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HeyZap, The Longtail Competitor To Oberon Media

by Jason Wilk on January 15, 2009

  • If you haven’t heard of Oberon Media, I’m sure you’ve played a casual game or two on one of the many sites that they power. Since their inception, Oberon has become the king of casual games, providing partners like MSN, MySpace, MTV, Walmart.com, NBC and more with their game player.
  • Enter Heyzap, the latest product launch out of the Y Combinator college of startups. Founded by serial entrepreneurs, and my friends, Immad Akhund (recently sold Clickpass) and Jude Gomila, HeyZap is to become the longtail competitor to Oberon by creating an easily embeddable casual games player for use by any website or blog. Webmasters now have the ability to offer their users 4000+ casual games with a simple strip of code.
  • Immad says “Currently, publishers don’t have easy access to highly addictive, online casual games content, but HeyZap intends to change this. Heyzap will shift where users play casual games and bring casual games to a larger audience”. The player aggregates and filters casual games from major game portals, game developers and Mochi Media, recommending users with the most popular games titles in their favorite categories.
  • Some of the benefits to adding HeyZap to a site or blog include increasing user engagement, such as higher on-site time and potentially more page-views.
  • The platform also hopes to help promote new game developers who aren’t getting exposure on the major networks, offering them ad-revenue shares and a home for their games.
  • Casual gaming is now a $2.2bn market, predicted to grow at 25% this year. With the success of Oberon Media, HeyZap stands a real chance in the market for providing game tools for the rest of us. Somebody like DemandMedia, who offers tools for publishers could be setting their eye on this company very soon (Acquisition maybe?) Stay tuned….

Try it out here:

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My Top 15 iPhone Apps Of 2008

by Jason Wilk on January 1, 2009

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  • The App store has been a great success thus far. Although I have gone through my share of downloading and quickly deleting apps that I don’t use more than a few times, there have been 15 that are consistently open on a daily basis, some hourly.
    • Facebook. By far the app I use the most. I constantly update my status, check for notifications and chat throughout the day. Although buggy sometimes, it is my biggest time killer coming out of the app store.
    • MyAnalytics. Since Google has yet to come out with an iPhone app for Google Analytics, this app is the best substitute. Nothing like having a record traffic day and keeping track of it on the go. It takes a little bit of getting used to, since some durations throghout the day it will show you a combination of your current and previous days traffic. I find it to be dead on if I check it from 2pm throughout the day.
    • Shazam. If you don’t have this app yet, I’m surprised. Open up the app, put it next to the song you are listening to and it will tell you who the artist is, where to buy it, what the lyrics are and then stores the info. Hipsters beware, it has trouble picking up on Jason Bentley tracks.
    • BigOven. Sometimes I just need to cook. This is a really nice app that contains thousands of recipes. It has been downloaded welll over 1 million times.
    • Trace. Best game of they year for me. Travel to one of the 5 worlds in the game with your little red character. Trace your own lines around the obstacles and set your own path to success. Must be downloaded to get the full effect. Truly addicting.
    • WritingPad. Similar to note pad but utilizes the latest typing technology, Swype. You don’t need to lift a finger or tap to write a word. Drag your finger through the letters of the word you want to spell and it will recognize it. Great for taking quick notes or impressing your non-tech friends. This is the future of the mobile keyboard.
    • Pandora. The great app produced by the Music Genome phenomenon. Type in an artist or song you want to listen to and it will create a radio station based on similar styles and sounds. Awesome for your car, iPod Dock or walking around.
    • PapiJump. Just about as addicting as Trace. Using the accelerometor, bounce the pink ball to each blue step until you can’t go any further. Just don’t try plaing it in the car. My high score is 46,000.
    • Wurdle. Shake the iPhone and a fresh screen of letters will appear. Try and drag yor finger through possible words and rack up points. Think you did well? Once your time runs out, you will see all the words you missed and feel like an idiot every time.
    • Wordpress. Make a lot of typos like me when you write? Well, make sure you have the Wordpress app so you can correct your grammar on the go. Gives you instant access to your dashboard, where you can add, edit or delete a post.
    • iGolf. I take a sense of pride in this game since I think I may hold the world record. Play a few holes or hit the driving range with this Wii like golf game. Try and avoid playing it in public, people may think you’re nuts.
    • iHunt. Need to take out a little aggression? Just open up this app to go kill some deer or pheasants. Use the accelerometer to aim you shotgun or rifle and shoot away. Such a fun game with great sound effects.
    • Fandango. Movie times/reviews, on the go and fast.
    • CollegeFB. Great app from the nice guys at PlusMo. Keep track of all the college football games on the go. Gives you an updated play by play for each game you click on.
    • UrbanSpoon. The best app for finding a restaurant near where you’re standing. Choose from a variety of genres, pricing options and areas.

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JuicyCampus To Expand?

by Jason Wilk on September 2, 2008

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  • D Bag Juicy Campus owner, Matt Ivester, has released a new version of Juicy Campus to include 185 colleges
  • Juicy Campus is a forum for students to annonymously submit posts about topics they are concerned about, usually student gossip.
  • The site has been linked to problems at many schools with students posting threats about mass shootings, attacks on sexual orientation and more.
  • Mr. Ivester says that the site has yet to encounter legal problems but they are facing increased scrutiny from the D.A. of Connecticut and New Jersey
  • ivester wants the site to expand to 500 schools by the end of the year; let’s hope not.

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