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Showing posts from April, 2009

Video Games ARE the Video Games of the Future!

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No doubt, it is a hot, hot market and apparently somewhat recession proof. Video Games and, by extension, Virtual Entertainment(basically a game but based on a paradigm of experience rather than score/achievement) are a huge market with a worldwide projected value of $47Bn by 2010 under a CAGR of 14%(PwC, 2008). Great potential and a huge area for VCs to invest in. In 2008, funding alone for games & virtual worlds reached almost $1Bn from Venture & Angel sources which went into a approximately 110 firms(VentureBeat, April 26th 2009). With that in mind, it is a good market for any VC to be aware of so here are some thoughts about innovations that might make for good investments: Mobile Gaming / Wireless - not wireless game controllers, but actual wireless/mobile game versions that can be ported over to PDA/Cell device so that people can continue to play while on the subway or training to work or breaking for lunch. Packet or "chapter" technology that can allow for peo

Thoughts on the Facebook Interface

I was discussing the uses of social media for businesses recently with a VC contact of mine in NYC. A by-product from the disconnect that exists between social and business media, I feel there is a missing piece of the puzzle here that Facebook could crack and establish a more direct stream of revenue. Facebook is a person-centric platform in which a user's profile or "Face" is the brand which is the whole point of social networking. This differs from the MySpace strategy which simply allows homepages to be built around a business presence and allows almost complete customization. Facebook limits the changes but benefits from the user-defined & private network experience while still allowing a person to become a fan. What Facebook does not allow is the creation of actual facebook profile or homepages for a business (eg a company does not have a "face"). To this end, Facebook allows Pages or News Feeds or Events to be created as secondary tiers for a person&#