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Draw Something update brings sharing, saving, messaging, and notifications
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Games, App Updates, $0.99, Free Apps,
You knew that when Zynga acquired Draw Somthing creator OMGPOP that we'd start seeing some updates hitting the app with the quickness, right? Well, the firstpost-purchase update has arrived, and it brings a quite a few welcome features to the drawing game. Let's run them down.
First comes the addition of commenting, which allows you to type short messages to your opponents along with your drawings. This makes it easy to give a compliment (or a WTF) in response to a work of art, or a horrible guess. The app also picks up an undo button that will remove your last-drawn line without you having to suffer through using the eraser. iOS users can also save drawings to the Camera Roll, and also share them to Facebook and Twitter with ease.
The update is available now for iOS and Android users.
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| Draw Something
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Draw Something amasses 50 million downloads in 50 days
Posted by Andrey Malskiy Categories: Corporate News, Video Games,
Of all the mobile apps one could play, the simplest of them all reigns at the top of the charts. Recently acquired by Zynga, OMGPOP’s Draw Something, is peaking at the top of the download charts, and doesn’t seem like it’ll be going down anytime soon. The popular Pictionary-style game has reached 5 0million downloads in just 50 days; becoming “one of the fastest growing sensations we’ve seen,” said Zynga. Zynga has also reported that at its peak more than 3,000 images were created per second.
As mentioned earlier, the premise of the game is to draw something, as the title implies. Users are given a word and rewarded with coins if they or their opponent guesses correctly.
The game doesn’t seem like much, but once it gets going, it becomes quite addictive. And if you haven’t of guessed it already, the game has us playing too. So when we’re not busy writing, we’re busy drawing. If you haven’t checked the game out for yourself, we suggest downloading it and giving it a try.
Read More | BBC
Zynga acquires OMGPOP, picks up Draw Something and other social games
Posted by Andrey Malskiy Categories: Corporate News, Software, Video Games,
For those on the go, iPhone and Android smartphones have been a lifesaver for mobile entertainment and keeping in contact with friends on the go. Once in a while, an app comes along that even uses your social network as the basis for an entertainment experience with something so addicting that even its competitors are threatened by it.
We’re taking about the game Draw Something, made by OMGPOP. It climbed its way to the top of the App Store and Android App Market and stayed there, out growing Zynga’s Words with Friends in popularity. Zynga wasn’t having any of this, so only one option remained—Zynga acquired Draw Something for a rumored $180 million, plus another $30 million for employee retention payouts, in an insanely smart move. Zynga is also acquiring a portfolio of over 35 social games aside from Draw Something, and the takeover is effective immediately. Current OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter is now Vice President and General Manager of Zynga New York.
Read More | Yahoo! Finance
GagaVille, the Lady Gaga-FarmVille mash-up, is now live
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Internet, Music, Video Games,
GagaVille, a Lady Gaga-themed version of FarmVille, opened its gates yesterday.
From today until May 26, GagaVille invites users to "execute Gaga-themed quests" and unlock songs from Lady Gaga's upcoming album, "Born This Way," which hits stores on May 23.
As Zynga announced last week, GagaVille is a marketing partnership with Lady Gaga and Clear Channel Radio. The game gives fans access to Clear Channel's iHeartRadio player, and an exclusive preview to the diva's upcoming album.
Fans who buy $25 worth of FarmVille game credits through Best Buy will also get to download the entire album for free.
Click to continue reading GagaVille, the Lady Gaga-FarmVille mash-up, is now live
Facebook ‘Open Compute Project’ aims to change the server industry
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Features, Social Networks,
Facebook began showing off its plans for a new data center and server design on Thursday. It will be called the "Open Compute Project," executives said.
Facebook is making the design documents and specifications public at OpenCompute.org. The company claims that the design of the new servers is 38 percent more power efficient than its older designs, and costs 24 percent less to make.
Graham Weston, the chairman of Rackspace, said that his company would use the new Open Compute servers in its own designs, and Zynga's chief technical officer said that his company would take a serious look at adding the new technology to its own cloud.
Industry executives said that the new server designs will have a positive impact not just on the IT industry, but also with emerging countries that may not have the R&D resources to design their own power-efficient servers and data centers. Instead, they said, they can leverage the collective expertise. With the cost savings that the new server designs enable, those savings can be passed along to service companies that use web hosting to drive their businesses.
"This is how Facebook kicks Google's ass," said Robert Scoble, a blogger for Rackspace, one of the companies that will use the technology. The new data center does not use a "chiller," he said. Instead, it puts fine particles of water in the air and cools the server through evaporative cooling.
Click to continue reading Facebook ‘Open Compute Project’ aims to change the server industry
Facebook introduces single sign-on for mobile
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Business Tools, News, Social Media,
This morning Facebook announced improvements to their iPhone and Android apps, as well as changes to how they handle their sign-on platform. First, the new Groups and Places features are now fully integrated into both apps, which also brings up the Android app to be on par with the iPhone one. This will allow you to take part of all those groups while on the go. Their mobile apps hadn't been updated in a while, so it's good to see the company commit themselves to the mobile space. As a side note, they did comment that Facebook had no plan to make a phone of their own, preferring to instead bring their platform to the devices that people use.
The second part of the announcement dealt with single sign-on. Mark Zuckerberg described the troubles and frustrations that entering usernames and passwords could be on a phone, and their approach to solving it. They are now providing developers with a way to integrate a single button that will log users to their services. Now, to log into any mobile site or service that supports this feature, all you'll have to do is click on the button "sign in with Facebook". No more username or password to remember. They showed the Groupon and Zynga apps which will support this feature soon, with many more on board.
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