Mr.Farmville

After its spectacular, mostly-cash $850 million sale to AOL in 2008, social network Bebo didn’t really work out for the acquirer. It sold to Criterion Capital Partners for a price reportedly between $5 million and $10 million earlier this year.

Now, it’s hiring again — and an industry source tells us that it is looking to become a social gaming platform, a move reminiscent of another social network’s strategy recently. Hi5, like Bebo, found traction with millions of users in several different countries, but ultimately stagnated as rivals like Facebook and Twitter expanded. Over the past couple of years, it has added a virtual currency, avatars, and most recently a special set of features for developer partners

While we don’t have many more details on Bebo’s new gaming initiative, there are a few reasons why the move makes sense. One is that the company has hired a founding Hi5 executive, Akash Garg, to be its new chief technology officer. He likely has some insights into how or how not to make that type of transition.

Another reason is that Bebo itself continues to have millions of users — although exact monthly usage is not clear — so it has people it can funnel to new gaming features. And finally, Bebo also has experience operating a developer platform, including for games. While it never attracted social gaming companies to the degree that Facebook and MySpace have, it does have a set of APIs to keep building off of. As you can see from the company’s landing page screenshot, it is promoting social games today.

CCP has also hinted at the new direction. Managing partner Adam Levin described the acquisition this way: “The young, highly active user base, revenue history, presence in countries throughout the world and solid technical infrastructure make it an attractive media platform both as a standalone entity and in the context of our broader investment objectives.”

Facebook, and to some degree MySpace, have been able to offer compelling social networking platforms both because they have highly engaged users and because their products include communication channels that make it easy for users to share gaming activity with friends. Hi5 was the first large social network to try to refocus as a gaming platform, and it’s not clear how well the effort has gone so far. Bebo’s new social gaming strategy seems reasonable given the circumstances — we’ll be covering it as the plans materialize.

Source: Inside Social Games

Do you live in Boston currently or did you go to school in the city? Did you leave town because it was so cold? Whether you love or hate the city, there are lots of Facebook Users in Boston. We researched various population numbers in a multitude of categories and found a variety of statistics regarding gender, age, sports, food, and more. You can check out the facts below!

Population

There are approximately 2.56 million people living in Boston that are on Facebook, according to the company’s own advertising estimates. That’s out of more than 4 million people that live in the greater Boston area. Out of the 2.5 million users, there are roughly 9% less male Facebook users in Boston comparison to female. That’s not completely surprising however as Facebook tends to have more females among most demographic groups.

Sports Facts

It’s a pretty well known fact that people in Boston love their Red Sox.  Despite the fact that the Yankees often crush the team, Boston citizens are among the most avid baseball fans in the nation.  As such, it’s not surprising to see that 10% of the Facebook Users who live in Boston are fans! On the contrary, it appears 16,000 Yankees fans must have gotten lost leaving Fenway Park and decided to stay. Of 399,680 Yankees Facebook fans in the US, 16,320 of them live in Boston. I personally wouldn’t want to cross a Sox fan in Yankee’s jersey anywhere in Boston.

While hockey season is still a few months away, the Bruins and one of their Eastern Conference rivals, the New York Rangers, have a feud that is easily seen on Facebook. Only 180 people in Boston will admit to being New York Rangers fans. That’s in contrast to the 78,000 Boston-based Bruins fans. Boston is becoming more and more of a hockey town each day.

Weather Facts

2,840 Boston Facebook users like warm weather, out of 104,140 people in the U.S.  That’s not surprising considering their winters are cold as hell. 4,000 Boston Facebook users like “Wind”.  For those that don’t, it’s unfortunate because it’s gets extremely windy by that Charles River.

College Facts

One problem I have heard multiple professionals talk about in Boston is keeping students in Boston after their college careers are over. Given that close to half the people living in the city are college students at any given time, that means the city is pretty transient. Here are some Facebook stats that seem to confirm the fact that Boston students take off after they graduate. Maybe they just can’t take the winter?

About 65,420 people in the United States on Facebook graduated from Boston College, and roughly 22,860 users still live in the area. This is around one percent of people living in Boston on Facebook are Boston College graduates. With about 134,000 graduates in the United States from Boston University on Facebook, about 42,260 continue to live in the area.  An estimated 2% of Facebook users in the Boston area graduated from Boston University.

Around 11,320 people in the United States on Facebook list themselves as currently enrolled at Harvard.  However there’s a pretty good chance those individuals will end up leaving the city. In contrast to the more than 31 percent of Boston University users that stay in Boston, only 17 percent of Harvard grads stay in Boston for any period of time. For the 2,100 Harvard’s Class of 2011 Facebook users, the wait is on to see if they stay in Boston.

Food

Only 14% of Clam Chowder fans on Facebook are from Boston. Perhaps, that New England Clam Chowder just isn’t what it used to be anymore?

Movies

Remember that movie about that janitor genius at MIT? It was the movie that made a star out of Matt Damon. 12,420 fans of Good Will Hunting live in Boston, out of 195,200 that live in the US. That’s over 6 percent that live in the city. Perhaps they moved there because of the movie?

Another movie with a big name cast that called Boston home was The Departed. About seven percent of fans of the movie live in the Boston area. There’s around 30,000 plus people with some hometown pride.

Conclusion

The Boston metropolitan area has a highly active Facebook population which isn’t exactly surprising considering that the site was founded at Harvard. While not everybody in the city is on Facebook, it’s definitely one of the most active cities in the United States.

Source: All Facebook

Ready at Dawn's second handheld God of War title will hit store shelves on November 2, Sony announced on the PlayStation.Blog.

Source: Geek.com Games

The Dreamerz is the latest Point’n'Click adventure game created by Rob Donkin and RobotJAM. The goal is to repair the dream machine and restore peace to the world. “The dream machine used to ensure that everybody slept well and had good dreams but one day it broke down and the dreamerz became plagued by nightmares. A hero [...]

Source: FreeGamesNews

Today's news was largely focused on new game announcements like EA Create and Dirt 3 and a surprisingly PSP-focused news day from Sony (God of War and Madden bundles on the way). A few other stories didn't quite capture the public's attention as much, but they are worth of inclusion in today's daily stale bread.

8/2--Eight two, Brute?

Analyst: Activision Could Announce Subscription Plans For CoD, StarCraft II By Year's End
Dave: Michael Pachter, you are a silly, silly man.

Tae: God, that'd be such a hard sell for Activision. "Remember that thing you enjoyed doing for free? Now you get to pay for it!"

Will: In related news, Will Herring will take any opportunity to post this image:

Image courtesy Forbes.

Dave: I fear that one day that image will come to life and Kotick will behead me with that plastic guitar.

GameStop Corp. Announces Second Quarter 2010 Earnings Release Date and Conference Call Webcast
Dave: GameStop's revealing their quarterly earnings soon... I wonder if they'll explain more about their Kongregate purchase during the report?

Tae: Dave, can you interrupt them and demand to know why a used copy of FIFA 10 is $49.99 still?

Dave: I will, but they'll just tell me that I can save 10% with an Edge card and that I can trade in my pre-owned games towards the purchase price. Also, they'll add that should reserve FIFA 11, since they're probably going to sell out of it when it comes in.

Tae: Shit, in that case, I'm going to GameStop to buy FIFA 10 and reserve FIFA 11.

Canned Pancake-Flavored Milkshake

Dave: Who here is going to Japan for TGS? I'm commanding whoever goes to buy a can of this.

Tae: It's about fucking time, science.

Andy: Personally, I'm still waiting for cigarette juice.

Source: Daily News from GamePro.com

Crazy Snowboard HD, from Ezone.com, is a recently updated iPad and iPhone title that might be what you’re looking for, if you need an unrealistic but fun snowboarding game to help you cool down this summer.

The title is good to play here and there for short bursts of time, and intuitive enough for even the most casual of players to catch on quickly. Filled with social integrations through the Plus+ network that work perfectly with the game’s design, and any number of unlockable items, its positives outweigh some negatives.

Essentially, Crazy Snowboard most closely resembles early Tony Hawk skateboarding games. Using simple controls, players slalom down snow-covered hills, under a time limit, in an attempt to earn the highest score possible. As you shoot down the course, steering is done through tilting and turning your iDevice, and jumping with a mere touch (higher if you press and hold first, or hit a ramp).

Once in the air, context sensitive controls appear that allow you to rotate in any direction as well as perform up to four user-set grabs and tricks. The only stipulation is you have to be upright and no longer performing a trick before you hit the ground, lest you wipe out. It does take some getting used to — namely realizing when you are back upright — since the camera tends to face an all-white ground, but the game is forgiving enough to automatically land you unless you are about to land flat on your back or on your head. Expectantly, the more tricks you perform, the higher your score.

Realism is further tossed aside in that, for whatever reason, you can still steer while in the air, and grind on various objects that appear around the course despite how you hit them. Granted, being able to grind an object with your board is realistic, but landing perfectly from 20 feet in the air, and coming straight down on it, while still earning forward momentum… not so much.

The levels get more complex as you advance, with various obstacles (i.e. trees), more ramps, more turns, and so on appearing. To add to the difficulty, the maps have added tasks to accomplish that range from scoring raw points to collecting X amount of Y item. Depending on how well the player does, they will either fail or earn a bronze, silver, or gold medal. Of course, if you don’t wish have any pressure, you can always just mess around with Freestyle mode, where you just do whatever you want.

The social integration through Plus+ also lends itself well to Crazy Snowboard. True, it is a bit basic in that it is just sharable achievements and awards, but considering that the whole point to this game is about high scores, the 30+ leaderboard systems work quite well. The only social feature that would be even better here would be if the game had a time trial mode that allowed users to race “ghosts” of each other ala games like Real Racing HD.

In addition to the Plus+ mechanics, the game has any number of unlockable characters, snowboards, and even tricks. For the most part, these are purchased with points earned in-game, and while many of the characters are quite interesting (knights, yetis, etc.), they certainly don’t lend themselves helping the lack of realism. In fact, some of the tricks are just as bizarre, such as one that looks like you’re falling off the board, holding on for dear life, and still manage to rotate in all directions flawlessly.

Regardless, realism means little in most games, so long as its fun, and truth be told, Crazy Snowboard is pretty fun. At least for a little while. As players continue to play, it does get kind of old; the 30 or so levels, despite challenges, do feel a lot like more of the same. It’s also worth mentioning that while the game is on both the iPad and iPhone, it’s a toss up as to which makes for the better platform. On the one hand, the iPad gives you a bit more room to see what’s going on, but on the other, since all the controls are done while holding the device upright, the added weight of the newer Apple device gets a bit heavy during longer gaming sessions.

On another note, the increased screen size for the iPad is actually a bad thing, because it makes the visuals look even worse — apparently the developer hasn’t fully optimized for the device. While the game -play matters the most, one can’t help but wonder how many people are turned off by the visuals before they even think of buying the $1.99 app (though, at least, there is a free version too).

Overall, Crazy Snowboard is a pretty fun game for a more casual player, but it does get a bit repetitive and the 30 missions don’t feel all that new or fresh from the others. In the end, the game is decent, but it is certainly recommended that you try the Lite version first, and decide for yourself if you want the full version or not.

Source: Inside Social Games

The internet is often vaunted as a productivity booster but it seems U.S. web users spend nearly a quarter of their online time on blogs and social networks such as Facebook.

A Nielsen study found that social networking takes up 23% of American’s online time, with Facebook accounting for 85% of that. The next biggest categories were games at 10% and email at 8%.

Web users are spending more time than ever on social networks - at the expense of other activities. This time a year ago, the same Nielsen study found social networking accounted for 16% of U.S. web users time, while email, then the second most popular online activity, took a 12% share. In total Americans spend more than a third of their online time (36%) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging.

Videos and movies was the other sector to experience significant growth - its share of activity grew from 3.5% to 3.9% over the past year, a 12% rise based on the raw numbers. In June 2010 the number of videos streamed passed the 10 billion mark.

It’s a different story in the mobile internet world, where email remains the dominant activity with a 42% share of online time, up from 37% a year ago. Portals are second at 12%, down from 14%, and social networking is third at 11%, up from 8%.

Source: All Facebook

A new game developed by EA's UK-based Bright Light Studio titled Create lets players use their imagination to complete level-based challenges with Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions. The more puzzles you complete, the more objects and tools you unlock to customize the environment.

Source: Geek.com Games

In a recent interview, executive vice president of core games at THQ Danny Bilson provided information about the company's plans for its top franchises, including a new focus for shooters and a ramped-up WWE release slate.

Bilson recently spoke at length with Computer and Video Games, providing the company's current and future strategy when it comes to its most popular franchises. Speaking to CVG about Homefront, he described the upcoming shooter's merits in a gun-filled marketplace, stating "There's no steroided-out, super-soldier, waving the American flag, saying, you know 'We're rangers. Toughest guys in the world.' You know? It's like: No interest in that. We're a global company. No jingoism here. Some of that's political, some of that's personal." Describing game's hook as "urban combat," Blson noted "The tonality of Homefront is very different to what's out there today. It's violence with consequence."

Bilson also laid out the release strategy for WWE games, planning a more frequent schedule of titles from the pro wrestling company. Starting with next year's arcade-influenced WWE All-Stars, the company will release wrestling games on a bi-annual basis. "We're growing that brand basically through an alternate SKU every six months - the other SKUs are more friendly, easier and less simmy," Bilson said.

Bilson and other THQ executives will likely explain more of the company's strategy during the company's quarterly earnings call next Monday, which GamePro will be listening in on.

SOURCE: Interview: THQ's Danny Bilson pt. 1 [Computer And Video Games]

Got any tips, corrections, or feedback? Contact GamePro's news team or follow the author of this story on Twitter.

Source: Daily News from GamePro.com

The man suing Facebook for 84% ownership of the social networking site has told Bloomberg that he can thank a state fraud investigation for unearthing 2003 documents purporting to give him a stake in Zuckerberg’s start-up.

Paul Ceglia from Wellsville in western New York state filed suit on June 30, claiming he owns most of Facebook under an old 2003 “work for hire” contract back when founder Mark Zuckerberg was a college freshman. He also claims to have a year’s worth of email correspondence with Zuckerberg to support his case.

In the Bloomberg story, the businessman claimed that it took him this long to bring the case because he had forgotten about it. He was reminded when a separate fraud investigation into his wood-pellet start-up prompted him to start trawling through old documents looking for assets to help pay back debts. “If this thing hadn’t happened the way it happened, no way I would have ever started looking through these ancient folders,” Ceglia told Bloomberg. “That contract would just be sitting in there gathering dust.”

However, Ceglia’s claim would not go unchallenged, even if he is successful. Bloomberg also interviewed Andrew Logan, StreetDelivery’s founder and chief executive, who called Ceglia a “real opportunist” and said he “didn’t have much good to say about him”. Logan has claimed Ceglia was under contract to StreetDelivery in 2003 when he set up StreetFax and hired Zuckerberg. If Ceglia’s contract with Zuckerberg gives Ceglia an ownership interest in Facebook, Logan said the stake may in fact belong to him.

Ceglia apparently hired Zuckerberg to write code for his StreetFax start-up and claims he invested $1000 into Zuckerberg’s venture, which is referred to as both “The Face Book” and “The Page Book” in the document. Facebook claims that Zuckerberg did some work for Ceglia in 2003 but did not conceive of Facebook until 2004. The describes the lawsuit as “frivolous” and says the contract must be fake. So far Ceglia has only produced a photocopy.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, someone claiming they actually have an ownership stake in your company must be a close second. But Facebook is likely to be annoyed rather than flattered by the string of litigators trying to get a stake in the social networking company, which now boasts 500 million users.

The case is Ceglia v. Zuckerberg, 10-CV-00569, U.S. District Court, Western District of New York (Buffalo).

Photo Credit: Picture of Paul Ceglia from Bloomberg.

Source: All Facebook

With so many apps losing users this past spring — mostly due to a variety of changes made by Facebook to the platform – the big question has been whether or not developer growth is leveling off for the longer term. Last month, losses seemed to be lessening, but they were still apparent with 18 of the 25 applications falling in monthly active users. However, this month has already proven to be slightly better as, this time, 15 of the 25 are in the red, with drops generally less than in prior months.

Note: given that this list looks at the top 25 applications by MAU, it is not taking into account any significant growth by smaller apps, or stellar daily active user gains by any app.

There’s also a qualifier for some of the higher growth numbers visible today — the massive surges among a few big Zynga games could be due to a Facebook statistical reporting bug. We’re asking Facebook for more details, and we’ll update this post as we get them.

All that said, here are the highlights for the top 25 Facebook Games for August 2010:

• The once mighty FarmVille has continued to lose players this month with a loss of nearly 4 million monthly active users. However, that is approximately 3 million less than the losses last month, so the Zynga title’s decline may be tapering off.
• Other Zynga games, however, made big gains including Texas HoldEm Poker (11.8 million more MAU) Cafe World (13.9 million more MAU), Mafia Wars (12.8 million more MAU), FrontierVille (10.5 million more MAU), and PetVille (3.1 million more MAU) — with the qualifier here being the possible reporting bug that is exaggerating growth.
• Treasure Isle, on the other hand, may be running its course as it dropped from #3 to #7 with nearly  4 million MAU loss.
• Playfish‘s Pet Society is reaching equilibrium, having only lost 660,593 MAU compared to the 1.5 million last month. It remains at #9.
• RockYou‘s Zoo World saw a huge boost this time around, moving up from #17 to #10 with a just over 12.6 million MAUs; it may be growing for the same reason as the Zynga titles, though.
• Restaurant City is another game to move out of the negatives. The Playfish title went from #13 to #11 with almost 12.4 million MAUs. It had gained just over 1.4 million — again, a possible bug could be at play here.
• PopCap is also doing well for itself. Though Bejeweled Blitz has rarely found itself in the negatives, its gains this month were nearly 1.5 million more than it was last month, bringing it up to #12 and 12.2 million monthly active users.
• Playdom doesn’t do too hot in the Top 25, as its sole entry, Social City lost another million, down by about a million, to 8.9 million MAU.
• Though Zoo World is doing well, Birthday Cards plummets to #14 (from #6) with a loss of 7.6 million MAU.
• CrowdStar‘s Happy Island finds itself in the positives, having gained about 1.1 million monthly active users. It moves up from #19 to #17.
• Though most of the list’s tail end is losing players, recently claimed Nightclub City from Booyah makes its debut on this monthly list at #25 with just under 5.3 million MAUs.

Source: Inside Social Games

Facebook is known for their numerous easter eggs left throughout the site, and with the launch of the new Facebook Questions product, the company is sticking with some of their old ways. The new easter egg appears when users enter the questions “How is a babby formed?” It’s an internet meme which dates back to 2006 (view here), and was initially started on Yahoo! Answers. Trying to play off one of the memes first started on a Q&A site, Facebook now rick rolls any users that enters the same question.

The easter egg, which was first pointed out by Sean Percival, is pretty clever. To see how the easter egg works, check out the video that Sean posted on YouTube below. Also feel free to try it yourself as it definitely works!

Source: All Facebook

Microsoft Kinect, a new controller that has no controller. An overpriced camera system? Unsuitable for small rooms? Can track 6 people, but only 2 can play at once? It’s not sounding great is it? There’s one area where Kinect could redeem itself. Get two hot babes playing it in front of a camera and enjoy the [...]

Source: Geek.com Games

Check out the top headlines and insights this week from Inside Facebook— tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, July 26th, 2010

• Likeable Builds a Full-Service Social Marketing Business on Facebook
• Cadbury Launches Social Music Game to Reach Facebook Users
• USAID Promotes US International Relief Efforts on Facebook
• Facebook Has Users Identify Friends In Photos To Verify Accounts, Prevent Unauthorized Access
• Create Your Quiz Rises Fast But Falls Hard on This Week’s List of Growing Facebook Games by MAU
• New Official Facebook Page Brings Updates on Safety Issues to the News Feed

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

• Wings Brings a New Kind of Dating App to Facebook
• Facebook Introduces Page to Demonstrate Best Practices for Media Companies
• Global Brands, Celebrity and Music on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Pages
• Ford Shows Off New Explorer to Facebook Fants with Full Day Of Content
• Facebook Disables All Pencake Apps
• Amazon Recommends Products Based on Your and Your Friends’ Facebook Interests

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

• Windows Live Messenger Tops This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
• Hot Potato Team Could Be Headed to Work on Facebook’s News Feed, Or Location Service, Or Questions?
• Kibboko Helps You Discover Quality iOS Applications
• Among Facebook’s Top Languages, Portuguese, Arabic, and Spanish Lead Growth
• Facebook Launches New “Questions” Application – An In-Depth Look
• Disney’s Acquisition of Playdom Is Another Symbolic Moment in the Evolution of Social Gaming
• Facebook Splits Publisher Into Status, Questions, Photos, and Links

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

• New Jobs This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: EA2D, MeYouHealth, Days of Wonder, & More
• Mazda Puts Fans Behind The Wheel Of The Mazda2 in Facebook Game DriverVille
• Facebook Hires: MIT, VMware and Anchor Intelligence
• Facebook Executives, Including Zuckerberg, Visit Capitol Hill
• Sugar6 CRM Lets Users View Facebook Profiles of Contacts, But Lacks Authorization
• Facebook Updates Policy Terms for Big Platform Applications

Friday, July 30th, 2010

• Paul the Octopus Appears on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
• First Data Corporation Gets into Gifting on Facebook with eGift Social
• Growing International Populations on Facebook Are Appealing, But Still Present Challenges
• Report: Facebook IPO Still Not Coming Soon
• Facebook Has No Plans to Continue fbFund
• TechCrunch Social Currency CrunchUp: PlacePop Launches Loyalty Card App, More Companies Look at Transactions
• Facebook Roundup: Bugs, Questions, Security, Media, Messenger and More

Source: Inside Social Games

Starcraft 2’s patch 1.01 was just released, so next time you start up the game you’ll be receiving an update. This minor patch, made live less than a week after the game was made available to the public, does not appear to fix the menu overheating issue, rather it addresses two minor problems with the [...]

Source: Geek.com Games