GTA 4 is the most expensive game: 429 crores!

Rockstar's GTA 4 is the most expensive game made at a whooping cost of 429 crores and by a team of 1000 people. "It's like making a theatre production, a few movies and an album all to fit into one package," said Benzies, Rockstar president.

Ads in Mobile Games get an eye-popping 10.1% CTR -OmMalik

There’s a lot of VC money going into web-based, advertising-driven casual games, so here’s a wake-up call to investors: They may get better ROI with mobile phone-based gaming.

In 2006, mobile game platform Greystripe launched GameJump.com, a distribution site for free, ad-supported cellphone games; since then, consumers have downloaded over 65 million copies of Greystripe’s hundreds of titles. I’m looking at a lot of surprising numbers, but the most striking one to me is how gamers interact with the ads that appear before and after gameplay.

According to Greystripe, 10.1 percent of them click on the ads, a CTR that far outstrips web ads, which average some 1 percent to 2 percent. I strongly suspect at least some of these are accidental, fumble-thumb click-throughs, but even then, from the advertisers’ perspective, that’s not a bug, but a feature. And while mobile games are almost by definition casual, the demographic breakdown is markedly different from the web-based casual space, which is dominated by older women.

Can Microsoft win the Search Wars with Charity? - ReadWriteWeb

The Microsoft Live Search team announced today that it had expanded the company's Search and Give charitable searching program to more than 1 million eligible organizations. The program donates 1 cent for each search conducted by users to the school or charity of their choice up to 500 searches per month (or $60/year per person).

Can Microsoft possibly make a dent in Google's strangehold on the search market by offering up charitable donations as an incentive to search?


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Importance of Short URLs in Newspapers -Labnol

It is interesting to see how newspaper sare trying to connect stories published in their print edition with online content. See this clip from Business Standard newspaper.



They add a short URL after the story that print subscriber can type in their browser and read related content on the web. And this approach may actually be helping companies drive traffic to their web properties. They work at least in the case of print advertisements that have URLs.

Graphic Processors grow up -GigaOm

Remember when CPU processor speeds were the driving force behind new computers? Going from a 500 MHz to 1 GHz then 2 GHz machine meant noticeable improvements. Then chip vendors started adding more cores. But for the style of computing consumers use today, it’s not about the CPU anymore.

It’s all about graphics processors. Thanks to today’s visually intensive style of computing, a good GPU can improve the user experience much better than a fast CPU. That’s why Intel is pushing graphics chips such as Larrabee, while AMD is set to unveil integrated chipsets that combine CPUs with GPUs, the result of its acquisition of ATI in 2009.

All PDF documents now run through the graphics processor, they told me, as does Google Earth and multiple other web applications. The same goes for PowerPoint slides, Word and other parts of Microsoft Office, starting with Office 2007. On Macs, the visual interface on the file system is handled through the GPU, which makes flipping through thousands of photos and movies much easier. On the consumer side, the rise of the such graphical interfaces helps people visually navigate through ever-increasing amounts of information.

GPUs are good for applications that require a processor to crunch a lot of data in parallel; they’re not good for step-by-step processes that require decision-making at each step.

As the large content vendors and even carriers try to deploy media content in multiple formats for televisions, personal computers and mobile phones over IP networks, they’ll either have to pay more for storing those multiple versions or pay for real-time transcoding, either in the data center or on the network. The increasing delivery of visual media over an IP network and the increasing amount of electronics data stored in corporate databases all represent an opportunity for GPUs that mean the chips might move out of the graphic niche.

Adobe Fireworks - an ideal tool for building website mockups

There is a lot of confusion about what exactly Adobe Fireworks is, what it is good for and why one should actually use it instead of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe ImageReady. The answer is simple: Fireworks isn’t a replacement for both tools, but rather a more effective, integrated environment for designing site layouts and quick mockups. Read on.

Convert text to mp3 online -Labnol

Read The Words converts any text document to mp3 files. Useful for visually impaired people.

AdSense Click Fraud Highest in India -Labnol

A recent report on Click Fraud suggests that the maximum number of invalid clicks on Pay Per Click ads originate from India. And this is not the first time - its widely believed there there exists a large “work from home” crowd in India who want to generate “quick cash” by clicking Google AdSense ads.

Pick any issue of Deccan Chronicle newspaper (the English Daily of Hyderabad) and open the Classifieds section - you will see dozens of ads that promise you regular Google AdSense income while working from home.

You basically create a website and then write a few articles to get accepted into the official Google AdSense program. Once you become an AdSense publisher, you join any of these “bogus” AdSense network and are introduced to other members who are in the same boat as you. Now Google would quickly ban your AdSense account if you click Ads on your own website so what these networks do is ask members to click on Ads appearing on websites of other members. So it like a reciprocal behavior - you click my ads and I will click yours.

You’re Better Off Working at Starbucks Than Running a Social Network -Om Malik

Peanut Labs, a company that couldn’t find a business as an also-ran social network, says "The CPMs (cost per thousand advertisements) are so low it’s really hard to build a real business unless you have several billion page views and your own sales team. Social networks get 5 to 10 cent CPMs, and less outside the U.S. At one point we were averaging 3 cent CPMs. We figured out if we all got up and worked at Starbucks instead we would make more money as a company than selling 300 million impressions a month of ad space"

Cartoon -Hindu

“Could you call up later when none of us is at home? We have just bought an answering machine!”

6% of People Online Contribute 50% of Display Ad Clicks -Read Write Web

Only 6% of people online are contributing 50% of the clicks to display advertisements- Those people who click heavily have a number of other characteristics of note. Heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000 and they are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

The authors conclude that the heavy clickers do shop more online than the population at large, but not at a rate proportional to their click rate influence. In other words, if your ads are getting a lot of click-throughs and you are holding your breath that they will monetize better any day now - you're not likely to find relief any time soon. The study also found that there was not a high correlation between heavy clickers and increased brand loyalty.

Who Owns What ? -Labnol

Amy Webb is tracking all the acquisitions made by Internet giants like Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and AOL. No wonder, the red block corresponding to Google occupies the maximum estate.

Brushup

Long time, no post! I was a little too busy with work. I just received an email which had these computer terms, some of which i had completely forgotten.

OEM
Short for original equipment manufacturer, which is a misleading term for a company that has a special relationship with computer producers. OEMs are manufacturers who resell another company's product under their own name and branding. While an OEM is similar to a VAR (value-added reseller), it refers specifically to the act of a company rebranding a product to its own name and offering its own warranty, support and licensing of the product. The term is really a misnomer because OEMs are not the original manufacturers; they are the customizers.

Moblog
Acronym used to combine the terms "mobile" and "Web log". Where a Web log (also called a blog) is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual, a moblog is a blog which has been posted to the Internet from a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA.

Spim
Also spelled as spIM, spam over instant messaging (IM). Spim is perpetuated by bots that harvest IM screen names off of the Internet and simulate a human user by sending spam to the screen names via an instant message. The spim typically contains a link to a Web site that the spimmer is trying to market.

Hoax
In e-mail terminology a hoax is a message which is written to deliberately spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Spamdress
Slang term for spam e-mail address, a person's secondary e-mail address, which is used for registering to receive newsletters, discussion forums and for other Web sites requiring sign-ups where you may receive frequent e-mails. The spamdress is used in place of a primary e-mail address to assist in keeping spam out of the primary account.

Cloaking
Also known as stealth, a technique used by some Web sites to deliver one page to a search engine for indexing while serving an entirely different page to everyone else. The search engine thinks it is selecting a prime match to its request based on the meta tags that the site administrator has input. However, the search result is misleading because the meta tags do not correspond to what actually exists on the page.

Joost gets $45 mil from pals, partners -Om Malik

Joost, the P2P TV creation of Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the co-founders of Kazaa and Skype. The company, just raised a whopping $45 million in funding from five investors.

“This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in Joost’s platform,” said Janus Friis, co-founder of Joost. “We’ve carefully selected these investors from a variety of interested parties”

Selected! Interesting choice of words, from Friis, pretty much letting everyone know who’s da boss. More importantly, it also indicated the premium valuation Joost got received. hope Joost puts some of these new dollars to use in building an infrastructure that can actually handle the traffic loads, and not like this past week when the service went on fritz for many of the Joost viewers. That’s the kind of thing that can prove to be a buzz kill.

And for investors who are suddenly looking at P2P TV companies, here is a short list of names that might come in handy: Babelgum, RawFlow, Jaman, Zattoo, and Neokast.

Small is The New Big: Moo.com -Om Malik

Richard Moross, a twenty-something Londoner, was bored with the business cards most people were exchanging. He decided to do something about it. He started Moo Prints, a 10-person start-up that takes images from popular websites, like Flickr and Bebo, and prints them on cards that are exactly half the height (28mm x 70mm) of a regular business card.

Size alone makes Moo cards memorable. Moross cleverly dubbed them “mini-cards,” leveraging a marketing trend that’s already been über-successful in selling autos and iPods. Better still, Moo minis are highly personalized. For instance, Moross will take photos from your Flickr account and print it on your cards.

Getting your Moo cards is simple—sign up for the service, fill out your contact details, add your Flickr ID, and 10 days later 100 cards show up. All in, a set of Moo minis sets you back just $20 with $5 in shipping.

Because Moo works with existing communities (and social networks) such as Skype, Habbo Hotel, Bebo, Second Life and Flickr, the company has built a sizeable following without spending a dime on marketing. Moo is the epitome of a business that has truly harnessed Web2.0.

Several others companies fit the bill, too. Among them: Germany-based t-shirt maker Spreadshirt; Chicago-based Skinny Corp; and San Francisco-based 8020 Publishing, publishers of the JPG magazine. And CastingWords, which offers a transcription service based entirely on the web. In each case, the basic work product of these companies is no different from that of their traditional predecessors. (A T-shirt is a T-shirt. A business card is still a business card.) These young businesses are not inventing new things that distinguish them. It is the way they are using technology to execute and interface with their customers that makes them special.

5 Future Innovations -IBM

IBM writes about five innovations that will change our lives over the next five years:

# We will be able to access healthcare remotely, from just about anywhere in the world
# Real-time speech translation-once a vision only in science fiction-will become the norm
# There will be a 3-D Internet
# Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance
# Our mobile phones will come close to reading our minds

Learning Life's Simple Lessons -Speaking Tree

We spent a tension-filled week in the office recently with many of us awaiting news of promotions and increments. As rumours snowballed, hurried meetings took place in corridors.

Some people were ashen-faced, others were jumping with joy. Some criticised the 'system', others consulted experts. I decided to escape to Haridwar and experience a peaceful meditative week.

The ashram was serene and peaceful. All one could hear was the chirping of birds. In the afternoon, a smiling boy of 25 came to clean our room.

He said he could not come earlier as he had to clean 50 rooms all on his own. Seeing my shocked expression the boy grinned and assured me that it wasn't that bad a situation.

He revealed that he had joined just three days ago as a sweeper-cleaner. A month back, he was working as a motor mechanic in a private company but got laid off with many others.

Wasn't that terrible, I inquired gently. "No, Ma'm. It's all destined. I am young and hard working and I will find a good job again, God willing. Why should I worry?"

But a loss of Rs 5,000 wasn't small, I pursued. "Money comes and goes, like this Ma'm", he said and snapped his fingers. What a brave boy, I thought.

And here was I who had 'escaped'to the serenity of Haridwar. Despite a string of academic degrees, achievements and experience we still panic because we are afraid we would not move to the next grade.

To learn from life and one's experiences one must be open, receptive and flexible. Learning is a state of consciousness that enables one to learn from all situations if only one retains the innocence of a child. Even a humble servant can teach us qualities of generosity, forgiveness, unselfishness and the strength to bear burdens....

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Taking on Google! -The Hindu

It's the classic David versus Goliath battle being played out in the 21st century. We are talking of the great race between Web behemoth Google and Zoho, the Chennai-based underdog, to launch a suite of online office applications.

However, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of AdventNet, the company behind Zoho services, doesn't see it as an all-out battle. ``That would imply that there can be only one winner, which I don't agree with. Business is not like sports in that respect. It is perfectly possible to have a profitable, growing business without `winning' the market in the sense of being number one.''

While Google has been going about its mission with a mix of buyouts and internally developed products, Zoho has a team of several hundred engineers focused on churning out one product after the other, sometimes within a span of a few weeks!

On how a company very focused on the telecom market forayed into Web services, Vembu says: "When the telecom bubble burst, the company found itself with a lot of talented engineers. That's when Zoho was born. We decided to diversify out of telecom and it was obvious that Web-based applications was a key area of growth."

Which is why Vembu and company decided to make the pragmatic choice of building a company without venture capital. Does he have anything against taking VC money? "I don't have anything philosophical or religious against it. It's just a strong personal preference for the operating freedom that comes from not having to answer to financial-minded investors, while being subject to the discipline of living within our own means."

With independence being at the core of its culture, Zoho is unlikely to be gobbled up by an MNC with deep pockets. "We have a track record of patient engineering execution. Based on that history, I would say we will be around as an independent player, though in business one learns to never say never."

Google buys DoubleClick for $3.1 billion -Om Malik

Google bought Double Click for $3.1 billion which is almost twice what Google paid for YouTube! Google really wants to get into the display advertising business in a big way, and they don’t have the relationships they need to make it happen, but DoubleClick does. It gives them immediate access to those relationships.

One thing is becoming clear - Google wants to dominate the online advertising business, and will pay anything to keep rivals like Microsoft & Yahoo on a weak footing.

Google's Personalization Push: iGoogle, Localization, Gadget Maker -Read Write Web

Google has been experimenting with personalization a lot this year. In regards to its personalized homepage, Google has always had far more gadgets available on its platform than live.com, Netvibes or Pageflakes. Currently there are over 25,000 different Google gadgets that you can put on your iGoogle page.

Here is some useful background to Google's personalization efforts. Google wants to compute PageRank for every single person, Google thinks of personalization in 3 parts:

• Search Your own stuff (like Google Desktop Search, Web History)
• Traditional (Pull) Search
• Push Search (like recommendations, iGoogle/ personalized homepage)

Google seems to be fighting a two-pronged battle with their personalization efforts - one is to keep themselves ahead of the alternative search engines, and the other is to one-up Yahoo, Microsoft, Netvibes, Pageflakes and the other personalized start page contenders.