Consort Partners

Strobe lights up developers hearts | Consort Partners

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Last week, Strobe lit up the social media airwaves when news broke they were giving away a limited number of access codes to their highly anticipated app delivery network, a one-stop shop that allows developers to create and manage HTML5-based web apps for smartphones, desktops and tablets from a single interface.  The Twitter-sphere in particular was aglow with requests to @Strobe for the access code, as developers quickly recognized the benefit of using Strobe’s platform to regain control over the way apps are built, published, monetized and managed.  Now the question of whether to go web app or native is dramatically simplified.  Just go Strobe.

Strobe is founded by Charles Jolley, a former JavaScript Frameworks Manager at Apple, where he worked on MobileMe and iCloud. He’s also the creator of the open source JavaScript framework, SproutCore, which powered Apple’s Web services.

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RelayRides accelerates with funding and expansion

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Congratulations to the team at RelayRides, the world’s first neighbor-to-neighbor carsharing service – last week they announced that Shasta Ventures and sharing economy expert, entrepreneur and “The Mesh” author Lisa Gansky joined Google Ventures and August Capital in boosting the company’s total Series A.2 funding to $10 million.

RelayRides also announced they are expanding throughout San Francisco and Boston proper, enabling more people to choose access over ownership.

One of the key differences in RelayRides neighbor-to-neighbor car sharing service is that it not only provides a $1 million per transaction insurance policy to car owners, but also provides security technology to give owners the assurance that their car won’t end up in the wrong hands.

Coverage highlights included:

  

 

 

Summertime, and the living is easy - especially if you're planning a holiday with Gekko

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Taking a vacation is always something to look forward to, but planning the vacation isn’t something that’s on the top of the list.  Where should we go?  Which hotel? Where shall we eat?  Shall we spend hours surfing the internet, or call a travel agency and then get charged a commission? I wish I could just ask my Facebook friends for their insider tips and advice, as I’m sure there are quite a few that could give me insider’s tips and advice.

Lucky for me, Gekko has just launched an app that will do just that, plus more.

Now, as MSNBC put it so well, you can “Friend your way to better travel.”  Gekko is a new Facebook app that allows users to get travel recommendations from friends, compare hotel prices, and also lets you request deals directly from hotels if you don’t find the price you’re looking for.  So instead of going through multiple steps – ping my friends, Google the hotel, check the hotel website, enter my dates and get a price, ring the hotel to see if there are deals missing from the website, ugh, you get the idea – I can now do all of these steps in one fell swoop.  Saving me time and money, which means I can spend more time packing sundresses and SPF, then working on my vacation.  Oh, it also gives me a nice way to spark new conversations with friends – “Ooh, so you’re thinking of going to Iceland?!  How cool is that?” (Probably very cool – or even cold).

Check it out at apps.facebook.com/gekko

Zoe Nature's Michael Mountain blogging on Orcas

I'm a big fan of Zoe Nature, a website devoted to animals and the world of nature.

This week, Editor-in-Chief Michael Mountain is blogging about orcas from a conference on San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest.

The first entry is about the birthday party that was held on the island for Grandma J2 – the matriarch of the “J” clan of orcas. It was her 100th birthday (she's in the photo above).

While no one knows exactly when Grandma J2 was born, the whale researchers can give a fairly good estimate, and they’ve figured out that she must have been born around 1911. Hers is an amazing story.

The visit includes outings with the orcas, presentations from some of the world’s experts on orcas, and other fun stuff.

You can learn more about J2 and news from the trip at zoenature.org.

King.com kicks cross-platform butt!

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In today's Inside Social Games, King's MAU (Monthly Average Users) and DAU (Daily Average Users) for newly launched Miner Speed are illustrated, showing a fantastic growth curve.  The game was just released on the iOS as a free app just last week, so these numbers are especially impressive.

The social games industry is moving more towards the cross-platform approach, yet few if any have been able to successfully bridge the divides.  With these results, King is proving they are onto something.  Puzzle Saga, Bubble Saga, Miner Speed and King's games portal all occupyed spots in the weekly lists of top 20 games by growth on AppData in the last month.  I'm excited to see what's next!

Viewdle launches Social Camera so you can tag, share and socialize on the go

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I like to take a lot of pictures so I often encounter an intimidating backlog of pictures I need to sort through.  Gah - who was that person in this shot again?  Did I send this to my peeps already, or not.  When your mind isn't operating like a spring chicken, it's nice to have technology come to the rescue.

Hooray for Viewdle's Social Camera - the only way to tag friends in your mobile photos and share them instantly with Facebook, Flickr, MMW or email.

Tag photos of friends with your phone 

Want to tag photos from your phone? SocialCamera is the only way to tag the mobile photos that you want to send to friends.  SocialCamera works with the Android camera, so you can take photos with built-in, instant tagging. It uses Viewdle’s advanced face recognition technology to identify the people you take photos of the most, and tag them for you.

Automatically share your photos

It only takes 1 click to share your tagged photos with friends through Facebook, Flickr, MMS, or email.  As you take photos, SocialCamera will create a faceprint of your friends, so you can automatically match their social contact info to their picture – your camera will know who to send your photos to.   Sharing photos on Facebook will automatically add them to a new album for your friends to see instantly.

Socialize with your photos

SocialCamera was created to start conversations with the phone on your camera. Faceprints of your friends will let you communicate back and forth, with photos.  Adding a caption to your photo will let you add a message or status to any email, MMS, Facebook post, or Flickr photo you tag.

Download SocialCamera in the Android App market for free here https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Viewdle.

 

King.com Delivers First Mobile Game with Cross-Platform Approach

Today, leading social games company, King.com, announced the launch of Miner Speed on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, the first mobile game within King’s new cross-platform approach. In the new mobile app, users will be able to play with friends via Facebook Connect, or offline to hone their skills for tournament gameplay on Facebook or King.com.

Additional games will be announced in the coming months across the iOS and Android operating systems for both mobile and tablet devices.

Miner Speed is an addictive game that challenges users to switch the jewels to increase their multiplier by making big combinations. Users that quickly match as many jewels as they can, have the best chance of getting the highest score possible.

Miner Speed for iOS is free and can be downloaded at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/miner-speed/id423520924?mt=8.

To become a part of the King.com community and get a taste of some of the world's most popular games, please visit www.king.com or http://apps.facebook.com/king_com/.

 

Dang - according to CNBC, I have the 2nd most stressful job of 2011

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via cnbc.com

Apparently, PR execs have the second most stressful job, right behind Commercial Airline Pilots (so much for my recent flying lessons) and right before Senior Corporate Execs.  The reason for the stress in PR is:

Public relations executives are “completely at the mercy of their clients and buyers,” says Tony Lee, noting that their success or failure depends on the actions and decisions of clients, creating a stressful situation because their performance is in many ways out of their hands.

Well, I do agree there are elements that are beyond our control.  For example, today President Obama is at Facebook for a Town Hall event and there are a lot of media in attendance.  If we would have had a client announcement today, it would have been tough to compete with the President for attention.  However, there are many other times when we usher a client announcement to the press and everything goes smoothly and spectacularly.  I guess those are the days that compensate for the stressful days!

 

Tech Cocktail SXSW Presented by LiveShare from Cooliris

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Cooliris is sponsoring this year's must-go party at SXSW, the Tech Cocktail Kickoff on Sunday, March 13th.  I'm looking forward to kicking up my heels in Austin!

Don't forget to download the LiveShare by Cooliris app.  If you do and show it at the event, you may win prizes throughout the night and will have access to all the fabulous photos from the party.

King.com hosting SXSW panel featuring David Luner of Fremantle Media, Kris Soumas of ROI World, producer/screenwriter/author Noah Hawley, King's own Owais Farooqi, moderated by Brad Stone, BusinessWeek

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I'm looking forward to this SXSW panel on Tuesday, March 14th at 11:00AM as industry experts gather to discuss, debate and explore how TV networks are leveraging interactivity and gaming to extend their brands to fans.  

For decades, TV-show fans have sought ways to extend their connection to their favorite show characters with things like branded cereals, toys, board games, music or the like. Fans often can't wait for the next episode and especially dread the time between seasons. They want to interact and even play along with their favorite shows. This is a reality that TV networks are creating through branded online games and social games.

The session will sample real case studies from experiences over several seasons with shows and branded games like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Biggest Loser, Survivor, and others. Panel members will also explore how games enable an additional channel for TV networks to reach global fans via social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 and Bebo, especially as we're seeing games being the number one used applications on many social networks.

Topics will include:
  • Why are TV networks leveraging games to extend their brands to fans?
  • How are games enabling TV networks to extend their reach through global social networks like Facebook, Bebo, etc?
  • How have online games faired so far for promoting and extending TV show brands and what other industries can/will this trend extend to?
  • How have online games for TV shows affected the gaming industry?
  • What's the next development for the online games and TV network partnerships?