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<title>Haaze.com / banely / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jun 2011 07:10:34 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple, Android grab more market share in U.S.]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-android-grab-more-market-share-in-u-s-</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-android-grab-more-market-share-in-u-s-</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jun 2011 07:10:34 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-android-grab-more-market-share-in-u-s-</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:ComScore)Google'sAndroid retained the top spot of the U.S. smartphone operating system market over the three months ending in April, gaining 5.2 percentage points to capture 36.4 percent of all smartphone users, said ComScore today.In second place, Apple's iOS also managed to win over more of the market, eking out a 1.3 percent gain to grab 26 percent share.Next on the list was RIM's BlackBerry with a 25.7 percent share, down almost five points from the prior quarter. Microsoft's Windows Phone and HP's PalmOS both also lost share, putting them in fourth and fifth place, respectively. Overall, 74.6 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the quarter, up 13 percent from the prior quarter.Looking at the mobile phone makers themselves, Samsung took first place with 24.5 percent of the U.S. market, followed by LG with almost 21 percent and Motorola with 15.6 percent. Scooping up 8.3 percent of the market, Apple managed to jump ahead of RIM to capture fourth place. During the three-month period, a total of 234 million people in the U.S. owned mobile phones.Text messaging proved the hottest activity for almost 69 percent of mobile phone users, according to ComScore. Browsing the Web was popular among 39 percent, while downloading apps was done by 37.8 percent. Accessing social-networking sites and blogs, playing games, and listening to music were also common among mobile phone users.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Is Netflix ready to save its first show]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-netflix-ready-to-save-its-first-show</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-netflix-ready-to-save-its-first-show</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 14 May 2011 07:10:13 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-netflix-ready-to-save-its-first-show</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says he might get into the TV salvage business--footing all or part of the bill for a show that the networks want to cancel, so that his customers can keep watching new episodes.So here's a candidate: &quot;The Event,&quot; a &quot;Lost&quot;-style serial that NBC had big hopes for last fall, but doesn't want anymore.Comcast's broadcast network has cancelled the show in advance of Monday's upfront presentation, where it will try to sell its new stuff to advertisers. But Deadline.com floats the notion that the producers of &quot;The Event&quot; will find a new home for the show, and reporter Nellie Andreeva says she hears &quot;new original programming player Netflix's name tossed around.&quot;Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey won't comment on the report, but I'll go ahead and file it under &quot;possible but not likely.&quot; That's because:&amp;183' It's not unheard of for shows that start out on one network to find new life somewhere else. But those are usually shows that have lasted multiple seasons. &quot;The Event&quot; just limped through a single one.&amp;183'That short run also makes it seem like &quot;The Event&quot; would be a hard sell for Netflix. If the service had access to past seasons of the show, and had seen significant subscriber interest, it'd be easier to justify. But in this case, it would have to guess that something that didn't appeal to NBC's audience would resonate with Netflix users. That's a pretty big leap.Then again, I said the same thing about reports that Netflix was going to foot a big part of the bill for &quot;House Of Cards,&quot; a new HBO-style series from Kevin Spacey. And that turned out to be true. So I'll leave myself just a bit of wiggle room here: Ya never know!Here, as a reminder, is the show that few of you have been watching:Story Copyright (c) 2011 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Wi-Fi Alliance to ease access to Wi-Fi hot spots]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wi-fi-alliance-to-ease-access-to-wi-fi-hot-spots</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wi-fi-alliance-to-ease-access-to-wi-fi-hot-spots</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wi-fi-alliance-to-ease-access-to-wi-fi-hot-spots</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Connecting to public Wi-Fi hot spots can be a challenge, but the Wi-Fi Alliance is hoping to ease some of the pain.Responsible for certifying Wi-Fi products and technology, the Wi-Fi Alliance said yesterday that it's working on a new certification program that should make it easier to access and use public hot spots. Various members of the alliance, including service providers and device makers, have already formalized the requirements needed to test such a certification program.Once in place, the new hot spot program would offer several benefits to Wi-Fi users.Computers, phones, and other connected gadgets would discover and choose the right Wi-Fi networks to access based on user preferences, network speed, and other conditions. Certain devices would be given automatic access to the network by using such products as SIM cards, which can store the necessary log-in credentials and are already used in phones and other cellular gadgets.The process of configuring a new user account would run smoother by cutting out certain steps and ensuring a more common setup among different vendors. Finally, the program would address security concerns over using unprotected public hot spots by encrypting all data over the network through the WPA2 standard.The new program would also help ease the strain on overtaxed cellular networks by more seamlessly handing off data from those networks to available Wi-Fi hot spots.&quot;Ensuring end users can easily access hot spot networks from various providers is a win for subscribers, service providers, and device makers alike,&quot; Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director of the Wi-Fi Alliance, said in a statement. &quot;We envision an automated, cellular-like experience for Wi-Fi users around the world in security-protected service provider hot spots.&quot; Following a testing period this year, the Wi-Fi Alliance is hoping to certify the new program by the first half of 2012.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[AT&T and T-Mobile--listen before you judge]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=att-and-t-mobile-listen-before-you-judge</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=att-and-t-mobile-listen-before-you-judge</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 20 Mar 2011 07:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=att-and-t-mobile-listen-before-you-judge</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The usual suspects are already sharpening their knives against AT&amp;T's announced acquisition of T-Mobile's U.S. business.Within hours, the Media Access Project announced that &quot;if approved, this deal would further increase costs and decrease choices for the public.&quot; Media reform group Free Press headlined its press release, &quot;Consumers lose when there's less competition.&quot; And Public Knowledge condemned the deal as &quot;unthinkable.&quot; That sort of rhetoric is par for the course inside-the-beltway where, for some reason, every combination of business assets is presumed to be hostile to consumers. These groups are so convinced of the evils of mergers that they no longer feel the need for bothersome facts and time-wasting analysis. But out here in the real world, thinking things through is actually still considered a rational way to analyze a problem. So let's think about the &quot;unthinkable.&quot; Of course, the details of the planned merger haven't been made public yet, so it's hard to say specifically how the combination will affect consumers, influence market dynamics, or change the landscape for communications services--mobile and otherwise.But at the same time, I don't understand the line of non-reasoning that opposes any combination of two companies in the same industry on the theory that any loss of competition, no matter how theoretical, translates to higher prices and reduced service to consumers. For starters, it assumes that the sole purpose of any merger is to gain economic leverage over one's customers and to translate that leverage into consumer harm. That, in any case, isn't what managers tell investors, who like the rest of us don't see what a company would have to gain from intentionally fouling its own nest. From the standpoint of investors, the whole point of mergers of this kind is to give the merged entity economies of scale and other efficiencies that allow it to operate at a lower unit cost. That is, to make it more competitive.That's especially important in the wide-open and fast-evolving mobile industry. Assuming the deal is ultimately approved, there will still be significant competitors to AT&amp;T in every U.S. market--competitors who will be eager to take advantage of inevitable distractions for AT&amp;T in both pursuing and implementing the merger. Companies regularly underestimate the costs and time it takes to complete a merger, by the way, which can also be helpful to competitors. And mergers of this scale may fail to ever deliver the benefits to investors that inspire them, perhaps because technological advances in the interim undermine the assumptions that made the merger seem attractive. Witness America Online and Time-Warner, which similarly and incorrectly terrorized consumer advocates in 2000. (Adam Thierer, now with The Mercatus Center, wrote a brilliant paper in 2009 (PDF) analyzing both the fear-mongering and sober realities of media and communications mergers over the last decade that is well worth rereading.)More, not less, competition In opposing mergers without any analysis (which requires thinking, after all), facts pose little obstacle for the true disbelievers. But for those who care about such details, it simply isn't true, as the Media Access Project says in its press release, that &quot;The FCC's National Broadband Plan, issued last year, warned about the absence of sufficient competition in the wireless market.&quot; Actually reading the FCC's plan, I find just the opposite. There is no hint of a warning about insufficient wireless competition. According to the FCC, rather, as of last year over 77 percent of U.S. homes had access to three or more providers for 3G mobile services.  related coverage AT&amp;T-T-Mobile: By the numbers   On the cusp of a historic mobile operator merger between AT&amp;T and T-Mobile, a look at some key stats.  In fact, the FCC believes that expanding and accelerating the deployment of next-generation 4G services has the potential to increase competition, not just in mobile but in the broader category of all communications services. As higher-speed and more efficient 4G services are implemented, the FCC notes, LTE services have the &quot;potential to be a closer competitor to wireline broadband&quot; than existing 3G services. Making 4G available to more U.S. consumers, in other words, is not only good for mobile competition but also makes mobile a viable alternative to wired service, where some consumers currently have fewer options.And the U.S. Department of Justice, who along with the FCC will need to give approval for the merger, agrees. In its submission to the FCC as part of the development of the FCC plan, the Department of Justice said nothing about a lack of competition in wireless service. Quite the contrary, it found that robust competition was spurring the kind of innovation that was making wireless a viable competitor to wireline. &quot;Emerging fourth generation ('4G') services,&quot; the Department wrote, &quot;may well provide an alternative sufficient to lead a significant set of customers to elect a wireless rather than wireline broadband service.&quot;Which is precisely the point of the proposed merger. According to AT&amp;T, &quot;Because of the scale, spectrum and resources resulting from this transaction, AT&amp;T can expand 4G LTE to 95 percent of U.S. population or 294 million people.&quot; By bringing together complementary spectrum from AT&amp;T and T-Mobile, the combined entity will be able to compete more effectively with Verizon in the 4G space, improve overall network performance, and speed up what the Justice Department described as &quot;encouraging signs&quot; that mobile is beginning to compete effectively with wireline service. (Already, significant numbers of U.S. consumers have abandoned wireline telephone service, for example.) How else can wireless providers improve serviceThat, of course, brings up another myth about mergers, which is that they inevitably lead to declines in service quality. Again, let's do the &quot;unthinkable&quot; and hash that through for a moment. Quality of service even in the 3G market is a principal issue on which the competitors compete today--witness the funny (or not-so-funny) commercials all the wireless companies run denouncing the performance of everyone else.If AT&amp;T or any other provider genuinely wanted to improve their coverage, speed, fidelity or any other quality measure consumers value, how else besides a merger can they do it Adding or upgrading existing infrastructure--cell towers, for example--is entirely constrained by federal, state, and local regulatory approval. And most of these regulators have proven themselves to be too slow, incompetent, and/or corrupt to allow the infrastructure investments the carriers want to make.Another alternative is to expand coverage by using more of the radio spectrum. But spectrum is a limited resource, and the FCC has not held a significant auction since 2008. (At that auction, AT&amp;T spent billions to acquire key blocks of the 700MHz frequency, presumably for use in deploying its future 4G service.)As everyone knows, there are vast tracks of spectrum which are inefficiently allocated today. The National Broadband Plan, in fact, called for the FCC to identify and reallocate some 500MHz of spectrum in the next 10 years--300 MHz of it for mobile services in the next five years. So far, however, that effort has gone nowhere. On the first anniversary of the its plan, the FCC is still splitting hairs over whether it has even gotten around to preparing an inventory of the existing allocations, as mandated last summer by President Obama.In the absence of meaningful spectrum reform or cell tower siting rules, what else can a service provider do but acquire more frequency through merger While the FCC dithers, industry is taking action. Mergers may not be the best way to reallocate the mess of current spectrum allocations. But waiting for the FCC will mean a slower roll-out of 4G services, and decline in overall quality as spectrum demand continues to outpace supply. The reality of merger review is complicated Without mergers, in other words, costs are likely to increase and consumer choice is likely to decline--not the other way around.Again, this is also the view of the Department of Justice. In evaluating the proposed transaction, the department will continue to recognize that putting available spectrum to its best use is essential to promote, not damage, competition. In its letter to the FCC on the National Broadband Plan, the Department wrote:Reallocating spectrum that is being underutilized would encourage the deployment of wireless services and could help to make such services more competitive with wireline offerings. First, an increase in the amount of spectrum that firms could devote to broadband would lower the cost of providing wireless broadband services and encourage entry. Second, more spectrum would allow providers to increase the capacity and reliability of their offerings, thereby bringing them closer to cable modem and fiber-based broadband. Third, the increased capacity in the systems would help support new applications. We urge the Commission to give priority to making more spectrum available to wireless broadband providers so as to maximize their potential to compete against the established wireline ones. As these quotes suggest, the unthinking, knee-jerk rejection of any proposed combination as an antitrust violation has little to do with the reality of how the FCC and Department of Justice should--and usually does--review proposed mergers. There is no magic formula for deciding what percentage of a relevant market an individual competitor is permitted to control. Defining the market itself is complicated, especially given different conditions in different parts of the U.S. and the potential for mobile service to compete with wireline alternatives. The influence a company has over price is affected by other factors besides direct competition, including potential substitutes and regulatory constraints.And in a market with high fixed and sunk costs, such as mobile services, even the most aggressive antitrust review does not mean, to quote the Department of Justice once again, &quot;striving for broadband markets that look like textbook markets of perfect competition, with many price-taking firms.&quot; Rather, the department says, &quot;promoting competition is likely to take the form of enabling additional entry and expansion by wireless broadband providers, applying other appropriate policy levers, and spurring competition among broadband providers by improving the information available to consumers...&quot;The real risk here is that between the FCC and the Department of Justice (it isn't clear yet which agency will take the lead in reviewing the proposed merger), the deal won't be closed quickly, slowing the combined company's ability to deploy new 4G service to nearly everyone. The FCC's review of the Comcast-NBC merger, for example, took more than a year, despite the fact that the agency has a self-imposed (but unenforced) 180-day shot clock. After fits and starts, the approval resulted in a nearly 300-page document rife with irrelevant hand-wringing and unrelated conditions on the merged entity, including a promise to abide by the FCC's notorious net neutrality rules even if Congress or the courts ultimately overturn them. Indeed, reviewing the sorry history of the Comcast review, FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker recently noted with characteristic understatement, &quot;the current FCC merger review process is ripe for overhaul.&quot;This is just a start to what will be, in the best of circumstances, a long and complicated conversation about the AT&amp;T-T-Mobile deal. But when opponents line up to preemptively reject the deal before the details are even announced, you can count on a longer and largely pointless slog. Thinking--and actual economic analysis-- about proposed mergers is certainly harder than blustering about the &quot;unthinkable.&quot; But if the Washington advocacy groups actually want to do something to improve the consumer experience in mobile, they might give it a try.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[IDC: IT spending surges in 2010]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=idc-it-spending-surges-in-2010</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=idc-it-spending-surges-in-2010</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:10:30 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=idc-it-spending-surges-in-2010</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The IT market staged a healthy rebound last year, with global spending on IT products and services rising 8 percent from 2009 to more than $1.5 trillion, according to IDC's Worldwide Black Book report out today.The market research firm's 2010 numbers showed the fastest growth rate for the IT industry since 2007.Factoring in the telecommunications segment, the overall ICT (information and communications technology) market saw spending climb to almost $3 trillion, up 6 percent from 2009. Growth was driven by the need and ability among businesses to finally spend money to refresh their hardware and invest in their technology infrastructures, according to IDC. &quot;Like the global economy, the global IT industry performed better than expected in 2010,&quot; Stephen Minton, vice president of IDC's IT markets and strategies group, said in a statement. &quot;With business profits and stock markets back into a cycle of growth, many organizations took the opportunity to make up for lost time by upgrading mission critical systems and infrastructure over the course of the year.&quot;Overall, IDC found the recovery in the IT market more pronounced than those following previous recessions.Demand for new hardware drove 2010's rebound, as spending on computers, peripherals, storage technology, mobile devices, and network equipment rose by 16 percent to more than $661 billion, the fastest growth rate for hardware since 1996, said IDC. Breaking down the results, spending on storage products alone grew by 14 percent, spending on servers by 9 percent, and spending on PCs by 11 percent.Spending on software, though not as robust, also rose by 4 percent, while spending on IT services grew by 2 percent.IT spending in the U.S. rose by 6 percent last year and should grow by another 5 percent in 2011. But developing economies were the force behind much of the growth in 2010 and should continue to be so in 2011.Not counting Japan, the Asia/Pacific region's IT market climbed by 13 percent last year, with a 10 percent increase expected this year. IDC is also looking for double-digit growth from Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.IT spending in more developed economies, such as Western Europe, Japan, and Canada, will grow, but at slower rates, IDC said. Ongoing high levels of unemployment will dampen the ability to invest heavily in IT products and services, though companies will still spend on certain projects and services, such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and business analytics software. Looking ahead, IDC sees the overall IT market growing by 7 percent this year to $1.65 trillion. Spending on hardware will once again lead the way by rising 10 percent, while spending on software and IT services should rise by 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively, it predicts.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple wises up by sharing its Mac OS X Lion code with hackers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-wises-up-by-sharing-its-mac-os-x-lion-code-with-hackers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-wises-up-by-sharing-its-mac-os-x-lion-code-with-hackers</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-wises-up-by-sharing-its-mac-os-x-lion-code-with-hackers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple has taken the unusual step of sharing a copy of its Mac OS X Lion operating system with external security researchers, some of whom have published vulnerabilities with past Mac software.That&amp;'s pretty progressive thinking for Apple, which has previously kept mum about cooperating with security researchers, also known as hackers, who have from time to time caused the company embarrassment by breaking the security of its systems and then telling the world about it. In this case, the company is seeking feedback from the hackers in advance so that it can patch any holes in the security of the operating system before it is released. If it&amp;'s true, that&amp;'s a big step because it means that Apple is willing to trust the hackers with its code.&amp;''I wanted to let you know that I&amp;'ve requested that you be invited to the pre-release seed of Mac OS X Lion, and you should receive an invitation soon,&amp;'' said a letter sent by Apple to an unknown number of security researchers. &amp;''As you have reported Mac OS X security issues in the past, I thought that you might be interested in taking a look at this. It contains several improvements in the area of security countermeasures.&amp;''Dino Dai Zovi (pictured on left) and several other researchers tweeted about being invited to try out Lion. Charlie Miller (pictured on right), another security researcher, told Cnet that Apple has never reached out to security researchers in this way. If the researchers sign a non-disclosure agreement with Apple, they won&amp;'t be able to talk about what they find until the product is released. That muzzles any criticism until Apple has time to fix any flaws.&amp;''At least security crosses their mind now,&amp;'' Miller said.Both Dai Zovi and Miller are authors of the book The Mac Hacker&amp;'s Handbook and have become famous over the years for breaking the security on Apple&amp;'s products.You know that Apple wasn&amp;'t happy about that book. But it is very common for big companies to hire people like Miller and Dai Zovi to undertake &amp;''penetration testing,&amp;'' where the company sanctions them to break the company&amp;'s security so that it can be improved. The Linux operating system is constantly improved through the open-source process. But Apple has operated more as a closed company when it comes to security matters. Apple could afford to put security as a lower priority for many years because hackers always went after Windows instead. But now that Apple&amp;'s products are more popular, it is becoming a target.Previous Story: Nintendo 3DS starts selling in Japan &amp;8212' and gets hacked right awayPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Mac OS, OS X Lion, security researchersCompanies: ApplePeople: Charlie Miller, Dino Dai Zovi          Tags: Mac OS, OS X Lion, security researchersCompanies: ApplePeople: Charlie Miller, Dino Dai ZoviDean 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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<title><![CDATA[Flickr head of service announces his departure from Yahoo]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=flickr-head-of-service-announces-his-departure-from-yahoo</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=flickr-head-of-service-announces-his-departure-from-yahoo</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=flickr-head-of-service-announces-his-departure-from-yahoo</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Flickra4a4s  head of product within Yahooa4a4s applications division, Matthew  Rothenberg is leaving his post and the company, he announced yesterday  via his Twitter account.Rothenberg, who was among the first dozen hired at Flickr by original founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, led the  photo sharing sitea4a4s progress over the past five years, which includes  the recent design overhaul and various tweaks to make the site more friendly in the face of  competition from Facebook and other photo sharing networks.a4AWhile  I believe highly in the future of Flickr, my time to be leading the  charge has passed. I need to pass on the torch to the next generation of  Flickreenos, all of whom have a clear mission, sense of purpose, and  the drive and talent to get it done. I know that they are up for the  task,a4 Rothenberg stated on his blog.The  departure, Rothenberg asserted, was a personal decision and not one based  on any overall turmoil Yahoo has had internally. Unrest by those inside  the Yahoo camp became more public after the companya4a4s change in  direction under new CEO Carol Bartz.More  recently, there has been speculation about the future of Flickr given that Yahoo has outlined a  list of products that would either be restructured, shut down, or sold  off. Among those being sold off was the once shining example of Web 2.0 renaissance, Delicious that hasna4a4t changed much since it was acquired in 2005 despite rising competitors in the social bookmarking space.However, Yahoo has definitely given more attention to Flickr  than it did to Delicious, and the company claims it will continue to do so despite Rothenberg leaving.Yahooa4a4s official statement:Matthew  Rothenberg has made the personal decision to move on to a new endeavor. In the interim, Markus Spiering will be stepping in as head of product  management. Flickr continues to have an innovative, energetic and  creative leadership team that is dedicated to its community of members.  Flickr remains a key priority for Yahoo! and we are fully committed to  making it the best photo-sharing experience on the Web.Rothenberg declined to announce the details of his future plans but did state that it had been decided and would be revealed soon.Next Story: Intel plans Atom server chips to target fast-growing &amp;''micro servers&amp;'' Previous Story: Pricelock raises $12M to control fuel costsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: flickrPeople: Matthew Rothenberg          Companies: flickrPeople: Matthew RothenbergTom Cheredar is a contributing reporter at VentureBeat and freelance journalist. He graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in Journalism. In addition to covering technology, his work can be found at geeksofdoom.com. You can reach him on Twitter at @tched. 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[Nexon invests $5M in social game maker A Bit Lucky (exclusive)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nexon-invests-5m-in-social-game-maker-a-bit-lucky-exclusive</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nexon-invests-5m-in-social-game-maker-a-bit-lucky-exclusive</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>banely</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nexon-invests-5m-in-social-game-maker-a-bit-lucky-exclusive</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Korean online gaming firm Nexon has invested $5 million in Silicon Valley social game developer A Bit Lucky, maker of the popular Facebook game Lucky Train. The move helps Nexon position itself in the Facebook social gaming market and gives a small game developer an important ally in the broader online game market.The investment shows that there are still lots of alliances being formed among big game companies that want to break into Facebook gaming and that there&amp;'s a new tier of emerging game developers who are competing with the market leaders such as Zynga, EA-Playfish and CrowdStar. A Bit Lucky is clearly rising from the pack of many would-be competitors.Nexon has pioneered free-to-play online games on the web over the past decade, with hits such as MapleStory getting more than 100 million registered users. But big downloadable games such as that one don&amp;'t work on Facebook, where the key is to deliver instantly loading casual games that take maybe 10 minutes or less for a snack-like play experience.Nexon is slowly and deliberately expanding web-based online games to social network gaming, said Won Il Sue, vice president of business development at Nexon America, in an interview. Beyond the investment in A Bit Lucky, the company has other Facebook games in the works through outside game studios Antic and One2Tribe.A Bit Lucky, formed by some hardcore industry game veterans including Frederic Descamps (pictured right) and Jordan Maynard (pictured left), started relatively late in November, 2009. Descamps and Maynard worked together on hardcore online games at Trion Worlds. They struck out on their own, raised money in February 2010 and launched their first game in June 2010. Lucky Train has held steady at around 1 million monthly active users for some time.They were pretty late in starting a new game company on Facebook.  Just before they started, Electronic Arts began a consolidation phase by  purchasing Playfish for as much as $400 million. But Descamps, who was  also a veteran of the startup Xfire, and Maynard were excited about the  new opportunities in social games. Descamps started a regular social  game entrepreneur party, partly to learn from others and partly to  recruit employees. The parties have now grown to hundreds of people, a  reflection of the buzz around social games in Silicon Valley. As we noted in our first story on them, it was a  very social way for A Bit Lucky to dive into the social gaming universe.Back in October, the average play session was about 13  minutes, which is about four or five times higher than the average play  session for a Facebook game. Now it is about 20 minutes per session. About 20 million trains have been created, with 100 million train stops and 400 million round trips. That&amp;'s pretty good engagement.One of the reasons the game did well was that the animation was  fast for Facebook, where load times on social games can be painfully  slow. The company also used Applifier, a promotion bar that is installed on top of the game and promotes a bunch of third-party games. Applifier helps games feed users to each other.The market is still crowded, with bigger companies such as Zynga,  Disney Playdom, EA-Playfish, CrowdStar, LOLapps, Digital Chocolate,  Booyah and others &amp;8212' the list goes on and on. In the Facebook game space,  ita4a4s becoming harder to find spaces that others arena4a4t already  occupying.A Bit Lucky had previously raised $2.6 million from angels including SV Angel  (Ron Conwaya4a4s firm), Chris Dixona4a4s Founder Collective, Aydin Senkuta4a4s  Felicis Ventures, Red Octane founders Charles and Kai Huang, IGN  co-founder Mark Jung, Google M&amp;amp'A chief David Lawee, Lerer Ventures,  Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, early Facebook employee Jed Stremel,  and XG Ventures.Sue said that the market for social games has become overheated and the valuations are higher than normal because of the intense demand from investors to get into social game deals. But he said Nexon was very comfortable with Descamps and his team. Descamps said he fondly remembered visiting Nexon in South Korea to learn the ropes of free-to-play games while he was a graduate student at Stanford. Nexon had figured out how to make money from free-to-play, where users start playing for free and then pay real money for virtual goods, at a time when others either sold subscriptions or retail games. That&amp;'s the way that A Bit Lucky&amp;'s games work too.Nexon will get a new seat on the board while Lawee of Google and Andrew Trader, co-founder of Zynga, will both be joining A Bit Lucky&amp;'s board of advisors.Next Story: How DrChrono brings a4Ahacker culturea4 to health care Previous Story: Why &amp;''open innovation&amp;'' is no hoaxPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Facebook games, Lucky Train, social gamesCompanies: A Bit Lucky, Nexon          Tags: Facebook games, Lucky Train, social gamesCompanies: A Bit Lucky, NexonDean 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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