Behind Mark Pincus's Bid to Save Zynga

Mr. Gordon said Zynga had failed to prioritize mobile development and found that its online games didn’t easily translate to smartphones’ smaller screens. “Mobile turned out to be more different than anyone expected, in terms of monetization and also user experience,” he said.

Zynga has done pretty well with mobile, all things considered. They were just very late to the game. I think with these latest moves Mark Pincus is starting to right the ship correctly though.

Glu Mobile and other app developers betting on iPhone 5 gamers to score big

Glu, and lots of other app developers.

I’ve written previously that we can expect app developers to quickly adapt to the iPhone 5. The game developers that will win on iOS in Q3 and Q4 will be the ones like Glu that can take advantage of the higher CPU and graphics for better gameplay.

iPhone 5: Thoughts and Observations

The iPhone 5 is pretty much exactly as rumored. There is nothing too surprising about it. Still, it looks incredible. I for one will definitely be pre-ordering one. Probably the 32 GB, black, on Verizon.

Apple is sticking with what works. The general shape and design of the iPhone has made it the best smartphone available. So they are only making small changes here.

Still, it’s a much wanted incremental step of evolution. It’s thinner, lighter, sturdier, has a higher density screen, better graphics performance, better phone quality, a better camera, a better iOS, better apps, and will get updates over-the-air for years. What more could you really want?

Apps will definitely take advantage of the larger screen. I’m excited to see all the mobile apps, gaming and otherwise, that will utilize the larger screen to their advantage. All the more room for killing zombies!

EarPods are a huge improvement. Apple’s white earbuds have long been iconic. But they haven’t ever been great for sound and music. It looks like Apple spent lots of time getting these new EarPods right. They started over 3 years ago and tested over 124 different prototypes to arrive with these. First reviews from the floor seem to be much improved, especially with bass-heavy music.

The hype and expectations for Apple are now through the roof. Good analysis from Wired that the iPhone 5 is at the same time completely amazing yet still utterly boring. This speaks to the expectations Apple now has. As Chris Dixon said well: “Apple: solid incremental improvements. Big question is when/if there will be huge leaps again without Jobs.” All eyes are on Apple for their next big leap (hopefully the living room).

Apple’s next quarter will be huge. Apple did everything they needed to do with this release. Gene Munster has already boosted his iPhone sales estimates for this quarter on the news. Lots of people didn’t upgrade to the iPhone 4S because they were waiting for 4G/LTE. Apple brought that to the iPhone 5 with many more bells and whistles. As I wrote before, Apple’s next quarter will be an absolute monster.

Ouya: Yup, that just happened; But it didn't "just happen"

He’s absolutely right. This phenomenal success is not happenstance and, to me, is the clearest indication yet that (i) crowdfunding is a viable route to significant capital and (ii) nobody lucks into $3.8 million.

Beyond the work Ouya has done so far on their product — funded by friends and family, apparently — their Kickstarter page indicates how much work they did on their campaign.
  • Video: Super-slick, sophisticated and good looking. Exactly what you’d hope for and expect from a team that is trying to sell a forward-thinking tech-y product.
  • Solid copy: Compelling combination of revolution (“Take back the console!”) and nostalgia (“Remember how great playing games on TV was?!”).
  • Social proof: Quotes from people who (I assume) are well-known and well-respected in that industry.
  • Rewards: Pretty straightforward but a nice early bird option to get things going.

And it’s not a coincidence that the page was so well done.

Lots of talk lately about Kickstarter and crowdfunding. Some great points in here about how we’re starting to see campaigns that are more and more professional. The bar has certainly been raised for what constitutes a great Kickstarter campaign. Seems like a great business opportunity actually. Remember, always sell the pickaxes during a gold rush.

Mobile App Economics: 'Fruit Ninja' Makes $400,000 a Month on Ads

“Fruit Ninja” grosses more than $1 million a month in total revenue across different platforms … mostly in the form of downloads of the paid versions of its games and in-app purchases — not advertising.”
$400k a month from advertising is pretty impressive but I’m surprised this number isn’t higher since Fruit Ninja is such a top tier game. I’m guessing it’s because Halfbrick is outsourcing all of their advertising to networks and exchanges (namely Mobclix). But I think if they had a direct salesforce to fill the top of their inventory with more brand dollars then they could increase this substantially.