Girls In Tech

MediaBistro, along with sponsorship by Girls in Tech presents…

Already wildly successful in San Francisco and London, Social Gaming Summit comes to New York for the 1st time this year, and will focus on building, monetization, and growing social games.  Social Gaming Summit unites leaders in free-to-play games, social networking, and payments infrastructure for a full day of panels andsiscussions. Social Gaming Summit is where established and emerging leaders in the social gaming space converge to share their thoughts on what works in the world of social games as well as the key issues impacting the future of the industry.

This one-day event will feature a series of talks organized around the following key themes:

Growth

• How can new social games developers grow on Facebook in the current environment?
• What does it take to bootstrap a successful new social game?

Distribution

• What opportunities exist to build successful Facebook games off Facebook?
• How can developers take advantage of opportunities to build games for international audiences?

Monetization

• What role will brands play in monetizing social games?
• What new opportunities are there for social games developers to monetize their games?

Speakers include:

• Davin Miyoshi, GSN
• Katharine Lewis, FM Ventures
• Manny Anekal, Zynga
• Trip Hawkins, Digital Chocolate
• Paul Chen, PapayaMobile
• Dennis Ryan, Popcap
• Peter Wexler, TrialPay ….and More!

To register, click HERE. |  Use GIT Discount Code: SGGIT – for 15% off

See full details, HERE.

Correction, change of date…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AllFacebook, Charles Hudson, Digital Privacy Forum, MediaBistro.com, Monetization, privacy, Social Games, Social Gaming, Social Gaming Summit East, Social Times
Posted in All Chapters, New York | No Comments »

Girls in Tech was on the scene yesterday as Virtual Goods Summit 2009 kicked off with VGS University.  Hundreds of people came out to the half day seminar to learn from case studies and presentations by Linden Lab, Mochi Media, IMVU, Gaia Online, Ning, Viximo, Shufflebrain and others.

The afternoon panel on the Payments Landscape featuring SuperRewards, TrialPay, BOKU, PlaySpan, and ORCA garnered a packed ballroom.  Charles Hudson, host of VGS09, moderated the panel and asked whether it’s a good or bad thing that the payments space is so chockfull of players.  Not surprisingly, the panel thought it was a good thing – and that it speaks to the vast potential opportunity for virtual goods in games.  They also agreed that the need for payment solution providers is high since payments are complex, requiring relationships with often hundreds of banks and wireless carriers if you take into account the international landscape.  Then there’s the sticky issue of fraud and security.  Finally, there’s scale of economies, and the idea that a game producer should concentrate on making great games instead of getting caught up with building a payment solution.  Overall, more payment providers means more choice for game publishers, and more pressure for payment providers to deliver better products and customer service.

The panel shared the following statistics: For free to play games on social networks, virtual goods conversion for those who actually pay is 3-4%. This of course varies depending on the virality and engagement quality of the game.  Lex Bayer from PlaySpan suggested that for each daily active user associated with a game on a social network, there is ten dollars of annual revenue potential.  Therefore, if you have five million DAU’s your potential revenue is $50 million in annual revenue.  Not shabby.

Big revenue potential and a young market makes for great energy, an eagerness for learning, sharing, and collaborating, with a good measure of competition and creativity thrown in.  This is going to be one good summit.  Join us today for part two of the third annual Virtual Goods Summit taking place today at the Westin in downtown San Francisco.  And stick around for the after party that Girls in Tech is co-hosting with Offerpal at Harlot nightclub!

Tags: Charles Hudson, Games, Lindin Lab, Mochi Media, Ning, social networks, Super Rewards, Tina Tran, TrialPay, Virtual Currency, Virtual Good Summit, Virutal Payments
Posted in All Chapters, Events | No Comments »

All attendees of the Virtual Goods Summit on October 30th are invited to the official conference after-partyhosted by Offerpal Media, starting after the conclusion of the conference on Friday, October 30th, from 6-9 PM. Join your fellow attendees for more networking, drinks and snacks at one of SOMA’s coolest venues! Playoffs to win a Wii, a flip camera, champagne and many more gifts….

The after-party will be at Harlot, located just a short walk from the Westin:
Harlot
46 Minna St
San Francisco, CA 94105
http://www.harlotsf.com

To RSVP, please click on the following Facebook Event link: RSVP here

Tags: Anu Shukla, Charles Hudson, girls in tech, Offerpal Media, VGS, Virtual Goods Summit
Posted in San Francisco | No Comments »

Join us for Virtual Goods Summit 2009 and VGS University!

When:
VGS University – Thursday, October 29, 2009
Virtual Goods Summit – Friday, October 30, 2009

Where:
Westin Market Street, 50 Third Street, San Francisco, CA

Website: http://www.vgsummit.com/2009
Register: http://vgsummit2009-git.eventbrite.com (Save 15% using the code GIRLSINTECH)

The market opportunity for virtual goods continues to expand as developers and publishers of social games get a deeper understanding of how virtual goods work and how best to enhance gameplay and maximize revenue. This year’s 3rd annual Virtual Goods Summit on Friday Oct 30th will bring together thought leaders from Asia, Europe and the Americas to talk about what’s changed, what’s working, and the key challenges facing the industry going forward.

Come network with companies including Zynga, Nexon, Tencent, Viximo, Playfish, Paypal, Playdom and Offerpal and other leading developers in the virtual goods and social gaming space from Asia, Europe and the US.

New for this year, we’ve added a half-day seminar, VGS University on Thurs, Oct 29, designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the key fundamental drivers of virtual goods business models. Our group of experts will cover topics ranging from why virtual goods are effective to the ins and outs of managing a virtual economy, so join us for the day and learn from some of our industry’s leaders.

Confirmed Speakers and Panelists
* David Wallerstein, Tencent
* John Earner, Playfish
* Min Kim, Nexon
* Dai Watanabe, DeNa Global
* Andrew Trader (A.T.), Zynga
* Steve Meretzky, Playdom
* Amy Jo Kim, Shufflebrain
* Nils-Holger Henning, Bigpoint
* Benjamin Joffe, Plus8Star
* Jameson Hsu, Mochi Media
* Cary Rosenzweig, IMVU
* Brian Balfour, Viximo
* Adam Caplan, Super Rewards
* David Marcus, Zong
* Jeremy Liew, Lightspeed Venture Partners
* Steven Goh, mig33
* Owen Mahoney, Outspark
* John Smedley, Sony Online Entertainment
* Kevin Xu, IGG
* Zhan Ye, GameVision
* Renata Dionello, Paypal
* Ron Hirson, BOKU
* Siqi Chen, Serious Business
* Phlip Yun, NHN USA
* Keith Rabois, Slide
* David Jesse, Gaia Online
* Shanna Tellerman, Wildpockets
* Vikas Gupta, Jambool
* Bill Wang, Perfect World
* Geoff Cook, MyYearbook
* Bill Grosso, Live Gamer
* Robin Chan, XPD Media
* Dave Etling, InComm
* Ludovic Bodin, CMUNE
* Anu Shukla, Offerpal Media
* Fernando Paiz, Turbine
* Melinda Byerley, Linden Lab
* Roger Wood, ORCA
* Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners
* Eugene Yoo, Globespan Capital
* Will O’Brien, TrialPay
* Shin Takamiya, Globis Capital Partners
* Jinen Kamdar, Ning
* Lex Bayer, Spare Change (PlaySpan)
* Justin Smith, Inside Social Games

For more information, please email Charles Hudson (charles@vgsummit.com) or David Sachs (david@vgsummit2008.com).

Tags: Adriana Gascoigne, Charles Hudson, David Sachs, gaming, girls in tech, Virtual Goods Summit
Posted in San Francisco | 5 Comments »

A sold out Social Gaming Summit 2009, stirred a surprising amount of excitement and noise during a supposedly “hurting economy”. All of the major social gaming developers, designers, publishers, payment platforms, social networks, mobile players were in attendance which made for some solid networking, however, more significant to me, was the major power player women featured on key panels — and what a performance.

Strong voices from the Monetization Infrastructure for Social Games included Erikka Arone from Zong and Renata Dionello from PayPal. The discussion led by Charles Hudson, co-founder of the Social Gaming Summit, focused on types of payment platforms that work the best for social games and why. Of course, each rep touted their own technologies and platforms, however, one thing was really clear – more is more. More payment options for users = more money in the bank. Erikka Arone is the VP of Business Development for Zong. She is responsible for partnerships with virtual goods and gaming companies to drive monetization and adoption. She has broad experience in numerous high-growth social web and mobile businesses. She was at Six Apart, where she was responsible for distribution and product partnerships for TypePad. Renata leads PayPal’s efforts in business development on the consumer side of the business. She is currently involved in developing PayPal’s strategy in the micropayments and social media space. Renata has over 10 years of experience in business development, strategy, product management and marketing.

Another super star female panelist was Anu Shukla, who spoke on the Customer Acquisition and Retention for Social Games panel. Anu Shukla founded Offerpal Media in June, 2007, with the vision of providing social application developers and other social publishers with a viable way to monetize their traffic. She has since grown Offerpal Media into the leading social advertising network on the Web, generating significant revenue for social publishers while driving high quality leads and high value customers to online advertisers. A serial entrepreneur, Anu is also the founder and CEO of Mybuys Inc., the leading provider of personalized product recommendations for online retailers.

Anu was the one person that really knocked my socks off during the conference. A strong, determined and witty lady, she drove the discussion as an expert in customer retention and acquisition delivering one key message – “It’s all about increasing RPGs.”

The Social Gaming Summit 2009 is a one day event focused on the intersection of games and the social web. This year’s event will focus on helping social games developers build, monetize, and grow their social games. We’re bringing together the leaders in free-to-play games, social networking, and payments infrastructure for a full day of panels and talks.

Tags: Adriana Gascoigne, Anu Shukla, Charles Hudson, Erikka Arone, girls in tech, Offerpal, PayPal, Renata Dionello, Social Gaming Summit, Social Gaming Summit 2009, Sponsor, Zong
Posted in San Francisco | No Comments »