If you ever planted super berries on Farmville for a quick profit or downloaded a Katy Perry song via Tap Tap Revenge on your mobile device, you experienced the convergence of social media, mobile gaming, virtual goods, and an innovative business model.
Every day, a growing number of people around the globe connect to social media for networking and entertainment, and many of them are doing so on their mobile devices. Entrepreneurs, business leaders and practitioners are coming up with new and original ways to capitalize on this growing trend and to make money through social media.
Learn how industry leaders in online marketing, digital media and mobile gaming are creating and executing these business strategies at Socialize: Monetizing Social Media, a two-day conference presented by Mediabistro, SocialTimes & AllFacebook. Diverse perspectives will be represented at discussions focused on four core themes:
- Gamify. Social games keep getting hotter: the virtual goods market will surpass $2 billion in 2011
- Mobilize. The social web has gone mobile: lessons for social sharing, search, browsing, and networking
- Optimize. Learn how to effectively track and measure social media campaigns
- Monetize. At the root of all these topics, uncover key revenue drivers: content, apps, and more
The conference will be held from Thursday, March 31 to Friday, April 1, 2011 at The New Yorker Hotel in New York City.
Click here to register for the event. At checkout, Girls in Tech members can use this 15% discount code: SZGIT.
5: Call of Duty: Black Ops – This latest title in the Call of Duty series is set during the Cold War era, and sold over 5.6 Million units in the first 24 hours of its release. Gamers can expect much of what they love from previous “call of duty” titles in terms of gameplay experience and controls. It’s also got some other cool additional features, like ‘Zombie Mode’, that players have been loving since it’s release. Get a copy for the gamer in your life quickly, as this game has had a hard time staying on the shelves for long in most stores.
4: GameFly Subscription – Not sure what games to get the gamer in your life this season or simply can’t afford to give them the long list of games they desire? A Subscription to GameFly might be the answer. Like Netflix, but for gamers, you can pick the games you’d like to play, they send them to you, and when you’re finished, you send them back in the provided envelope and they send you the next game in your queue. It’s an excellent way to play many games without having to shell out the sometimes-as-high-as-$60 pricetag on some games today.
3: WoW:Cataclysm – For the online gamer in your life, (particularly the World of Warcraft fanatic), this long awaited expansion to the World of Warcraft series will be released early December. With new stories, character classes, abilities, dungeons, battlegrounds, there’s plenty of new features packed in for new and seasoned players alike.
1: Microsoft Kinect / Sony Move – There’s no doubt that one of the hottest, if not the hottest video game accessory this season is the Microsoft Kinect (for the Xbox 360), and the Sony Move (for the PS3). In the case of the Sony Move, it’s a new form of controller for using your body and movements to control games, much like the Wiimote for the Wii. The Microsoft Kinect on the other hand takes things up a notch, using a special camera and sensor for the Xbox, it makes your entire body the controller, without the need to hold anything in your hands. With both of these new accessories, their respective consoles have now brought wii-like experiences to players everywhere.
Today’s Tech & Video Game industries, while still heavily male dominated, are seeing a growing female presence each year. In recognition of this, companies have now started assembling scholarship programs for women entering these fields. Just last year, Sony established the G.I.R.L. (Gamers In Real Life) Scholarship program, to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influence content to be appealing to women. The program also tries to raise awareness of the female gaming audience to the media in an effort to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management. Winners receive $10,000 towards tuition, as well as an internship at Sony Online Entertainment.
If you’re a gamer like myself, you’ve probably heard of the electronic entertainment expo, or E3. It’s one of the biggest conventions used to preview up-and-coming and recently released video games, accessories, attire, and much much more. I’ve had the opportunity to check out this convention for the past several years, and would like to share some of my thoughts on the highlights and changes that have occurred during this time.
This year’s E3 highlight for me came during the Xbox introduction of it’s newest geek’s wet dream, Kinect. Xbox unveiled its newest gaming console with the help of Cirque du Soleil. As guest entered the stadium, they were asked to don white jerseys with futuristic shoulder pads. I thought, “uh oh, don’t drink the kool aid”. The show utilized these jerseys which had LED lights placed in the shoulder pads to light the crowd in strategic patterns and colors. It was an interactive, visually stimulating masterpiece. The Cirque show itself was pseudo-jungle themed with animatronic elephants and people roasting giant marshmallows over faux flames. And the center of it all, a large TV screen hovering above the stadium with the quintessential Xbox family. Floating from ceiling to floor, the family demonstrated the new game offerings live with surround sound and visuals. After the show, we headed to the VIP lounge where we were invited to try Kinect. We remotelessly drove cars, danced our *sses off and downward dogged it. As a techie but non-gamer, I have to say that the Kinect offerings are so comprehensive that it appeals to everyone, so much so that I pre-ordered a Kinect which doesn’t arrive on the shelved until November 3, 2010. If you haven’t checked it out make sure you do at 
