Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on December 16, 2008 – 4:04 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The Iraqi who tossed a shoe to George Bush yesterday has inspired lots of Web entrepreneurs to come up with flash games. cartoons and animated gifs.
At Boing Boing they have a huge collection of The Animated Gifs but if you are really bored check out these Flash games. The games are simple but impressive when you realize they were made in less than 24 hours:
Let us know how many points you scored!
I hope you like that post!
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Written on November 10, 2008 – 10:31 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Sprint, in an effort to promote their new Mobile Broadband Card, has launched a Flash Information Dashboard that will keep you entertained way longer than you think. The screenshot here doesn’t do their gizmo any justice. Trust me, just follow this link, pump up the volume, and hover over all the images and links for extra entertainment.
Written on October 18, 2008 – 1:07 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Hobnox is a Berlin-based start-up that brings creative minds from all over the world together in their online community. With a strong focus on music and video, users can create, share, and collaborate their funky stuff.
What particularly impressed me when I first reviewed Hobnox in May, was the state-of-the-art Audiotool. The developers have created a browser-based Flash version of a mix table, so that Hobnox members can create their own beats and melody lines within the site. For me it was all quite overwhelming, as I’m anything but a digital music maker.
That my influence my ability to properly review the tools as well, since some commenters basically said that online flash based toys are not useful in the ultimate business of making music. I can imagine what they meant to say, so I’m really interested to hear their opinion about Hobnox’s updates. David Noël, head of Hobnox marketing, has sent me the following list:
- Live recording and saving functionality
- Addition of a ‚Mac-Dock’-like shelf with all the devices
- We added new devices (Splitter, Merger, Compressor, Phaser, Slope and Gate)
- We’ve improved the performance by getting rid of the Java bypass which means that you’ll need to upgrade to Flash 10 to use the tool
- Starting the Audiotool, you can choose out of three default set-ups or start a blank set-up
The latter even is exciting for a uninitiate like me, as I can just press “electro” and listen in awe. Anyhow, if you’re a professional, please let me know what you think about the Hobnox Audiotool.
Written on July 6, 2008 – 12:55 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Flash-publishing tool Sprout has a new competitor, and a it’s pretty tough one. Israeli-based Wix doesn’t just makes widgets, but also complete sites. People who are web-savvy enough to maintain a Flickr and YouTube account, but find it too complicated to build a fancy flash site, should definitely read this post.
Co-Founders Giora Kaplan, Avishai Abrahami, and Nadav Abrahami launched their service in open beta at the end of last June, saying that it’s “a big step forward in our journey to change the way web content is created”. I’m not sure whether this is a little bit too enthusiastic, yet I do think Wix can help starting web publishers to shape their online identity.
Thanks to a drag ‘n drop interface, users can create three sorts of Wix publications: the WixSite (1), a Flash-based website that uses an XML file to make it Google-friendly. ExtraSpace (2), a flash widget that allows you to spice up your MySpace page. The third option is WixComment, a fancy widget that functions like an embeddable bio on social network pages. There are several templates available, categorized under Business, Art, Personal, Music, Designers, and MySpace.
To give you an example of how Wix can be used: my grandparents have just celebrated 50 years of marriage and also bought a computer. I can browse to Wix, open the Personal category, select the family tree option and start building a really good-looking genealogy tool for them. Best of all, it will cost me absolutely nothing - except some time.
Written on May 19, 2008 – 10:17 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Hank Williams started a little shit storm in the hacking community recently claiming death to the content distribution networks with the launch of Flash Player 10.
It led to an interesting discussion among hackers and forced Adobe out of bed to respond. See live video is hot right now, but so are those bandwidth charges which are very limiting on profits.
Flash Player 10 coupled with Flash Media Server will be offering new features which will essentially allow some form of p2p streaming capability (though the details have not yet been released), thus possibly enabling live p2p streaming and according to Adobe “applications like chat and games are great examples of likely uses of this technology”.
Why pay charges if you can avoid them? RED5 an open source alternative to the 1K USD Flash Media Server, may well be interested in reverse engineering this new functionality, as will no doubt the 8 hackers at Justin.tv who claim to be one of the largest players in the live video biz and who have developed their own Python Media Server - “a custom built live streaming video server cluster. The network can support thousands of live broadcasts and over 100,000 simultaneous viewers and is 100% owned and operated by Justin.tv”.
Plus Justin.tv are currently leading the way in reducing bandwidth charges. “For most in the industry, live video streaming tends to be expensive - with costs ranging between 15-30 cents per user hour of live streamed video. The Justin.tv video network streams live video at 1/4 cent per user hour - by far the most cost effective live streaming ever built.”
So it looks like Flash Player 10 might help the ‘cutting edge providers’ of live streaming services to reduce those high bandwidth charges even further and maintain an edge over the mighty Yahoo who probably don’t care quite so much about bandwidth as those who actually need profits in order to survive this battle.
Written on May 3, 2008 – 11:24 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
It’s difficult for us developers, with tags such as ‘OCD’, ‘aspergers’ and ‘nerds’ to detach the word Macromedia away from Flash. But Flash has been playing Frogger for many years. Formally known as Splash, it has been jumping logs for a long time and with each new release and throughout its management changes, this single star has jumped itself into becoming one of the most dominant and integral players on the Internet today.
With each jump there has been thousands of dedicated and obsessive devotees simultaneously having ejaculations (metaphorically speaking) as the gravity settles to the new possibilities that the latest incarnation makes possible. These would not be apparent to a ‘normal’ person, for only those with the above mentioned tags have the capacity to really grasp the essence of the bifurcation immediately.
Flash has explored every area of the landscape, looking for acceptance, adoption and for an audience that truly appreciates their quests. I say quests because the team behind this baby are ruthlessly exploring new worlds, as and when they find a new feeding ground, they evolve with the terrain leaving little resemblance of their previous incarnation intact. This is one team that is highly interested in natural selection and breeding with aliens!
It is of little surprise that when Adobe Flash announces that they will now explore the mobile market further (code name: Open Screen Project) that when the fruits of this initiative are ripe, we will no doubt have strange new gadgets not even predicted by Philip K Dick, that we will use to navigate the new world around us, with unprecedented access to information and communication, but in an international timezone that has no on/off switch.
So what is it that Adobe’s crystal ball is saying this time about the future. Here are some predictions of scenarios that come to mind when I dare let my imagination go wild with the inevitable consequences of the Open Screen Project.
(more…)
Written on March 13, 2008 – 11:54 am
Reinout te Brake, online gaming expert
Hey you, yes, you! You are responsible for that huge buzz about online casual games! Since you are playing online games everywhere, whenever and so many times, you were helping in the past years to get a whole industry started. Do you actually know the term “casual games”, “ingame advertising”, “return on investment” and “venture capital”? We do. We, as in the online casual gaming industry. We are building games to please you as a player and make money of it. We try to understand your behavior in every way so we can develop specific games for men, women, boys and girls. Strategy games, role playing games, multiplayer games, arcade games and many more. You just have to choose or did we already know what you would choose?!
The online casual gaming industry has grown the last years significantly because more and more sites are offering games to the public at large. Not only you will find these games on specific games portals like Miniclip, GamesGames, and Pogo, but you will find more of these games in social communities like for example Facebook.com. Every day millions of games are being played online and therefore lots of companies did start to develop (often flash-based) games. These companies are located all over the globe, from China to USA, from Holland to India.
So I ask you just take a moment to think about it. What kind of games do you like? Where do you normally go to online to find these games? Do you (want to) pay for games or do you accept advertising around these games? All of these questions went already through the heads of those smart game developers and their marketing teams. They figured that these games are interesting marketing tools. You probably consider them just as nice playable games, but this industry is building on knowledge and experience on your behavior when it comes down to playing games online. (more…)
Written on February 20, 2008 – 4:29 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Until now it has not been possible for Flash developers to embed Adsense or any other ad-networks ads into a Flash widget. Adobe have made it clear from the beginning that this is something beyond the scope of the technology which has increasingly become a thorn in the side and ‘the most serious limitation’ for Flash developers to realize profit from their applications.
There are now literally hundreds of millions of Flash widgets embedded all over the web, mostly on third party sites, where the widget developers would JUST LOVE to monitise that content with Adsense and other ad networks. So a solution for this Major Dilemma is long over due and the prize for best hackers of the year goes to Scribd who have just launched a new product (IPAPER) that incorporates the said invention. In their own words and from their site come these lovely words:
Monetize Your Documents
If you have documents on your website, you could be missing out on a monetization opportunity. You advertise on your web pages, why not your documents? iPaper integrates a sophisticated ad system by Google that automatically targets ads to the content of your documents. By switching to iPaper, you can immediately begin to monetize your documents. All you have to do is collect the checks.
Click image to see a working example Flash widget with Adsense.
Hacked Solution
Now as they have cracked / hacked a way round one of the greatest limitations of Flash widgets this is going to revolutionize the web! Specifically increasing incentives for the hundreds of thousands of developers who are using Flash to make embeddable features for third party networks such as Facebook et al.
No one has yet come up with any serious solutions for monitising Flash content to date. (more…)
Written on December 20, 2007 – 3:43 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Moola has a simple but foolproof way of making millions. They give users one cent and let them play against other users in simple flash games. If you win, you double your money. If you lose, you go back to square one one cent. If you manage to win 30 times you win exactly $10,737,418.24. Not bad for winning a few flash games.
Before each Flash game you do have to watch a short video ad and that is where revenue is generated for Moola. If you want to know more about how it works read these excellent reviews on Techcrunch and ReadWriteWeb.
Local versions
The company is based in Toronto, Canada, invitation only and currently only available to residents of the United States and Canada. Once this company officially launches and becomes successful my guess is we will see a flurry of localized copies.
The reason why it makes sense to start your own local Moola is because the law is different for each country in the world. In the United States it can even be different per state. The Moola websites explains as much in their disclaimer:
Moola is currently only available to residents of the United States and Canada, excluding Louisiana, Nevada and Quebec.
The law on contests, sweepstakes and tournaments is not settled in Nevada, Louisiana and Quebec at this time. Until there is greater certainty, Moola will be unavailable to residents of these areas.
My guess is that within 12 months, just as it happened to the Million Dollar Homepage, we will see many localized versions of Moola all over the world. If you know of any similar local initiatives we would love to hear about it.
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
