Showing posts with label Former. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Former. Show all posts

Thursday, 23 June 2011

MindJolt Taps Former Google, MySpace Mobile Exec To Lead SGN Studio

As we reported in April, MindJolt, the game distribution company that was acquired by MySpace founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe, bought Social Gaming Network (SGN). SGN’s founder Shervin Pishevar recently announced his move to the venture world, joining Menlo Ventures as a partner. Today MindJolt is announcing a new head of SGN’s social mobile game development studio—seasoned mobile vet Ulf Waschbusch.


For background, SGN creates a number of popular games for iPhone and Android devices and social platforms like Facebook. SGN’s hit online and mobile games (which have seen 30 million downloads to date), include Mini Tycoon Casino, F.A.S.T., and Skies of Glory. MindJolt bought SGN to create a cross-platform game distribution empire, and SGN brought a solid set of mobile titles and technology and a number of talented engineers.


Waschbusch has held senior mobile product roles for Google, MySpace and T-Mobile, most recently serving as Chief Product Officer at Garena, one of the largest gaming community platforms with more than 60-million registered users.


At Google, he was Mobile Marketing Product Manager. As a sidenote, back in 2008, Waschbusch publicly criticized Google’s Android platform. He claimed phone’s physical design hasn’t changed in 2.5 years, and called it ‘ugly and old fashioned.’


And of course, DeWolfe has prior experience working with Waschbusch at MySpace, where he helped lead mobile product development.


Mobile is definitely a key component of DeWolfe’s strategy for MindJolt’s expansion. In April, DeWolfe told us that the gaming studio would be partnering with with movie studios and entertainment companies to create cross-platform branded, game titles. As gaming on smartphones heats up, mobile is a big part of this plan.










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Square Adds Former U.S. Secretary Of The Treasury Larry Summers To Board

After adding Vinod Khosla to its board a few weeks ago, mobile payments startup Square is racking up another big name to its board of directors—Larry Summers. Summers served as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States from 1999 to 2001, and was most recently the Chief Economic Advisor to President Obama. Square says that it has created a new seat on its board for Summers.


Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey said this of Summers joining the board: We are proud to have Larry join our board and we welcome his insight and decades of leadership to our growing company…Square is at a key point in our trajectory and we know Larry will contribute tremendous wisdom and expertise toward our continued success.


In addition to his roles in serving the U.S. government, Summers was also the 27th President of Harvard University where he remained for 5 years. He joined the National Economic Council in 2009 where he served as Chief Economic Advisor to the President. Currently Summers is a professor at Harvard University.


Whereas Khosla adds Silicon Valley technology and investment clout to Square’s board, Summers adds financial and government depth to Square’s board. It’s impressive for a payments company to have a  former U.S. economic chief and Treasury head advising the company.


The mobile payments company also received a vote of confidence from the finance industry with a strategic investment from Visa a few months ago. And an exec from bank J.P. Morgan Chase is currently an advisor to the company.


Summers has actually invested and advised technology companies previously, including The Big Think. Summers is also on the board at Revolution Money.


It’s no secret that Square is growing like crazy. And the company is also reportedly raising $50 million-plus in new funding at a whopping $2 billion valuation. Which brings up the question—did Summers get a board seat because he invested in Square?










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Wednesday, 22 June 2011

A New Mobile Social Games King In The U.S.? Former Facebookers Take Storm8 To 210 Million Downloads

On the heels of PopCap’s billion dollar acquisition comes some interesting news from the social games front: Game developer Storm8 is today announcing a few impressive stats. Among other things, the company is claiming that it has become the “largest mobile social games developer in the U.S.”, boasting over 210 million downloads across iOS and Android. While those numbers are certainly impressive, with Angry Birds raking in over 200 million downloads, I think Rovio, Zynga, PopCap, Outfit7 and quite a few others might have a thing or two to say about that, each of which has fairly sizable user bases in the U.S. Then again, Rovio is in fact Helsinki-based and Outfit7 is international as well so Storm8′s claim to American soil likely stands — at least in relation to the Angry Birds and Talking Tom Cat makers, respectively.


Co-founded in 2009 by Chak Ming Li and Perry Tam, both former Facebook engineers, Storm8 is most well known for being the creator of addicting role playing games on the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices — as well as for being the parent company of top mobile social game developer, TeamLava. According to Tam, who is also Storm8′s CEO, each game released by the Storm8-TeamLava group has reached the Top 10 on the App store free app category. Not too shabby.


The team’s suite of games, which includes titles like iMobsters, World War, Vampires Live, Pets Live, Bakery Story, Restaurant Story, and Fashion Story, is currently averaging over 4 million daily active users, Tam tells me.


What’s more, earlier this month during a promotional event, Storm8 reached a unique achievement: It had its first “million dollar day”, which of course is another way of saying that the company raked in $1 million in a single day thanks to in-app purchases made utilizing its freemium model.


Taking advantage of the skyrocketing popularity of social games on mobile platforms, Storm8 has managed to hit these milestones without taking any outside investment. Tam wasn’t willing to divulge what the company’s revenues look like at this point, but with a million dollar day already in its pocket, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Storm8 has cleared profitability and will continue to see escalating revenues as it embarks on its mission to bring its game catalog to an international market.


Frictionless payment methods and easy-to-find and utilize virtual rewards, Tam said, are the key to success in taking advantage of the mobile revolution catching on across the globe. Not only that, but the CEO has high hopes for the Android market:


We believe Android’s time in social gaming has arrived and feel our new titles will flourish thanks to innovations we’ve made in gameplay and the overall improvement of Android infrastructure.


While 210 million+ downloads across 58 devices and a user base that has grown 300 percent this year are certainly impressive stats (as are those in the graphic above), I’m still hesitant to give Storm8 the “largest mobile social games maker” crown, but this does seem evidence enough to prove that there is some serious competition for our hearts and minds in social games on our mobile devices. Storm8 will no doubt continue to play a big role in mobile social games in the foreseeable future. So check ‘em out.










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