Digital Media News (week 21)
Date:
14 May 2012
Weekly bulletin collating public sector, industry and company news for creative industries by David Hartley.
Public sector
From TRC Media
"Application process for Cross Creative 2012 is now open. Cross Creative is TRC's pioneering and perennially popular digital media initiative. It is a unique and immersive 9 month programme for top creatives in digital media focusing on expanding knowledge and creative horizons and on the importance of the relationships underpinning collaborative projects."
From Scottish Development International
"UKTI is hosting the Multi Platform App Developer Mission during the week of 18-22 June 2012 conveniently scheduled in the week between Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) (10-15 June) and Google’s I/O Developer Conference (27-29 June)."
Local industry news
From Gamasutra
"Mojang and 4J Studios' recently-released Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has broken a digital sales record on the Xbox 360, as its day-one sales have outpaced those of every other game on Xbox Live Arcade. Adding a bit of extra context, Minecraft creator and Mojang founder Markus 'Notch' Persson confirmed on Twitter that the Xbox 360 version of the game was "profitable in an hour."
From PocketGamer
"Virgin Media has partnered with website Eurogamer and the University of Abertay Dundee on a campaign dubbed the 100 Day Game Project, which challenges budding game developers to create a top mobile title in - you guessed it - 100 days. Entries will be judged by a panel that features the likes of Douglas Hare from Outplay Entertainment and David Hamilton from Digital Goldfish."
From Broadcast newsroom
"Europress, a leading family video games producer, is today announcing the launch of Doodle Tales a new mobile app thats set to revolutionize the way kids can express their creativity. The app was created by BAFTA Award-winning developer Extra Mile Studios the studio behind the first Teletubbies app, and the bestselling Isaac Newton's Gravity."
From the Scotsman
"Glasgow production house Twig has signed another international distribution deal that will put its educational science films on sale in 40,000 schools across Latin America and Spain. The agreement with Spanish publisher Santillana follows a similar deal last year between Twig and US supplier Carolina Biological covering 15,000 schools. More than 1,000 short science films will go on sale this week in Santillana’s schools in Spain and also in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru."
From allmediascotland
"The Herald and Sunday Herald have become the latest newspapers to launch apps for mobile devices. And in providing them for not just the iPad, but the iPhone and Android devices too, it's believed they are the first Scots newspapers to launch for all three types of technology."
From Indiegraph
"With a little help from the YoYoGames community themselves for question ideas, I contacted YoYoGames and we arranged for an interview. This is the result of our efforts. We hope you find it interesting."
From The Scotsman
"An online design agency that lists Gazprom, Holiday Inn Express and IBM among its clients has broken through the £1 million turnover barrier and posted a 33 per cent rise in profits just two years after overhauling the business. Revenues at Glasgow-based Alienation Digital – which carries out web design, marketing and social media work – reached £1.03m during the year to 31 March, up from £778,000 in the previous 12 months."
General industry
From Televisual
"Channel 4 Online will provide eight paid-for producer placements with four TV companies and four digital companies as part of Fuel 4… Companies can apply from today to take part in the programme which will see a multiplatform executive producer placed into a television production company whilst a TV development producer will be embedded into a digital company. The aim is to encourage companies to develop multiplatform ideas, which will be pitched to Channel 4 at the end of the placements."
From All Things Digital
"In the fiscal year 2012, it generated $1.2 billion in digital revenues, exceeding its goal of $1 billion this year, and representing a 47 percent increase year over year. In an interview, EA’s interim CFO Ken Barker said the company is forecasting digital revenues in fiscal 2013 of $1.7 billion, representing a growth rate of 40 percent. At those levels, he said digital will now comprise 40 percent of the company’s overall revenues, breaking away from its reliance on traditional packaged goods."
From The Telegraph
"Rovio Entertainment, the makers of the mobile game, in which annoyed birds are deployed by sling shots to kill green pigs, earned £38.7m pre-tax during 2011 and reached 200 million monthly active users across all platforms. This figure compares favourably with US-based Zynga, the social games company behind the likes of Farmville and CityVille, which has 240 million monthly active users and many more games. The total number of Angry Birds game downloads reached 648 million by the end of last year."
From Mashable
"Many developers create smart, innovative mobile apps that have near-universal appeal, but how broad is too broad? For instance, developing apps only in English prevents your star power from reaching a global stage. It’s totally fine to start building your mobile app in one language, but if you want to tap the huge international market, you can’t stop there. How should developers go about taking their apps international? For starters, try this handy guide."
From Mashable
"Mobile devices play a very different role in people’s lives than PCs. Savvy app developers recognise this and are tapping into a set of consumer behaviors that are specific to mobile. When combined, these elements translate into explosive growth. Here's why."
Reports
From Tech Crunch
"The age of the tablet is definitely upon us: figures out today from Gartner forecast that by the end of 2016 there will 665 million media tablets in use worldwide — a counterpoint to the sluggish sales we have seen in PCs in the last couple of years. This year, Gartner says there will be sales of 118.9 million tablets, growth of nearly 100 percent on a year ago. But while the tablet market is picking up some momentum from competitors like Amazon and its Kindle Fire, and Samsung and its many sizes of Galaxy Tab, it looks like the day will continue to belong to Apple and its iPad."
From The Next Web
"Mobile now accounts for 10 percent of all Internet usage worldwide, after the rise in demand and ownership of smartphones and tablets saw the proportional use of the mobile Web more than double over the last 18 months. Asia is the region where mobile is most active, accounting for almost 18 percent of total net usage, but a sizeable increase in mobile-based surfing is also visible in Europe and Africa, among other regions."
Events
From Scottish Enterprise
"Free, half day workshop is being led by highly experienced Design Innovation specialists from Glasgow School of Art. They will take delegates through a practical-based process to help you understand how design can be a strategic and effective tool to boost performance, open new markets, cut costs and reduce risk."
The event takes place on 13 June from 9am at the Lighthouse in Glasgow."
From Edinburgh Science Triangle
"Microsoft is the latest sponsor to put its weight behind this year's DrupalCamp Scotland, further underlining its commitment to Open Source and Open Standards. A free, two-day event, DrupalCamp Scotland brings together members of the Scottish Drupal community and aims to introduce the platform to new users with a series of accessible tutorials". DrupalCamp Scotland will take place in the Informatics Forum at the University of Edinburgh on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 May 2012."
Compiled by David Hartley