Abhishek Tiwari

Over past few years social networking has become a mainstay of the online experience. Most internet users have heard of MySpace, Facebook or Orkut, if not participate in one. But what about social gaming? This primarily has been restricted within the online game-play modes of Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, which is limited to full blown complex games. There are PC based internet alternatives but they are as complex.

doof on the other hand is a new service, which has launched in beta. Their approach is very similar to the video arcade, only for the web. Remember the arcades with simple games where one popped in few quarters and they delivered tons of fun.

doof’s service, fully developed in flash has a similar approach. They have created over 50 simple web based games, which remind you of the ones in the arcade. These games are very simple to learn and play. As a player one can quickly start enjoying the game, without have to worrying about learning the controls. Ofcourse one has to get good at the game to win points and get ahead in the rankings. One can play them solo or get into multi-player tournaments. The normal game play is free, but the multi-player game-play requires credits, which can be purchased using PayPal or credit cards. Players can also earn credits by beating the top scores, meeting benchmark scores and of course by winning multi-player challenges.

go on reading »

Share This

In fact this time around it sounds like an all out war. A month ago I posted about NBC Universal breaking ties with Apple, which I got a lot of heat for. However it is all coming true now. Last time it was just them severing ties. This time they are planning a total attack.

At the helm is one of the most powerful execs in the music biz Doug Morris (Chairman and CEO, Universal Music Group). For this war he is enlisting help of unlikely allies, Sony BMG Music and Warner Music Group. Together the trio will control 75% of the music sold in US. Their plan is to loosen Apple’s stronghold on the digital music business. They want to offer services, which take the music beyond the iPod / iTunes ecosystem and proliferate in other (aka not so successful) portable devices and mobile phones

According to Business Week, the new service will be called “Total Music”. The plan of attack includes a deep partnership with device manufacturers, whereby they can offer “all you can eat” models to the public. The business model includes absorbing the $5 subscription fee in the device costs, hence making the ongoing music cost for free. Morris is basically trying to beat Apple at its own game by taking it to the maximum level. You can catch all the details on Business Week or catch the conversation at TechMeme.

Now quite frankly this has been brewing for some time now. However, I wasn’t expecting a total offense from these guys and frankly such a joint initiative is impressive. I am sure the music execs have been thinking about this for some time now. They haven’t been happy about Apple controlling their online fates by mandating the $0.99 model.

go on reading »

Share This

Yes, that is the recipe for making Mojito or Mint Julep, depending on whatever you are into. No, I am not making this a cocktail friendly blog, it was just my cutesy way to discuss some feature recommendations for Mint, the new personal finance service. I wrote about them few weeks back, when they had launched. I had rave reviews on their offering and encouraged my readers to try them out. No wonder, they won the TechCrunch 40 award.

This post however takes a different angle. I have been regularly using Mint for past month or so. I am what you call the repeat customer, using it twice a week on average. The reason I stuck was due to the fact that I have been looking for such a service for a long time. I had nbeen a Quicken user for sometime but left it while moving to Mac. Apart from their crappy mac UI, their software in general is pretty complex. I couldn’t see myself using it twice a week.

Anyways after using Mint over past few weeks, I have some recommendations (the Sugar and Rum, if you will). Hopefully the team there can digest these and incorporate in a later release. I am not pointing out any obvious bugs here, only feature recommendations as a regular user.

go on reading »

Share This

There have been significant discussions over the past few months around offering open wireless access. It all emanated from the upcoming FCC auction of the 700 MHZ spectrum. You can read the details from yesterday’s post.

However the brouhaha has been over offering the following on the new spectrum:

• Open Devices
  • Meaning users can buy devices from anywhere as far as they support the frequency. The wireless operator cannot lock the subscribers into any specific device
• Open Applications
  • Meaning that any application/service provider can deploy software which can run on these devices

As one can imagine that this has become a burning issue among the big boys of wireless. In middle of all this Sprint has been quietly working on deploying their WiMax service. Just last week they launched in Chicago (at WiMax World) at a snazzy press event staged on a cruise. Among various announcements they provided the first glimpse into the pricing structure of their service, which is scheduled to launch in 2008.

go on reading »

Share This

Most of you know about Google throwing in the gauntlet in the wireless game. I have extensively covered some of that in this blog. Read the first four posts here:

1. Rise of the GoogNet
2. Rise of the GoogNet — Part 2
3. Rise of the GoogNet — Part 3 Well Sort Of
4. Rise of the GoogNet — Most Likely

Now things had been going hunky dory for Google. FCC had accepted two of four Google’s demands and most of the blogosphere was pretty happy with the results. However as one can expect, the big boys of wireless weren’t quite happy with the results. AT&T reacted with strong words. However Verizon the true veteran in this space had other ideas.

Verizon with its barrage of lawyers and access to unlimited knowledge of wheeling and dealing in the wireless space sued the FCC itself. They weren’t happy with the two options around open devices and open applications (surprise surprise!). As usual they want to lock the devices and offer limited access to the consumers.

Google has been pretty disappointed with these moves and has reacted strongly on their blog. RCR Wireless is also accusing Verizon of behind the scenes lobbying. All this has many worried and it seems like FCC may end up revising the rules. Google is standing by their views and are in constant conversations with FCC. Google has also claimed that if they win the auction from FCC, no matter what the rules say, they will open up the devices and applications.

Verizon who I had covered recently as the rejuvenated company, is looking as the bad guy in all this. Given their moves and public statements I am sure they aren’t making any friends. Certainly not Google.

I am definitely in favor of open policies. After all we the consumers here in the US will suffer if these rules aren’t changed. Frankly we live in the “third world” of wireless and will continue on that path if the incumbents had their way…

Share This