Jambool, the payments startup that offers in-game payments on Facebook through a product called Social Gold, recently announced that it has begun offering international currencies for players in other countries. Localized currencies are becoming more important for payments in social gaming, especially with the ever more international audience on Facebook.
The first nine currencies Social Gold is supporting, including the US dollar, are all from either English-speaking countries like Australia or Western European countries like Sweden. But the end plan for Jambool, along with its rivals, is to allow payments from many more of the world’s 150+ currencies.
Vikas Gupta, the co-founder of Jambool, says that offering local currencies is important for selling virtual goods in markets beyond the US. “People will pay more in their local currencies because it’s more clear to them what they’re getting,” Gupta told us earlier this week.
However, he recommended against also trying to tailor the prices to local markets. “If you change prices for different geographies, you’re encouraging fraud,” Gupta said. “I don’t think there’s any need to. You see people paying 50 percent more of their disposable income in a country like China, on games, than they do in the US. That speaks volumes, I think.” What Gupta does recommend is localizing the language and features of games that have large international audiences.
We spoke to Gupta after his panel at that Flash Gaming Summit in San Francisco, where he also gave out some recent statistics from the games his company works with. Purchasing rates are still low, with often times only couple percent of players making a purchase at all, but a growing number of people that make an initial purchase will buy more.
Following the first purchase 56 percent will buy again, according to Jambool, while another 25 percent will make two or more purchases. The average amount purchased across all these groups is $60, while there’s a significant group of “whales” who spend over $1,000.
Along with the increased likelihood of a purchase from international users if they can pay in their own currency, Gupta also says that having an in-game option for a single-click purchase triples the likelihood of a user buying a virtual item. In general, streamlining payments is key for attracting impulsive purchases.
Besides offering advice and design support to game developers, Gupta says that fraud prevention is also growing in importance. More fraud is tied in part to having a more international audience, but it will also be more of a problem if social games become more like MMOs, a trend Gupta expects to take place.
Today, fraud still isn’t much a risk to developers, because virtual currency is usually only good for a single player. But games with more direct interaction between players and second-hand markets for goods quickly find fraud to be a real problem. “As the ecosystem developers, it’ll be a bigger challenge,” Gupta says.
Smartphone owners are more interested in receiving coupons on their handsets than getting other kinds of mobile come-ons, according to figures released today by Compete.com. It’s just the latest evidence that while mobile advertising as a whole is slowly gaining traction, mobile coupons may be about to take off in a big way.
Compete found that grocery coupons were the most attractive of 10 types of mobile marketing ploys, with 36 percent of U.S. smartphone owners saying there were interested in receiving the discount offers on their handsets. Twenty-nine percent said they wanted to scan barcodes with their phones, while only 15 percent were interested in receiving text message ads.
Interestingly, Compete’s findings come just days after the launch of what may be the nation’s biggest mobile-coupon campaign: Target this week began delivering mobile coupons that can be scanned at the retail counter. Consumers can visit the retailer’s mobile web site or text the word COUPONS to the short code 827438 (TARGET) to opt in and receive a link to a mobile web page containing multiple offers accessible through a single barcode.
Mobile coupons have been around for the better part of a decade but have failed to really take off thanks to a lack of widespread retail support and a user experience that is often intolerable. The market is positioned to pick up some serious momentum in the next few years, though, according to a recent report from Juniper Research, which expects it to exceed 300 million people worldwide by 2014. That forecast might look modest if Target’s campaign gets legs and other nationwide retailers follow suit.
Sonos has now confirmed the Index Ventures investment we reported two days ago. The company has taken an additional $25 million in capital from Index, raising the total raised by the company to $65 million. And Index Ventures Partner Mike Volpi, a former CIsco executive, has joined their board of directors.
The funds will be used for growth equity, says the company, which signals that they are past the proof of product stage (well past, in this case) and will use the funds to speed market penetration.
From our original post:
Volpi will bring real expertise to the Sonos board. As recently as 2007 he ran an $11 billion routing and access products busines for Cisco. He clearly knows how to sell products at scale.
Sonos has been around since 2003 and has raised some $40 million from private angel investors and BV Capital. Until last year the company sold very high end music products that users loved passionately, but the mutli-thousand dollar price point for a complete system made mainstream penetration difficult.
But in 2009 Sonos began selling a new product, the S5 music system, that users control via their iPhone. The S5 is just $400 and has driven “massive growth” says the company.
Like Flip last year, Sonos likely had a choice between selling now or raising new money for major expansion. Flip sold to Cisco. Sonos, it seems, is taking more money, but adding an ex-Cisco exec as well. Perhaps they’ll get their cake and eat it, too.
From one delayed ebook reader to another, and it’s now the turn of the Spring Design Alex to throw some grist into the rumor mill. According to our tipster the company’s Android-based dual display ereader – which has an E Ink panel up top and an LCD touchscreen underneath – will go on sale at the company’s site come Tuesday March 16th.
Spring Design had previously been promising early March 2010 availability for the Alex, though that time period came and went. In fact, at time of posting the company’s store page still reads “Thanks for your patience. We’re almost ready with our Alex store. Keep checking in and by the first week of March you’ll be able to order your Alex online.”
Before that, a February 22nd release had been suggested. We’ve got a request in with Spring Design for more information, and will update as and when we hear back from them.
TorrentFreak has an article about how Ari Emanuel, brother of Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and the "inspiration" for Jeremy Piven's "Ari Gold" character in the show Entourage, is claiming that he's talking to President Obama about implementing a three strikes law in the US. While I'm sure he's talking, I'm at least somewhat confident he's not getting very far. Almost everyone I've spoken to on various sides of this debate agree that a blatant three strikes law in the US is unlikely to get very far. Now, something like ACTA might put pressure on ISPs to adopt a three strikes rule, and Emanuel's buddies in Hollywood still think that they can convince ISPs to voluntarily put in place such rules -- but very few people seem to think that a full on three strikes law in the US is in the cards. Hopefully that's the case.
What may be more interesting, however, is what Rupert Murdoch's son, James Murdoch was saying at the very same event. He didn't just echo his father's blatantly incorrect notions of copyright, he went way beyond them. The younger Murdoch, who apparently is the current heir apparent to the Rupert Murdoch throne at the top of News Corp., made a bunch of statements about copyright infringement that sound like the typical comments of someone who has just entered this debate and has never thought about the actual issues. That is, he trots out the ridiculously wrong line that infringement is the same as "theft":
"We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball... There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff. It's a basic condition for investment and economic growth and there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie.... The idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly when they're stealing stuff. No. There should be the same level of sanctity as there is around property. Content is no different. They're not crazy kids. No. Punish them."
Where to begin? First of all, yes, there's a very big difference between going into a store and stealing Pringles (why Pringles?!?) or a handbag. If you do that, the Pringles or the handbags are now missing, gone, kaput. If you make a copy of a digital file, the original is still there. You've just created a new one. And, no, it's not "a basic condition for investment," that there needs to be the same property rights in a house or a movie. The two things have never had the same property rights. A house never goes into the public domain after a certain period of time. There is no fair use of a house (though, to be fair, the Murdoch family seems to think that fair use doesn't exist either, despite relying on it heavily in some of their companies). And there's a reason that there are those significant differences, and it has to do with basic, fundamental economics, and the difference between scarcity and abundance.
Honestly, seeing James Murdoch's words immediately call to mind Larry Lessig's recent talk where he discusses how the current media bosses at companies like Viacom are dinosaurs, with the younger generation waiting in the wings to take over, claiming that they don't hold these same draconian notions on copyright. Except, in this case, James is the younger generation which is supposed to get this stuff.
Perhaps he should take some notes from his (slightly older) sister Elisabeth, who recently made comments that appear to be the exact opposite of what her brother and father are saying:
"Fans remain the best salesmen of our content, even if that behavior is on the borderline of piracy. Danger of the new world is that we must concede that we'll lose some control."
I wonder if James' "the idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly" line was directed at his big sis. Of course, in that recent NY Mag profile of Rupert, it notes that many people expect Elisabeth to come back into the News Corp. fold at some point (she left to start her own -- successful -- TV production house). Either way, if James really does get control over News Corp., it sounds like it'll be more of the same: more misunderstanding about how copyright law works, more misunderstanding of the economics of content and more mistakes designed to hold a company in the past, rather than embracing the future.
Earlier this week, BoomTown had lunch with Michelangelo “Mike” Volpi, the high-profile tech exec who turned into a venture capitalist recently at Index Ventures.
We also did a video interview (see below) about his new life as an investor, based in London, although Volpi did manage to leave out the big news.
That would be a just-inked $25 million investment by Index from its growth equity arm in wireless home music system maker Sonos, as well as a new board seat there for Volpi. (Sonos’ hot new S5 unit is pictured here.)
In an interview this morning, Sonos CEO John MacFarlane said the money would be used for expansion at Sonos, which is just about to introduce its products into China and Japan.
“This investment is going to help us grow,” said MacFarlane. “We have wind at our back and this will help us a lot in keeping up that momentum.”
MacFarlane said the focus for Sonos, which has garnered $65 million in investments with the Index investment included, is growth. He declined to give Sonos’ valuation in the new round.
The private company has been profitable, MacFarlane said, but its goal is to break even, as it takes advantage of interest in its devices globally. Only about 35 percent of its business is now in the United States.
While running a small independent consumer electronics company is a dicey proposition, MacFarlane said Sonos is not interested in selling, as Pure Digital–maker of the Flip digital camera–did to Cisco (CSCO) a year ago for $590 million in stock.
In fact, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Sonos, which is well known for its innovative top-line (and high-priced) music players, recently moved its business more mainstream with the introduction of the S5 unit in November.
It allows control of the system via an Apple (AAPL) iPhone and only costs $399.
The basic idea? A smart speaker paired with a smartphone.
The S5 has been a big seller and has increased registrations of its products–when the software is activated by a user–by five times previous numbers so far, according to the company.
That could get a further boost with the April launch of the iPad, which seems perfect for controller software apps.
“The popularity of the iPhone is great for us,” said MacFarlane. “And we’ll do something great with the iPad.”
It’ll be nice to have a big score for Volpi, the former Cisco wunderkind. In fact, he invested in one of MacFarlane’s previous start-ups, Software.com, in 1995 when he was in charge of a variety of businesses there.
But the affable Volpi hit a bad patch more recently while CEO of a much hyped but ultimately failed video service called Joost. It was that job that than landed him in even hotter water.
In the wake of the decline of Joost, which he left to join Index, he was personally, as was Index, sued by its litigious co-founders over Index’s planned investment in Skype, the online telephony service which they also co-founded.
Confused? Well, it was confusing.
And not the best start in the investment business for Volpi, after Index pulled out of the high-profile deal in a settlement of the lawsuits.
But, that’s “ancient history,” as Volpi said in the video interview below, which focuses on what’s next.
(News of the Index involvement in Sonos was first reported by TechCrunch earlier this week, though it did not have details of the amount of the funding.)
Although did not mention the $25 million funding in Sonos specifically in the video, Volpi does discuss his bullishness for consumer electronics.
Volpi presumably hopes others share his enthusiasm.
As expected after this morning’s report, Plastic Logic have officially confirmed that the launch of the QUE ebook reader will be delayed until Summer 2010. In an official statement from company CEO Richard Archuleta, the decision is described as “to fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience.”
Plastic Logic are promising free shipping to preorder customers as an apology for the delay; the QUE was originally expected to ship in mid-April 2010. The device – which uses an E Ink display like other ebook readers, but paired with a unique plastic backplane of Plastic Logic’s own design – is being positioned as a business device, with pricing to match. The entry-level model kicks off at around $650.
Plastic Logic statement:
From: Richard Archuleta
Subject: QUE proReader Shipping Update
Thank you for being one of the first customers to order a QUE proReader from Plastic Logic. We appreciate your business.
Today, I wanted to personally inform you that we are postponing the first QUE proReader shipments until this Summer in order to fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience.
Within the next month we will send you an email with more details about your order. If you also ordered accessories for your QUE proReader, we plan to ship them at the same time as your QUE proReader.
I can imagine that you want to get your QUE proReader as soon as possible. We are sorry for the delay. For your inconvenience, the shipping charges will be on us.
Please note that we will not charge your credit card until your order is ready to ship.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us at QUEhelp@PlasticLogic.com.
Once again, thank you for being one of our first QUE proReader customers.
Best regards,
Turns out, March Madness isn’t the only major sporting event starting this weekend: Cricket fans all over the world have been feverishly awaiting today’s start of the Indian Premiere League Cricket Season. In fact, the first game is already underway while I’m writing this story, with the Deccan Chargers facing off against the Kolkata Knight Riders, and the audience is going crazy on Twitter, posting tweets faster than a Cricket fan’s heartbeat.
So where do you turn to watch the Indian Premiere League Cricket Season? No, not ESPN or Fox Sports. U.S. broadcasters tend to ignore the event, but cricket fans can turn to YouTube instead, where the complete season — with all of its 60 matches will be broadcasted in real time almost all over the world. Missed a match? No worries, the IPL’s YouTube channel will also offer past games on demand.
The Indian Premiere Leage has only been around for three seasons, but it’s already been called “the world’s hottest sports league” by Forbes. The 2008 semifinals and final were watched by 62 million TV viewers in India, which comes to about eleven percent of the country’s cable audience. YouTube signed a deal with the league in January, which marks the first time the site was able to secure the online rights for a sports event of this scale.
YouTube will broadcast the Indian Premiere League games worldwide in real time, with one big exception: U.S. viewers will get to see the games 15 minutes after they have ended. That may be a concession to conflicting pay TV rights, but it should actually help many of us to follow the league: Today’s game between the Deccan Chargers and the Kolkata Knight Riders started at 8pm local time in Mumbai, which is 6.30am PST, and some games will go underway even earlier. Cricket fans can find the complete schedule for the season here.
Despite doubts about Clearwire’s ability to compete against the coming rival 4G network of Verizon and AT&T, its users are apparently pleased with the service. Mike Sievert, chief commercial officer at Clearwire, said the company’s mobile users (those on laptops and dongles outside the home) consume more than an average of 7GB per month of data. That’s a shocking amount of mobile data consumption, especially when all we’re hearing is how scarce spectrum is and how operators can’t keep up with the mobile demand.
But slaking that thirst for mobile data, and doing it cheaply, underlies Clearwire’s overall strategy. For now, that’s why it’s bet on WiMAX, but WiMAX plays only a small role in Clearwire’s cost benefits, which means that it’s not beholden to the technology after 2011, when an agreement with Intel that kept Clearwire and WiMAX together will expire. Sievert was coy when asked directly about the Long Term Evolution standard that the two largest U.S. carriers are experimenting with, but rather than obsess about the radio access technology, let’s look closer at the real disruption Clearwire offers.
Sievert said it cost Clearwire “somewhere in the mid-$20 range” per person to build out its WiMAX network, an estimate that relies on several things, from the cost of the spectrum to the number of the towers Clearwire needs to deploy. In contrast, analyst Chris King at investment bank Stifel Nicholas, has put the per-person cost near $20 for Verizon’s rival LTE network build.
But it’s once the network gets humming when Sievert believes Clearwire starts looking good, both because it will be cheaper to send bits across and enable the company to provide more capacity to data-hungry users, something that may play a larger role as rivals introduce tiered pricing plans, as both Verizon and AT&T have talked about doing.
Sievert credits the all-IP architecture of the Clearwire network for its ability to deliver bits cheaply, pointing out that Verizon and AT&T both will have more expensive legacy networks to run that include equipment for dealing with circuit-switched voice. In the short term this is an advantage for the LTE crew, because they can offer data across their 4G networks and keep voice on 3G — ensuring a consistent level of quality.
But long term, Sievert thinks the advantage is Clearwire’s, especially after it introduces handsets in 2011 that will use Sprint’s 3G network for voice (see video) and will then transition to VoIP. Sievert did not give a time frame for the all-4G phone. Eventually, however the LTE providers will also move to VoIP but aren’t likely to abandon their older networks for decades.
But the biggest advantage is Clearwire’s deep spectrum resources. If nothing else, the last few months has focused the tech world’s attention on the scarcity of available mobile spectrum. Well, Clearwire has a lot of it — about 150 MHz in many markets, while the other major carriers claim just two-thirds or less of that amount.
It also has 30 MHz chunks of spectrum that it can use for WiMAX, while Verizon, for example, has 20 MHz for LTE. Spectrum can be used to increase both speed and capacity, so while Clearwire’s current speeds of 3-6 Mbps down aren’t going to compare to Verizon’s 5-12 Mbps for LTE, Sievert says Clearwire could allocate another 10 MHz to match speeds and still have another 10 to spare to boost capacity.
So Sievert is content that he can profitably meet the needs of mobile broadband customers with his existing resources without having to resort to pricing gimmicks that may anger customers. And since, as I’ve argued, the average consumer isn’t too worried if their mobile wireless is LTE or WiMAX, Clearwire does have a chance. Add to that a relationship with the cable providers and Sprint, and Sievert claims he has access to 100 million customer relationships through his partners. In other words, if consumers decide they want unlimited wireless broadband from their existing cable provider, rather than a constrained offering from their wireless provider, Clearwire may succeed.
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Jambool, the payments startup that offers in-game payments on Facebook through a product called Social Gold, recently announced that it has begun offering international currencies for players in other countries. Localized currencies are becoming more important for payments in social gaming, especially with the ever more international audience on Facebook.
Social Gold takes an average 7-10 percent cut from the developers it works with, which includes any fees charged by the end payment companies it works with, like PayPal, Visa or the recently-launched “virtual debt” company, Kwedit. By comparison, the in-house Credits that Facebook pushes take about 30 percent, although apps that use Credits get special promotion in Facebook’s Games Dashboard, and other benefits, like Facebook’s brand.
