Digital Media News (week 7)
Date:
09 February 2012
Weekly bulletin collating public sector, industry and company news for creative industries by David Hartley.
Public sector
From the Scottish Government
"This action plan outlines our commitment to a world-class, future proofed infrastructure that will deliver digital connectivity across the whole of Scotland by 2020. The purpose of this plan is to deliver a step change in people’s ability to access the internet, enabling people to connect from their homes, businesses and while on the move".
Local industry
From the BBC
"Online genealogy company Brightsolid has launched a family history service in the US. The Dundee-based firm unveiled its new website at a genealogy show in Salt Lake City, Utah. Censusrecords.com allows customers to search all available US census records. Brightsolid said it was the first site to do this in the US market".
From pocketgamer.biz
"Dundee-based studio Tag Games has revealed its new cross-platform porting technology. Dubbed moFlow, the new social mobile games engine was developed in tandem with moMetrics, an analytics program, and moConnect, a player account infrastructure system. Collectively the technology allows Tag Games to develop and deploy its titles, whether in 2D or 3D, for both iOS and Android simultaneously".
From The Scotsman
"An 'iconic' and 'quirky' short film about Scotland receives it premiere today. The film, Scotland The World Over, will be unveiled by culture secretary Fiona Hyslop before a Holyrood debate on the 2012 Year of Creative Scotland.
The initiative is being hosted by the online community blipfoto.com in partnership with Scotland.org. Joe Tree, chief executive and founder of Blipfoto, said: 'From a Chinese school to an Inuit village and from Times Square to Bondi Beach, people around the globe have come together to help create an iconic, quirky and captivating short film that celebrates Scotland'".
From EDGE
"Three Scottish games made Edge's 50 Must Play iOS games: Numbra from Cobra Mobile - 'perhaps Numba’s brilliance always lay with its simplicity in the first place', and two games from Denki - Quarrel 'Anagrams and territory control mechanics fit together surprisingly well across a range of colourful levels, while some excellent AI players make for bruising, and occasionally humiliating, encounters' and Denki Blocks - 'Denki’s evergreen block puzzler… a series of spatial challenges that manage to be both relaxing and deviously complex'".
From the BBC
"Clare English speaks to Brightsolid CEO Chris Van Der Kuyl about his trip to the top and hears about the sacrifices he made to become one of Scotland's leading entrepreneurs".
From scottishgames.net
"The team at Huzutech in Glasgow posted a fascinating piece on the use of data analysis and metrics in the social gaming space on their blog last week. The social games scene exploded in last year.
The number of games on the market increased beyond all expectations, as did the variety of games – from simple word and puzzle titles, through to massively multiplayer adventures. This expansion drew in huge numbers of players and led to massive growth in revenues, from subscriptions, the sale of virtual goods and advertising".
General industry
From paidcontent:UK
"BSkyB is acting to head off rising City concerns about the threat from over-the-top connected TV services, by announcing it will launch, by the summer, its own such service that does not require a satellite subscription.
The as-yet-unnamed and unpriced service will offer Sky Movies, Sky Sports and entertainment over a swathe of devices including tablet, mobile, console and connected TV. There will be no minimum contract and “a wide variety of pricing options".
From Develop
"Channel 4 has harnessed the Sims 3 engine to power its new online drama played out by virtual actors. The new show, called SuperMe, is set within a fictional English town, and tells the story of four lead characters living in a shared house and follows them through their 'triumphs and tragedies'.
The show has been created by creative agency Somethin’ Else in collaboration with Electronic Arts, and was commissioned by now UKIE CEO Jo Twist for Channel 4 education".
From the Guardian
"Live interactive game shows, where viewers compete with on-screen contestants, are the key to persuading the Facebook generation to watch television, according to industry experts.
British production companies are at the forefront of using new technology to create interactive shows that can compete with the myriad distractions of social networking sites, computer games and even food and drink".
Reports
From the Telegraph
"The number of web-connected devices will grow more than fourfold by 2020, networking giant Cisco has claimed.
The company also said that there will be more than 7 billion mobile devices globally by 2015, and that a greater use of video will mean total internet traffic will more than quadruple by 2014. Estimates suggest there are currently approximately 14 billion devices connected to the internet".
From paidcontent:UK
"It remains to be seen whether all social networks can be profitable on advertising alone—and crucially what formats will work best alongside people’s communications with each other—but for now we are at least seeing some big growth in the space.
In 2011, Twitter’s advertising revenues grew 233 percent, and LinkedIn’s sales were up 95 percent, and both are set to see more growth in the years ahead. According to figures out from eMarketer today, Twitter’s revenue from advertising was a mere $139.5 million in 2011, but that was actually up by 233 percent over 2010".
Events
From IGDA
"IGDA Scotland will be hosting a fabulous GGJ Play Party, and we want YOU – the developers and participants to come along and have a bit of fun sharing and discussing this year’s blowout line up of games.
We had two Jam sites in Scotland with over 130 participants making 26 games in 48 hours. This is amazing showcase of work done by the game development community in Scotland and just shows what you can do in such a short space of time. Join us, play some games, discuss the highs and lows of taking part in the Game Jam!".
The event takes place on Wednesday, 8th of February at the Admiral Bar, Glasgow..
... and finally
From the Telegraph
"Forget jigsaw puzzles or knitting, a centenarian from East Renfrewshire says the only way to keep her mind active is playing computer games on her beloved Nintendo DS. Kathleen Connell, known as Kit, turned 100 last week but attributes her sharp mind to regular sessions on her hand-held games console".
Compiled by David Hartley