<IT WORLD> Gaming gamble for Google
By Martin J Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - Google is cooking up new recipes in its digital kitchen,
with reports this week about a number of partnerships with online gaming
companies. A social gaming platform seems to be the latest goal for the search
giant, which strives for a slice of everything online to draw ad revenue from
its competitors - in this instance Facebook and Twitter.
The company has reportedly been in negotiations with industry giants Zynga,
Disney's recently purchased Playdom, and
Electronic Arts’ Playfish, all of which have a solid fan base in the realm of
online gaming. Social gaming is booming and Facebook has the lion’s share of
gamers who use their platform to interact with like-minded souls and game fans.
Google has seen the dollar signs and wants a piece of the action. Zynga’s
wildly popular Farmville game attracts more than 60 million monthly active
users and Facebook has been running away with toys with its estimated user base
of 500 million members.
Few details have been released at the time of writing other than the new social
network’s name, Google Me.
"The world doesn't need a copy of the same thing," stated Google chief
executive Eric Schmidt in an interview earlier this week referring to Facebook.
The online gaming industry is predicted to increase in popularity, especially
with the emergence of more mobile Internet devices and smart phones. In China
and Japan, social gaming generates billions of dollars in revenue. In the US,
it was a US$700 million market last year; this is expected to triple by 2012,
according to industry research firms.
Naturally anything this lucrative on the web is not going to escape the
ever-watchful eye of the Internet’s favorite all-devouring search company.
Industry
Research In Motion’s popular BlackBerry service has been getting a tough ride
in the Indian market place and could face a possible ban over unresolved
security issues. The Canadian company has been told by the Indian government to
setup a proxy server within the country to enable security agencies to monitor
e-mail and data traffic.
BlackBerry services are encrypted and cannot be monitored by any servers other
than the company's own. The Ministry of Home Affairs has warned Research in
Motion that its devices and services could pose a threat to national security
as they can be used by terrorist groups to plot attacks. The move came just
days after the United Arab Emirates also expressed concern over BlackBerry
security and followed recent obstacles being thrown up in Pakistan when web
browsing was blocked by the government for blasphemous content.
India's internal security chief has stated that a complete ban would be
unlikely but the government expects a solution from the company soon.
Telecoms
Owners of Electronic Frontier Foundation and iPhone users who want the freedom
to do what they desire with the product they have purchased were in celebratory
mood this week. The US Library of Congress's Copyright Office ruled that users
can legally "jailbreak" their phones; this will enable them to switch providers
and install non-Apple approved applications.
Naturally, Cupertino, California-based Apple, maker of the iPhone, was not
amused since it frowns upon the practice in its ongoing effort to control the
user experience and rake in more profits. Apple is likely to continue with its
existing policy of voiding the warranty on jailbroken iPhones, claiming that
the modification of its software violates the end-user license agreement and
could leave the device open to attack.
Jailbreaking an iPhone is not for everyone but, as the courts agreed, it should
be an option, just as downloading and installing any software you like onto
your PC is. The 30-second process enables the user to access thousands of
applications that have not passed Apple's stringent requirements. They include
the ability to record video and multi-task on older devices such as the 3G
model, modify and tweak the device settings in greater depth, send and receive
files using Bluetooth and generally have more control over it than Apple is
comfortable with.
The big plus for many is the ability to unlock the phone for use on mobile
phone networks and carriers other than the one with which Apple is partnered.
This will also be good news for millions that have never had the option to own
an iPhone because they live in non-Apple approved countries.
Now that iPhone jailbreaking has been made legal, Apple is likely to build in
more software traps, automatic updates, and hidden iTunes processes to lock
people out of their jailbroken devices as a way of saying that it was not your
phone to mess with in the first place!
Internet
Yahoo Japan, the country's largest Internet portal, has chosen Google to power
its search technology rather than follow its parent company, Yahoo Inc, which
owns around a 33% stake, into a partnership with Microsoft.
Google will provide its search technology in exchange for advertising rights.
Yahoo Japan hopes the deal will help it to strengthen its position as number
one in the domestic market.
Microsoft said the agreement was anti-competitive and would hand Google over
90% of paid search advertising in Japan and give the company almost 100%
control over all Japanese business and personal Internet search information.
As the technology goliaths continue their game of digital risk the consumer is
left with less to choose from.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
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Industry
