musings of a social architect

Japanses Animated Ads

Crazy, silly, funny animated snack foor ads from Japan, courtesy of Boing Boing.

Showing off a virtual-world physics engine

Check out these "Falling dominoes" videos from Half-Life and Second Life.

MetroGirl now available on Cingular

I'm excited to see that Metrogirl, a mobile app that I designed in partnership with Digital Chocolate, is now available on Cingular. I'm really proud of this fun little app, and I hope some of you check it out!

Designer handbags for your Ipod

Stylish Ipod handbags here!

Wired News: Games Migrate to Mobile Phones

Nice article in WIRED News summing up the state of mobile gaming at E3. italics mine

Mobile-phone gaming has historically been driven by casual games, ports of old arcade games, and simplified versions of sports games. True to form, those genres are in heavy attendance at E3...Meanwhile, a steady stream of console hits are headed to cell phones, albeit often in heavily altered form...Games based on movies are also as popular in the mobile phone world as they are in the console world...

In an intriguing move, In-Fusio is working on integration of web gaming
and mobile phone gaming with Neopets Mobile, a wireless gateway to the
popular virtual pet web game Neopets. ... so even if the hardcore
gamers don't get into mobile phone gaming, maybe the hardcore collectors
will.

Link

"Videoke" Singalong Wireless Microphone

OMG - I think I've found the portable Karaoke system of my dreams. Check it out, Karaoke aficianados.

Kittenwar - our new favorite game

Have you played kittenwar yet? It's a 2-kitten rating game, populated by player-submitted kitten pix. The top-ten lists (cutest and ugliest kittens) are priceless!

User-created content, lightweight gameplay, cute kittens.... what's not to like? :-)

UPDATE: if you like KittenWar, you're LOVE feline zen 2005 -- a collection of kitten-related links.

Market opportunity for female-friendly mobile games

M:Metrics has just released a study that indicates an unmet appetite among females for mobile games. This is the type of research that's driving Sprint's recent category changes

M:Metrics, the industry authority on the measurement of subscriber consumption of mobile content and applications, reports that although there is an equal gender split in mobile game play, with 32 percent of females and 34 percent of males reporting they play mobile games, males are twice as likely to download a mobile game.

"Mobile game publishers and carriers should be encouraged by these findings, as they reveal that women's appetites for mobile games have not been sated by the downloadable options available on carrier decks," said Mark Donovan, vice president, product and senior analyst, M:Metrics, who will address E3 attendees at iHollywood's Next-Gen and Mobile Games Forum tomorrow. "There is a significant opportunity for the industry to provide a compelling gaming experience for women, as currently, only half of the mobile games audience is being served."

Donovan says that although 67 percent of mobile game downloaders are men, women represent 46 percent of subscribers who download mobile content across all categories, and are equally likely to pay for gender-neutral content, such as ringtones. M:Metrics found that nearly half - 48.9 percent - of survey respondents who downloaded ringtones were women.

New categories on Sprint

Today, Sprint announced some spiffy new 3D games, & some new download categories for mobile games. I participated in naming these categories, so I'm very happy to see this work see the light of day. Here are the new categories:

-- Lite Fun - offering Scrabble from JAMDAT, Hangman Tournament from
Jsmart and other titles that are popular with women

-- Quick Play - find games like Block Breaker Deluxe from Gameloft and
Bejeweled Multiplayer from JAMDAT that can be played in just a couple
minutes

-- Games for Gamers - games such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory from
Gameloft and Call of Duty(TM) from Mforma are best left to the pros

-- Only on Sprint - hot games exclusively offered to Sprint customers

Debut of the ToneBlocks

For the past few months, Gabriel (age 6) has been talking about forming a band called the ToneBlocks. He came up with the idea himself -- I think it's a great name for a kids' band, and (being a bass player myself) I support his impulse to create a musical group composed of people with different talents. I've learned SO MUCH about group dynamics from playing in bands -- & it gives me thrill to see my son starting down the same path.

This past weekend, we had some friends over for dinner. By the end of the evening, Gabe had organized the kids into a band, and we were all treated to an impromptu performance of the ToneBlocks. I look forward to many more musical experiments :-)