Ideas for Free

Since the launch of the Apple App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch in July, there have apparently only been two games which have over 2000 reviews while maintaining a 4 star or above average (out of 5 stars): Tap Tap Revenge and Aurora Feint: The Beginning, Aurora Feint investor and chairman Peter Relan tells me. What that means is that a lot of people have really enjoyed these games, and in Aurora Feint’s case, there is an established fan-base. With that in mind, its creators are launching its next iteration: Aurora Feint II: The Arena.

While a lot of sequels claim to be propelling the ideas of the original game forward, Aurora Feint II really is. Rather than being a single player experience, as the original Aurora Feint was, its sequel is focused on multiple players competing against one another. And that’s really the idea developers Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley always had in mind for the game. They wanted it to be a massively multi-player online gaming experience, and with Aurora Feint II, it will be.

But don’t think of Aurora Feint II in terms of some other popular MMOs like World of Warcraft. Instead, Aurora Feint II is being billed as a “Asynchronous Massively Multi-Player World.” Basically, that means that while you will be competing against others online, you will be doing so at your own leisure, rather than head-to-head in real-time. The rationale behind this make sense: “What if one of the people [playing] gets a call?,” Relan notes. The iPhone is an actual phone after all.

Normally, such an interruption would kill any chance of a successful online competitive gaming experience. The same can be said for a text message, or needing to check email or if you simply lose your connection. But because of the asynchronous nature of Aurora Feint II, none of that matters, the game goes on.

Here’s how it works: One person plays a level of the game (which is, at its heart a puzzle game) and when they’re done, sends that data up to the game’s servers. A competitor can then download this data (which includes not only scores but also a play-by-play of how the player made his or her moves), and puts it into your game, creating a sort of “ghost” competitor.

If you’ve every played Mario Kart or other similar racing games, it might work to think of this as a ghost player that is the record holder in time trial competition. (For talk about Aurora Feint’s gameplay itself, see my original post about the first Aurora Feint.)

But what’s cool is that you can actually manipulate the opposing player’s score by doing certain moves at the right time. This may seem a bit odd since the other person has already played, but using weapons, you can alter their game and works towards a victory.

An Aurora Feint social network of sorts that resides within the game allows users to search for opposing players including friends who have set up a challenge for them to take.

But there is one potentially large downside to Aurora Feint II: Whereas the first game was free, the sequel will be $9.99 (though it’ll be one sale until the holidays for $7.99). But this may end up being a good strategy. Aurora Feint basically built up a fan base by creating a great game that was free. Now that people play it and love it, they may be willing to pay for it.

Considering that this version took the developers something like 2 to 3 times as long to make as the original one, let’s hope so. It’s not only much more complex that the original with all the online elements, the graphics have been updated (they look great), as has the music.

“We’ve got to find a way to pay our bills, Cassley says. If Aurora Feint II takes off like the first one did, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Aurora Feint II: The Arena should be available at some point today in the App Store. Of course, that is entirely up to Apple, so it could be pushed back to early next week, but look for it soon.

Microsoft Corp. is no longer interested in buying all of Yahoo Inc., CEO Steve Ballmer said Wednesday, though he told shareholders that the company would still be "very open" to a collaboration on Internet search. His comments sent Yahoo shares diving by 14 percent.

"Let me be clear," Ballmer said at Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting. "We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo."

Yahoo spurned a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft in May, and later rejected Microsoft's bid to buy only its search engine. Ballmer has said repeatedly of late that the buyout remains off the table, though a search-related deal is possible.

But Wednesday marked the first time he had renewed that stance since the resignation announced this week by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who had resisted Microsoft's overtures. Yahoo shares rose when Yang said he would step aside, because investors hoped it meant a deal with Microsoft would now be more likely.

Ballmer said the companies are not currently talking about a search deal.

Yahoo shares were down $1.67, 14.5 percent, at $9.88 in afternoon trading, well below the $33 per share that Microsoft offered in May. Microsoft shares tumbled 60 cents, 3.1 percent, to $19.02.

Some analysts have interpreted Ballmer's public comments about a Yahoo buyout as negotiating posturing, and suspect Microsoft might still want to grab Yahoo at a low price, in hopes of improving their joint position in online search and advertising. However, analysts have also said Microsoft is likely to wait until next year before deciding, giving it time to watch Yahoo's performance and study the antitrust regulatory climate in a new administration in Washington.

Dell Inc. plans to keep investing in Asia even as its sales growth in China slows, the computer maker's regional president said Friday.

"We will continue to invest" in Asia, said Steve Felice, president of Dell Asia Pacific and Japan, adding that Dell would likely expand its research and development and call center facilities in the region, but currently has no plans to expand manufacturing capacity.

"We're going to have to see how the world grows. That will determine where we put resources," he said in a conference call with reporters.

"There could be opportunities to shift activity to Asia," Felice said. "Outside the U.S. our business is growing faster than it is in the U.S."

The Round Rock, Texas-based company, the world's second-biggest PC maker, has been on a cost-cutting campaign, eliminating 2,200 jobs in the quarter, and slashing about 9 percent of its workforce over the last year. But Felice said cost-cutting in Asia would be "minimal."

Felice acknowledged that the company's sales growth in China has slowed, but declined to be more specific. Felice said spending by small and medium-sized companies in China has been squeezed by the credit crunch, but he believes the government's $586 billion stimulus package will help reinvigorate IT spending.

Indian companies are also spending less, he said, but he sees room to grow Dell's market share, especially in the small and medium enterprise and consumer markets, which have powered four quarters of "hyper growth" for Dell in the country.

Despite the global slowdown, Asia has remained a bright spot for Dell.

Dell said Thursday that its third-quarter profit fell 5 percent, to $727 million, as businesses around the world cut back on technology spending. Global sales slipped 3 percent, to about $15 billion.

But revenues in the quarter grew 18 percent in China and 48 percent in India, Felice said. Revenues for Asia as a whole, including Japan, rose 11 percent, he said.

In the last few years, Dell has ramped up its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, where it has more than 32,000 employees, according to its website. Dell has factories, research and development facilities, and call centers in India, China and Malaysia.

About half of the company's revenues come from the United States, while India and China together account for about 5 percent of sales, Felice said.

"We're getting good profitability growth in Asia," Felice said. "That helps our overall business be healthy."

Google has released a new feature, called SearchWiki, that allows users to vote search results up or down, remove them entirely, or leave notes with their thoughts. While the rankings appear to only affect the account of the user who made them for now, the notes are public and readable by anyone, and seem to already be in use for discussions (see above).

This move appears to have caught most users by surprise, although that reaction, in itself, should be no surprise. Google has become known over the past decade for a strong reliance on automated technology and an almost obsessive need to control its search results. Google, one might say, isn’t known for its human touch.

In fact, if one were able to rewind a few years and take a poll of techies on what sort of major changes Google might make to its engine, a popular answer would be semantic or natural language technology — which might provide a further step toward machine understanding of text. Yet while semantic web applications have flourished, Google has steadfastly refused to dilute its statistics-based engine with semantic tech, even while staying a step ahead of the competition with small innovations like OneBox results.

Commentary I’ve heard from several search engine startups that hope to chip away at Google’s lead suggests that while they have been frustrated so far in attempts to outdo the search giant, many believed that Google was too set in its ways to make any serious changes. This release suggests otherwise.

Although Google hasn’t indicated whether it will allow user rankings to affect its base algorithm, the likely answer seems to be “yes”. And if that’s the case, it could also spell the end for efforts like Search Wikia, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales’ attempt at building an open-source, community-driven search engine.

The signs were all pointing to a tomorrow launch of the 2.2 software update for the iPhone — Apple jumped the gun. (Though I guess technically it is November 21st on the east coast of the U.S.) The update is available now through iTunes and it’s actually larger than the big 2.1 software update that Apple pushed out back in September (246.4 megabytes versus 237.8 megabytes).

In terms of what’s included, it’s pretty much what we’ve been expecting, but a few other nice little features. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Google Street View in Google Maps
• Public transit and walking directions in Google Maps
• Display the address of a place when you drop a pin (very cool)
• Share your location via email (kind of pointless, I think)
• A fix for a scheduled fetching of email bug
• Improved stability and performance of Safari
• Podcasts can be downloaded right to the iPhone over WiFi or 3G
• A decrease in call failures/dropped-calls
• Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
• The ability to return to the main home iPhone screen with the click of the home button (AWESOME)
• The ability to turn on and off the keyboard auto-correction feature

Perhaps more important to people is what’s not included: There’s still no cut & paste functionality, still no MMS functions, still no voice dialing, still no Adobe Flash support, still no way to run apps in the background (and no mention of the ever-upcoming Push Notification system) and still no GPS turn-by-turn directions.

But, for me, the addition of the “return to home screen” functionality by hitting the home button is huge. I have so many apps on my iPhone now that I found myself constantly flicking backwards to get back to do something like send a text message. It was beyond annoying.

Likewise, plenty of people had expressed their hatred of the software’s auto-correct while typing. In fact, I know someone who jailbroke their iPhone just to remove that feature. Now it can be done in the settings.

I’m eager to try out being able to drop a pin somewhere and find out what the address is there. I’ve wanted Google Maps on the web to add such a feature for a while.

And of course, the promise of better voicemail quality and of course fewer dropped calls is always good to hear as well.

Dell has posted strong revenue and profit growth in Asia, even as the company saw its global revenue and profits decline in its third quarter, which ended October 31.

Encouraged by the growth in the region, the company is planning more investments in call centers in India, and research and development in China. The extent to which it will invest, however, will depend on how the global economic climate shapes up, said Steve Felice, president of Dell Asia Pacific and Japan in a conference call on Friday.

Dell reported Thursday that worldwide revenue for the third quarter was US$15.16 billion, a 3 percent drop compared to the third quarter of last year. Profits dropped 5 percent to $727 million.

Although Asia helped boost Dell's results in the third quarter, it still accounts for just 16 percent of the company's total revenue. The key new growth markets in the region - India and China - accounted for about 5 to 6 percent of Dell's overall revenue, which is not large enough to offset the impact of the economic downturn in the US which accounts for about half of Dell's business, Felice said.

Dell's revenue grew 11 percent in Asia, including Japan, in the quarter, while unit sales grew 29 percent. Profits more than doubled compared to the same time last year, Felice said.

In China, the company saw its revenue grow 18 percent, while unit sales grew 44 percent. In India, unit growth was 77 percent, while revenue growth was 48 percent.

Growth in India came largely from increased market share in the consumer and small and medium business (SMB) segments, even as there is an overall slow-down in industry spending, Felice said.

The company will continue to focus on these two markets in India, where its share is still small, besides its mainstay corporate market, he added.

Spending in China on IT is difficult to predict, but new investments in infrastructure in China, including a $586 billion stimulus package for the economy announced by the Chinese government, could create demand for IT products, Felice said.

In April, Dell said it wanted to save US$3 billion by 2011 by reducing its headcount and procuring cheaper materials and components. Cost cutting in Asia will probably be minimal, as the company's business continues to grow fast in the region, Felice said.

The MySpace application for Research In Motion’s Blackberry smartphones has been downloaded more than 400,000 times since it was introduced a week ago. The two companies claim this is an app download record for them. Its users have sent a total of more than 15 million messages and updated their statuses more than two million times so far, they say.

MySpace separately launched a mobile site specifically designed for Blackberry phones in early September, so I assume those who used that site must have jumped on to the new app.

Some more context: Rival social network Facebook launched the first version of its Blackberry app in late 2007, and it now has nearly two million users. RIM rival iPhone has been gaining market share over the last year, and both MySpace and Facebook have also launched apps for it. The latest version of Facebook’s iPhone app was added to the iPhone App Store in July of this year and is the 28th most popular free app on the device; MySpace’s iPhone app was added around the same time and is the 46th most popular free app.

More people still own Blackberry phones, though. In corporate America, for example, a new report by ChangeWave Research shows RIM with a 76 percent market share this month — but the iPhone has surged past Palm to take the number two spot with 14 percent. So this Facebook-iPhone user should stop his snide undertones; the early success of the MySpace-Blackberry app is something for those companies to be happy about. Especially as RIM works to penetrate the consumer market.

The bigger issue is the fate of mobile-focused social networking startups as social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook move deeper into mobile, an issue we examined in depth earlier this year. The key for startups will be continuous efforts to differentiate themselves. Loopt, a social networking company that builds services to show you the geographic locations of your friends, seems to be pulling that off. Its free iPhone app is at number 24 on the iPhone — ahead of both larger rivals.