Bezos Expeditions invests 36 3 million into social gaming site: related news

Bezos Expeditions invests $3 million into social gaming site

Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment arm of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has invested $3 million in Kongregate, a 2-year-old social gaming site that taps into the "indie gaming" phenomenon. Kongregate co-founder and CEO Jeff Greer said Wednesday the investment will be used to develop display advertising for the free Web site that now offers more than 4,000 games from more than 1,600 independent developers around the world. San Francisco-based Kongregate competes with other gaming sites such as Miniclip and AddictingGames. Unlike rivals that typically pay licensing fees to developers, Greer said, it is developing a revenue-sharing plan to allow the developers of the most popular games greater compensation. Greer, former technical director of the gaming site Pogo, and his sister Emily, an interactive marketing executive, fou

Bezos Expeditions invests $3 million into social gaming site

Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment arm of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has invested $3 million in Kongregate, a 2-year-old social gaming site that taps into the "indie gaming" phenomenon. Kongregate co-founder and CEO Jeff Greer said Wednesday the investment will be used to develop display advertising for the free Web site that now offers more than 4,000 games from more than 1,600 independent developers around the world. San Francisco-based Kongregate competes with other gaming sites such as Miniclip and AddictingGames. Unlike rivals that typically pay licensing fees to developers, Greer said, it is developing a revenue-sharing plan to allow the developers of the most popular games greater compensation. Greer, former technical director of the gaming site Pogo, and his sister Emily, an interactive marketing executive, fou

Game Community Kongregate Gets $3 Million From Bezos Expeditions

Kongregate, the SF-based game community, has raised $3 million from Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions. The company, which allows developers to create and distribute their own games, says the funding will allow it to better scale the business and to improve the advertising side of the business. Last year, Kongregate announced a $5 million first round led by Greylock. That previous funding, the company said, would go in part towards bankrolling certain developers. Developers are paid a percentage of advertising revenue from the site, encouraging their participation. Release.

Kongregate Secures $3 Million Investment From Bezos Expeditions

SAN FRANCISCO - (Business Wire) Kongregate, a leading indie Web games site featuring over 4,000 cutting-edge games set within an addictive social community, today announced it has secured a $3 million investment from Bezos Expeditions

Social Bookmarking is Bait for the Search Engines

Social bookmarking is the best way to boost traffic for a site. Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. The ideas that social bookmarking is built on are working their way into other applications; the practice of tagging information is being extended to other types of resources, such as multimedia files and e-mail. Social bookmarking is saving us a lot of time and energy that we’d usually spend scanning our RSS feeds or (the shock and horror of it all) actually visiting sites daily to find out what’s hot in the industry we work in along with our other interests. Not learning about social bookmarking is nothing short of surrendering to a changing online world.

Napster whistles a happier financial tune in fiscal 2008

Napster, No. 113 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, generated a net loss of $16.5 million on revenue of $127.5 million, compared with a net loss of $36.8 million on revenue of $111 million in fiscal 2007. In the fourth quarter, the company had a net loss of $4.3 million on revenue of $30.7 million vs. a net loss of $8.5 million on sales of $29.1 million in Q4 of 2007.

Google tops Web audience rankings

Nielsen Online has reported May 2008 data for the Top Sites by Parent Company and Top Brands. Google tops the list with 127 million unique visitors. Microsoft is close behind with 123 million, while Yahoo! comes in third at 115 million. Time Warner pulled 107 million visitors, News Corp. Online 79 million, eBay 66 million and InterActiveCorp 64 million. Wikimedia Foundation, Amazon and New York Times round out the list with between 50 and 60 million unique visitors. The data indicate that, for example, that 51.1 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the New York Times Company-owned sites or launched a New York Times Company-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 17 minutes and 27 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

May Sales Down 1% For Tandy Leather Factory

June 5, 2008 (FinancialWire) Tandy Leather Factory, Inc. (AMEX: TLF) (Current Market Cap: US$ 34.36 Mil.) said that its sales for the month of May were $4.5 million, down 1% from May 2007 sales of $4.6 million. The company s year-to-date sales are down 4% to $22.6 million in the current year from $23.5 million last year. The company s Retail Leathercraft segment posted an 8% sales increase for May, with sales totaling $2.0 million compared to $1.9 million in May 2007. The 67 comparable stores posted a 3% same store sales gain for the month. Five stores that opened in or after May 2007 added sales for the month of $86,000. Year-to-date sales for Retail Leathercraft are $10.4 million this year, up 3% over last year's sales of $10.1 million. As of the end of May, same store sales were down 3% for the year.

Novell's Linux business Posting Big Numbers

Novell, Inc. today announced financial results for its second fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2008. For the quarter, Novell reported net revenue of $236 million. This compares to net revenue of $232 million for the second fiscal quarter 2007. Income from operations for the second fiscal quarter 2008 was $2 million, compared to a loss from operations of $12 million for the second fiscal quarter 2007. Income from continuing operations in the second fiscal quarter 2008 was $6 million, or $0.02 per share. This compares to a loss from continuing operations of $1 million, or $0.00 loss per share, for the second fiscal quarter 2007. Foreign currency exchange rates favorably impacted revenue by $8 million, unfavorably impacted operating expenses by $9 million and negatively impacted income from operations by $1 million yearover- year.

Google Friend Connect: Google's Attempt to Positio...

On Monday, May 12th, Google released a preview of a new service that will allow web sites that are not intrinsically social to add social networking features to their sites. The service called Google Friend Connect will give any web site owner a snippet of code to add to their site so that social networking features will run immediately without the hassles of programming. The code works by allowing a visitor to sign in to the Google Friend Connect web site using a log-in and password from an email or social network account to which he or she is already registered and has stored contacts (sites include Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more). Once signed in, the visitor gives the site permission to retrieve his/her profile and friends list from that account so that he or she can see, invite, and interact with friends on the

A court in France ordered eBay Inc to pay $61 million (38.6 million euros) to luxury goods group LVMH for allowing the sale of counterfeit goods on its online auction site.

PARIS - A French court ordered eBay Inc to pay $61 million (38.6 million euros) to luxury goods group LVMH for allowing the sale of fake merchandise, in a ruling immediately appealed by the online auction Web site.

Apple Will Beat Expectations And Ship Nearly 14 Million iPhones This Year: Analyst

And the drum beat continues ...RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky predicts that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) will easily beat its expectations to sell 10 million iPhones this year, shipping closer to 14 million units this year and 24 million in 2009. As part of the expectations, Abramsky raised his price target on Apple to $220 from $200, while maintaining an “outperform” rating, Canada’s National Post reports. His two reasons for the increase in sales: the 3G phone, which will have more features, and changes to Apple’s business model. This is the same analyst who estimated only two weeks ago that Apple sold 1.8 million iPhones during its fiscal second quarter for a total of 5.5 million for the year. At that rate, it would put the company on track to mildly beat its 10 million-phone forecast, so he’s obviously banking on the 3G pho

Xbox 360 First Gaming System to Reach 10 Million in U.S. Console Sales This Generation

Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system has sold over 10 million units in the U.S., making it the first current-generation gaming console to break the 10 million mark in the U.S. The U.S. install base contributes to global sales of over 19 million, more than any other current-generation console.

Xbox 360 First Gaming System to Reach 10 Million in U.S. Console Sales This Generation

REDMOND, Wash., May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system has sold over 10 million units in the U.S., making it the first current-generation gaming console to break the 10 million mark in the U.S. The U.S. install base contributes to global sales of over 19 million, more than any other current-generation console.

Gain per-user control and auditing on who uses your Cisco site-site VPN tunnels

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to control and audit access to your VPN tunnels using usernames and per-user security policies? Putting the typical tunnel Access-list protection in place is great 'an all but per user control is really where it’s at! To that end, Cisco has a nice feature that allows you to authenticate, authorize, and account any user who tries to access a site-site vpn tunnel. Most site-site VPNs rely on an access-list that determines what IPs and Ports can be used across a tunnel. But this feature, Authentication proxy, allows you to limit and audit the VPN tunnel access using usernames and passwords as well. Even OTP devices are supported. And yes, you can make authentication exceptions for non-authenticating devices like printers, servers, etc.

Rogers reports 1Q profit hike; announces iPhone coup

Rogers Communications has announced that its first quarter net profit more than doubled year-on-year from CAD170 million (USD168 million) to CAD344 million, on revenues that rose 14% to CAD2.61 billion. GSM mobile turnover in the three months ended 31 March 2008 climbed 16% year-on-year to CAD1.43 billion, with operating income up 21% to CAD705 million, and mobile data service revenues up 47%. Rogers added 68,000 net new mobile subscribers in the quarter (broken down into 97,000 new contract users and a 29,000 reduction in pre-paid customers) to take its total to 7.406 million (81% post-paid), whilst it gained 41,000 cable modem broadband internet users in the period for a total of 1.51 million.

New Social Media Brings Bizarre Terms and Issues - What's Splog?

New social media has ushered in an array of new terminology, tactics and opportunities for marketers. Wikis, blogs, social networks, RSS, and "engagement" are increasingly common phrases used in today's social marketing conversations. Yet lurking out there is a term marketers don't want to hear -- that of splog. The term 'splog' has been around for more than two years, yet there is little awareness of it and the effect it can have on social media marketing, especially Social Media Measurement. Splog can dramatically skew results, which in turn can lead to faulty and costly marketing mistakes and campaigns that miss the mark.

Books-A-Million web sales rise 3% for the first quarter

Books-A-Million Inc. reported web revenue increased 3% to $6.3 million in the first quarter ended May 3, 2008, from $6.1 million in the same quarter in 2007. Comparable store sales decreased $3.6 million, or 3.4% in the same period to $102 million, vs. the first quarter of 2007.

Google Offers Site Search Tool for Business Websites

Google announced the Site Search service, which allows site owners to implement search functionality via cloud computing. Site owners can customize Google Site Search depending on the nature of their site and their content.

Google Site Search Taps Power of the Cloud to Improve Search for Business Websites

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., BUSINESS WIRE -- Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced Google Site Search(TM), a service that provides quality search to any website with the flexibility of cloud computing. The new service, hosted by Google, allows site owners to quickly implement search functionality that is familiar and useful to their visitors. At the same time, site owners can customize Google Site Search to account for the unique nature of their site and their content.

Google Site Search Taps Power of the Cloud to Improve Search for Business Websites

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced Google Site Search(TM), a service that provides quality search to any website with the flexibility of cloud computing. The new service, hosted by Google, allows site owners to quickly implement search functionality that is familiar and useful to their visitors. At the same time, site owners can customize Google Site Search to account for the unique nature of their site and their content.

eBay's StumbleUpon Partners with FotoLog Blogging Site

eBay's StumbleUpon entered into an agreement with Fotolog, a photo-blogging social network site, in which StumbleUpon's 5 million users will have access to photos posted by Fotolog's 18 million members in over 200 countries.

Amazon.com Web site has problems for more than 2 hours

Amazon.com's Web site experienced problems in North America for more than two hours in the middle of the day Friday because of system issues, the online retailer said. Shortly after 10 a.m. PDT, the company's retail Web site shut down, giving an error code to anyone visiting it, according to Keynote Systems, a California company that measures Web site performance. The impact on sales from the blackout was not immediately known. Shawn White, Keynote's director of external operations, said an error in the configuration of the Web site might have caused the shutdown. The Web site was back up to 60 percent capability around noon. By 1 p.m., it was at 100 percent, White said.

EA's Russell Arons on the emergence of casual gaming

Ever since Nintendo tore up the gaming rule book with the Wii and the DS, scores of traditionally hardcore game publishers have tried to tap into this succulent, juicy new market with its own casual gaming offering. Now, finally, Electronic Arts, one of gaming's giants, has jumped on the money train with its EA Casual label. VideoGamer.com caught up with Russell Arons, EA Casual's marketing VP, to talk Boom Blox, the hardcore versus casual divide and why casual gaming may one day become EA's main focus.

PCGA President Randy Stude: PC gaming a quarter of the video game pie

Q&A: At this year's Game Developer's Conference, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, and a host of other companies involved in selling PC gaming hardware and software announced the PC Gaming Alliance, an organization whose specific purpose is defending the PC as a gaming platform. Its goals include, among other things defining an accurate scope of the PC gaming market,and establishing a hardware baseline for developers to use as a reference point. We spoke with PCGA President Randy Stude (who also works for Intel as the Director of the Gaming Program Office), about these topics and other plans the PCGA has for the future.

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