as nice playable games, but this industry is building on knowledge and experience on your behavior when it comes down to playing games online. (more…)
Written on February 20, 2008 – 4:29 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Until now it has not been possible for Flash developers to embed Adsense or any other ad-networks ads into a Flash widget. Adobe have made it clear from the beginning that this is something beyond the scope of the technology which has increasingly become a thorn in the side and ‘the most serious limitation’ for Flash developers to realize profit from their applications.
There are now literally hundreds of millions of Flash widgets embedded all over the web, mostly on third party sites, where the widget developers would JUST LOVE to monitise that content with Adsense and other ad networks. So a solution for this Major Dilemma is long over due and the prize for best hackers of the year goes to Scribd who have just launched a new product (IPAPER) that incorporates the said invention. In their own words and from their site come these lovely words:
Monetize Your Documents
If you have documents on your website, you could be missing out on a monetization opportunity. You advertise on your web pages, why not your documents? iPaper integrates a sophisticated ad system by Google that automatically targets ads to the content of your documents. By switching to iPaper, you can immediately begin to monetize your documents. All you have to do is collect the checks.
Click image to see a working example Flash widget with Adsense.
Hacked Solution
Now as they have cracked / hacked a way round one of the greatest limitations of Flash widgets this is going to revolutionize the web! Specifically increasing incentives for the hundreds of thousands of developers who are using Flash to make embeddable features for third party networks such as Facebook et al.
No one has yet come up with any serious solutions for monitising Flash content to date. (more…)
Written on December 20, 2007 – 3:43 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
Moola has a simple but foolproof way of making millions. They give users one cent and let them play against other users in simple flash games. If you win, you double your money. If you lose, you go back to square one one cent. If you manage to win 30 times you win exactly $10,737,418.24. Not bad for winning a few flash games.
Before each Flash game you do have to watch a short video ad and that is where revenue is generated for Moola. If you want to know more about how it works read these excellent reviews on Techcrunch and ReadWriteWeb.
Local versions
The company is based in Toronto, Canada, invitation only and currently only available to residents of the United States and Canada. Once this company officially launches and becomes successful my guess is we will see a flurry of localized copies.
The reason why it makes sense to start your own local Moola is because the law is different for each country in the world. In the United States it can even be different per state. The Moola websites explains as much in their disclaimer:
Moola is currently only available to residents of the United States and Canada, excluding Louisiana, Nevada and Quebec.
The law on contests, sweepstakes and tournaments is not settled in Nevada, Louisiana and Quebec at this time. Until there is greater certainty, Moola will be unavailable to residents of these areas.
My guess is that within 12 months, just as it happened to the Million Dollar Homepage, we will see many localized versions of Moola all over the world. If you know of any similar local initiatives we would love to hear about it.
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