Posts Tagged ‘Google’

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Google just hired an advocate for game developers. This follows Apple’s opening of a Game Center.

Both companies have witnessed the success of social gaming on Facebook and want to promote game development for their products as well.

The new Google hire, Mark DeLoura, a games industry veteran, suggests that “Clearly there are a number of initiatives going on at Google that can relate to games in some way” (read Android and OpenSocial).

It has been suggested that Apple’s Game Center is an attempt to compete with Facebook’s dominance over the hugely popular and incredibly lucrative area of social gaming.

What we are witnessing is the leading edge of the trend to use gaming to sell or support consumer goods.

Apple and Google know that an engaging or addictive game application can ring a cash register, if applied correctly. Active gamers use hardware to facilitate the fun, so creating games for iPads and Androids will build demand for these products.

But the real winners of this online gaming trend could be e-Retailers…. So Amazon and Ebay should be paying attention to this trend!

Consider the value to Amazon of games that resulted in the sale of a variety of consumer goods….

Do you think Ebay would want to hire a Game Developer Advocate if it meant more sales for their merchants?

Google and Apple are investing in the minds and hearts of game developers and game enthusiasts. Maybe Amazon and Ebay should take a page from this game plan.

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PartyWeDo
The AlbinoPhant Creators
Your Party 2.0 Specialists

We live just south of were the Oregon Trail ends at the ocean. The trail and its historic trailblazers represent one of the pioneering achievements in American history.  It speaks to the strength and determination of our predecessors, who sacrificed so much to build the west.

Today we can cover the distance that Lewis and Clark spent a lifetime traversing, in mere hours by plane.  These and other pioneers blazed the trail with guts and brawn and laid the foundations of many of our great western cities.

The pioneering responsibility falls upon those who see something in the distance that has never been reached before. The trails aren’t prepared for pioneers, and the route is never clear.  But nevertheless, the pioneers must trudge on, or discovery fails. The investment of time and resource falls upon those who blaze trails for the future to the benefit of all followers.

There are families in the world for which distance is like a great prairie without a trail, or a forest without a clear path.  They long for a trail to closer relationships and a path that leads to better personal connection.

In many ways the pioneers of social networking have carved a passageway for connecting families, separated by distance.  They blazed a trail that has now become the super-highway of interaction over the great divide. Like all pioneers, the internet explorers used guts, determination and vision to lead the way.

In this fast-pasted world of technology, we sometimes forget to thank the modern Lewis & Clark teams that look beyond today and push forward toward the opportunities just out of normal view.

We can thank Amazon for teaching us to shop in places all over the world… eBay for building the bridge to distant sales opportunities… Google for delivering information for us without boundary…  PayPal for surmounting the many trust issues between strangers…  And, Facebook for carving the roadway between family and friends…

As the pioneers on the new path of internet gift-giving, we take heart that others have endured the tough times and have prepared much of the needed infrastructure for this journey.  We thank the internet pioneers that have made our journey easier.

We stand ready to blaze the trail for better gift-giving over any distance.

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PartyWeDo
The AlbinoPhant Creators
Your Party 2.0 Specialists

The Christensen’s of McMinnville are not going to get arrested for helping friends and neighbors steal gifts from each other this year. Their family has been stealing from each other in an online white elephant gift party for the last 3-years. Now they are sharing the fun on Facebook, so everyone can start gift swapping this season.

You have probably played one of the White Elephant Gift Exchange, or Yankee Swap games during the holidays in the past. It is the gift party where everyone brings a fun wrapped gift, they put the gifts in a pile and then they take turns opening, stealing and bantering together.

The Christensen’s have figured out a way to mimic this same activity in social online networks, like Facebook. They call their online white elephant party, AlbinoPhant, a party application, hosted on Facebook. The unique thing about AlbinoPhant is that you use real gift images in the game and then those real gifts are delivered to your door after the completion of a party.

AlbinoPhant is just like the traditional gift swap party, and can be played from any Internet connection. This means that family members from all across the country can join the party without leaving their homes. This will be helpful for tight family budgets this year.

White elephant parties allow families to stay connected and share gifts with each other in a lively atmosphere of fun and games. With the enhanced sharing tools on the web, the online version allows more expressive conversation than ever before. A steady stream of AlbinoPhant comments allows party participants the opportunity to post YouTube videos and images to assist in participating in the fun. There are even opportunities to share some of the conversation outside of the party in other social networks, allowing the party atmosphere to spill over to other corners of the web.

The online gift exchange is a labor of love by the Christensen family. Sarah Christensen, a mother of five and grandmother of seven, shares her love of the game by commenting, “When our youngest left home three years ago, we missed our family gift exchange party so much we started doing our party online.” And Bruce Christensen added this comment, “We visited more in 19-days while we were playing, than we do all year, because of this party”.

The Christensen’s hired a team of Facebook developers and other web professionals to take their simple family party and turn it into a fully operational Facebook application. Their entire family loves this game and is thrilled to share it with others.

Their family won’t find themselves in jail this Christmas, but they are excited to be spreading gift thievery and lively banter well beyond Oregon this holiday season by playing AlbinoPhant.

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PartyWeDo
The AlbinoPhant Creators
Your Party 2.0 Specialists

In honor of getting one year older, I am adding some Elephant-age trivia:

• Elephants live an average of 70 years, but some go into the 80′s.

• According to the NY Times;  Lin Wang, originally from Myanmar, died at the age of 86. They reported that this was the oldest elephant as of 2003.

• There is a report out of Taiwan that there was mail elephant, Plai Aek, who at 89 is thought to be the oldest elephant father in the world…

• There are ancient relatives of the modern elephant that date back 60 Million years.

That’s Google’s story and I’m sticken to it…

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King Thibaw
The Royal Thibaw, Golden-footed Lord of the White Elephant, Master of a Thousand Gold Umbrellas, Owner of the Royal Peacocks, Lord of the Sea and of the World, Whose face is like the Sun.