A Hacker's Guide to Monetizing Free-to-Play Games - Betable
The Free-to-play Revolution Free-to-play games are growing in popularity and quickly taking over the Top Grossing app spots on both the App Store and the Android Market. It makes a lot of sense, especially for social games that need to achieve critical mass for the best gameplay experience. The user adoption rate of a free product is 5 to 6 times higher than a product that costs even $0.01, and that viral spread is a great way to get users to refer you to the customer that will make that free-to-paid conversion later. This option also drives strong category rankings because it drives more installs, which makes it especially valuable now that Apple has prohibited incentivized installs to a certain extent.
The 10 Best Questions to Ask at a Job Interview
Karen Burns You’re interviewing for a job. After 20 or 30 minutes, you’re asked: “Do you have any questions?” The worst thing you can do is ask, “What is it your company does?”
50 Things Everyone Should Know
by Mark and Angel Self-reliance is a vital key to living a healthy, productive life. To be self-reliant one must master a basic set of skills, more or less making them a jack of all trades. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, a jack of all trades is far more equipped to deal with life than a specialized master of only one. While not totally comprehensive
Building A Startup That Can Punch Above Its Weight
I used to do full-contact competitive karate (I also auditioned for the part Macaulay Culkin played in Home Alone, but that’s a different story for another day). I was very young then and the competitive fighting taught me a lot--unbeknownst to me at the time--about hiring a world-class startup team. In karate, like with other competitive sports, you are matched up with opponents based on age and, especially in the case of contact sports, your size and weight.
Alzheimer's Patient "Awakens" When Listening to Music From His Past
To watch Henry—an elderly man who has spent over ten years in a nursing home, barely able to answer yes or no questions—come alive when listening to music from his past is a reminder of the powerful, inspiring, and affecting power of music. A new documentary, Alive Inside, follows the “awakening” that occurs when people suffering from memory loss and Alzheimer’s are given music they have a strong emotional connection to — often, music they grew up with. In the clip, Henry is barely responsive before one of his caretakers puts headphones on him and starts up one of his favorite tunes.
10 Killer Apps for the Coworking Professional
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Imaginative freelancers and open-minded collaborators come together each day to bounce ideas and innovate in coworking spaces. These shared offices rent desks to solo workers and tiny companies.
People with a Situational Value System – Workplace Psychology
Photo Credit: Post Secret Archive The other night, my wife and I were at a very nice hotel here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
Bigpoint's big numbers
With a quarter of a million registrations a day and 220 million accounts on its books, free-to-play specialist Bigpoint loves numbers. Its many games, which include Battlestar Galactica Online, Drakensang Online and Farmerama, may be free, but with a philosophy that says "you can be as creative as you want to, but base it on numbers," the German publisher is becoming one of the richest players in the online marketplace. We met Philip Reisberger, its chief games officer, to discuss the importance of creatives understanding financial realities, a Darwinian approach to game design, why EA doesn't understand monetisation and why Team Fortress 2 shouldn't have gone free-to-play.
History of Chemical Industry
Long back in 7000 B.C. Some artisans from Middle East refined Alkali and Limestone and prepared glass. After this, next were the Chinese people who invented a chemical explosive named Black Powder.
46 Ways To Start A Business With No Money
Most people who want to start their own business don’t have a ton of money laying around and it’s probably one the most common questions I get emailed about: How can I get started without a lot of cash? Well I’ve put together a list below of the best ideas I’ve heard and personally used. I hope you find it useful!
Building an Indie Brand
So I played Pioneer Trail yesterday. (Bizarre aside: it took me longer than I expected to find a link to it via Google) A friend of mine invited me to try it, and I've been meaning to for a while. NEO Scavenger has its roots in a post-apocalyptic homage to Oregon Trail, so it makes sense to see someone's modern interpretation of a "Trail-like" game.
September 2011: Free-to-Play
There has always been free-to-play games, but the question remains: How do we earn money? Unless you are a non-profit or a philanthropist, that money issue will always come up. With casual games and shareware, the try-before-you-buy system of downloading the trial or demo version has been a proven method. There has also been tiered membership, divvying up perks to be added to each tier, from basic free up to the deluxe premium package.
Great Software Engineers
We’ve partnered with our friends at Mixtent to create this infographic about software engineers. Mixtent is a web application that lets you rate and discover the most talented people in your professional network. By taking a look at the data for software engineers across all of its users, Mixtent analyzed their skills and how other people rated them. Also, Mixtent looked at match ups between people from different companies. What follows are the results of the data in an easy to understand infographic created by us. Click on the infographic below to see an enlarged view:
