Tumblr is clarifying its sticky position regarding the new policy to ban certain blogs from its network. You may remember last week, when the company took the bold stance that blogs promoting self-harm, including anorexia, bulimia, self-mutilation and suicide, would no longer be allowed on its network.

Today, the company is following up on the policy change to explain that it’s not banning blogs that are engaged in “discussion, support, encouragement, and documenting the experiences of those dealing with difficult conditions,” only those that are meant to trigger self-harm. But how will Tumblr know which is which?

Tumblr’s response: the policy is being applied on a blog-by-blog basis. In other words, there’s a manual review process. Explains the post:

There won’t be any wholesale suspension based on tags or text. We’re not under the illusion that it will be easy to draw the line between blogs that are intended to trigger self-harm and those that support sufferers and build community, but, thanks to the tireless efforts of our amazing Support team, we will do our best.

To that end, the company has updated the wording of the new policy, to better reflect its intentions. (You can read the full text of that change here). In addition, the company notes that it received some suggestions from the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) to improve the language Tumblr plans to begin showing alongside searches for tags associated with the promotion of self-harm, like “pro-ana”, “pro-mia”, “thinspiration” and “thinspo”.

Apparently, Tumblr had written its own PSA previously.

The old version (Tumblr’s suggestion):

Eating disorders can cause serious health problems, and at their most severe can even be life-threatening. Please contact the [resource organization] at [helpline number] or [website].

The new version (via the NEDA):

Eating disorders are not lifestyle choices, they are mental disorders that when left untreated, can cause serious health problems, and at their most severe can even be life-threatening. For treatment referrals, information and support, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association’s Helpline at 1-800-931-2237 or www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.

While the gut reaction here is “good for Tumblr,” the move has not been without its controversy. Yes, surprisingly, there are people out there who disagree with censorship, even when you’re saving lives. The question, of course, is are they really saving lives?, or is the content just going to be relocated elsewhere? It’s doubtful that the content is going away for good – it’s been online for years. What Tumblr’s policy shift means is that the bloggers and blog readers will have to retreat further underground – back to forums, message boards, and other web services with less restrictive policies. Back to places where it’s less likely a friend or family member will stumble upon their activity, and urge them to seek help.

And then there’s the question of censorship. Tumblr, of course, has the right to choose what content it hosts or not. It’s a private company providing a free service. But if it’s going to take a stance against self-harm, then what about taking a stance against harm in general? Rape? Violence against women? Hate crimes? Drugs? Alcohol? Pornography? (That link is seriously NSFW, by the way. I’m not even sure that all those photos are of legal adults, to be honest).

Censorship is a slippery slope. And while it’s hard to hold Tumblr at fault for wanting to clean up its network, it’s somewhat debatable if an outright ban was the best way to help the people who are suffering from these diseases.

Instead of banning these blogs, what if PSAs were interspersed with the posts themselves? Or were tucked in between the search results? Or if search results for “pro-ana” (etc.) were interspersed with posts from those on Tumblr blogging about recovery? Or what if Tumblr included PSAs with calls to action, like “click here if you think you’re suffering from X” which could then trigger a support organization to have hotline staff contact you?

Of course, all of that sounds like a lot more work than this far easier, “not-in-my-backyard” policy of banning blogs.

People who are fighting these illnesses are already very isolated, and often very young. The communities Tumblr provided them gave them support, but it was the wrong kind of support. I wish there was a better way to reach them and support them than taking down their blogs and showing them PSAs. Because if the blogs are gone, eventually, these sufferers will all just leave Tumblr, too. And then those PSAs won’t do anyone any good.

P.S. It appears to be #selfharmawarenessday on Twitter.

Image not via Tumblr, but some gossip site and credited to “everyjoe”

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/tduvrTo7FbU/

Zynga is now officially launching its own web site for social games, and the move has got investors buying its stock. Shares are up nearly 10 percent as of market closing today towards $15 — or 50 percent of the $10 price it went public at back in December. Why? The obvious reason is that the move is a way for Zynga to lessen its reliance on Facebook.

But Zynga is still using Facebook exclusively as its identity service and payments system, so it’s not true to say that it’s lessening anything right now. That is, except for two things: publisher payments and ads.

The new site, Zynga.com, will include a range of social communication channels and friend suggestions based on what games people play and how they play them. It is opening up all of this to third party developers, too, plus access to Zynga’s hundreds of millions of users. But, they’ll have to pay. Facebook is already taking a 30 percent cut of all virtual goods payments in the platform, because Zynga is using Facebook Credits to power payments.

Zynga is still able to make money here, however. Chief operating officer John Schappert tells me that the company is also working out publisher deals with developers come on board. That is, it appears to be negotiating an additional cut from them, on top of the Credits fee.

But let’s back up to Credits — Zynga has to use them because of an exclusive five-year deal that Facebook made it sign back in 2009. Part of the terms required that Zynga use Credits in anything it did on the web outside of Facebook. This basically turns Zynga into an early evangelist for Facebook Credits, in the event that the social network wants to expand the currency off of Facebook.com

The terms provided something else, too. They allowed Zynga to run its own canvas ads on its properties, as I detailed on Inside Social Games last July. On Facebook, Facebook owns all the ad inventory.

You don’t see ads on Zynga.com right now, but Zynga could plug all of its advertisers — the people who are running branded virtual goods campaigns and offers in its existing games — on these sites as well. Or any other ad content for that matter, like ads that other developers could pay for within Zynga.com in order to reach users. And that could turn into a quality new revenue stream.

• ZYNGA

Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary African warrior queen. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader.

Zynga’s mission is connecting the world through games. Everyday millions of people interact with their friends and express their unique personalities through our…

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/Mdck2sZyTk8/

There are few terms more overused these days than “social media expert.” Now Unified wants to actually certify those experts, through a new program called Unified University.

Unified calls itself “the first social operating platform” — it offers tools for planning, purchasing, and analyzing social media advertising campaigns. Even though CEO Sheldon Owen says he wants to build a big enterprise technology company, Unified sometimes finds itself working as a social media consultant, of sorts for the agencies and brands that it works with, helping to train them in the best practices of social advertising. With Unified University, the startup can get its customers up-to-speed more efficiently.

Despite the “university” name, this isn’t actually something people need to commit to for weeks or months. Instead, it’s a series of online tutorials that can be completed in about a day, and at the end, the “students” get certified in different subject areas. The curriculum focuses on three broad topics — Metrics Reporting, Tactical, and Strategies for Success.

In the short-term, people need that certification in order to unlock certain Unified features. For example, Owen says there are lots of unique challenges to promoting content on StumbleUpon. Rather than allowing customers to waste their time and money, Unified’s StumbleUpon feature only turns on after they’ve completed the relevant tutorial in the University. In the long-term, Owen is hoping that the certification will become a generally recognized way to recognize social media knowledge, say within large organizations, or when you’re moving between jobs.

You can read more about Unified University here.

By the way, Unified’s co-founders Josh Backer and Jason Beckerman were actually part of the inaugural class of TechCrunch 40 companies with their startup Teach the People.

• UNIFIED

The world’s first Social Operating Platform. Enterprise marketing technology for top global brands and agencies to activate social audiences and impact consumer actions.

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/HB9M7hTGWLU/

Yesterday, we took a look at the growing comfort consumers, specifically gamers, have with purchasing virtual goods and currency on the Web and mobile devices. Virtual goods are becoming a booming market thanks to the growing maturity of gaming platforms, free-to-play models and the profusion of mobile devices.

Today, international investment firm Digi-Capital published its in-depth review of the global gaming space, giving us a sense of the size, breadth, and activity of the very international gaming market last year that is contributing to the changing behavior around virtual commerce — as well as a glimpse into what we can expect from the industry over the course of 2012.

For starters, Digi-Capital found that gaming investment and MA more than doubled in 2011, as private placements grew by 96 percent to $2 billion, the number of transactions increased by 67 percent to 152, and the average fundraising round increased by 17 percent to $13 million. When combined with the enormous IPOs of Zynga and Nexon, investment value nearly quadrupled. All in all, gaming MA volume grew 88 percent to 113 transactions, value grew 160 percent to $3.4 billion, and the average MA deal size grew 38 percent to $30.4 million.

In terms of which gaming sectors saw the most investment and MA activity in 2011? Unsurprisingly, social and casual games took home the bacon, making up 57 percent of private investment and 45 percent of MA activity. Digi-Capital believes that Zynga’s IPO was likely the “high water mark for Social Games 1.0,” as the crowded nature of the space will make it increasingly difficult for companies to sustain user acquisition and retention.

In analyzing global gaming in terms of total daily active users and individual game daily active users, the investment firm found that a small number of companies are delivering on the promise of maintaining (and growing) their user bases, specifically referencing Wooga and King.com. However, with the trend beginning in 2011, this year will likely see continued consolidating MA activity in gaming.

Second to social and casual gaming in terms of transaction volume was social/mobile games, with 30 percent of private investment and 27 percent of MA activity, although the value of private investment hasn’t really hit its full potential yet. Digi cited DeNA and Gree as two examples of how investment in social-mobile games can actually deliver ROI, with the former seeing more than $1.4 billion in revenues at a 50 percent operating margin, and the latter seeing equivalent revenues in the 12 months leading up to December 2011, with a 46 percent operating margin. Going forward, mobile-social and cross-platform games will continue to attract significant attention from both investors and potential acquirers.

And just as we wrote in April last year, large, profitable Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean gaming companies will continue to look for MA opportunities in North America, as gaming continues to explode across Asia. The same will be true for some of the big American gaming companies, but both suffer from a lack of local knowledge, and cross-pollination.

Going forward, Digi-Capital expects online and mobile games to significantly contribute to the growth of the international gaming market, with the total market reaching an estimated $82 billion by 2015, and online and mobile games taking 50 percent of that revenue. (Interestingly, it expects the pure console sector to be “flat to down” over that time.) What’s more, the report forecasts that Asia and Europe will take 87 percent of the revenues for online and mobile games, with China leading at 36 percent, followed by Europe at 20 percent, South Korea at 12 percent, and Japan at 10 percent.

However, while online and mobile games are growing their scale and share of the overall market, consumer markets are expected to continue to fragment, and profitable business models will become harder to come by. Over the course of the next year, gaming companies will have to develop multiple development platforms, instead of relying on one hit game, and find multiple platform and geographical distributors. Relying solely on Facebook won’t cut it for long. Rapid, low-cost game development and redevelopment cycles, fast failure, strong analytics, and true scalability will continually become more significant as the industry matures.

That being said, Digi-Capital found that there is more demand for investment among high-growth gaming companies than there is supply, as “outside major investment deals, online and mobile games companies still find it challenging to find high quality investors, and traditional VCs are becoming increasingly selective.” The current trend among VCs, the report finds, is to go after later-stage deals, but there’s potential to change as the market changes and more people flock to mobile and social games.

All in all, it seems there are plenty of potential growth and consolidation opportunities across the gaming sectors, but there’s no doubt that mobile-social, online, and cross-platform games will continue to explode over the course of the coming year, and we can expect MA and investment activity to increase as social gaming works toward consolidation and more mobile gaming companies rise into the spotlight.

For more, check out Digi-Capital’s report here.

Excerpt image from MaxUpdates.tv

• ZYNGA
• DIGI-CAPITAL
• NEXON
• GREE
• WOOGA
• KING.COM

Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary African warrior queen. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader.

Zynga’s mission is connecting the world through games. Everyday millions of people interact with their friends and express their unique personalities through our…

Learn more

Digi-Capital (www.digi-capital.com) is a digital/games investment bank focused across North America, Europe and Asia (China, Japan, South Korea). As well as its investment banking and venture partner work, Digi-Capital publishes its 2011 Global Video Games Investment Review http://slidesha.re/dJwTaX, which focuses on the rise of online/mobile games, China and investment across sectors.

Learn more

Innovation. That’s what Nexon is all about. A pioneer in the world of interactive entertainment software, they introduced the world to the first graphic MMORPG, The Kingdom of the Winds, back in 1995. Since then, they’ve become the industry leader in massively multiplayer online games, continuing to redefine the genre with each of their innovative titles.

Learn more

GREE provides Japan’s leading mobile social network, and is at the forefront of mobile technology. GREE was ranked as Japan’s fastest-growing tech company by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. in 2009 and 2010.

GREE, following its acquisition of OpenFeint in April 2011, is expanding globally and will soon offer a single, worldwide mobile social gaming platform. Combined, GREE reaches over 150 million players and offers over 7,500 game applications for smartphones.

GREE aims to build the leading mobile social gaming…

Learn more

wooga develops games for Facebook.

The company was founded in January 2009 and is based in Berlin. In summer/autumn 2009 it received $7.5m VC funding from Balderton Capital and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. In 2011 wooga raised $24 in a Series B Round led by Highland Capital Partners.

wooga has released 5 games so far (Brain Buddies, Bubble Island, Monster World, Happy Hospital, Diamond Dash) and is number three among Facebook game developers by number of active users – and the…

Learn more

King.com is one of the leading developers of cross-platform casual games globally and since its launch has developed more than 200 exclusive games in 14 languages.

These games are available through its premier destination site, King.com (www.king.com), on Facebook, via it’s exclusive distribution partnerships with leading portals and media groups, and on mobile devices.

Every month more than 27 million people play King.com games globally, generating over 800 million gameplays.

King.com is driven by passionate game developers and leading digital…

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/5djhXkckwOs/

Startup BumeBox throws social media “parties to help brands engage with their customers. Its latest success story: eBay.

Not that you actually need BumeBox to engage fans on social networks, but the service helps put together special, limited-time events, which can then be aggregated and embedded — so fans could participate directly on Twitter, or they could jump into the conversion from the company’s website.

BumeBox says it held its first party for eBay over the holiday season — a highlight, apparently, was a thread with more than 30 tweets that mentioned more than 40 board games. The companies also held a two-hour event over Valentine’s Day that was focused on “gifts for him and her.” BumeBox says that the associated hashtag, “#eBaywithLove” was viewed 14 million times.

I have to admit, there’s still a part of me of that has trouble believing people are genuinely excited about talking with large corporations (incidentally, that was one of the big themes at Facebook’s marketing event today), but apparently some were, and they were pretty darn excited — the average participant tweeted 10 times. (And to be clear, to many of the conversations were more about eBay than with eBay.) Most of the comments were quite positive, as you can see in the tag cloud above.

“It really seemed to be a pent-up demand for this kind of outlet,” says CEO Jon Fahrner.

eBay seems happy with the results, too — it’s expanded the program this week with daily parties focused on specific product categories, like Motor Mondays and Tech Tuesdays.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/iMFR6rs159A/

With somewhat coincidental (?) timing, given this week’s Facebook Marketing Conference, a new article published today by Bloomberg Businessweek takes a deep dive into Twitter’s advertising’s business. Twitter is the other major social network after big brands’ ad dollars, and although its 100 million active members pale compared with Facebook’s 800 million+, there is the potential for a different kind of ad targeting arising on Twitter. The company is going after the “interest graph,” a concept we’ve covered in some detail before.

An interest graph is different than the social graph provided by Facebook, which looks at connections, likes, and detailed demographic data like hometown, age, education and more, in order to narrowly target specific groups with ads. Instead, the interest graph is about what you like, what you read, and, generally, what kind of person you are. But the question is, can Twitter get a better read on users’ interests and personalities than Facebook can?

After all, Facebook knows a lot about us already when it comes to the intersection of people and brands. We “like” advertisers’ pages, interact by posting on their walls, click through their links in our news feeds, and share their messages with our friends. Today, messages posts to our walls when we just read an article in an online news publication, or just installed a new mobile app. Plus, thanks to the introduction of Facebook’s Open Graph, which lets our external web activity show up in Facebook’s real-time activity feed in the sidebar ticker, our friends are seeing other interactions we engage in. Besides likes and comments, this section also shares details about the music we’re listening to (and the service used to do so), the games we’re playing (hi Zynga!) and maybe one day, what we’re watching on Netflix.

But Twitter is trying something different when it comes to targeting people with brands’ messaging. Twitter doesn’t know who you are, how old you are, where you went to school, where you live (unless you’ve volunteered that information or are geo-tagging your tweets), or any of those more traditional demographic details.

However, the thing that struck me about the article was the little piece near the end, where CEO Dick Costolo explains how Twitter is going after the interest graph. Bloomberg’s Brad Stone describes the data Twitter collects as “both revealing and noninvasive,” which seems like an accurate description.

“These accounts I follow paint a very compelling picture of the kind of person I am, even if it doesn’t paint a picture of exactly which uniquely identifiable individual in the world I am, Costolo explains. “I think that allows us to deliver powerful value to advertisers, and powerful value to those who want to speak freely.”

Developing an interest graph means that Twitter, instead of being able to (creepily?) go after all 20-year old Jewish women who live within 5 miles of New York, who have completed college and who are married, for example, can target a specific kind of person. Those who seem interested in politics, or tech, or celebrity news, or education, or art, or music. But building a good interest graph – one that doesn’t just think that because you follow Lady Gaga, you’re a fan of all pop music – is far more challenging.

Costolo doesn’t give Stone much to go on as to the specifics of how Twitter’s interest graph works (or Stone didn’t publish them), but he does say that Twitter is tracking things like who you follow and what you click on.

Today, Twitter has a suite of advertising products known as Promoted Products, which includes Promoted Trends, Searches and Accounts. A Promoted Trend goes for around $120,000 per day in the U.S., the article confirms. And the expectation is that Twitter is now on track to earn $260 million in 2012, according to eMarkter, using these tools.

But it’s all still very much in the early stages. Costolo notes that the company’s ad business is only 18 months old. ”2011 was the year we began scaling it,” he said. “And 2012 is the year when we demonstrate that it’s a juggernaut.”

He also admitted that Twitter’s targeting tools aren’t as refined as Facebook’s. He’s not concerned, however, because he thinks he’s built the next big thing in terms of ad targeting. The interest graph. Over time, the algorithms behind Twitter’s interest graph could grow more refined, as it learns what we click, what we re-tweet, and maybe even things like the sentiment behind our words. Someone may tweet about Obama, but that doesn’t mean they support them. And since one of Twitter’s latest additions is a tool that lets politicians talk to Twitter’s users through Promoted Searches (search results that stay stuck to the top of the page), it would be incredibly helpful if, say, a candidate could go after supporters, non-supporters and on-the-fence sitters in different ways.

For now, though, the system is much more simple. Search for a candidate’s name, see his Promoted Search result. There’s a lot of potential here to make that system more refined, more exact, and generally more intelligent. If anything ever has a chance at competing with Facebook, it’s not going to be yet another social network mining the same demographic data in the same ways, it’s going to be a network that figures out how to mine new data in new ways – data that defines who people are by their activity, interactions and behavior. It’s going to be the network that figures out the interest graph. And Twitter is off to a good start.

Image credit: Research.ly, via Brian Solis

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/pqkdti7kYfo/

At the 2010 TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, Benchmark Capital Partner Matt Cohler took to the stage to talk about the state of the venture capital industry. In so doing, Cohler said that he thought too many investors were becoming focused on risk mitigation, which can often deter investors from going after companies that may be building something really big, trying to change the world — but will be slower to monetize and offer the requisite immediate ROI.

He then mentioned that he had recently led an investment in a company called ResearchGate, because when he asked the company’s founder, Ijad Madisch, what would constitute success in his mind, Madish replied, simply, “winning the Nobel Prize.”

“That sounds like aspiration and ambition to me,” Cohler said. And you have to give props to both the founder, for being so resolute in his goal, and to Cohler and the company’s other investors, for being willing to put money into a venture that certainly had no short-term plans to become a billion-dollar company. At the time, ResearchGate had just closed a series A round from investors like Accel Partners, Simon Levene, Bebo Co-founder Michael Birch, Joachim Schoss, Martin Sinner, Ulrich Essmann, Christian Vollmann and Rolf Christof Dienst.

What’s more, last week, ResearchGate closed its series B round, which was this time led by Founders Fund, with follow-on contribution from Benchmark Capital, Accel Partners, and Michael Birch, as well as Yammer CEO David Sacks. Again, true to form, Madisch is not revealing how much his company has raised, in either of its two rounds, because he doesn’t want the focus to be on the money. (Though both rounds were supposedly typical for series A and B, likely putting them in the range of $3-$5 million and $6-$8 million, respectively.)

As part of the series B round, Madisch told us that PayPal Co-founder and Founders Fund Partner Luke Nosek will both be joining Cohler on the startup’s board of directors. Madisch said that both investors had been long-time advisors to the company since he had initially visited Silicon Valley and had no idea what a “partner meeting” was.

So what is it about ResearchGate that has these investors thinking long-term impact, rather than short-term gain? The startup has been called a “Facebook for scientists,” which has increased poignancy given the fact that the founder tells us that he’s just hired a bunch of senior engineering staff from Germany’s Facebook equivalent, StudiVZ. (The company has headquarters in Germany, where Madisch is from, and Boston, and will soon be opening new offices in Silicon Valley for its staff of 75.)

Nonetheless, the founder explains that the Facebook for scientists is an oversimplification of what he and his team are up to, which is building a communication and crowdsourcing platform by which scientists can share their research and more.

Madisch, who has a bachelor’s degree in computer science, a Harvard medical degree, a Ph.D in virology, knows what it means to be on either side of the medical world, as both physician and researcher — and how to code. He told us that, when it comes to medical research, academics study very specific problems, and if they want help with a particular study or test, they look for someone with a very specific skill and research set. That, in and of itself, is extremely difficult, as there are few public resources to enable quick discovery of those researching in similar niche fields. On top of that, searching for particular scientific papers that would lend insight into the particular problem — also not so easy.

Madisch told us that, as he went through his degrees and began studying and researching problems in virology, when a particular experiment didn’t work, for example, he would not share that with anyone, he wouldn’t write down the fact that, “hey, this virus isn’t growing on these cells, here’s why.” He said that he’s learned that this is typical of scientists and researchers, which leads to many experts simultaneously researching very similar, or related ideas to make the same mistakes, over and over again.

So, in short, the mission of ResearchGate has been to decrease research redundancy by creating a network in which scientists (of every stripe) can create a simple profile that contains information that would only be relevant to other scientists, like degrees, areas of focus, research keywords, advisors, publications, and so on. In turn, the team wants to give scientists a place where they can upload not only the journals they’ve published results in, but raw data, experiments that failed, etc., pooling those resources to make that knowledge and research accessible broadly, for free.

So far, nearly 1.5 million scientists from 192 countries have joined ResearchGate, which now contains 45 million abstracts, more than 10 million free, full-text PDFs on a diverse body of research, 15,000 job listings, and schedules for over 3,500 conferences. But, even so, the fact that scientists can upload additional data sets — beyond that which they’ve published in scientific journals — is huge, because, as Madisch says, records of research typically get lost or discarded, but now they can save it, upload it, and share it with others to help inform their research.

On top of that, ResearchGate offers scientists discussion topics and communities in which they can get answers from other specialists, help each other solve particular problems, whether it be coding PHP or investigating a polymer chain reaction. The idea is to increase interdisciplinary sharing of technical knowledge, enabling scientists to solve their problems faster. In addition, ResearchGate allows users to search through the largest scientific literature databases for articles and abstracts, as well as thousands of smaller open access databases, with the ability to bookmark and share those articles with colleagues.

In the big picture, Madisch is setting out to change the fundamental behavior of scientists and academics, who typically live mostly in the offline world, where they do research for 4 or 5 years, publish a paper, and raise funding based on what’s published. “Instead of having those 4 or 5 years exist offline, when scientists are gaining this incredible, specific technical knowledge that mostly goes unshared, I want them to have an online resource where they can use that knowledge to help other people,” the founder says.

Further provoking a potential change in the scientific community’s status quo, Madisch says the team has built out a reputation system (a la Klout), where users get a score based on their projects, how many questions they’ve answered, their activity within the community, etc.

“I want to change how scientists think about their data.” It’s a noble pursuit, and one that really could have global implications if it can achieve the kind of data-sharing and project collaboration that its platform aspires to create. But getting scientists to adopt and tend to reputation scores? That’s a tall order. No matter what kind of platform one builds, niche or not, it’s all about engagement, and with 20 percent of users logging in more than once a month, it’s going to take some time before the Nobel Prize is within their grasp.

But, there’s no doubt the investor belief is there. Says Founders Fund Partner Luke Nosek:

“We truly believe that the network has the potential to disrupt a much-outdated system, while leading the way in changing scientific discovery and the way research is disseminated.”

For more, check out ResearchGate at home here.

• RESEARCHGATE
• BENCHMARK CAPITAL
• FOUNDERS FUND

ResearchGate is the leading social network for scientists. It offers tools and applications for researchers to interact and collaborate. ResearchGate offers a Science 2.0 platform designed for researchers. The platform provides a global scientific web-based environment in which scientists can interact, exchange knowledge and collaborate with researchers of different fields.

The results of ResearchGate’s new search engine, called ReFind, are not merely based on keywords, but selected in an intelligent way based on semantic, contextual correlations.

Learn more

Learn more

Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm which invests at every stage in companies with revolutionary technologies. The firm’s six partners, Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Bruce Gibney, and Brian Singerman have been founders of or early investors in numerous well-known companies such as Facebook, PayPal, Napster, and Palantir Technologies. Founders Fund was formed in 2005 and has launched four funds to date with more than $1 billion in aggregate capital…

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/ed1isrfGqnA/

It’s not exactly a secret that gaming has found new life on the web, social and mobile platforms. Of course, with it, especially the rise in free-to-play gaming, developers need to find ways to monetize their apps, or their browser-based games. Beyond mobile or banner advertising, there is the option of in-app or in-game purchases — the old in-game freemium model. Give your game away for free, sell new levels, armor, weapons, life for a buck or two. Lots of games have incorporated virtual marketplaces to hawk virtual goods of all kinds.

And good news for game developers: Virtual goods are hot and getting hotter. PlaySpan, the Visa-owned Monetization-as-a-service provider released a study today that reveals, among other things, that consumer spending on virtual goods has doubled since 2009. (Virtual goods, by the way, being a combination of both virtual currency and virtual items.) Not only that, but $2.3 billion worth of virtual goods were purchased in 2011 in the U.S., up nearly 30 percent from 2009. That means, on average, gamers spent $64 on virtual goods in 2011, roughly equivalent to the price of a console game.

Again, it’s all up-trending, as 35 percent of U.S. gamers have purchased a virtual good, a 50 percent increase from 2010. Of course, unsurprisingly, the gender breakdown shows that men are twice as likely as women to purchase virtual goods. To break that down further, nearly 50 percent of males under the age of 24 said they bought a virtual good in 2011, whereas only 15 percent of females in the same age group had done so.

Karl Mehta, founder of PlaySpan, said that he thinks we’re getting to a point where consumers are truly becoming comfortable with buying virtual goods on the web and on mobile devices. For example, the study found that, of those in the U.S. who had not purchased virtual goods, 70 percent expressed a willingness to do so. This comfort and openness to virtual transactions represents not only a huge opportunity for gaming, he said, but for the majority of digital content companies — those trafficking in music, movies, social gifting, rewards, etc.

This demographic data could be a big boost to producers and distributors of all digital content, allowing them to hone their strategies for reaching the right audience — across platforms. For instance, when it comes to why users purchase a certain game, 64 percent said that their choice was based on the price of the game, 51 percent was based on genre, while 48 percent said that their friends’ recommendations were a factor in their choice. This latter bit, in particular, is a huge validation for social gaming companies, or studios considering whether to integrate with the social graph, or enable users to friendsource recommendations, or share what they’re playing (or their achievements) with friends.

Again, when it comes to purchasing virtual goods, PlaySpan’s report shows that it’s important for game developers to find the right structure for incentivizing virtual good purchases. Hiding too much of the game under the promise of unlocking if they pull out their credit card is counterproductive, but creating some really terrific premium features that can be bought for a certain price is key — if they are integral to gameplay, and really improve the experience of the game, users will pay.

To that point, the study found that the top reason for gamers purchasing virtual goods, according to 55 percent of the population, is “to be able to do more in a game,” followed closely by the second reason: “To get a better experience playing the game.” Next was to advance a level or state, and developing one’s avatar or identity within the gameworld.

Lastly, when it comes to what platforms or media are fueling virtual goods purchasing, the leading source in 2011 was connected consoles, like Xbox Live or the PlayStation Store, for example. In all, 48 percent of gamers purchased their virtual goods on connected consoles, but that behavior is clearly changing, as users who purchased goods directly from within the game rose to 42 percent, followed by prepaid game cards and online virtual stores, at 40 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

In all, consumer habits really seem to be changing, as twice as many gamers are buying virtual goods today compared to two years ago. With the right strategy for in-game or in-app purchases, developers certainly have an increasing opportunity to monetize their free games, which, in the end, hopefully means a greater selection (and hopefully quality) of games for the end user.

Below, PlaySpan has given us permission to include the entire study, so check it out:

• PLAYSPAN

PlaySpanâ„¢ is the global leader in monetization solutions for over 1,000 online games, virtual worlds, and social networks. PlaySpan’s patent-pending in-game digital goods commerce and micropayment platform enables game publishers and developers to generate new revenues, acquire new users, and extend the loyalty of existing users.

PlaySpan also provides global payment solutions through its UltimatePay product which enables users to make safe, convenient, and friendly in-app purchases using over 85 global payment methods in 180 countries. UltimatePay includes PlaySpan’s…

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/FNkmCiaXjrk/

Yesterday, we took a look at the growing comfort consumers, specifically gamers, have with purchasing virtual goods and currency on the Web and mobile devices. Virtual goods are becoming a booming market thanks to the growing maturity of gaming platforms, free-to-play models and the profusion of mobile devices.

Today, international investment firm Digi-Capital published its in-depth review of the global gaming space, giving us a sense of the size, breadth, and activity of the very international gaming market last year that is contributing to the changing behavior around virtual commerce — as well as a glimpse into what we can expect from the industry over the course of 2012.

For starters, Digi-Capital found that gaming investment and MA more than doubled in 2011, as private placements grew by 96 percent to $2 billion, the number of transactions increased by 67 percent to 152, and the average fundraising round increased by 17 percent to $13 million. When combined with the enormous IPOs of Zynga and Nexon, investment value nearly quadrupled. All in all, gaming MA volume grew 88 percent to 113 transactions, value grew 160 percent to $3.4 billion, and the average MA deal size grew 38 percent to $30.4 million.

In terms of which gaming sectors saw the most investment and MA activity in 2011? Unsurprisingly, social and casual games took home the bacon, making up 57 percent of private investment and 45 percent of MA activity. Digi-Capital believes that Zynga’s IPO was likely the “high water mark for Social Games 1.0,” as the crowded nature of the space will make it increasingly difficult for companies to sustain user acquisition and retention.

In analyzing global gaming in terms of total daily active users and individual game daily active users, the investment firm found that a small number of companies are delivering on the promise of maintaining (and growing) their user bases, specifically referencing Wooga and King.com. However, with the trend beginning in 2011, this year will likely see continued consolidating MA activity in gaming.

Second to social and casual gaming in terms of transaction volume was social/mobile games, with 30 percent of private investment and 27 percent of MA activity, although the value of private investment hasn’t really hit its full potential yet. Digi cited DeNA and Gree as two examples of how investment in social-mobile games can actually deliver ROI, with the former seeing more than $1.4 billion in revenues at a 50 percent operating margin, and the latter seeing equivalent revenues in the 12 months leading up to December 2011, with a 46 percent operating margin. Going forward, mobile-social and cross-platform games will continue to attract significant attention from both investors and potential acquirers.

And just as we wrote in April last year, large, profitable Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean gaming companies will continue to look for MA opportunities in North America, as gaming continues to explode across Asia. The same will be true for some of the big American gaming companies, but both suffer from a lack of local knowledge, and cross-pollination.

Going forward, Digi-Capital expects online and mobile games to significantly contribute to the growth of the international gaming market, with the total market reaching an estimated $82 billion by 2015, and online and mobile games taking 50 percent of that revenue. (Interestingly, it expects the pure console sector to be “flat to down” over that time.) What’s more, the report forecasts that Asia and Europe will take 87 percent of the revenues for online and mobile games, with China leading at 36 percent, followed by Europe at 20 percent, South Korea at 12 percent, and Japan at 10 percent.

However, while online and mobile games are growing their scale and share of the overall market, consumer markets are expected to continue to fragment, and profitable business models will become harder to come by. Over the course of the next year, gaming companies will have to develop multiple development platforms, instead of relying on one hit game, and find multiple platform and geographical distributors. Relying solely on Facebook won’t cut it for long. Rapid, low-cost game development and redevelopment cycles, fast failure, strong analytics, and true scalability will continually become more significant as the industry matures.

That being said, Digi-Capital found that there is more demand for investment among high-growth gaming companies than there is supply, as “outside major investment deals, online and mobile games companies still find it challenging to find high quality investors, and traditional VCs are becoming increasingly selective.” The current trend among VCs, the report finds, is to go after later-stage deals, but there’s potential to change as the market changes and more people flock to mobile and social games.

All in all, it seems there are plenty of potential growth and consolidation opportunities across the gaming sectors, but there’s no doubt that mobile-social, online, and cross-platform games will continue to explode over the course of the coming year, and we can expect MA and investment activity to increase as social gaming works toward consolidation and more mobile gaming companies rise into the spotlight.

For more, check out Digi-Capital’s report here.

Excerpt image from MaxUpdates.tv

• ZYNGA
• DIGI-CAPITAL
• NEXON
• GREE
• WOOGA
• KING.COM

Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary African warrior queen. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader.

Zynga’s mission is connecting the world through games. Everyday millions of people interact with their friends and express their unique personalities through our…

Learn more

Digi-Capital (www.digi-capital.com) is a digital/games investment bank focused across North America, Europe and Asia (China, Japan, South Korea). As well as its investment banking and venture partner work, Digi-Capital publishes its 2011 Global Video Games Investment Review http://slidesha.re/dJwTaX, which focuses on the rise of online/mobile games, China and investment across sectors.

Learn more

Innovation. That’s what Nexon is all about. A pioneer in the world of interactive entertainment software, they introduced the world to the first graphic MMORPG, The Kingdom of the Winds, back in 1995. Since then, they’ve become the industry leader in massively multiplayer online games, continuing to redefine the genre with each of their innovative titles.

Learn more

GREE provides Japan’s leading mobile social network, and is at the forefront of mobile technology. GREE was ranked as Japan’s fastest-growing tech company by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. in 2009 and 2010.

GREE, following its acquisition of OpenFeint in April 2011, is expanding globally and will soon offer a single, worldwide mobile social gaming platform. Combined, GREE reaches over 150 million players and offers over 7,500 game applications for smartphones.

GREE aims to build the leading mobile social gaming…

Learn more

wooga develops games for Facebook.

The company was founded in January 2009 and is based in Berlin. In summer/autumn 2009 it received $7.5m VC funding from Balderton Capital and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. In 2011 wooga raised $24 in a Series B Round led by Highland Capital Partners.

wooga has released 5 games so far (Brain Buddies, Bubble Island, Monster World, Happy Hospital, Diamond Dash) and is number three among Facebook game developers by number of active users – and the…

Learn more

King.com is one of the leading developers of cross-platform casual games globally and since its launch has developed more than 200 exclusive games in 14 languages.

These games are available through its premier destination site, King.com (www.king.com), on Facebook, via it’s exclusive distribution partnerships with leading portals and media groups, and on mobile devices.

Every month more than 27 million people play King.com games globally, generating over 800 million gameplays.

King.com is driven by passionate game developers and leading digital…

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/5djhXkckwOs/

It’s not exactly a secret that gaming has found new life on the web, social and mobile platforms. Of course, with it, especially the rise in free-to-play gaming, developers need to find ways to monetize their apps, or their browser-based games. Beyond mobile or banner advertising, there is the option of in-app or in-game purchases — the old in-game freemium model. Give your game away for free, sell new levels, armor, weapons, life for a buck or two. Lots of games have incorporated virtual marketplaces to hawk virtual goods of all kinds.

And good news for game developers: Virtual goods are hot and getting hotter. PlaySpan, the Visa-owned Monetization-as-a-service provider released a study today that reveals, among other things, that consumer spending on virtual goods has doubled since 2009. (Virtual goods, by the way, being a combination of both virtual currency and virtual items.) Not only that, but $2.3 billion worth of virtual goods were purchased in 2011 in the U.S., up nearly 30 percent from 2009. That means, on average, gamers spent $64 on virtual goods in 2011, roughly equivalent to the price of a console game.

Again, it’s all up-trending, as 35 percent of U.S. gamers have purchased a virtual good, a 50 percent increase from 2010. Of course, unsurprisingly, the gender breakdown shows that men are twice as likely as women to purchase virtual goods. To break that down further, nearly 50 percent of males under the age of 24 said they bought a virtual good in 2011, whereas only 15 percent of females in the same age group had done so.

Karl Mehta, founder of PlaySpan, said that he thinks we’re getting to a point where consumers are truly becoming comfortable with buying virtual goods on the web and on mobile devices. For example, the study found that, of those in the U.S. who had not purchased virtual goods, 70 percent expressed a willingness to do so. This comfort and openness to virtual transactions represents not only a huge opportunity for gaming, he said, but for the majority of digital content companies — those trafficking in music, movies, social gifting, rewards, etc.

This demographic data could be a big boost to producers and distributors of all digital content, allowing them to hone their strategies for reaching the right audience — across platforms. For instance, when it comes to why users purchase a certain game, 64 percent said that their choice was based on the price of the game, 51 percent was based on genre, while 48 percent said that their friends’ recommendations were a factor in their choice. This latter bit, in particular, is a huge validation for social gaming companies, or studios considering whether to integrate with the social graph, or enable users to friendsource recommendations, or share what they’re playing (or their achievements) with friends.

Again, when it comes to purchasing virtual goods, PlayData’s report shows that it’s important for game developers to find the right structure for incentivizing virtual good purchases. Hiding too much of the game under the promise of unlocking if they pull out their credit card is counterproductive, but creating some really terrific premium features that can be bought for a certain price is key — if they are integral to gameplay, and really improve the experience of the game, users will pay.

To that point, the study found that the top reason for gamers purchasing virtual goods, according to 55 percent of the population, is “to be able to do more in a game,” followed closely by the second reason: “To get a better experience playing the game.” Next was to advance a level or state, and developing one’s avatar or identity within the gameworld.

Lastly, when it comes to what platforms or media are fueling virtual goods purchasing, the leading source in 2011 was connected consoles, like Xbox Live or the PlayStation Store, for example. In all, 48 percent of gamers purchased their virtual goods on connected consoles, but that behavior is clearly changing, as users who purchased goods directly from within the game rose to 42 percent, followed by prepaid game cards and online virtual stores, at 40 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

In all, consumer habits really seem to be changing, as twice as many gamers are buying virtual goods today compared to two years ago. With the right strategy for in-game or in-app purchases, developers certainly have an increasing opportunity to monetize their free games, which, in the end, hopefully means a greater selection (and hopefully quality) of games for the end user.

Below, PlaySpan has given us permission to include the entire study, so check it out:

• PLAYSPAN

PlaySpanâ„¢ is the global leader in monetization solutions for over 1,000 online games, virtual worlds, and social networks. PlaySpan’s patent-pending in-game digital goods commerce and micropayment platform enables game publishers and developers to generate new revenues, acquire new users, and extend the loyalty of existing users.

PlaySpan also provides global payment solutions through its UltimatePay product which enables users to make safe, convenient, and friendly in-app purchases using over 85 global payment methods in 180 countries. UltimatePay includes PlaySpan’s…

Learn more

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/FNkmCiaXjrk/