Ideas and reviews for websites, film, business, products, and designMicroblog your ideas and be discovered

The gaming industry continues to see phenomenal growth – from console systems to social games. The 12 million subscribers of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft – once the giant of gaming – now seems small compared to the 80 million Farmville players. Farmville’s maker, Zynga was recently estimated to be worth $5 billion – a valuation that appears to bode well for investors and for startups. But are games good buys? Can gaming startups attract the investment they need? Sponsor Gaming industry consultant Nicholas Lovell recently wrote a post on the blog Gamasutra where he suggested “Four Reasons Why VCs Won’t Fund Game Companies.” Lovell’s arguments are as follows 1. VCs don’t invest in projects Lovell contends that game developers are good at creating (and even at pitching) projects, but that VCs don’t necessarily care what makes a good project – in other words, what makes a good game. “Investors care about businesses; developers show them projects.” 2. Investors want to see a running business, not an idea 3. VCs want sustainable businesses Lowell writes, “Traditional games developers are really difficult for any investor to fund. They look like quite late-stage businesses: they may have hundreds of staff, millions in turnover and a proven track record. But fundamentally, they are always just one deal away from bankruptcy. They look like startups from a risk perspective but are like late stage investments from a reward perspective.” 4. History sucks The history of the gaming industry is full of failed businesses, and as such VCs find the investment there to be risky. Arguably, investors’ opinions might be changing, particularly given the rapidly increasing popularity of social games. While traditional console games and MMORPGs require significant investment and substantial development time before a game is “live,” social games are, arguably, “lighter.” With the growth in virtual goods and virtual currency, even “free” social games, as Farmville and the like have demonstrated, can become vastly popular and very profitable. Discuss

I sincerely believe there is a facet of Twitter for just everybody. Well, I am left with no other option if I try to understand the emergence of these apps and sites that provide services which are a little offbeat. That doesn’t make the any less useful, it is just that they have an appeal that is so circumscribed that one wonders how necessary they are. Read more Learn more about Paper.li in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Paper.li is worth with Stimator.com

Google and 45 other organizations have sent a public letter to President Barack Obama calling for federal support for technology and education that would give consumers access to information about their energy consumption and give companies the ability to build applications on top of that information. Google, AT&T, General Electric, Intel, The Climate Group and the Natural Resources Defense Council and others will hold an event tomorrow titled ” Power in Numbers: Unleashing Innovation in Home Energy Use .” Sponsor “By giving people the ability to monitor and manage their energy consumption, for instance, via their computers, phones or other devices,” the group wrote in its letter to the President, “we can unleash the forces of innovation in homes and businesses.” Substantial challenges stand in the way of widespread smart-grid innovation. We highlighted a write-up by green tech reporter Katie Fehrenbacher last year that discussed the foot dragging going on in the world of local utility providers. ( Why Smart Grids Could Be Slow to Beat Web 2.0 ) Fehrenbacher argued that utility companies don’t get it, are afraid of the costs, and are thus unlikely to offer the kind of “real time” data delivery that could serve as a foundation for eye-opening innovation like we’ve seen from the networked world of the Internet. Fehrenbacher wrote last year. Many people (myself included) have painted a picture of how the consumer piece of the smart grid could develop into a real-time, two-way communication network that looks a lot like the Internet. In that world, consumers would be able to see variable pricing change in real time, while smart meters and energy management devices read and visualize energy consumption data every second, leading to changes in consumer behavior. The ultimate vision of that landscape is that real-time energy data unleashes innovations and applications that we haven’t yet thought of, which will deliver substantial behavior changes. Well, that’s the outcome for which entrepreneurs and innovators are hoping. The reality is that the consumer piece of the smart grid will look very different for many years to come. Perhaps a large coalition of organizations can prompt meaningful government support that will engage with these and other obstacles to energy data innovation. Discuss

There are few things that are as vital and taxing as keeping your finances in order. That goes a long way into explaining why the market of apps and tools for managing financial matters is so teeming. BudgetFix is a new addition to that list. Read more Learn more about Budgetfix.net in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Budgetfix.net is worth with Stimator.com

A new project management solution, Doolphy will let any coordinator keep an eye on the evolution of the different projects that his team or teams have to tackle. This application has an intuitive interface that will let you visualize everything instantly, and the relevant items can be shared among the different members of your team. Something pivotal like administering time is also accounted for, and Doolphy will allow you to change the hours which are allocated to any project so that everything is ready when it has to be. Read more Learn more about Doolphy.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Doolphy.com is worth with Stimator.com