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Web 3.0 & Amazon (Part 5)

Posted on Friday, Dec 14th

Conclusion We have reviewed Amazon’s strategy in the upcoming Web 3.0 world over the last few days. Amazon has been focusing on enhancing its technology, introducing new categories of products and services (recently introduced, Amazon MP3 and Grocery), increasing depth of selection in each category, opening new markets (UK, Germany, Japan), offering better shopping tools

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Funware and Social Games – All the World’s a Game

Posted on Thursday, Dec 6th

By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author Status games are universal, powerful and profoundly engaging. From the shiny new car, to the right education, from your eBay rating to FB TopFriends position, people are preoccupied with status in a way that transcends all other forms of competition. By taking a step back from the traditional definition of

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PC Games – Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going

Posted on Monday, Dec 3rd

By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author Most of the innovation in today’s game industry can be traced directly to key advances brought first to the PC, not to mention the millions of players that got their (awkward) start with Leisure Suit Larry on the Apple II. As the most open and edge-technology driven sector of the

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Games: Console Games – Hardware + Software = Ka-Ching!

Posted on Sunday, Dec 2nd

By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author The first home game console was called the Magnavox Odyssey. Introduced in 1972, it had a number of design flaws that would eventually doom its future, including the need for plastic TV overlays, boring games, and some dubious marketing strategies. Ultimately however, it was the closed nature of the product

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Games: From Donkey Kong to Dominance

Posted on Saturday, Dec 1st

By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author By now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Pong, Atari and the founding of the modern videogame business. In the time before the Atari 2600’s ubiquitous brown box and its legions of cartridge-crazy followers, computer scientists and nerds had long toiled to bring games to the emerging technology

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Leapfrog’s Turnaround Strategy May Yield Success in ’08

Posted on Thursday, Nov 22nd

LeapFrog Enterprises (LF) was last left off in this blog with the March 2007 analysis of a possible turnaround strategy. Unfortunately, if you compare the stock charts then and now, they are eerily similar. To understand what is going on over at its Emeryville headquarters, I sat down with CEO Jeff Katz (great guy) last

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Web 3.0 & Viacom (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Oct 18th

Acquisition Targets In the past one year, Viacom has acquired Quizilla, Harmonix Music Systems, Atom Entertainment, Xfire, and Y2M: Youth Media & Marketing Networks. These acquisitions are strategic and fit well into the Company’s overall theme of youth focused entertainment. Viacom, through its Nick brand, is popular among the kids. Presumably, the Company would acquire

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Web 3.0 & Viacom (Part 2)

Posted on Tuesday, Oct 16th

Vertical Strategy Viacom’s Internet properties are targeted to the youth and the young at heart. Entertainment for the youth market is the underlying tone in all its digital properties. The Company’s sites cater to Pre-teens, Teens and College Kids through its portfolio of Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 sites. It has created a niche

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