All Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

David Bolton

A Casual Approach to Gaming May Be the Way Forward

Casual Gaming appeals to a different demographic

I have a confession to make. I am a casual gamer, and, if I am being brutally honest, prefer solo action to anything social.

Trying to fit gaming time into my fast-paced 21st Century existence can be a struggle. The constant demands of being available 24/7 either through my smartphone or the joys of constant Internet access means that the majority of my console access is taken up by short bursts of activity. Thirty minutes here and there — occasionally I treat myself to an hour of Batman: Arkham Asylum and if there is nothing pressing in my life I can lock myself away in Grand Theft Auto for an undetermined time.

Even when I get the chance to travel with my PSP, the limited battery life means that extended play is not always possible.

But are Casual and Social Gaming taking over Nation’s collective idea of what videogaming is all about?

(more…)

Max Silver

Episend Uses The Amazon Cloud to Simplify Large File Sharing

It has happened to all of us. “File size to large to send.”

As a college student, it happened to me a LOT. Sending presentations became a hassle. I had to put them on a thumb drive, or put the file into a Google doc and hope that the format was preserved. (It never was.) And nothing can be more infuriating when you’re on a deadline than finding out your file is just a tad too big to send through Email.

Episend are trying to change all that.

There are services that provide large file sharing, YouSendIt being one of the most well known, but they are all services you need to sign up for. That, in turn means another hoop to jump through and another password to remember — it can also make users worry about spammy Emails.

This is one place where Episend sets itself apart from the competition; ease of sign in. Episend allows you to sign in using your Google, Yahoo, or Facebook accounts.

Episend founder Richard DiBona told me that one of the reasons Episend is unique compared to its competitors is, “the fact that it was built 100% from the ground up to be completely integrated with the Amazon Web Services Cloud.”

As DiBona as told me, “starting a company like this with no funding would not have been possible even three years ago because it would have required a sizable upfront hardware investment.”

Epsisend is another example of how the cloud is changing the way we do business. (more…)

Max Silver

Vertica Systems Delivering Powerful Data at Lightning Speed

An Old School DMS

DBMS's have come a long way over the years. Vertica Systems is leading the way.

Vertica Systems, located in Billerica, Mass., isn’t your mother’s data base management system (DBMS).

Vertica recently built new uber-powerful software to manage huge amounts of data that linearly scales and automatically distributes to Vertica’s customers.

As Vertica CEO Chris Lynch explained to me, their biggest differentiating point from competitors is their speed of data turnover. Most DBMS’s can return usable data to customers in days, or at best, hours. Vertica returns data in close to real-time, allowing companies to use their data more effectively.

Vertica Systems LogoAs Vertica’s VP of Products and Business Development Colin Mahony told me, their software was built with only one question in mind for their customers: “What is the ROI?”

If return on investment is something that gets companies excited about digital and software investment, we don’t know what is.

In case you don’t know how DBMS’s benefit businesses, here is an example of how Vertica can benefit a telecommunications company that Mahony offered. Let’s say a large number of customers were dropping calls on a certain stretch of highway, Vertica can identify that almost immediately and report it to the telecommunications client. This would allow the telecommunications company to immediately identify a dead zone for service and quickly begin to remedy the problem.

“Any industry that needs to improve time or save money needs analytics,” said Lynch. (more…)

Alleigh Marré

Follow the Massachusetts Governor’s Race on Social Media

Mass State House

Who's headed for the gold dome? Social Media may determine the answer.

It’s a gubernatorial election year! Massachusetts’ highest statewide office is up for grabs. And BostInnovation is curious — how has social and new media changed the campaign landscape?

Politics, like social media, is about conversation. No one wants to be talked at. Voter concerns and comments must be taken into consideration in every campaign statement, policy, and action. For this reason, social media seems like an easy place to engage the voting community. Campaign blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube become places for politicians to reinforce their political messaging directly to their constituents, free of media bias, at essentially only the cost of staff.

Here’s a quick look at all the candidates for governor in Massachusetts, including their websites, Twitter handles and Facebook Fan Pages: (more…)

Ali Powell

Justin Levy’s New Book Simplifies and Amplifies Facebook Marketing

Justin Levy

Justin Levy hooked us up with a copy of his new book: Facebook Marketing

Facebook marketing should be part of a holistic overall approach to your inbound marketing efforts whether you are part of a startup or working for a Fortune 500 company. Local social media theorist Justin Levy, the Director of Business Development, Marketing and Client Relations at New Marketing Labs just released his latest book, Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign. Thanks to MITX, a tweetup able to celebrate the awesomeness that is Facebook with free drinks and appetizers at his Book Launch Bash on Thursday night at Red Sky.

Thanks, Justin!

Justin’s book is ranked in Amazon’s Top 50 in E-Commerce books right now for a reason. This book is for anyone and everyone who wants to learn more about how Facebook can amplify their business and grow their lead volume. The basics are covered; he goes step-by-step on how to build an effective marketing campaign and how to analyze this data to increase revenue.

There is no doubt that Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare are not going anywhere anytime soon. Businesses must take yield to these kinds of marketing channesl, embrace the madness and stop fighting the tide. The answer to your marketing woes is simple and starts with information in Justin’s book. Facebook allows companies to humanize their brands. Justin is a huge fan of bringing information to people in plain English.

“Facebook is the third largest country. You want to fish where the fish are to be successful,” he said Thursday (more…)

Jennie White

Viximo Launches Social Gaming Platform, Expands Beyond Facebook

Viximo launches social gaming platform

Viximo social gaming platform gives developers access to 60M users

Facebook is losing it’s cool — fast. Social game and app developers aren’t leaving Facebook, but they’re developing bigger and better things for the millions of other social networks out there where 3/4 of the social networking population spends time, according to Viximo VP of Product and Founder, Brian Balfour.

As Facebook becomes part of the average American social graph, users are becoming more comfortable with other social networking tools as well.

Today, Viximo  — which deals in virtual goods — shook things up by announcing the launch of their new social gaming platform. According to the company, it will allow social gaming developers to distribute their games through Viximo to 60 million users on social networks other than Facebook.

Located in Cambridge, Mass., Viximo helps clients promote their brands and increase user engagement by creating, selling, optimizing, and tracking virtual goods; icons like cows, candy, weapons, etc. Viximo’s virtual goods have been especially prominent in online social-gaming; games where users play with their friends on social networks for free, but can purchase virtual goods to boost their score, farm, mafia mob, wardrobe, or whatever. Viximo was founded in 2007 by Brian Balfour, and added Dale Strang as CEO in January, 2010.

What problem is Viximo’s social gaming platform solving for developers?
(more…)

Jennie White

Antler Gives a Buck: Not Your Average Startup Competition

Antler Agency's Antler Gives a Buck

Antler Gives a Buck; a competition for U.S. non-profit organizations.

Non-profit organizations and startups operate the same way — under a strict budget and with an unparalleled passion for something they believe in. Dozens of competitions in Boston have rewarded local startups with money, mentoring, and business development to make it easy for startups to market to the public, but have we forgotten about our non-profits? Boston-based digital marketing agency, Antler hasn’t forgotten — they just announced their Antler Gives a Buck competition and this time the prize isn’t going to a startup, it’s going to one lucky non-profit in the United States.

A local startup digital marketing agency, Antler knows what they’re talking about. Antler was founded in 2009 by Terry Lozoff and Luke Garro after working on cutting edge marketing campaigns for years. (Garro is also a professional musician and spent some time drumming with indy rock group Piebald.)  Along with their 15 employees, Lozoff and Garro have worked with clients like Boston’s GlobalPost and Magners Irish Cider, but it’s time for what Antler likes to call “phil-ANTLER-py.” (more…)

Jennie White

Boston Colleges: Get To Know Your Students Better With Foursquare

Colleges and Foursquare

Colleges: fill seats with students using Foursquare

The big topics this week have been Facebook and Foursquare. Our privacy has disappeared thanks to Facebook, but thanks to Foursquare, users are getting discounts at their local Starbucks–so it all kind of evens out. We’re going with Foursquare on this one.

Foursquare understands how to connect stores and brands with users using their mobile application check-in game (see Starbucks). Looking to expand even more, Foursquare? Tap colleges and universities, as soon as possible.

Here are two reasons why colleges and universities should consider educating organizers about Foursquare:

1) One of a college’s biggest problems is lack of student involvement. College administrations want their students to step away from the keg and go to college-hosted public speakings, concerts, fairs, and campus club events. The problem is, rarely is there ever a good turnout for events unless you’re bringing in a musical act like Lil’ Wayne.

Enter Foursquare. With companies like RiotVine leading the way in event check-ins, colleges could follow the example and have students check-in to their events and reward students them with a coupon to the school store or extra dining dollars, all sent straight to their phone. (more…)

Jennie White

What Facebook’s Location Feature Means for Boston Students

Facebook's location feature could enable stalkers!

Along with those in other cities, Boston residents are getting more comfortable sharing their exact locations with friends in realtime. Today, anyone who wants to be is a public figure with his or her photos, tweets, and locations posted publicly online. Yesterday, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reported that Facebook “will launch a location based-feature.” What does this mean for Boston?

…Our quarter-million or-so college students are in trouble.

While it’s unclear what the geo-location feature entails, Siegler speculated it was going to follow Foursquare’s check-in model and allow users to “check-in” to their location from Facebook’s mobile application.

Why is this a big deal? Foursquare has around 1M users while Facebook boasts over 400M users. Facebook is mainstream. Foursquare is not.

It should be noted that Twitter launched geo-tagging recently, but Twitter users are generally thought to be veterans of the realtime game. Many comfortable Foursquare users have already been posting their locations via Twitter and Facebook, but these users were early adopters of the first geo-location fad — They began using Foursquare because it was about location-based messaging.

By adding geo-location to Facebook posts, Facebook is exposing a massive new audience to the where-are-you-now? world of geo-tagging. That audience simply may not be ready to take that step. (more…)

David Bolton

Interview with Jon Radoff: Gaming has a Higher Calling

Disruptor Beam LogoBreaking news: Video games are fun.

We know that for many, there is joy in powering up a plasma rifle and shooting helpless aliens as they attempt to enslave the human race. For Star Wars fans, the game Battlefront allows you to seek revenge on the Ewoks in a way that the Emperor’s troops failed to do.

But is there more to the exploration of immersive worlds than just random violence and puzzle solving? When we become part of this world, how do the decisions that we take ultimately affect our game play and experience?

Most importantly, are video games an escape from reality or a mirror of real-life?

Intrigued as ever by the deeper meaning behind gaming and the impact that it can have in our lives, I sought answers from Jon Radoff, CEO of Disrupter Beam and one of the foremost game developers and gaming theorists in the Boston area. (more…)

Max Silver

Fast, Easy Link Sharing With Cambridge-based Shareaholic

“More unique links are shared via Shareaholic than are shared on Digg.com on any given day” – Shareaholic Founder Jay Meattle

More and more sites have begun to embrace share buttons, particularly for Twitter and Facebook, which has made sharing much easier. But, not everyone has added these onto their site yet, meaning sharing isn’t always one-click process.

When I asked Jay Meattle, the creator of Shareaholic, what initially interested him in building a link sharing site like this, he told me, “I created Shareaholic (for Firefox initially) to scratch my own itch. Then, I thought maybe others could benefit from all the work that went in as well, so I decided to release it publicly. Turns out other people had the same itch.”

Shareaholic not only allows you to share from any site, but you can share to over 100 services with one click of their downloadable button tool bar. (more…)

Kyle Psaty

Facebook Poked, Denies Any Presence in Boston

POKE!

We poked Facebook. Here's what they said:

A spokesperson for Facebook responded to the rumor that a development team from their company has taken up shop in the Boston area late last night.

“We have no plans to open an office in Boston or Cambridge. We do not currently have any developers working for us in Boston, nor do we have any plans at this time to put a group of employees in Boston,” wrote Kathleen Loughlin, a corporate communications associate at Facebook’s Palo Alto, Calif. office in an Email.

The response came after the BostInnovation staff, true to our promise to get to the bottom of this rumor, made a number of efforts to contact the company by Email and phone. (more…)

Kyle Psaty

Facebook Back in Boston?

Facebook circa 2004

Last time Facebook was in Mass., it looked like this.

Last week, we shared our thoughts on what Boston needs to do in order to keep major startups like Facebook from ditching their New England roots and high-tailing it to the West Coast. That post was well-received by our ultra intelligent readership, and many of you weighed in by way of the comments section. (The Boston Herald even picked up on the chatter.)

Aside from all the wonderful conversation that post spurred, something else also popped up…

We were contacted by multiple sources about a rumor that a faction of Facebook developers have set up shop in the Bay State to work on an unknown project. (more…)

David Bolton

News from Beyond Beantown v1.0 – Facebook’s “Panic Button” and a Soldier who Sees with His Tongue

Facebook considering a panic button

Facebook is considering a "panic button"

We all know that Boston is a hive of tech-tivity at the moment. Every night there are gatherings all over the city of the young and enthusiastic, the slightly older (but just as enthusiastic) and the entrepreneurial — all of whom are seeking out new opportunities to further Boston’s well-earned reputation for innovation.

But when the party is over and you count the business cards in your hand, there is still a bigger picture.

When so much is going on within our reach, we can sometimes forget that there may be other elements in the world that could have a butterfly effect on the way we conduct our business and utilize the growing facilities at our disposal. In a BostInnovation post this week, Jennie White pointed out the ways to keep Boston on top of its game and we ignore her advice at our peril.

Keeping an eye on the world brings up situations that we can learn from here. (more…)

Jennie White

3 Ways to Prevent Boston from Losing Another Facebook

It's time to come to terms with Facebook's departure

Who knew the kid from Harvard would change the Internet? The only thing the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, had going for him was that he was a student at the most exclusive school in the country. Facebook was started in a Harvard dorm, but is now a ghost of Boston’s past– We lost em’ to Silicon Valley in June 2004.

Instead of shaking our fists at Facebook and giving the middle finger to Silicon Valley, why not learn from this loss and figure out what we can do to better nurture these kinds of ideas? Let’s quit whining and start making some changes; here’s what’s going to keep startups and entrepreneurs in Boston: (more…)