The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games
- It’s As If Apple Has Hired Don Draper
- DevHub Now Turns Building A Website Into A Game
- iChatr: Chatroulette For the iPhone
| Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games Posted: 10 Jul 2010 05:03 PM PDT
The investment part of the deal closed a month ago or so. A larger strategic partnership is still in process. The investment was made by Google itself, not Google Ventures, say our sources, and it’s a highly strategic deal. Zynga will be the cornerstone of a new Google Games to launch later this year, say multiple sources. Not only will Zynga’s games give Google Games a solid base of social games to build on, but it will also give Google the beginning of a true social graph as users log into Google to play the games. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see PayPal being replaced with Google Checkout as the primary payment option. Zynga is supposedly PayPal’s biggest single customer, and Google is always looking for ways to make Google Checkout relevant. And there’s more. These same sources are saying that Zynga’s revenues for the first half of 2010 will be a stunning $350 million, half of which is operating profit. Zynga is projecting at least $1.0 billion in revenue in 2011, say our sources. This blows previous estimates out of the water. Zynga continues to work on high level strategic business development deals. The reason these deals are so attractive to companies like Yahoo and now Google is this – Zynga allows them to rebuild the massive social graph, currently controlled by Facebook. For whatever reason people love to play these games and get passionately addicted to them, coming back day after day. That’s helped Facebook become what it is today. Google, Yahoo and others want some of that magic to rub off on them, too. We’ve reached out to both Google and Zynga for comment. Neither have responded. There will be lots more news on Google Games in the near future, we’re guessing. Here’s a job opening for a Product Lead for Google Games, for example:
     
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| It’s As If Apple Has Hired Don Draper Posted: 10 Jul 2010 01:08 PM PDT
It’s one thing to know what an iPhone is, but the fact that he was aware that there was a new iPhone caught me a bit off guard. As did the fact that he was talking to me about it. I directed him to my review. But he took one glance at the 3,500+ words and immediately came back at me. “I just want to know if it’s any good.” I told him I thought it was the best out there. He thanked me and said goodbye. But before I let him go, I asked him why on Earth he wanted to know. I mean, again, this is a guy who undoubtedly uses one of these types of phones. He said that he travels a lot now and wants a better way to connect with his girlfriend on the road. I asked him, “why the iPhone?” His answer? The commercial. Watching Apple’s iPhone 4 FaceTime commercial again, it reminds me of something: Mad Men. The television show is starting its fourth season in a couple of weeks, but the commercial takes me back to the end of season one — an episode called “The Wheel.” I’ve actually talked about this episode before because it contains a scene that is perhaps the best in the entire series. In it, ad man Don Draper gives a presentation to Kodak showing why Sterling Cooper should be handling the account for their new picture projector. The pitch (which you can see here, but sadly I can’t embed) starts out with two execs from Kodak acknowledging that creating an ad around this “wheel” is hard because “wheels aren’t really seen as exciting technology, even though they are the original.” Draper fires back, “Technology is a glittering lure. But there’s the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash. If they have a sentimental bond with the product.“ In the iPhone 4 FaceTime commercial, that’s exactly what Apple is playing up. As we’re all well aware, video chat, even on phones, is nothing new. Sure, Apple has simplified it, but they’re not really showcasing that here. Instead they’re going right for the heart strings. They’re doing something rather incredible. They’re conveying how you’ll feel if you use the product, by making you feel alongside those in the commercial. They’re creating this sentimental bond. Draper continues, talking about an old copyrighter he used to work with, Teddy. “He also talked about a deeper bond with the product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate. But potent.” Draper fires up the projector. “Teddy told me that in Greek, Nostalgia literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.” Again, that’s this FaceTime commercial. It’s not old pictures, but it’s more powerful. It’s loved ones that you haven’t seen in a while, that you’re apart from, right there in front of you, live. ”It takes us to a place where we ache to go again,” as Draper puts it. ”It lets us travel the way a child travels. Round and around and back home again. To a place where we know we’re loved.“ And Apple goes a step further. Rather than just playing up the family bond which they do with the baby crawling on the bed, the mother with the baby, and the grandparents with the graduating grandchild, Apple shows a pregnant wife getting an ultrasound and her husband in the military, presumably overseas, watching. When the wife hits the button to flip the camera and show the unborn baby on the monitor, they cut to a shot of the husband and his face drops as if he’s about to cry. It’s extremely powerful stuff. Then Apple kicks it up another notch. They show a girlfriend waving to a boyfriend through FaceTime just as any other couple might. Only then they reveal that the boyfriend is deaf. But thanks to the video functionality, the two can sign with one another. The commercial wraps with them each looking at the phone in awe after they sign their goodbyes, as if they’ve just done something unbelievable. Something extremely important to them. And they have. It’s delicate. But potent. It shouldn’t be surprising that Apple hired Hollywood director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) to direct this commercial. Levels of sentiment that people often feel while watching movies rarely, if ever, travel over to advertising. But they have in this FaceTime commercial, just as they have in Draper’s Kodak presentation. It’s as if the Apple commercial borrowed a page out of the playbook that Draper was talking about in that episode. Apple, of course, has a history of great advertising campaigns. From the ’1984′ Super Bowl commercial (directed by another Hollywood guy, Ridley Scott), to the Think Different campaign, to the Get a Mac spots, each was effective at conveying different things about the brand. But this latest commercial is the first (to my knowledge) that really aims to connect with people on a deep emotional level. And it’s going to help Apple sell a massive amount of iPhone 4s.To people like my friend.      
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| DevHub Now Turns Building A Website Into A Game Posted: 10 Jul 2010 12:01 PM PDT
DevHub cofounder Mark Michael says that a lot of users of the old version of DevHub would create their sites and only take advantage of the most basic features, leaving skeleton websites in their wake (a phenomenon that is doubtless seen on other website creators). To help remedy this, the new DevHub walks you through creating your site step by step, rewarding you for completing actions with points that can be used to further improve your site. When you first sign up you’re asked to choose from four tracks: blog, ‘WebHub’ (which is a portal with your social media profiles), a small business site, and a product promotion site (Michael says more tracks are on the way). After choosing a track, the site will show a wizard pointing out its main features. Finally, once you’re in the builder, you’ll be prompted to complete tasks like adding a profile photo, connecting your Facebook account, and blogging something. Completing these actions allows you to accrue virtual points, which can in turn be used to further improve your site. Additional features that can be purchased in the DevHub marketplace include new templates, the ability to embed widgets, and a link roll. Michael says that earning these doesn’t actually take very long (he wagers you could earn them in around twenty minutes of fixing up your site) — the goal is to get people to fill everything out and build a full-fledged website, and this provides a way to handhold them through the process. Alternatively, users can purchase these features without earning them for pretty steep amounts of real money. Obviously there’s a ton of competition in the site creation space, but this seems like a pretty good way to get users engaged to the point that they’ll keep coming back to DevHub after signing up. Along with the main site, DevHub also white-labels its platform. The company has raised around $1.5 million dollars and has around fifteen employees.
     
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| iChatr: Chatroulette For the iPhone Posted: 10 Jul 2010 11:26 AM PDT
     
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Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth 
The other day I was talking to an old friend. Not only is this friend outside the tech sphere, he’s just about as opposite of tech savvy as a person can be. He’s basically a luddite. In fact, I was surprised he was even IMing with me, he’s so seldom online. But I was more surprised by what he asked me. “What do you think of the new iPhone?“
Oh, Internet, is there anything you can’t do? iChatr, a new app for the iPhone, is essentially Chatroulette for the iPhone. It’s pretty barren right now – I saw the same people once or twice – but the quality is pretty good and if you have a 
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