Archive for January 13, 2013

Editor’s note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. Each column will look at crowdfunded products that have either met or missed their funding goals. Follow him on Twitter @rossrubin.

Bikes and tech go back a long way. During his first stint at Apple, Steve Jobs would talk about how, when one compared the efficiency of various animals in advancing a kilometer, humans fared poorly, a distant species from the class-leading condor. But when you did the same comparison with a human on a bicycle, humans blew away the pack. The idea of computers as a “bicycle for the mind” was a theme he would repeat, and “Bicycle” was even floated as a name for the Macintosh.

Jobs, of course, was not the only adult enamored by bicycles; the two-wheeled wonders are prized by a huge community of enthusiasts ripe for the pedal peddlers at Kickstarter. Whether your New Year’s resolution was to tone up under the premise of “two wheels good, four wheels bad” or are looking to match your attraction to being ecologically green with limited-edition Kickstarter green, a number of recent projects have offered new takes on urban mobility.

Backed: Bicymple. Capable of riding in a straight line with its rear wheel parallel as well as ultra-tight turning radii, the compact and nearly symmetrical Bicymple is distinguished by the lack of a chain and the placement of pedals on the rear wheel. However, Bellingham, MA-based designer Josh Bechtel admonishes that it’s not a “two-wheeled unicycle,” citing the ride as very different (and hopefully more favorable to the balance-challenged) and ignoring that such a thing would be an oxymoron.

Reward tiers to bag a Bicymple of one’s own range from $800 for the fixed-gear model up to $2,700 for a two-gear model, which may be as many as you can get away with while trying to stress simplicity. Despite the pricey merchandise, the project beat its $20,000 funding goal by more than half with about 40 days left to go in the campaign.

In a rare and welcome move, Bechtel has set the delivery date at December 2013 but notes that he’s giving himself room to wiggle as much as the Bicymple’s wheel and expects to fulfill orders well before that.

Whacked: NexiBike. It may seem like a bold statement to say that your invention will be “a game changer that will revolutionize human-powered transportation.” That statement, though, comes from Scott Olson, who, with his brother, developed the Rollerblades that Olson also claims revolutionized human-powered transportation. It may not have done that, but it did revolutionize the roller skate.

Olson’s latest pursuit, a 25-lb. foldable bike that you can carry with you onto public transportation, looks a bit like a steampunk project folded up. Unfolded, it’s characterized by its small wheels and the seeming promotion of a comfortable, un-hunched riding posture. More portable but less attractive than the Bicymple, the NexiBike needed $100,000 for its production. And while the bike’s puncture-proof tires may resist flattening out, the campaign could not. With about 17 days to go, it has collected less than $3,000.

Whacked: Zuumer. The NexiBike revolution may have to wait, but at least two folding bike projects did make their funding goals in years past: the Brooklyn-born CMYK Folding Electric Bike and what would become the Model Ue curve-framed electric bike (now slated for delivery this year). There’s also been at least one electric scooter, the sleek but whacked JAC from the Netherlands.

The Zuumer (not to be confused with the Honda Scooter or Palm-developed PDA sold by Casio and Tandy Corp. in 1994) adds a second rear wheel to the electric scooter, and “lean-in” steering that allows 300 lbs. of flesh and cargo to travel up to 20 mph before being recharged. Most of the 23 early-bird Zuumers, priced at $2,300 each, are still left, with the next reward tier jumping $500 for the same thing. But one may need to wait a while to find out who’s zooming whom. With 20 days left, Zuumcraft has attracted only about $17,000.

In yet another example of how Twitter is positioning itself as media/entertainment platform, the social network released a report today showcasing the tweeting habits of people while watching television in the U.K.

The “Twitter TV Book” breaks down the tweeting habits of the social network’s TV-watching members by age, sex, peak use, device, and more. It also features a set of analytics that shows TV programmers who make up their tweeting audience is and how to interact with them.

And just to reinforce why these media companies should pay attention to the social network, Twitter reveals that about 60 percent of the U.K.’s 10 million active users tweet while watching a television program. Also, Twitter states that 40 percent of all tweets mention TV in some form.

Not only does the TV book offer a breakdown of programs by demographics, it also provides insights to specific genres as well as advice on how best to engage viewers on Twitter. For example, factual/documentary programs get a constant amount of activity when interesting evidence is presented, while dramas have an ebb-and-flow based on breaks during the program. (See screenshots below.)

While the programming heavily sways some of the data provided, this info does do a good job of making the media industry aware that Twitter is becoming a mainstay for when folks plop down on the couch and grab the remote.

The TV Book is also interesting because it reveals just how Twitter plans on growing its advertising and promotional revenue. Twitter is best at being a real-time communication platform, so targeting media companies that are beholden to their own ad clients is a smart move because it gives them data about their audience as well as a way to show more value when/if the audience mentions those TV ads.

Would you pay $500 to message Richard Branson? Or $1,000 to send an e-mail to pop star Will.i.am? Or maybe even $5,000 to get in touch with Barack Obama?

These are just fictional amounts, but right now Facebook is testing various pay-for-message options at a variety of price points, including some fairly high amounts. You may have already seen our story on Facebook’s pay-for-messaging this morning in which Facebook is charging $100 for some test users to send a message to Mark Zuckerberg.

In response, a Facebook representative contacted me and released this brief update:

We are testing some extreme price points to see what works to filter spam.

$100 to message Mark Zuckerberg?

The tests don’t have any deadlines — or at least any that Facebook is willing to share — and are not necessarily going to end up in any fully released product. In addition, Facebook had not made any decisions or necessarily even considered something that came up in the comments to that post: Would Facebook share any of the cash with the person who is getting the message?

That’s a very interesting idea, and on the face of it, one that makes perfect sense.

After all, if someone really wants to get in touch with you, and Facebook allows them, it’s your time that is being occupied and your attention that is being diverted from whatever you’re doing. As such, it would seem to make sense that Facebook might let you know that a message is waiting for you, and if you consent to read it, $5 will go into your Facebook Wallet.

Or, if you’re Richard Branson, $3,000.

I’d be up for that, and I’d also be totally OK with Facebook taking a cut — a middleman’s percentage.

photo credit: karen horton via photopin cc

This is a guest post by Russell Glass, CEO of business marketing company Bizo.

Charles Darwin said it best, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

The best teams in the world have incredible talent, but they also have depth so they can readily adapt to change and adversity. In sports, they call this “bench strength.” The teams with the deepest bench often win championships because they can overcome injury, fatigue and unknowns where other teams fold under this kind of adversity. Look no further than this year’s San Francisco Giants squad for proof. They overcame multiple critical injuries and even a drug suspension to win the World Series because of their depth and adaptability.

Bizo CEO Russell Glass

The same rules also apply to business. The very best companies have built tremendous bench strength to help them go the distance. In business, unexpected occurrences happen all the time – from critical employees choosing to leave the organization, to market shifts and family or team members falling ill. It is crucial that a company have people within their organization who can take the reins in any situation, so they can ensure continuity and effectiveness. Additionally, when a business knows that it has a deep bench, it is more confident in making big bets and innovating because management can rest assured that the team understands opportunities that arise and will execute on them effectively.

So what can entrepreneurs do to make sure they’re building bench strength and adaptability? Here are five key tips:

1) Hire right.

As Arthur Rock, the successful venture capitalist behind Apple and Intel, said, “I invest in people, not ideas. If you can find good people, if they’re wrong about the product, they’ll make a switch, so what good is it to understand the product that they’re talking about in the first place?” Restated, people are the most important asset to the success of a company, and hiring the right team makes everything else vastly easier.

Building an adaptable organization really starts from the hiring process. Finding great people is hard, so be sure to give yourself ample time to find the perfect match and don’t fall prey to the “we just need someone” syndrome. The cost of hiring the wrong person is huge in a fast growing company. Simply put, there are only so many seats on the bench, and if one is taken up by a sub-par player, everyone is effected. If management is limited in its ability to build bench strength and adaptability, others on the team will feel like there are weak links, reducing the entire team’s confidence in the organization’s ability to execute.

2) Look for cultural fit.

A close corollary to hiring the right people – and perhaps more important – is hiring someone that is a great cultural fit. A person’s parents had around 18 years to get it right, and if they didn’t do the job, you’re never going to! A company can always train and even re-train for skills depending on the needs, but it is impossible to train someone to be hard-working, thoughtful, honest, entrepreneurial and hungry (or whatever your specific culture embodies). The best organizations I have seen are laser-focused on culture, and are quick to admit hiring mistakes and remove poor cultural fits early on. This ensures that the company does not create an unhealthy workplace environment, and it also helps to reinforce the company culture, allowing outstanding employees to prosper and grow over time.

3) Be transparent.

Transparency is also a key ingredient to building bench strength and adaptability. The more information employees have, the better they are going to be at making smart decisions for the organization. The key here is constant communication, especially about topics that are broader than just that specific person’s job. If people at the organization don’t have a good sense for the important decisions, issues, and needs of an organization, then there is a problem. If information isn’t flowing freely, then it will be very hard to find someone to “step up” when needed because they won’t have the information necessary to be ready (and they are already likely making poor decisions because of lack of information).

4) Encourage distributed decision-making.

Many of the best organizations such as Google, Zappos, Netflix and Southwest Airlines are known for a highly distributed decision making culture, and tend to be flatter organizations with reduced hierarchy. The theory is simple: the wider the decision making goes in an organization, the better the organization can scale because information flows more freely and decisions are made more quickly. Further, if employees are used to making their own decisions, they will be more prepared to make difficult decisions as they move up the ladder. They will also feel more ownership over the success or failure of a task because they made the decision instead of having it forced upon them.

5. Focus on adaptability.

As an entrepreneur, your goal will always be to grow your company. And with growth comes change. At Bizo, we focused on building a team that was adaptable and could mature alongside the company: from a nimble startup to an Inc. Top 100 company.

So how do you ensure adaptability? General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff argues, “Simulate chaos by creating conditions with a high chance of failure. We often want to shield our teams and ourselves from failure. However, if we have the chance to fail when failure has the least ramifications, then we have the opportunity for the greatest growth.”

I discussed how critical it is to hiring the right people, and the culture of an organization. Once you have people in the organization who are naturally adaptable, it is important to empower the team to take risks and to fail. Employees learn and grow by doing, and can quickly turn their mistakes into learning opportunities. While chaos may not be necessary in a business environment, by encouraging risk taking and freedom to make mistakes and learn from them, the organization is going to be more nimble, ready for change and can embrace a dynamic environment as it senses opportunity to succeed.

See Also

Here’s What Apple REALLY Said About A Cheap iPhone (We Think)

Apple Is Undergoing Massive Changes And Having A Very Strange Quarter

Apple CEO Says China Will Be A Bigger Market Than US

Apple, one of the most beloved companies in the world, has just received another impressive honor.

The iPhone maker received a Tech Emmy Award at CES 2013 from the National Academy of Television Arts. 

Apple’s award is for an “Eco-system for Real Time Presentation of TV Content to Mobile Devices without the use of Specialized Television Hardware”, reports Forbes.

We don’t know yet what product this is actually referring to but many are guessing that the win is for Apple’s iCloud.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has received a tech Emmy award. It took home an Emmy in 2001 for the invention of FireWire, in 2002 for video-editing software Final Cut Pro, and two more in 2005 and 2006 for “Streaming Media Architectures and Components.”

Don’t Miss: Here’s What Apple REALLY Said About A Cheap iPhone (We Think)

Flickr/Creative Commoners

See Also

The Five Coolest Things We Learned From Nate Silver’s Reddit AMA

How The World Is Remembering A ‘Hugely Important Internet Voice,’ Aaron Swartz

China Newspaper Says To ‘Prepare For The Worst’ After Military Confrontation With Japan In The East China Sea

Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old cofounder of Reddit, committed suicide yesterday according to MIT’s The Tech.

Swartz’ uncle confirmed the news in a comment to The Tech, saying his nephew took his own life in his New York City apartment.

“The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true,” Swartz’s attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker Van Nest, confirmed to The Tech in an email.

Swartz’s friend and mentor, Cory Doctorow, describes him as someone who was “very involved in freedom issues” with “powerful, deeply felt ideals,” but also an “impressionable young man.”

Swartz’ friends say he had a history of depression, which he wrote about openly on his blog. He was also facing potential jail time for sneaking into MIT and downloading massive amounts of documents from the JSTOR online journal archive.

Selfagency via Flickr

Aaron Swartz co-founded DemandProgress, an advocacy group.

“Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful,” his mother wrote this morning on Hacker News. “Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable.”

Unfortunately Swartz is not the first startup founder to battle depression. Last year there was a similar gut-wrentching story about Ilya Zhitomirskiy, the 22-year-old co-founder of Diaspora who took his own life.

Swartz made a huge impact on the Internet community. He created one of two startups that combined to form Reddit. Before Reddit, when he was 14, Swartz co-wrote RSS 1.0. He also co-founded an advocacy group called DemandProgress, which encouraged people to take action when news affectted them. He did a lot to stop the SOPA and PIPA bills too (see video below).

In September, Swartz wrote one of the final posts on his blog titled Lean Into The Pain. It’s an inspiring article about how to deal with both mental and phsyical hardships. Here’s an excerpt:

When you first begin to exercise, it’s somewhat painful. Not wildly painful, like touching a hot stove, but enough that if your only goal was to avoid pain, you certainly would stop doing it. But if you keep exercising… well, it just keeps getting more painful. When you’re done, if you’ve really pushed yourself, you often feel exhausted and sore. And the next morning it’s even worse.

If that was all that happened, you’d probably never do it. It’s not that much fun being sore. Yet we do it anyway — because we know that, in the long run, the pain will make us stronger. Next time we’ll be able to run harder and lift more before the pain starts.

And knowing this makes all the difference. Indeed, we come to see the pain as a sort of pleasure — it feels good to really push yourself, to fight through the pain and make yourself stronger. Feel the burn! It’s fun to wake up sore the next morning, because you know that’s just a sign that you’re getting stronger.

Few people realize it, but psychological pain works the same way. Most people treat psychological pain like the hot stove — if starting to think about something scares them or stresses them out, they quickly stop thinking about it and change the subject.

The problem is that the topics that are most painful also tend to be the topics that are most important for us: they’re the projects we most want to do, the relationships we care most about, the decisions that have the biggest consequences for our future, the most dangerous risks that we run. We’re scared of them because we know the stakes are so high. But if we never think about them, then we can never do anything about them.

Ray Dalio writes:

It is a fundamental law of nature that to evolve one has to push one’s limits, which is painful, in order to gain strength—whether it’s in the form of lifting weights, facing problems head-on, or in any other way. Nature gave us pain as a messaging device to tell us that we are approaching, or that we have exceeded, our limits in some way. At the same time, nature made the process of getting stronger require us to push our limits. Gaining strength is the adaptation process of the body and the mind to encountering one’s limits, which is painful. In other words, both pain and strength typically result from encountering one’s barriers. When we encounter pain, we are at an important juncture in our decision-making process.¹

Yes it’s painful, but the trick is to make that mental shift. To realize that the pain isn’t something awful to be postponed and avoided, but a signal that you’re getting stronger — something to savor and enjoy. It’s what makes you better.

Pretty soon, when you start noticing something that causes you psychic pain, you’ll get excited about it, not afraid. Ooh, another chance to get stronger. You’ll seek out things you’re scared of and intentionally confront them, because it’s an easy way to get the great rewards of self-improvement. Dalio suggests thinking of each one as a puzzle, inside of which is embedded a beautiful gem. If you fight through the pain to solve the puzzle, you unlock it and get to keep the gem.

The trick is: when you start feeling that psychological pain coming on, don’t draw back from it and cower — lean into it. Lean into the pain.

For more on Aaron’s life and thoughts, here’s his blog.

The death of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz has prompted an outpouring of tributes on Twitter and the web.

Here is some of what people are saying this morning:

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. I think a lot of what people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.”RIP Aaron Swartz

— Stephen Quinn (@CaddyQuinn) January 12, 2013

Reading my feed this morning apparently everyone knew Aaron Swartz, no surprise. I had various dealings with him over the years, always good

— Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF) January 12, 2013

Let’s remember: the US govt went after Aaron Swartz with everything they had, to put him away for 35 years for DOWNLOADING JOURNAL ARTICLES.

— Tim Carmody (@tcarmody) January 12, 2013

“If I get hit by a truck…” Aaron wrote in 2002. “BTW, I’ll miss you all.” bit.ly/ZHxoIZ

— Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF) January 12, 2013

Whaaa??! “Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide”rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/sl…

— Christopher Schaefer (@ChrisSchaef) January 12, 2013

Sad to hear about Aaron Swartz. RIP

— Travis Berry (@travisberry) January 12, 2013

A hugely important internet voice. RIP.zdnet.com/hacker-activis…

— Jonathan Hendler (@hendler) January 12, 2013

Sad to hear of the passing of Aaron Swatrz boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip… aaronsw.com @aaronsw Too soon too soon

— Paul Jones (@smalljones) January 12, 2013

If we can have a copyright act named after Sonny Bono, we can have a copyright reform act named for Aaron Swartz. In a better world, maybe.

— Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green) January 12, 2013

Legit had never heard of Aaron Swartz before today, now see that I should have. Sad story, condolences to his friends.

— Brian Papa (@bpapa) January 12, 2013

Only the good die young. thanks fir everything Aaron Swartz. Internet will never forget you. Peace, little star boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip…

— Om Malik (@om) January 12, 2013

Aaron’s mom has posted a statement on YCombinator:

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful.

Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable.

Aaron’s mother

See Also: 26-Year-Old Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz Has Died

Things have been busy all of last quarter at Microsoft Research and Development Centre in Bangalore, India, where 11 startups chosen from over 200 applicants for the first national edition of the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure have been furiously honing their skills and craft in an effort to become the next big thing on the web/mobile scene.

For those of you who came in late, we previously covered the opening of the Azure Accelerator back in September last year. Today, the chosen 11 startups — hosted since the launch of the program in a plush open-plan office space on Microsoft’s premises, with constant guidance from mentors and engineers – who’ve charted out their route maps and fine-tuned their strategies, showed off what they’ve accomplished in the past four months at their Demo Day event.

Vinny Lohan of WhiteShark at Demo Day

Attended by mentors, venture capitalists and angel investors, the hour-long session saw each of the startups explain how they’d shaped up thus far, and how they planned to achieve world domination — or at least get their product into the market. The Accelerator program has helped these fledgling companies overcome major hurdles commonly encountered by new entrants in technology markets, such as infrastructure and scaling, go-to-market strategies, networking with investors and potential clients, and building strong teams.

Congratulating the first batch, Mukund Mohan, CEO-in-residence, Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure, said: “This is the day we have been waiting for – the culmination of all the hard work collectively put together over the last four months. We had chosen the first batch of 11 from hundreds of applications received from startups from all over the world. While all 11 had great ideas, we realized they needed support in a few critical areas to be able to mature those ideas into long-term profitable businesses.”

“We provided them access to our community of 100+ mentors, from within and outside India, across varied industries, who are fully committed to ensure the success of the startups. We provided them access to our vast network of early adopters so that they could define their product/market fit before a formal launch to market. And we ensured that the last four months was an intense boot camp, where we tracked the weekly progress of each startup and provided reports to their mentors. The rigor has inculcated a deep sense of discipline among the teams. All of them are now ready to venture out on their own. We are hopeful some will soon emerge as lighthouse companies from India,” Mukund added.

Startups to watch in 2013?

The Demo Day was a great opportunity for the 11 startups to show that they could not only walk the walk, but talk the talk as well. They took a few minutes each to introduce themselves and later convened at the Accelerator space to chat with their audience and show them roadmaps, proofs of concept, and fully functional apps that were out in the market. Here’s a run-down of what they’re getting up to:

Amplyfy

Having started at the Accelerator with a second screen app for Indian television viewers, the Amplyfy team learned a lot about building a viable business by speaking with investors and their fellow startups, and got to doing a little research on video marketing. They found that the space lacked a consistent framework for analytics and therefore no visibility of what competing marketers were doing, and that most digital media planning was based on outdated trends leading to low ROI.

After synthesizing data from over 10,000 hours of video and writing many more lines of code, they’ve now begun to provide advertisers an analytics dashboard with real-time data of metrics with consistent data across TV and online video — thus getting a foot in the door of a multi-billion dollar market.

CipherGraph Networks

Given that cloud migration and the use of new device types, such as smartphones and tablets, are becoming more commonplace among professionals who access enterprise data outside the office, CipherGraph saw an opportunity to build cloud VPN technology to securely allow for communication with private and hosted clouds and data centers.

The company’s SaaS is scalable, allows for seamless connection with existing setups and doesn’t require any additional hardware or software to be installed. Having refined their go-to-market strategy, CipherGraph has already scored partnerships with Amazon and Windows Azure, and is looking to score funding to further their growth.

CloudInfra

Tired of all the waiting around involved in dealing with big data? CloudInfra now offers a simple Unix shell in the cloud to process big data in real-time, such as machine logs and metrics. Operations can be launched with just a line or two of commands, add opposed to the norm of hundreds. Their technology also provides secure sandboxing and true multi-tenancy of servers and data in data centers. Not a bad way to go, given that the Indian data center market alone is currently valued at $1 billion.

Gameizon

Armed with a wealth of sports stats and player data, Gameizon aims to revolutionize how fans watch games. Their social game available on ocatchit.com informs, educates and helps users connect with each other while watching their favorite sport. They’re also developing a game for consoles that will allow players to take on virtual embodiments of current sports figures fleshed out using actual stats to inform their playing style. Cricket is first and foremost on Gameizon’s list, and hopefully more sports will be added in the future.

Healthify.me

Healthify.me was born out of CEO Tushar Vashist’s desire to lose weight without having to urge his family and friends to badger him into it. With a growing team that includes developers, designers, dieticians and fitness trainers, the company has developed a mobile calorie tracker with a catalogue of nearly 10,000 Indian foods, that can not only tell you how much trans fat is in that samosa you’re about to dig into, but can also recommend contextual options that are better for you.

The app will allow users to get in shape by connecting them with dieticians and gym instructors, and reward those who stick to their regimen with deals and rewards from local businesses. It will also soon be compatible with fitness tracking hardware like the Nike FuelBand and Fitbit. The app is in closed beta right now, but will go live on 18 January following a freemium model for subscriptions to their service.

HireRabbit

This two-man team is pioneering enterprise recruiting through social networking. Having found traditional recruiting channels to be costly and slow, HireRabbit allows businesses to connect with potential candidates via customizable job portals hosted on Facebook pages, and to fill positions without breaking the bank.

Harnessing the power of social networks and even existing employees’ connections through referral programs, HireRabbit enables companies to scout and take on all kinds of hires, even for niche and seasonal posts, with ease. They’ve already racked up 400 customers and are comfortable working out of Bangalore at their present size, though increasing interest in their solutions might see them scale up operations in the near future.

NowFloats

NowFloats started out as a Twitter-for-locations mobile app, allowing users to share their thoughts about where they were, when they there, such as at a concert or at an event like CES. They also allowed businesses to post offers that would reveal themselves only to nearby users.

Taking that idea a step further, NowFloats decided to address the challenge of customer acquisition faced by non web-savvy small/medium businesses, of which India has over 9 million. Their newly-launched platform allows anyone with a mobile phone to create a search-engine-optimized web page for their business by just sending a text message. They can similarly post real-time updates to those pages by SMS too, and be found easily by interested customers via search engines.

With a roster of over 1,600 customers in the past month alone and strategic business alliances for accelerated customer acquisition, NowFloats is going places — fast.

Plustxt

Plustxt offers users of its app secure multi-language-optimized texting that works across all mobile OSes and the web. They’re also looking to disrupt the mobile Value Added Services (essentially content provided by carriers) space — which is largely under-utilized in India — by creating a platform that allows content creators to publish their work easily for consumption on mobile devices and get the lion’s share of revenue while they’re at it.

Plustxt is already available on App Store for iPhone and on the Play Store for Android devices, so give it a try if you’re curious to see how it works.

Sparsha

Specializing in device virtualization, Sparsha wants to enable on-screen simulation of devices for testing, training and field demos to tap into the $7 billion testing and measurement market. Their technology will help businesses reduce support and training costs, as well as upfront costs of expensive tools, including everything from manufacturing machinery to medical equipment.

On the side, Sparsha is actively running their circuit design platform, DoCircuits, which allows users to design, test and share circuits online. It’s already a hit with a number of major universities in the US and even IEEE. Their next step is to Integrate hardware with software devices for increased utility of their technologies in real-world scenarios.

White Shark

Eager to solve the problem of information overload, White Shark is hard at work developing Gluepad, a new way to save and access information, make it actionable as tasks and achieve goals.

It’s easy to think of it as a mashup between Evernote (personal and Business editions) and Basecamp — users can clip information and media from the web or add their own, share it with groups and assign tasks connected to those clips. There’s stiff competition in this space of knowledge management, and it’ll be interesting to see how Gluepad stacks up against its rivals when it’s released — an iOS app is close to completion, with an Android version slated to follow soon after.

World Without Me

Where will your data go when you die? World Without Me presents a not-morbid solution in the form of their web app (with mobile versions on the way) that allows users to curate their life stories, putting pieces together from social network activity, digital photo albums, email and even private data like passwords and investment information.

These stories can be accessed online, and exported as coffee table books chronicling users’ lives. In addition, users can set triggers, which when activated by multiple others, will release a user-prescribed set of data (passwords, insurance information, email, photos — whatever he/she chooses to make available) to a nominee. With more families sharing content online than ever before, it’s a good way to make sure you leave behind a legacy when you’re gone.

A successful first run

Amit Chatterjee ( MD, Microsoft India (RD) Pvt Ltd)

Speaking with TNW, Amit Chatterjee, MD, Microsoft India (RD) Pvt Ltd, said, “Working with the first batch of startups was a very unique and exciting experience. I had the opportunity of mentoring some of the startups personally; some have pivoted, some have validated, some have put together great go-to-market strategies, some have built teams, some have partnered with developers and investors abroad — tracking their progress over the past four months has been awe-inspiring. I’m genuinely hoping to see at least a few, if not all of these teams make their mark globally.”

As to how the experience of running an accelerator is helping Windows Azure, Chatterjee said, “Startups have to make progress every day and every week. We got a chance to see how they implement and work with Azure, and there’s a lot we’ve been able to learn being in such close quarters with these startups.”

Chatterjee also responded to our question about whether he noticed any trends in the kind of problems Indian startups were looking to solve: “They’re matching global trends, really – cloud-based services, analytics and big data, life and knowledge management are in right now and that’s what most of these teams are working on.” He also mentioned that he was very proud of how far the startups have come in their short incubation period, and offered in closing, “This bunch of startups has made tremendous success and has redoubled our faith in the idea of the Accelerator. We can’t wait to see what the next batch comes up with.”

Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure is now open to receiving applications for the second India batch. Interested startups can apply online till January 15, 2013 here. The final list of 15 startups will be announced on February 1, 2013, and their four-month incubation process will kick off on March 1, 2013. We’ll be sure to check in with them then.

See also: Microsoft considers a European accelerator as it expands its scope in Israel to take big data startups

Chen started his game session at 10pm on a Tuesday evening: at midday the next day, a waitress from the café observed Chen talking on his mobile phone while still continuing to play League of Legends on his computer terminal. This was to be the last time anyone noticed Chen alive. Nine hours later he was discovered deceased, slumped in his chair with both arms stiffened in a pose that indicate Chen was still attempting to reach the keyboard and mouse whilst undergoing a suspected cardiac arrest.

This sad event should give any gamer – or anyone in significant social relationships with gamers – pause for thought. Chen’s death is tragic for multiple reasons, including the fact Chen ignored obvious physical cues – and resisted warning signs – to stop the very behaviour that was contributing to his impending death.

Another factor in the tragedy of Chen’s passing is the obliviousness of everyone present at the time of his death. How could the Café staff and customers let a deceased person remain undetected in their midst for such a length of time? What factors could have been so pervasive that the staff (and Chen’s fellow gamers-in-arms) would consider it normal for a man to be sitting stock-still in front of a computer for nine hours without contemplating his welfare?

Was Chen’s compulsive need to play (and those of his fellow internet café gamers) so severe that such behaviours should be classified as a full-blown addiction? Just what is it about these types of games that makes them so compelling?

Defining game addiction

Computer game addiction and Internet dependencies are on the rise, according to Dr. Philip Tam, a psychiatrist and the President and co-founder of the Network for Internet Investigation and Research in Australia:

 It is a cliché to state that computing, the Internet and gaming are now ubiquitous elements of daily life for most if not all people, particularly the young. The power and reach of the WWW most probably far exceeds any technology in humanity’s short but eventful history… In many ways, Internet Overuse/ Addiction is the ultimate post-modern affliction for the 21^st Century.

Just as with Internet addiction, the concept of game addiction is slippery to define. The current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) – or “psychiatric bible” as it’s known colloquially in psychological circles – does not acknowledge game addiction as a disorder. Internet and video game addiction have not been explicity included in the fifth edition of the DSM (due for release mid-2013) with the category of “Internet Gaming Addiction” instead being considered for future research.

Game addiction is conceptualised in Western countries as a compulsion or set of aberrant behaviours that occur when a user is focused on playing games via computers, consoles, wearable computers, or mobile devices. The games may vary as much as the hardware, with popular genres including First Person Shooters, App-oriented Social Games (such as those produced by companies like Zynga), MMOGs and MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games/Role Playing Games), Strategy Games and Transmedia/Alternate Reality Games.

In an article in The American Journal of Psychiatry, author Jerald Block outlines the following set of criteria to help define game addiction:

1. excessive use, often associated with a loss of sense of time or a neglect of basic drives
2. withdrawal, including feelings of anger, tension, and/or depression when the computer is inaccessible
3. tolerance, including the need for better computer equipment, more software, or more hours of use
4. negative repercussions, including arguments, lying, poor achievement, social isolation, and fatigue.

In Chen Rong-yu’s case, his excessive use manifested in binge gaming sessions where a gamer plays for an extended (often extreme) amount of time while actively neglecting other concerns, including potentially life-saving absences from the game.

Theorist and Educator McKenzie Wark (and author of “Gamer Theory”) questions whether prolonged use of computer games should even be classified as a discernible addiction:

Is ‘addiction’ even the right term? Or is it just a metaphor? Why do we stigmatize certain engrossments more than others? When my kid reads books all day, my partner and I are happy about it. When he plays games all day, we are not. Who is to say one is better or worse than the other?

Given that even mental health clinicians and game professionals find it hard to establish definitive markers of video game addiction, it’s no wonder that the mainstream majority also struggle with the concept.

Another example that illustrates the dangers associated with prolonged bouts of binge gaming is the July 2012 case of Chuang, an 18 year old Taiwanese gamer who died after playing Diablo III consecutively for 40 hours at an internet café. The circumstances surrounding Chuang’s death were startlingly similar to those of Chen Rong-yu: both had undergone significant physical and mental strain associated with an activity (gaming) that restricted physical movement for long periods of time.

Both Chuang and Chen had neglected basic needs – like eating and sleeping – in order to attain unbroken immersion in their respective game environments. A key difference in their cases involves the fact that Chuang, although playing Diablo III from an internet café, had rented a private room in order to play for an extended length of time. This isolation may have unfortunately acted to prevent any intrusion from other gamers or café staff.

The feeling of ‘fun failure’ and compulsion loops

What drives gamers like Cheng and Chuang to repeatedly engage in excessive game play? Transmedia Game Designer and lifelong gamer Andrea Phillips believes specific types of games produce different compulsive symptoms:

FPSes and MMORPGs tend to maximize length of play session; whereas Zynga-style social and casual games maximize number of sessions [via encouraging] a return to the game as often as possible. I do find the Zynga-style social, mobile games more evil, if you will, just because many of these games are very close to compulsion loops and nothing else. Not a meaningful sense of community or competition, not a narrative, not a sense of exploration.

I’m playing a game right now called Jetpack Joyride (not a Zynga game!). In this game, you do the exact same thing every time: You ride a flying jetpack down a hall and avoid traps like lasers and missiles. The game keeps you playing by offering minor variations in the mechanic. After you play enough times, you can upgrade to gadgets that will make it easier to avoid some of the traps, or collect more coins along the way…the game is constantly giving you missions to fulfil to “level up”…But really, every single time you play it’s the same exact thing: One or two minutes of the same randomly-generated hallways. There’s nothing there but the loop.

Phillips also explains that this compulsion loop is similar to ones produced by excessive gambling, with the concept of positive reinforcement being instrumental to both addictive patterns:

There’s also rampant and intentional use of the compulsion loop, which is a term ultimately derived from Skinnerian psychology…The core appeal of gambling is the compulsion loop, too…It’s that tension of knowing you might get the treat, but not knowing exactly when, that keeps you playing. The player develops an unshakeable faith, after a while, that THIS will be the time I hit it big.

THIS is the time it will all pay off, no matter how many times it hasn’t so far. Just one more turn. One more minute. But it’s really never just one more… For the most part, I steer clear of multiplayer situations, MMOs, and so on because I just can’t trust myself. With narrative games with an ending, I know I’ll binge-play them, so to avoid the fallout of missed sleep and deadlines, I don’t even start a game like that unless I have a good solid week with no serious commitments.

This impulse to “hit it big” through sporadic rewards should be familiar to most hardcore gamers: MMORPGs invoke this type of intermittent reinforcement to keep players engagement levels exceptionally high. An example of such a MMORPG is World of Warcraft (WoW), where players participate in an immersive game environment that entices players to stay in-game for extreme lengths of time.

Each WoW game character or avatar ­(also known as a toon) interacts with others via a game environment built upon tiered incentive systems. Players perform quests and group with other players to obtain advanced in-game items and achieve high end “prizes” otherwise unobtainable via solo play. Certain kinds of these rewards aren’t immediately assured, however: items such as armour and weapons may have a variable drop rate from specific WoW NPCs (Non-Player Characters).

This method of only rewarding players occasionally (and seemingly randomly) results in what Dr Tam describes as “fun failure”:

What one can observe is, according to freely-available news reports, many of the ‘deaths by internet gaming’ (usually in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea) have involved MMORGs and their equivalents – possibly as there is more ‘pressure’ to play for extended periods alongside your ‘guild companions’ who are often playing overseas…

It is generally accepted that a successful game contains the key elements of a sense of fiero (intense satisfaction in achieving an aim) [and] a feeling of ‘fun failure’  when one nearly achieves that key aim (leading to one trying again and again), and clear feedback in how one is progressing.

This idea of “fun failure” links directly to the psychological concept of attentional bias. Attentional bias is where an individual constantly prioritises their attention towards “emotionally dominant stimuli in one’s environment and to neglect relevant data”. Sound familiar? For gamers like Cheng and Chuang, this explains their inability – or reluctance – to stay attuned to their everyday needs and instead focus exclusively on their gaming priorities.

Are game companies inciting addictive behaviour?

Attentional bias may partially explain why gamers willingly spend enormous amounts of time pursuing in-game goals that may seem juvenile or escapist to non-gamers. But do the companies that design the games also need to shoulder their fair share of responsibility for providing vehicles for such addictive, or compulsive, behaviours?

Andrea Phillips agrees that some game developers do deliberately create games that encourage excessive behaviours, where “it’s common for a game design spec to talk about making a game ‘more addictive’ in positive terms, as shorthand for ‘highly engaging and fun to play’.”

When queried if game production companies might be knowingly producing computer games that are geared towards disproportionate or unhealthy game play, Alternate Reality Game designer Jan Libby donned both her designer and player hat while responding:

In a word – yes, but I don’t believe these designers sit down and say ‘Hey I’m going to make an unhealthy game!’  I would guess they’re searching for ways to get people fired up about the game and to keep them returning to the gameworld.

I know there are mechanics that keep us coming back. I play and have played many social [games] and MMORPG’s that have me at their mercy… I’m not certain my projects are designed to trigger “addiction”, but I do look for ways to hook people with a story and characters that’ll keep them returning to the world I’ve created.

McKenzie Wark is of the opinion that media creators in general – including game companies – continually grapple with the problem of capturing and sustaining attention: “Like any other media, games attach themselves to both our appetites and our desires…It is as true of journalism or fiction or cinema as it is of games. It’s the maker’s job to catch and hold you”.

From a purely business point of view, it makes complete sense to develop games that provide deeply engaging experiences, complete with “fun failures” and hooks to keep commitment levels high. However, if a company specifically embarks on game development with the intention of emphasising addictive game elements at the expense of others, this may alter a game’s trajectory to such a degree that these variables eventually reduce overall enjoyment of the game, resulting in the dreaded “grind”.

Grinding – or bland and often boring gameplay – is often symptomatic of games that require repetitious levelling in order to progress. Many steadfast gamers approach this type of play with resignation, accepting it as part of their “fix” in order to obtain rewards derived from intermittent reinforcement. There are a select few who instead accept the grind as part of the overall game experience, and who enjoy the reality of such monotonous actions as focused – as opposed to compulsive – play: not all gamers who spend substantial time in-game are addicted and will ultimately end up in destructive (or in the case of Cheng and Chuang, life-ending) routines. As Dr Tam says:

Whether one states that the game designers encourage ‘unhealthy’ gameplay will depend on whether you view heavy gaming as a positive ‘passion’ (as hardcore gamers do), or an unhealthy obsession.

Dealing with compulsive gaming

China and South Korea deal with the issue of Internet and game addiction by sending those worst affected to Addiction Boot Camps. These Boot Camps vary in terms of treatment regimes, and are the preferred method of dealing with gaming – or Internet overuse – that verges on the pathological, especially for adolescents.

Many of these Boot Camps seek to address compulsive gaming behaviour through military style programs employed by schools like the Jump Up Internet Rescue School. At these camps Internet and phones usage are restricted, with a strong emphasis instead placed on outdoor activities and physical exercise. Unfortunately, controversies surround several of these camps with accusations of participant mistreatment (even torture) being levelled against some of their operators.

Countries like the USA also have their own treatment centres that proactively seek to deal with users who want to quit and resume their lives without having gaming as a core defining aspect. Organisations such as the Australian Network for Internet Investigation and Research take a different approach to game over-immersion by providing education resources and targeted information, as well as operating as a forum for professionals to “to share and discuss research and clinical developments in the field”.

Other groups seek to utilise the constructive power of intensive gaming through gamification of everyday activities in order to create positive feedback loops, or the development of games specifically designed to create beneficial consequences (such as Jane McGonigal’s Superbetter).  Even Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) like Udacity – though not strictly games as we have come to know them – harness mechanics similar to certain gaming formats in an effort to offer new educational-based platforms.

Perhaps such alternative harnessing of game-like elements is instead where we should be focusing significant attention regarding gaming in general, rather than constantly emphasising negative aspects such as addiction. Maybe then we can seek to develop a rigorous scale of gamer behaviour, one that includes both the detriments and benefits of focused game play: even ultimately questioning whether the game addiction paradigm is necessary in terms of clinical definition and treatment. As Dr Tam states:

There is no simple, single way of ‘controlling’ or ‘treating’ 21^st century problems such as internet addiction or video game addiction. Only a full, open and informed discussion by all stakeholders (parents, schools, opinion leaders, games tech companies, teenagers) will have a lasting impact on this challenging problem. A purely ‘mental health’ perspective is insufficient; also taking account of social, evolutionary, technological, educational and increasingly political and philosophical factors will be imperative. 

Image Credit: Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images

Mobile broadband networks account for nearly one quarter of the world’s mobile cellular connections, according to numbers released this week by Wireless Intelligence, the research arm of the GSM Association. That winds up being 1.6 billion 3G and 4G subscriptions.

Wireless Intelligence defines mobile broadband as any CDMA EV-DO, HSPA, WiMAX or LTE technology, as well as the TD-SCDMA systems used in China – basically anything that can stream a video to a smartphone with a decent connection. In total 580 operators in 186 countries are running those networks.

The regional breakdown of where those subscribers are is particularly interesting. As you might expect, Asia leads the pack by leagues, supporting 773 million mobile broadband connections. The Americas (both continents) are second with 426 million links, while Europe boasts 358 million connections.

But Asia also has the most room for growth. While in Europe and the Americas mobile broadband connections account for 50 percent of all links, in Asia the number is at a mere 18 percent. For that reason, Wireless Intelligence is projecting Asia’s growth rate will be the fastest, increasing its 3G and 4G subscription base by 50 percent each year.