Now this is cool -
Social Gaming Network (SGN) has been around for a while making games for Facebook. Recently however, they have extended it’s development to the iPhone.
SGN made an app called iFun, that can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for free. Once installed, the app makes your iPhone behave like a Wii remote control.
So how does it work?
You load up the game on your PC from the SGN website (at this stage, golf is the only game available).
Once you’ve logged in on both your PC and your iPhone, you then swing your iPhone like a golf club (not too hard – unless you have insurance).
The app then sends data (via a wi-fi or cellular network) to the server and your ball moves as per your movement. This can be played in a social environment with other people as well.
While this currently works on the iPhone, SGN is looking to expand this to the Android-powered G1 as both phones have built in accelerometers.
SGN is looking to expand this further, by eventually allowing third party developers to build more games on their platform.
I guess we won’t need a Wii after all eh?
We heard that Microsoft invested $240 million dollars into Facebook. But for the US Elelctions, Facebook wanted to to allow its users to find a polling place as well as mark if they had voted and who they supported.
Despite Microsoft having Virtual Earth for it’s Maps – who does Facebook use instead – Google!
Feeling the love, Microsoft?
After reading about the rumours of Yahoo!’s layoffs, I then came across a screenshot of the new Yahoo! profile page:
Look familiar? If you use Facebook or MySpace, you would be looked a red-tinted-logo mirror image.
By having a Yahoo! account, users can add friend connections from it’s address book and write updates about themselves known as Yahoo Buzz (their activity feed).
This is all that is initially planned, however, Jim Stoneham (VP of communities, Yahoo!) stated that this is the “foundation release” which will then enabled Yahoo! to develop on further.
The Yahoo Buzz activity feed will soon be a widget on the Yahoo! homepage for logged in users to see what’s happening within their social group.
But Yahoo! is looking to make this integration within various areas of its website – for example, if someone reviews a product on the Yahoo Shopping page, it will be added to their activity feed for the user’s friends to take a look at. The same is planned for sections like Finance, Sports, Flickr et al.
This sort of social community could increase user interactivity of Yahoo!’s products and services. Back in September Yahoo had opened access to it’s social API and Yahoo Application Platform for developers to write applications around this framework. Sounds like the following of Facebook, Apple and Google.
I guess Gigaom was right after all – Social Network is just a feature (http://gigaom.com/2007/02/05/are-social-networks-just-a-feature/)