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<title>Haaze.com / abnusiredf / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Sprint dials up Google Voice for all subscribers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sprint-dials-up-google-voice-for-all-subscribers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sprint-dials-up-google-voice-for-all-subscribers</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sprint-dials-up-google-voice-for-all-subscribers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Sprint makes it easy to use Google Voice.(Credit:Google/Sprint)Little by little, Google Voice has encroached on U.S. mobile operators' turf, most recently offering to port a subscriber's carrier-assigned cell phone number for use with Google Voice's service. But now for one carrier, potential friction has given way to partnership.Sprint and Google announced today deep integration with Google Voice that lets subscribers use their Sprint phone number as a Google Voice number to access the service's features. These include transcribed visual voice mail (manage voice messages as you would your e-mail), call forwarding (calls ring through on your cell phone, home phone, office phone, Gmail inbox, and so on), custom voice mail greetings, and competitive international calling rates, among many more offerings.Google and Sprint have been in talks for about a year, Vincent Paquet, senior product manager for Google Voice, told CNET. &quot;We always felt that the ultimate simplicity would be to just use [Google Voice] with your mobile phone,&quot; Paquet said. He declined to comment on details pertaining to the deal, and questions about Google's deals with other carriers.Benefits of Google VoiceAnyone could sign up for the free Google Voice service before, but today's agreement has a few notable benefits. First, Sprint simplifies getting on board with Google Voice. Previously, Google Voice users on any carrier needed to walk through a number of steps to either get a new Google Voice number, port their existing number, or let Google handle just the voice mail. The results could be confusing, with friends often collecting multiple phone numbers for a contact, depending on a several factors, including if the Google Voice user has a feature phone, or uses a Google Voice mobile app or Web-optimized site from a smartphone.As a second benefit, all Google Voice calls will originate from the same single number--the one first issued by Sprint. Third, if you enable Google Voice, the service will replace Sprint's voice mailbox on your phone, so dialing &quot;1&quot; from the handset dials up your Google Voice message inbox. There is no extra set-up required. Fourth, Sprint smartphones get most Google Voice features without requiring a mobile app. Texting is one exception to this last point, however. Sprint's rates and plans still apply for messages sent from the phone's default texting program, but Google Voice texts will remain free to the United States and Canada if you send them from the Web or from a Google Voice smartphone app.Prepaid phones and MVNOs that ride on Sprint's network--like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile--are ineligible for the Sprint/Google Voice combo.Signing upThere are several ways to enable Google Voice on a Sprint phone. When new users sign up online, Google Voice will recognize Sprint numbers before guiding you through the setup process. Existing users who log in will receive a prompt to switch to the Sprint number. This is optional, of course.We look forward to testing the service out in the coming days, and we'll likely hear much more from Google and Sprint this week at CTIA. Check back with CNET for more insights, and feel free to leave your own in the comments.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Can 'energy storage as a service' beef up the grid]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=can-energy-storage-as-a-service-beef-up-the-grid</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=can-energy-storage-as-a-service-beef-up-the-grid</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:11:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=can-energy-storage-as-a-service-beef-up-the-grid</guid>
<description><![CDATA[There are many research efforts to radically improve energy storage for both vehicles and the grid, but the business models for bringing that technology online are also still maturing.AES Energy Storage is one of the few companies that has developed a business to sell grid storage services to utilities, a model where the utility doesn't need to invest in the storage hardware itself. The rough analogy in the computing world is providing a computing service, such as server processing power, for a fee, rather than owning and operating servers themselves.Energy storage on grid heats up (photos) The company, which owns and operates many types of power generation facilities, later this year plans to open a 32 megawatt storage system attached to 100 megawatt wind farm in West Virginia, according to AES Energy Storage President Chris Shelton. If done by the end of the year, this and three other projects will add up to 84 megawatts of storage, mainly in the form of truck-size lithium ion batteries buffering the grid, he said.The ultimate goal of many technology developers is to design a battery that can store many hours of power from solar and wind farms, making renewable energy available on demand whenever needed. But AES and flywheel maker Beacon Power have found a niche providing power to the grid in short bursts, which is valuable to grid operators tasked with keeping a steady balance between supply and demand.Batteries are flexible in that they can deliver power in seconds, compared to a natural gas plants, which ramp up more slowly. Having relatively fine-tuned control over that resource is valuable to utilities and is a service they are willing to pay for, Shelton said. Also, batteries and flywheels don't have any emissions while operating.Some utilities, such as AEP, have moved ahead with installing and owning their own battery storage systems. But to spread broadly, grid storage will likely follow the same path that solar and wind did, where third-companies own and operate the energy projects, Shelton said. &quot;There's a long cycle of third parties delivering finished solutions to utilities,&quot; he said. &quot;There's no reason that storage won't go through the same cycle.&quot;Centrally managed resourceBeacon Power, which manufactures flywheel storage systems, is another company that has taken this grid services approach. In some deregulated markets, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has created electricity tariffs that specifically recognize the speed with which energy resources can be brought online, said Gene Hunt, a representative for Beacon Power.The downside of offering services, rather than selling products, is that it's very capital-intensive, Hunt said. With the aid of a $69 million Department of Energy loan guarantee, the company is in the process of developing a 20-megawatt plant in New York that will provide frequency regulation services to the grid. With a few projects now online, more utilities are paying attention to storage, he added. Beacon Power last week announced that a utility customer in Montana will lease and operate a one-megawatt flywheel system that will be used with a natural gas plant for frequency regulation. Batteries are also used for providing short-term reliability. AES is building a 20-megawatt plant in Chile that monitors the grid and supplies power to improve the reliability of the system. Similarly, AES Energy Storage's planned West Virginia project, batteries will be valuable by managing the variability of wind power, he said.Advances in battery technology for autos open up more possible applications beyond renewable because storage can provide a flexible power source for nuclear, natural gas, or renewable power generators, Shelton said. &quot;Storage should be centrally managed,&quot; he said. &quot;We think of it as a horizontal slice of the market we participate in.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Gaikai cloud gaming service goes live]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gaikai-cloud-gaming-service-goes-live</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gaikai-cloud-gaming-service-goes-live</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gaikai-cloud-gaming-service-goes-live</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Gaikai offers streamed game trials, including Electronic Arts&amp;39' Mass Effect 2. (Credit:Gaikai)Gaikai CEO David Perry announced the launch of his company's cloud gaming service on Friday. Designed as a platform to allow game publishers and others to embed streaming gameplay trials on their Web sites, Gaikai has been in development since 2008. Gaikai investors include Intel and Limelight Networks, and the service counts Electronic Arts among its game publisher partners.While Perry said in his blog that Gaikai is live, the corporate site still lists the service as being in beta. Perry's blog lists trial versions of five games available to play now, including Dead Space 2, Spore, and The Sims 3.Unlike OnLive, a cloud gaming service that sells access via a la carte and subscription models, Gaikai so far bills itself primarily as a technology provider. It does not currently have a consumer subscription model, and its marketing efforts thus far seem focused at game publishers and Web sites.&quot;Our thinking is somewhat like YouTube, as instead of just building a portal to go and watch videos, they decided to focus on putting videos everywhere on the web. We are doing the same with games, so when you read a review on a game, you can try playing it right there on the same page as the review,&quot; says Perry on his blog.We tried two different Gaikai game trials on our home Internet connection, Dead Space 2 and the Sims 3. Dead Space 2 is accessible after completing a brief survey (which you can try here), and the Sims 3 trial (available here) seems to be hosted on Electronic Arts' own Sims 3 Web site.When you launch a game, the service performs a bandwidth test. It found our wireless connection suitably fast enough for Dead Space 2, but we had to switch to our wired connection to play the Sims 3 trial Playing a Dead Space 2 trial in Firefox via Gaikai.(Credit:CNET)Each game launches in a Java window, and, like OnLive, your options to edit the settings, particularly the display settings are limited. You can set the game to play in &quot;full screen,&quot; but the aspect ratio is locked at what appears to be 4:3. If you expanded the game window it will be framed by black bars if you play on a widescreen display.Despite the locked visual settings, the image quality was comparable to that of a modern game console. Each game also demonstrated occasional input lag, but both were predominantly playable, at least in our short trial over a Brooklyn, NY-based home Internet connection.As of this beta launch, Gaikai offers only games from Electronic Arts (a partnership which could explain why EA games have so far been absent from OnLive). Whether the service adds more publishers, or has loftier ambitions than offering game trials remains to be seen.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nielsen: U.S. smartphone ownership higher among minorities]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nielsen-u-s--smartphone-ownership-higher-among-minorities</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nielsen-u-s--smartphone-ownership-higher-among-minorities</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:10:53 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nielsen-u-s--smartphone-ownership-higher-among-minorities</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Almost a third (31 percent) of all mobile phone users in the United States own smartphones, but their adoption is higher among specific minority groups, says a report out today from Nielsen.Based on a survey conducted in December, Nielsen found that 27 percent of white mobile phone users in the U.S. currently own smartphones. But that rate was lower than the 45 percent of Hispanics, 45 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders, and 33 percent of African-American mobile users polled who said they have a smartphone.(Credit:Nielsen)The adoption rates for smartphone ownership are also rising, especially among minority groups. Over the past six months, 42 percent of white users who bought a mobile phone opted for a smartphone, while 60 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders, 56 percent of Hispanics, and 44 of African Americans made the same choice.Which mobile platforms are proving the most popularAmong those who currently own a smartphone, Nielsen discovered a three-way tie among Research In Motion's BlackBerry, Apple's iOS, and Google's Android. However, ownership of a BlackBerry has dropped around 10 percentage points over the course of a year and iOS has remained the same, but Android has shot up 25 percentage points.(Credit:Nielsen)Further, more people who picked up a smartphone in the past six months went for an Android device, with 43 percent ownership compared with 26 percent for Apple's iOS and 20 percent for BlackBerry.A report out yesterday from research firm Canalys noted similar trends in worldwide smartphone ownership, with Android surging to become the top smartphone platform across the globe.Finally, Nielsen found that theiPhone was the top choice among Asians/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, and white users. But among African-American smartphone owners, the BlackBerry pulled into the lead, owned by 31 percent of those polled.Nielsen surveyed a total of 56,719 people to obtain the data on current smartphone ownership and 13,258 of them to get the stats on those who bought a smartphone over the past six months.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Cloud storage provider Box.net&'s iPad app gets a makeover]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cloud-storage-provider-box-netrsquos-ipad-app-gets-a-makeover</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cloud-storage-provider-box-netrsquos-ipad-app-gets-a-makeover</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cloud-storage-provider-box-netrsquos-ipad-app-gets-a-makeover</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Box.net chief executive Aaron Levie might have a soft spot for Android, but he has to go where the money is. So his company is unveiling a slew of new features for its iPad application today before it gets to work on pumping up its Android application.The newest version of Box.net&amp;'s iPad application features a projection mode, which lets Box.net users connect their iPads to a display and project whatever is on their iPad on the new screen. That can include anything from additional monitors to projectors. The feature requires an iPad connection cable to connect the iPad directly to a secondary display.Box.net&amp;'s latest version of its iPad app also features air printing for documents stored online. Apple enabled wireless printing for its devices in one of its recent iPhone operating system updates. The feature lets iPhone and iPad users print documents on any wi-fi connected printer that&amp;'s on the same network without having to install any additional drivers. But a number of companies like HP have already released third-party apps that enabled wi-fi printing.Aside from that, Box.net is including a locking feature and a way to log onto multiple enterprise accounts with a single screen name and password through the application. Since Box.net typically logs in automatically, the application now has a password lock like the iPad&amp;'s normal password lock function. That means once a user locks the device, they have to type in a four-digit password to unlock it an access the application.Box.net decided to focus on the iPad because it has such a wide distribution a4&quot; at least for now, Levie said. He said tablets running Google&amp;'s mobile operating system Android will eventually take over the enterprise tablet market a4&quot; especially once the latest version of Android, dubbed Honeycomb, hits the market. But until then, the iPad has proved to be quite popular. iPad users have downloaded the Box.net application more than 250,000 times since it launched.But that doesn&amp;'t mean Box.net is completely ignoring Android. Box.net currently has an Android application that Android users have downloaded more than 70,000 since it launched in the fourth quarter last year. Box.net is also working with Samsung, the manufacturer of the Galaxy Tab, to pre-load the Box.net application on its newest tablets. Levie also said there&amp;'s a certain appeal to working with the Android team when developing an application.&amp;''The whole Android team isreally accessible and loves getting down into the stuff you&amp;'re working on,&amp;'' Levie said. &amp;''Which is totally awesome because you can get some really great feedback.&amp;''But as &amp;''awesome&amp;'' as it is to work with the Android team, Levie said that there&amp;'s a certain elegance to how Apple has rolled out its app development ecosystem. Since there is just one tablet and one phone, developers don&amp;'t have to fret about form factors and how big screens will be. So developers can make iPad and iPhone applications much more quickly than they can develop Android applications, he said.There aren&amp;'t any plans for a Box.net application for some of the other tablet operating systems just yet despite a slew of new devices on the way. Research in Motion hopes to make a splash in the enterprise tablet space with its PlayBook tablet, which runs on the BlackBerry operating system. But Research in Motion already plans to run Android applications on the PlayBook a4&quot; so it might be moot to make a BlackBerry tablet Box.net application.Nokia just jumped into the pool with Microsoft and plans to release phones running the Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Hewlett-Packard also recently unveiled a new tablet and several smartphones running on Palm&amp;'s WebOS mobile operating system. Both are good targets, but it&amp;'s too early to tell whether they&amp;'ll have any kind of traction, Levie said. So for the time being, Box.net is going to stick with the iPad and Android.Previous Story: Nokia Plan B: Journalists fooled by &amp;''one very bored engineer&amp;''PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Aaron Levie, Android, cloud computing, enterprise, Honeycomb, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPhone operating system, tabletsCompanies: Apple, Box.net, Google          Tags: Aaron Levie, Android, cloud computing, enterprise, Honeycomb, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPhone operating system, tabletsCompanies: Apple, Box.net, GoogleMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francisco, California. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Will Trion&'s Rift be cataclysmic for World of WarCraft]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=will-trionrsquos-rift-be-cataclysmic-for-world-of-warcraft</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=will-trionrsquos-rift-be-cataclysmic-for-world-of-warcraft</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=will-trionrsquos-rift-be-cataclysmic-for-world-of-warcraft</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Rift is one of the biggest bets in video game history. Trion Worlds has been building the fantasy role-playing online game world for almost five years and has raised more than $100 million to build the game and the dynamic online platform that hosts it. The game will finally debut on March 1 in North America and March 4 in Europe. The beta has been out for a while and Trion Worlds announced Thursday that more than 1 million players have registered to play it. Yesterday, the players who pre-ordered the game started playing in advance of the launch date.To put the registrations in perspective, that&amp;'s about how many users Trion would need to generate $180 million in subscription revenues a year, in addition to selling copies of the initial game. To topple the market leader, World of WarCraft, Trion would need to get more than 12 million paying subscribers a year. That&amp;'s a tall order, but Trion chief executive Lars Buttler has focused on making a game with the highest quality and a number of new innovations in a bid to outdo WoW. If anyone can topple WoW &amp;8212' and many have died trying &amp;8212' they get a license to print money.The big feature of Rift is that it is dynamic. Users can log in one day and find that their beautiful city or bucolic town is under an attack via a &amp;''rift,&amp;'' or a hole in the fabric of the world through which enemy forces can invade. As the rifts open up, the players have to band together and, like people helping each other in a fire brigade, put out the fires one by one. The world can thus change more often than its rival, World of WarCraft, and offer endless variations of content.We caught up with Buttler at Trion&amp;'s headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. Here&amp;'s an edited transcript of our interview.VB: You are getting close to being done.LB: Yes. March 1st is the North American retail street date. March 4th in Europe. We also have a head start on February 24th for everybody who pre ordered the game and we have the beta going. So we are actually in the middle of launching. You cana4a4t really say that March 1st is the launch anymore. You should think about how it starts and then keeps continuing as we add more content.VB: So do you have anything to disclose &amp;8212' like how many people are in the betaLB: (We now know there are a million registrations). I mean I can tell you that for a Western online game beta, we have a historic first in many ways for a new game. We are still in beta but the audience is seeing much more responsiveness on our side than you have typically seen. We have issued a lot of patch notes, interacted with people on the forums, responded to the feedback. We want to demonstrate in beta what a live game should be like as you play it and as we run it.A real massively multiplayer online game should have epic events that bring people together. It should have unexpected things happen, and it should also react and respond to what people like or dislike. This has always been part of what we discussed when we said what a premium video game franchise should look like in the connected world. We always had a big component of this being truly dynamic, a world that changes as you play it. We are proving in the beta that we can open up a &amp;''rift&amp;'' in the world and completely change the environment.VB: What are some examples of what is happening n the worldLB:  There is so much happening. We introduced the automatic broadcasting of achievements out of the game into the social world, on services such as Twitter. This was always something we said a top video game for the connected era should have. People spend hours and hours in the world and their achievements and their status in the world is really important to them. And we always felt that ita4a4s not only important to people they meet in the game but to their larger social circles and their friends. So we have integrated an automated Twitter function. If you go to Twitter and you look at number sign Rift (riftfeed), you see about ten tweets a second out of the game. You basically tweet your achievement and you can also tweet a screenshot and a picture with it automatically.VB: Do you use another companya4a4s technology for that or did you guys do that in-houseLB: We did it all in-house. And we use Twitter&amp;'s platform. This is going extremely well. So you know we have huge numbers of people playing, and they talk to their friends obviously. Word of mouth is incredibly important to us. And now they also tweet to all their friends about it.At the end of the day, we are a new company with a new idea and we decided to make the beta so big and so open because we have a terrific product and we want people to know, and we want people to talk about it, and we want people to tweet about it. So typically betas have been small and people had to pre-order the games to even get into the betas apart from the last push and open beta. Our beta events after the third or fourth waves of people have been so big, there has been virtually no barrier to get into it, and we dona4a4t believe in keeping anything secret. If you have a great product, let people experience it.VB: And the crowds have not hurt the game&amp;'s performanceLB: The architecture is holding up with the live events. These are all invasions, live invasions going on in the world where someone opens a rift and all of these beings from another world invade. There are so many players in one place. This is massively social. It&amp;'s so epic.VB: What sort of customers are in the beta Are they WoW playersLB: That is a very good question' I think we have everybody in the game. We have people who are WoW players, EverQuest players, Lord of the Rings Online players, and Ultima Online players.There are also lots of new players who come to us from more of the free-to-play audience and are trying their first real high-quality game. It goes across the board.VB: And are you resetting the game after the beta is over, which means all the players start overLB: Yes, so when Head Start begins on February 24th, everybody starts from scratch to be fair to the people who didna4a4t have the time or who didn&amp;'t participate in the beta. It will cause some hardships. I say this smiling because some people are already in love with their characters and with their achievements. I think everybody is cool with it, as it is also standard procedure in MMOs.VB: And what else are you doing to make sure it takes off How are you advertisingLB: I am sure you saw the ad that went incredibly viral and was discussed all over the internet. It was a television ad, but it was essentially discussed everywhere. It shows the opening of the Rift and then some dramatic in-game footage, and then it ends. So this was obviously discussed everywhere and it said, &amp;''We are not in Azeroth anymore.&amp;'' (That&amp;'s a reference to the world in World of WarCraft).VB: It went viral because it mentioned AzerothLB: Yes, exactly. I mean obviously because our world looks great and it says we are in a different world and we are maybe in a more dangerous place. People started to send it around to comment on it, tweet about it, Facebook about it, and so yes so we have TV ads running now on Sci-Fi Channel, on G4 on Adult Swim. It is all starting now. The Sci-Fi Channel ads started a while ago because they are a close partner of ours and the rest of the networks that are relevant to reach out. But TV is a small percentage of our advertising. The bulk is online advertising, which gives us the ability to very clearly measure our customer acquisition cost. Our net to acquire customers is the entire internet space. We are not bound to a particular social network or any particular site. We can advertise wherever our audience is, and we are actually doing it right now. We are casting a very wide net and we measure everything. I mean it is getting cheaper and cheaper to acquire people, which means they must like the game and we are finding the right sites to advertise on, which is fantastic.Also, our Facebook site is growing exponentially so we are using social networking incredibly creatively and in a very powerful way. But we have more and more fan sites, very strong fan sites in North America, in France, in Germany, in the UK. Every week we have more, and I can tell you honestly that all of this exceeds our own expectations and goals that we set at the beginning. Every single item is exceeding our expectations.VB: You are ready for lots of people to come onLB: We did a big beta event, let lots of people play, and that was a big stress test for all of us. We collected every bit of feedback that we could and then we went to work. What we could fix quickly, we fixed during the beta. And what took a little more thinking or a little more engineering we basically fixed in between betas. We are trying to preserve an absolute balance in the game. In large events, the balancing can&amp;'t be tested except with hundreds of thousands of people.Our platform is built to allow us to react quickly, and the team is so focused on responsiveness and on delivering the best consumer experience, I think the betas allowed us not only to create a strong following for the game but also to create friends and followers of the company of Trion.VB: What does it take to get users excitedLB: We believe there is kind of recipe to create a hit franchise premium game. For 2011 and beyond, what you still need to have is a big game draw. Whether you are doing a role-playing game, strategy, action, shooter &amp;8212' you still have to have premium quality. It has to be complete in terms of game systems. It has to have highly polished game play, stunning visuals, and online play.But then on top of it, we believe the games need to be fully dynamic. This means the game is constantly evolving, getting better. The game can be unpredictably exciting and extremely responsive to what users want. That has a lot to do with the technology choices we made and the dedication of our team. There are so many aspects to being a dynamic game. We believe a big online game has to be massively social. Your game architecture has to accommodate massive events. People get an incredible kick out of these epic events. You should have digital revenue sources and you should have a clear cross-platform strategy.VB: Do you want to introduce digital revenues in this game, like selling virtual goodsLB: Ita4a4s not really something that we want to aggressively pursue at the beginning just because you buy the game and you subscribe to it. But in agreement with our audience, as they want more things without disturbing the game balance, there will be additional opportunities to buy digital goods just like other games have done. But we clearly dona4a4t want to destroy the high quality user base and audience and experience that we have for Rift right now.VB: You have said there is a shallow way to connect people and a deep wayLB: At the end of the day, there is absolutely no ignoring the fact that gaming is literally going through a revolution. You cannot call this anything else I think at this point. And it is happening in casual games first because it is always happening in casual games first' it is easier to pull off. There are shorter development cycles and you can experiment more. But this change is also happening at the deep end of gaming, the premium games, the video games, the core console games. You have all these stand-alone game publishers trying to adapt to online. Then you have new platforms like Facebook and mobile. We have come along to create content for the connected world, and that does not mean the PC only. The industry is now creating content for every connected device. Games will stay the same, but they will be distributed in completely different ways. They can be downloaded or streamed. It&amp;'s still the same game. If you are making a game in 2011, don&amp;'t even try to do it without the connected strategy. You need quality, great graphics, great game play, and you need to be connected.VB: Where do you go nextLB: The beauty is that Rift is a great showcase for our platform, but it is just the first product. We go much further in exploiting our platform with End of Nations, where we actually create a connected strategy game franchise. And we are working on a third major game in our partnership with Sci-Fi. We are seeing that the disruption of the game industry is coming to the deep end of gaming where we are focused. If you are building a AAA gaming franchise for the connected era, you want to use the Trion platform. We have filed for a dozen patents in this space, not just for video games but for creating dynamic synthetic worlds.VB: Have you said how much you&amp;'ve spent The company has raised more than $100 million.LB: No. I have heard it said that it is a $50 million game. That is out there in the public. I did say that. Our other games leverage our platform. We have about 300 people and about 120 worked on the core Rift team. There is significant outsourcing across the globe too.VB: And you have not gone on the record as saying you are doing a World of WarCraft killerLB: I have never said that. We will have nothing to do with that. We are intrinsically motivated to build the best product we could possibly build. As a matter of fact, I think that our mission as a company, our core purpose is to deliver the most exciting, most emotionally engaging entertainment experience in the world. I mean that doesna4a4t include killing anybody or fighting anybody else. If we meet our goal, that takes care of the economic equation. You don&amp;'t think about the economics first, but the quality first. If you start the other way around, you can fall flat.Next Story: George Zachary: No bubble yet, but one&amp;'s building Previous Story: A first look at Gears of War 3&amp;'s super-bloody multiplayer (video)PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, massively multiplayer online game, mmo, Rift, Sci-Fi Channel, World of WarcraftCompanies: Trion WorldsPeople: Lars Buttler          Tags: EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, massively multiplayer online game, mmo, Rift, Sci-Fi Channel, World of WarcraftCompanies: Trion WorldsPeople: Lars ButtlerDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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