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Cheap FOTB 09 Tickets on Ebay | Last Chance

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:55:02 +0000

FOTB09 Ticket 1
FOTB09 Ticket 2
FOTB09 Ticket 3
FOTB09 Ticket 4
FOTB09 Ticket 5

The annual fun and games with the last few tickets for FOTB09 begins. Currently the tickets are sat there at a ridiculously low price and if it stays that way some lucky peeps are going to get an absolute bargain.

Going to Flash on the Beach?

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:24:36 +0000

Earlier, I posted on my blog that I wouldn’t be attending FOTB this year due to an admin error on my part, and how disappointed I was not to be going. You see, FOTB has become an amazing event for Flash developers and creatives alike, not to mention an absolute social blast.

Anyway, the good news is I shall be going to the ball after-all due to some help in sorting out the previous error from Mr Flash on the Beach himself John Davey (big thanks).

See you all there, it’s going to be amazing!

Nokia Vine wins Gold at Cannes

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:52:03 +0000

Some of you may or may not know that in a previous life I was Technical Director at R/GA London. While there I led an extremely talented team of developers and worked with an equally talented team of creatives to produce Nokia Vine.

I’m therefore very proud to announce that Nokia Vine has just won a Gold Lion at Cannes. Well done to everyone at R/GA who put so much work into Vine.

Visible Tweets | Data Vis your Tweets

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:22:00 +0000

Not sure that there’s a practical benefit to this service but it’s fun never-the-less watch the video and try it for yourself here.

Visible Tweets

Scribblar – Online Collaboration Tool

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:06:50 +0000

Scribblar is an online collaboration tool, a virtual meeting room if you like, complete with white board and voice conference facilities. Those of you that have used Adobe Breeze will be very familiar with the concept but what’s particularly impressive about this service is it’s free and there’s no lengthy registration process, you can literally role up take a meeting room and get started.

Use Examples:

Online training and tutoring
Revising artwork and images
Creative brainstorming
Sales and product demos
Interviews and tests

Facilities:

Real-time multi-user whiteboard
Image upload and sharing
Userlist and text chat
Live audio communications
No downloads, no user limits

Kudos to my good friend Stefan Richter who is the man behind Scribblar.

Spezify [beta] – The Future of Search?

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:12:46 +0000

It’s hard to imagine, even for a second, that we’ll ever forget about Google and all start using a new search engine. But that is exactly what happened in 2003 when we all forgot about Yahoo, Lycos and AltaVista. If history is any indication within 10 years we WILL be using something else other than Google to search. Do you believe it?

I know, it takes a very large leap of faith to believe it but experiments like Spezify do make me wonder what the ‘Next’ big thing will be. Spezify is a visual search engine that collects search results, arranges them on a desktop and allows you to drag around that desktop. It feels more like spreading out old photos and articles on a big desk and shuffling them around than what you are used to with regular search.

Spezify is currently in beta and you can test it here: http://beta.spezify.com/

Tweet your images using Picnik

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:35:20 +0000

One of the best online photo editors out there, Picnik, has added the option to tweet your photos directly from its user interface.

To do that, you must click the Save & Share option in Picnik and choose Twitter . Besides tweeting the image, you can also turn it into your Twitter background, or set it up as your profile picture.

For this functionality, Picnik has partnered with Twitgoo, Photobucket’s photo hosting service for Twitter users. It’s a nice addition to their quite impressive array of features; if it’s been a while since you’ve last tried Picnik, you should check it out again. They’ve added pretty much anything you could want from an online image editor, including Flickr, Wetpaint and Facebook integration and a bunch of new editing options and image effects.

Facebook Marketing Solutions – Facebook gets brand aware

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:59:12 +0000

Facebook is starting to do more to reach out to brands that might benefit from using revamped Pages. The latest example is (fittingly) a Facebook Page that the company has setup to promote “Facebook Marketing Solutions,” complete with case studies from a number of large brands using the tool, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers.

The brands that Facebook is featuring include household names like Adobe, Lionsgate, and Ben & Jerry’s, but there are still some useful tidbits for those with slightly smaller budgets. For example, Ben & Jerry’s implementation of Facebook Connect is something that any website could deploy with a bit of coding work and zero marketing spend.

Take look at the Facebook Marketing Solutions page for more information, it’s really quite interesting.

PureMVC Console – See what your app is really up to?

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:49:34 +0000

I was checking the PureMVC website today and came across PureMVC Console developed by the good folks at Kap Lab. This is an absolutely invaluable tool to figure out in real-time what is going on inside the Flex PureMVC framework in a running application. PureMVC is quite lightweight and is very good at keeping things hidden under the hood. However, during development it is essential to get a snapshot of application state and the sequence of notifications and this is exactly what PureMVC Console does. It provides you with the ability to view your Notifications, Commands, Mediators and Proxies and track notifications and application flow in response to user gestures and other events.

You can see it action here

Flash Game Engine – PushButton now in beta

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:58:20 +0000

PushButton Flash Game Engine

When it comes to gaming, the most popular platform isn’t the Nintendo Wii, but Flash, the interactive browser plugin that now boasts 99 percent market penetration on nearly a billion PCs. (Flash game advertising network Mochi Media currently counts 100 million players across its system alone.) That huge audience has led to a lot of games, but most of them are rudimentary at best, the product of amateur enthusiasts working with limited resources. That’s why I was excited to hear about PushButton, a Flash game engine from a team of seasoned game developers that’s free, open source, and associated with an innovative revenue model that should help spur its adoption.

PushButton Game Screenshot

Quietly released in open beta to friends and family last week, it already seems to be gaining an enthusiastic following; Ada Chen of Mochi told me she’s also heard a lot about it from developers at Sunday’s Flash Gaming Summit, and “the feedback has all been overwhelmingly positive.” It comes from Push Button Labs, a new startup led by Jeff Tunnell, founder of Dynamix and co-founder of GarageGames. (The latter company was acquired by IAC to become InstantAction, the web-based 3D gaming platform we wrote about last month.)

Tunnell and his team briefed me on PushButton at this week’s Game Developers Conference, including explaining their business model: Since the engine is free (and distributed under the extremely liberal MIT license), the company will instead make money by selling premium components and assets that PushButton users can buy to improve their games. Developers can also sell components they made on PushButton’s open market — sort of an App Store for Flash game makers — with the company collecting a 30 percent cut on each sale. Sounds like a smart way to leverage and empower a growing community of Flash developers and other startups interested in making a living from casual games. For consumers, that should also translate into better games coming to their browsers soon.