Hasta La Gadget!

Rapid turnaround just may be the name of Facebook’s game. Just a few weeks after its SDK 3.0 for iOS reached beta, the new developer tool has surfaced in a polished version. As it’s shipping, the SDK continues to emphasize a more iOS-native experience, better API support and slicker session management. Any iOS 6 integration will still have to wait until Apple finishes its software update; Facebook is keeping a separate beta track active to serve forward-thinking developers. The social network’s regular members aren’t quite getting the same reward, however. The expanded app support is being followed just as quickly by a mobile ad beta. While Facebook is still sparing us from a full-bore marketing assault, it’s letting developers pitch their Android and iOS apps from Facebook’s mobile portals, with a quick hop to the relevant app store if the title isn’t already loaded. While there’s no estimated completion date, we have a feeling that this is one Facebook beta where most customers won’t mind a delay or two… or ten.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software

Facebook SDK 3.0 for iOS arrives in finished form, mobile ads tag along in beta originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon is committing itself to gaming much more seriously than providing a storefront: it just launched its own game development house. The simply titled Amazon Game Studios is starting out gently by producing a Facebook hidden object game, Living Classics, that lets the socially inclined dig around through scenes from well-known literature — what else would you expect from the Kindle’s creator? While the free, me-too game isn’t going to give Microsoft or Sony any frights just yet, the company has the ambition of making “innovative, fun and well-crafted” titles. Amazon is actively recruiting more help for the studio as we write, so we’d expect more grandiose work before too long.

Continue reading Amazon launches its own game studio, goes social with Living Classics on Facebook

Filed under: Gaming, Internet

Amazon launches its own game studio, goes social with Living Classics on Facebook originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  Living Classics (Facebook), Amazon Game Studios  | Email this | Comments

Facebook has launched a new site to collate themed stories, magazine-style, allowing members to chronicle their timeline content and then see infographics of the most commonly shared memories. Facebook Stories kicks off today with a “Remembering” theme and timelines submitted by the social network’s own staff, but from now on individual users will also be able to create their own.

Not all individual creations will be put on display prominently, however. Facebook will be selecting the best of those submitted to feature on the site’s homepage, and then at the end of the month the site will create an infographic related to that month’s theme.

For the launch, the infographic is titles “Biggest Life Moments from Timelines,” and looks at which stories are shared the most. Strangely – given most people have complained about excessive baby photos at least once – Facebook walls filled with gurning offspring isn’t the most common type of sharing; in fact, it’s travel, followed by people mentioning they have moved.

Facebook will also be introducing other elements of Stories, again tied to the monthly theme. The Bookshelf will have a list of related books for suggested reading, while The Playlist will use Spotify integration to sample different genres of curated music. The Reading List, finally, will be put together from famous sources of writing, such as The New Yorker.

[via ABC]

Facebook Stories curates the best of sharing is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google+ lead Vic Gundotra has defended his decision to postpone an API for the social network, sneaking in a quick slap at Facebook by saying Google is “actually respectful of developers who build on our platform.” The delay in releasing a full Google+ API for third-party coders has prompted anger from some – Gundotra says that he was booed by the audience at SXSW when he said it was not ready – but the Senior VP argues that delivering one half-baked and “then later changing the rules of the game” isn’t in anybody’s best interests, citing recent criticisms of Facebook.

Those complaints, made in an open letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg by developer Dalton Caldwell, followed a meeting in which he was told that a product he was developing based on the social network would, rather than being warmly welcomed as previously indicated, instead be considered treading on Facebook’s toes thanks to the new App Center. Caldwell claims he was pressured to sell his work to Facebook or risk seeing it crushed by Facebook’s own system:

“The meeting took an odd turn when the individuals in the room explained that the product I was building was competitive with your recently-announced Facebook App Center product. Your executives explained to me that they would hate to have to compete with the “interesting product” I had built, and that since I am a “nice guy with a good reputation” that they wanted to acquire my company to help build App Center … Your team doesn’t seem to understand that being “good negotiators” vs implying that you will destroy someone’s business built on your “open platform” are not the same thing” Dalton Caldwell

That situation, Gundotra writes – on Google+, of course – is what Google hopes to avoid. “I’m not interested in screwing over developers” he said, “when we open an API, we want developers to feel confident that the innovations they build are going to be long lasting. Releasing an API, and then later changing the rules of the game isn’t fun for anyone, especially developers who’ve spent their life’s energies building on the platform.”

Currently, only select partners have access to Google+ data. The company announced a deal with Flipboard in recent months, that allows users of the news-browsing app to log into their Google+ account and see shared content from there in their stream. Google has also been improving integration between the social site and its own products, including YouTube and Gmail, with the promise of broader availability when it’s ready and not before.

“So I’m sorry that we haven’t released a wide open write API for those of you who want one. We’re being careful because we want to be different. You know, actually respectful of developers who build on our platform. It’s novel. I know” Vic Gundotra, Google

Google+ won’t screw developers (unlike Facebook) claims Google VP is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Twitter is under fire for apparently warning NBC Sports of critical tweets by Independent reporter Guy Adams, which led to the journalist’s account on the microblogging service being suspended. Adams had used his high-profile account to blast NBC for failing to air live coverage of the Olympics 2012 opening ceremony, at one point mentioning the email address of NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel to encourage complaints, in a move that triggered a complaint from NBC’s social media team.

Twitter’s role in flagging up the anti-NBC sentiment was revealed by NBC Sports itself, telling The Telegraph via email that it was the social network that first identified the PR problem, not its own team of tweet-trackers. “Our social media dept was actually alerted to it by Twitter and then we filled out the form and submitted it” NBC Sports’ Christopher McCloskey, VP of communications, told the newspaper.

“We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline” NBC Sports

As a result of that form, Adams – who is the foreign correspondent for UK paper The Independent – found that his account has been frozen. Twitter claims that he contravened rules about giving out personal information, and that Adams can be reinstated if he writes a formal apology and admits he broke a rule, something the reporter himself denies. In fact, Adams and others point out, Zenkel’s NBC email address is widely available online.

What has particularly muddied the waters is NBC and Twitter’s existing relationship. The microblogging platform has in fact partnered with NBC to run an Olympics-themed tweet hub, and while the deal is supposedly unpaid, critics have suggested that this may have prompted Twitter to highlight Adams’ messages in the hope of  gaining an excuse to clean up its coverage.

“If what NBC is saying is true, it undermines everything that Twitter stands for and is an absolute disgrace and will aggravate many millions of its users” Adams said in a statement, adding that he is reluctant to accede to the company’s demands. “I don’t understand their rules, I haven’t done anything wrong and I think it sets a very ugly precedent for me to promise not to do it again.”

Twitter faces fury after squealing to NBC on anti-Olympics tweets is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.