Skype launches new directory for third-party apps

Online voice and video communication service Skype recently opened a new directory site for third-party applications.

The directory will help raise awarenesss of apps using Skype’s API. However, it also represents a shift in the company’s relationship with its developer community, which it hasn’t always been on the best of terms with in the past.

The directory contains a mix of consumer and business apps. You can sort between app categories, pricing and developer. Right now there are only about 23 apps listed, the majority of which are Windows-only. Also, there are quite a few video and voice recording options, but little else at this point.

Skype has also created landing pages for each application, with all the basic information you’d expect to find, like release dates, system requirements, a comment section and ratings. Downloading the application sends you to the developer’s page.

It’s nice to see Skype stepping up its efforts to foster a developer community. I would imagine this strategy will only improve now that the company has been acquired by Microsoft.

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Tags: app directory, Skype, third-party apps

Companies: Skype

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Red Robot launches Life is Crime game with location-based play (exclusive)

There’s got to be more to location-based mobile games than checking in. That was the thinking behind the game startup Red Robot Labs and its first game, Life of Crime.

The game debuted on the Android Market yesterday, and it’s one example of the growing number of game developers who are targeting Google’s mobile operating system first before launching an iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) app. Life of Crime uses what Red Robot believes is going to be its critical asset: the R2 Gaming Network platform for making location games.

“From our view, nobody has cracked location gaming yet,” said Mike Ouye, chief executive and co-founder of Red Robot, in an interview.

A special version of the free-to-play game will be playable at the Penny Arcade Expo starting today in Seattle. The game can automatically put a layer on top of the map that looks and feels like a game (see picture). All of the major locations and landmarks are automatically identified. The map is persistent and it turns everyday places into contested criminal territory.

To perform missions, you have to be within range of about 500 meters or so of the location in question. Then the user can take over the building, rob it, leave loot, or search it for information or health packs. You can also gamble and win virtual currency at a location.

The players can add locations to the map. Users can operate in small gangs and build their reputation, energy, and other stats. You can customize your avatar, or virtual character, by buying clothes. You can level up your character and build your criminal reputation. Ultimately, the top player can become the Don of San Francisco or some other major area. Once you own pieces of territory, those places can generate “protection” money for you.

Ex-Playdom veteran Ouye (pictured left) and Pete Hawley (pictured right), a veteran game developer at Electronic Arts and Sony, started the company earlier this year to focus on making games for hardcore gamers on Android mobile devices. They believe that’s an untapped market.

“I’ve made console games for 15 years and I’ve been frustrated that there isn’t more to do on mobile games,” said Hawley, chief product officer. “We’re trying to drive people to meet new friends and play games with them. It’s active game play, not checking in.”

The company has grown quite fast. In January, Red Robot raised $2 million in funding from Rick Thompson, the former chairman of Playdom, and Chamath Palihapitiya, a former board member at Playdom. Red Robot already has 18 people. Ouye hopes to grow the team to about 50 people this year.

Rick Thompson, co-founder of Playdom, said, “The proliferation of smartphones is the most exciting opportunity in gaming today – always on, location aware and socially connected.? Red Robot Labs is among the first to tap into the full potential of this new platform; and they have nailed it with Life Is Crime.”

Life is Crime is a mafia-style game where you can enlist people into your crew and incorporate real world locations into the landscape of the game. You can take over a location, as you can location apps such as Foursquare or Gowalla. But you can also do a lot more. If you meet another player, you can fight, send a gift, or friend them. You can take out other players or watch news feeds for the activity of your friends. You can drop off contraband for someone else to pick up. At the Penny Arcade event, there will be a special leaderboard for players at the show.

Although the game targets hardcore gamers, the actions you take in the game can be done in 30 seconds or so. In that way, the game competes with apps such as Foursquare while the user is waiting in a line for coffee. In tests with members of Google’s Android team, players played the game about eight sessions a day for about 45 seconds each.

Ouye says an iOS version of Life is Crime will likely come out in around 45 days or so. Rivals include Mafia Wars from Zynga and Mobsters from Disney Playdom. Other check-in style rivals include Booyah’s MyTown as well as Foursquare, Gowalla and Shadow Cities. Ouye hopes to launch two more games this year.

“All of the other games take a different approach,” Hawley said. “We’re hanging our hat on location and a real game.”

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Tags: Life is Crime

Companies: Red Robot, Red Robot Labs

People: Mike Ouye, Pete Hawley

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Diffbot launches APIs for monitoring web pages

Internet search startup Diffbot launched its API today for visually scanning, parsing and extracting information from web pages. Diffbot detects what type of layout a page has, then searches it for common visual cues to monitor when any content changes on a page, or to extract specific information for developers to use.

The Palo Alto-based company was founded in 2008 by two former Stanford students, CEO Mike Tung and CTO Leith Abdulla, with seed funding from Stanford incubator StartX. Tung originally created Diffbot to monitor the websites for his various Stanford classes and tip him off to any new announcements, posted lectures or assignments via text message.

According to Diffbot’s creators, all web pages fall into one of 30 different page-type categories. By pegging what category a page falls in to, it can extrapolate the various types of information on that page. For example, front pages of news sites typically have the same elements: headlines, images, tags, advertisements and article summaries.

“Diffbot understands visually what all of these different elements of the page are and can be used by developers to connect that content to direct action,” Tung told VentureBeat.

Currently Diffbot has hundreds of developers using the beta API, and some intriguing products have already been created using the tools. AOL’s free Editions iPad magazine app uses Diffbot to analyze the front pages of news sites and pull out important new or breaking information. Hacker News Radio tapped Diffbot to pull content from hacker news sites and turn them into spoken reports. The city of S?o Paulo in Brazil uses Diffbot to track changes on the local government website and turns them into an automated Twitter feed.

Diffbot’s Follow API creates an RSS-style feed of fresh content. The On-Demand API currently looks at just two major page types, Frontpage and Article, but Diffbot plans on releasing more in the future, and that’s when things could get interesting.

“Once we have released the API for all 30 page types, we hope to enable a new type of mobile application — one where the user can take actions directly on web data, instead of reading a bunch of blue links,” said Tung to VentureBeat. “Something like SIRI, but for the entire web, and not just a set of handpicked APIs.”

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Tags: APIs, search, Stanford University, StartX

Companies: Diffbot, StartX

People: Leith Abdulla, Mike Tung

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Logitech launches two cool goodies for work and play on an iPad

Logitech is launching a couple of cool expansion items for the Apple iPad: a joystick for games and a fold-up keyboard for the iPad 2.

These devices show that it’s not so hard to come up with clever devices that extend the functionality of an iPad so that it can be better used for work or play. If you can extend the versatility of an iPad in this way, it’s easier to wonder why you need a PC.

The Logitech Joystick for iPad is a thumbstick-style game controller that attaches to the iPad screen with suction cups. It includes a coiled spring for force feedback that automatically returns the joystick to its center position. You can use it with any game that uses on on-screen joystick or D-pad. The joystick costs $19.99 and it will be available in the U.S. and Europe in September.

I used it to play Ms. Pac-Man, the old arcade classic, pictured right. The game was unplayable using your finger on the surface. It’s too easy for the screen to miss your finger stroke at a critical moment, like when you’re trying to evade the pie guys that eat you. It’s also easy to make a mistake with one of your palms. But with the joystick, I never made a single wrong move. The game was suddenly much more fun because I wasn’t cursing at the screen for missing my finger swipes.

The fold-up keyboard works only with an iPad 2. It is a full-size keyboard that connects via Bluetooth and charges via universal serial bus (USB). The keyboard, pictured below, lets you work on documents or fill out web forms without resorting to the virtual keyboard on the iPad, which isn’t all that usable. You can tilt the iPad 2 at an angle and type without needing to support the tablet. The keyboard can fold up and fit underneath the iPad 2 when closed. It works fine with a smart cover. The keyboard costs $129.99 and will be available in the U.S. and Europe in September.

Both of these are pretty smart devices. If Logitech keeps coming up with winners like this, it could have a thriving Apple peripherals business.

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Tags: iPad, Logitech Fold-Up Keyboard, Logitech Joystick

Companies: Apple, Logitech

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Bunchball gamifies Salesforce.com and launches game widgets

Bunchball is trying to “gamify” every web site in the world via tools that make the sites more game-like. To that end, Bunchball is launching ways to make a game out of Salesforce.com and add simple goal-oriented games like poker to web sites.

Nitro for Salesforce.com uses game-like rewards to motivate sales people, driving up adoption, engagement and performance among sales employees. It integrates with Force.com and is scalable and customizable. Nitro has more than 100 customers with millions of users, but the Salesforce.com integration is a coup because it is a high-profile cloud-based enterprise service with more than 105,000 customers. Nitro for Salesforce.com will be available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company is also launching Nitro Elements, ?stripped-down version of Nitro that allows site owners to post simple games such as poker through widgets. Web site owners can simply embed the widgets in their web pages and enable users to play games which have site-oriented goals as the rewards. You can, for instance, play online poker directly on the site. If you want to get more poker chips, you have to perform an act that the site owner wants, such as watching a video.

With these simple point solutions, companies can experiment with game mechanics that can be deployed quickly and inexpensively, said Rajat Paharia, founder and?chief product officer at Bunchball. Bunchball has a number of games from the days when it was a social game company. It is taking titles from that library of 30 or so titles and is making them available to customers.

“We learned that some people want some deep gamification and some want it light,” Paharia said in an interview. “We took some best practices and offered a slice of the overall platform with Nitro Elements.”

Nitro?Elements has two different apps available. One is called FanBox, which lets companies reward users for completing actions like tweeting, watching a video or sharing content across Facebook. The app can be deployed in a matter of minutes with little or no technical expertise. FanBox is priced on a usage basis, so marketers only pay when users?take actions.

Also, part of Nitro Elements is GameBox. The?app is designed to help companies increase daily visits, lengthen time spent on the site, and improve monetization via simple online social games like poker. A web site owner can activate it by embedding a snippet of code. Users receive a daily allotment of chips for visiting the site and they can buy additional chips with real money.

“Clearly, social networking has exploded,” Paharia said. “We can take it to everyone.”

Bunchball’s customers include Warner Bros., Comcast, USA Network, LiveOps and Hasbro. The company was founded in 2005 and its investors include Granite Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, Northport Investments, Correlation Ventures, and Adobe Systems. Bunchball has 40 employees. Rivals include Badgeville and Big Door.

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Tags: gamification, gamify, Nitro, Nitro Elements, Salesforce.com

Companies: Badgeville, Big Door, Bunchball

People: rajat Paharia

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Square upgrades iOS app for faster purchases, launches Card Case app

Mobile payments startup Square on Monday launched a new version of its iOS app that speeds up purchases and no longer requires signatures for payments under $25. The company also officially launched its Card Case app for customers who use Square merchants.

The new apps announcement adds to a long list of headlines Square has made lately as a serious disruptor in mobile payments. In late June, the company raised a reported $100 million with a $1 billion valuation. Since it started, Square has shipped more than 500,000 of its credit card readers to vendors to process on-the-go transactions. The company is now responsible for more than $3 million in transactions a day.

Square was also in the news recently when hackers revealed its software made it easy to commit credit card fraud. The company responded to the reports by saying it actively guarded against fraud like all other credit card processors.

Square’s upgraded iOS application speeds up payments by removing several screens from the transaction process. Not only does it take away the requirement for signatures on purchases under $25, but it also improves the tipping interface to make it easier. The updated app adds the option to sell items that cost $0.00 in case a merchant wants to give away an item while still marking a transaction.

The company launched its Card Case app for customers who frequently visit merchants that use Square’s technology. The application makes it possible for shoppers to browse daily menus, store digital receipts, and pay by saying their name. A peek at the slick new app can be seen below.

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Tags: iOS, iOS apps, mobile payments

Companies: Apple, Square

People: Jack Dorsey

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Miramax launches app to watch movies on Facebook

Film studio Miramax on Monday launched a new Facebook application that lets you rent acclaimed movies like Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting and No Country for Old Men.

With 20 titles to rent, the Miramax eXperience app is one of the largest movie streaming apps yet to hit the massively popular social site. It joins other studios like Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal that also allow users to rent and watch movies via Facebook.

Miramax CEO Mike Lang said he sees the Facebook app as just the beginning of a wide-ranging content strategy where users will be able to watch movies on any web platform.

“No question there will be more content and more markets,” Lang said in a blog post. “Our plan is to use this as an enabling platform, including eventually as a digital locker cloud service.”

Users can watch movies on Facebook from the PC, iPad, or Google TV browser. Rentals through the application cost 30 Facebook credits, or $3. Facebook gets to keep one third of the purchase, so Miramax banks $2 for every rental. That amount is higher than what a streaming rental earns through a service like Netflix or Hulu, which usually gives pennies for each stream.

Aside from short movie clips, the app will also soon include a game called Casting Call where you can can cast your Facebook friends as characters from Miramax films.

What do you think of Facebook movie rentals? Do you think many users will use it?

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Tags: Facebook apps, movies, online video, streaming movies, streaming video

Companies: Facebook, Hulu, Miramax, Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros.

People: Mike Lang

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Condé Nast launches free "venues in the city autour" App

Condé Nast following the iPad Edition of The New Yorker with an iOS of its section "Venues on city autour" application. Come on [iTunes] is a weekly list of New York art exhibitions, concerts and similar, connected to an interactive map.

Peter Kafka has details on other features of the application: as the recordings of New Yorker writers who will work as walking tours: food writer Calvin Trillin will lead the audience through his favorite restaurants and stores. architecture critic Paul Goldberger navigates to incredible high High Line park city.

The app is free, but supported by the ad.

Condé Nast - the publishing company behind Wired, The New Yorker and many others - has been very active in the Apple ecosystem. The company released iPad editions of most of its titles and offers, subscriptions in-app to Apple a reduction of 30% of its revenues. Condé was recently reported that the iPad Edition of The New Yorker has over 100,000 readers.

Goings on: The New Yorker is available free on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [iTunes]

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