From Dimes to Dollars

by Ben Lopez

Jason Calacanis recently interviewed Neil Young, founder of NGMoco Games, and the man behind massively popular iPhone titles such as We Rule, Godfinger, and Eliminate.  Maybe you’re one to scoff at iPhone games, and consider developers like NGMoco to be minor league, but that’s hardly the case, as the App Store marketplace is a particularly lucrative venue to distribute games.  I was stunned when I heard some of the figures people were spending on in-game items using real money: how does $10,000 within a month sound to you?  You read that right: TEN GRAND.  There are folks that don’t earn that in a year, yet the geniuses at NGMoco have convinced folks to spend that much to grow magic cauliflowers.  So how do they manage to empty your wallet at such an alarming rate?  Micro transactions and compulsion loops.

Micro transactions, such as a .99 purchase in the app store is a “why the hell not?” impulse buy.  These unplanned purchases can add up quickly, of course, and that’s what more and more companies are banking on.  Expect to see this sort of add-on/in-game pricing become much more widespread.

Compulsion loops are nothing new.  They’ve been around for decades, long before the original Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s in the form of PC role playing titles.  Some of the earliest compulsion loops consisted of the same model you see within numerous titles today, allowing a player to “level up” and become stronger, acquire new abilities, and access to new content within the game as a result of putting in time and/or skill.  This is an especially enticing model for players, and is by far the most widely used for good reason.  Let’s say you just put in another 2 hours on a role playing game, and despite playing through several battles, you don’t make any progress in the storyline.  You’ll still feel as if you’ve accomplished something because your character has gotten stronger, or perhaps you found a valuable new item while exploring.  In other words, you never feel like your play time is wasted.  Other incentives to continue playing include leaderboards, public award badges for completing specific tasks, or real/virtual prize money for placing in events.  So in a shooting game, maybe you’ll earn an award on your profile page letting other players know that you played through a match without a single death.  It may sound petty, but given the large investment of time involved, people begin to pride themselves on these honours.  Eidos recently offered a real money prize for a stunt contest in their open-world game Just Cause 2.  This was an innovative spin on the cookie cutter “highest score” or “quickest time” challenges, even if the contest itself was marketed rather poorly!  Social obligation is another huge factor, something any Farmville player should know; if someone helps you tend your crops, you probably feel obligated to return the favour.  

You’ll also notice that NGMoco has a range of difficulty in their games; some you can make progress in by simply putting in time, and others are more hard fought skill-based titles, such as the first-person shooter Eliminate.  They are effectively covering all the bases for differing potential audiences, and it’s certainly paid off for them.

Chances are, the majority of the D2D readers aren’t game developers.  But that’s not to say you can’t develop compulsion loops for your area of business.  Reward loyal customers, find smaller bite-sized payment methods that are easier to swallow, and give your top contributors recognition for their work.  Get creative!  If NGMoco can earn millions off of a model developed decades ago, just think of what you might accomplish with new, innovating compulsion loops.

by Ben Lopez

Another week, another recap.  So, who pre-ordered iPhone 4?  Not many of us, I imagine, seeing as it sold out in an afternoon (don’t feel bad, I missed it too).  But you’ve heard that already, let’s get to what you may not have heard this past week:

This week’s highlights:

 We have a lot of social media going on in our life these days, don’t we?  While it’s sometimes convenient and enjoyable, there’s a whole lotta noise making its way in with all those spammy Twitter updates, and damned Farmville notifications every 5 seconds.  I take a look at the top annoyances and how you can avoid them.

I share a great classic quote from Walt Disney on your work in relation to the time you spend with your family.  Family first, don’t let them slip away as you get caught up in your work.

 My good friend Phil Ricci shared a story that I thought was just completely ludicrous; the New York Times apparently things we’re just completely unprofessional to use the word “tweet”.  My question to them: what the hell else are you going to call it?  See my full response here.

Last, but certainly not least, a little something for iPhone users in celebration of the iPhone 4 this past week.  I’d been wanting to do it for a while, so I finally set aside some time to do an in-depth review of Opera Mini for iPhone.  Is it really “six times faster” as they claim?  Speed tests are explained in the review.

For tomorrow’s post, I wanted to get back to a more core business focus for a while, but damn it all, after reading one of the Tumblr staff blogs, it absolutely requires a response.  Don’t miss this one…

Oh, and if anyone happens to have a recommendation left at this point (unlikely) and would like to be kind to Dimes To Dollars, you can do so in the tech, startups, or entrepreneurs category by clicking on the respective link.  Thanks for reading!^_^

PS: Special thanks to Jon Lopez Photography for the awesome Dimes To Dollars Photo shoot! 

by Ben Lopez

Opera Mini made a nice splash in tech blogs, and as a top trend on Twitter when it launched in April.  I thought it was a little buggy, but performed well overall.  After allowing some time for an update (and it has been updated), I sat down for some serious Opera time to deliver an in-depth review.

My initial impressions are that it’s not a bad browser.  The interface is very nice, and in fact I preferred it slightly to Safari’s.  For instance, it’s nice to have a reload button in the fixed dock, so I don’t have to scroll to the top to reload as in Safari.  Tabbed browsing appears a bit wonky at first with the shuffle animation that is used, but it’s very solid.

Another nice feature is a clean, simple home screen that imitates the desktop version of Safari’s “Top Sites” screen as a spot for favourites.  This is strangely absent on Safari.

Speed Tests:  I tried a variety of sites for speed tests, with fairly consistent results.  Opera was almost always faster, though not even close to their “up to 6x faster broswing” claim.  Six times faster than what?  Here are two basic examples to give you an idea of the speed comparison:

-Graphics-heavy webite (ncsx.com): Safari: 11.08 seconds, OM 7.69 seconds

-Light-graphics website (twitter.com): Safari: 7.18 seconds, OM 6.83 seconds

So good interface, good speed, but the browsing falls just a little short.  The biggest problem here is that there’s no control over how far you can zoom in, it is entirely automatic.  So essentially any other site that is not in neat columns become very cumbersome to navigate due to this.  Clicking links is also strangely spotty, and does not always proceed to load the page.  Other small annoyances include defaulting to load the “mobile” version of many sites, not the “touch” or full versions, and occasionally not resizing to fit the screen.

While it holds a sleek interface and is quite speedy, there’s no substitution for elegant navigation.  If they can tweak the touch sensitivity and give us more control over our zoom, I certainly think it can hold it’s own.  But for the time being, stick with Safari.

GRADE: C-

by Ben Lopez

We’re hot off the heels of Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone 4, which I covered on D2D’s Twitter page, and excitement is still buzzing in the tech community.  There’s been some excitement in my own life as well, as I have recently stepped in as the Director of Marketing for App Collab, ideal for anyone interested in developing or investing in mobile apps.  As you can imagine, that has put my former schedule in a blender, so I wasn’t able to sit down and get out much original content this week.  Another fail, my bad.  This week, I’m vowing right now: more meat, less filler!  Leave me some digital-slap-in-the-face comments/threats below to keep me in line, won’t you?

That of course leads me to my one announcement of good news: comments are working again.  I had nearly become a hypocrite after making my plea to Tumblr users  explaining why comments should always be enabled!  When I upgraded to a premium theme this week, I wondered why I wasn’t getting any e-mail notifications for new comments.  But the problem is fixed, so let’s resume the conversation with the great community we have here at Tumblr!

This week’s highlights:

Less than 24 hours after I shared my predictions about Reblogging becoming a widespread standard, Wordpress announced they’re adding a feature to allow reblogs.  It won’t be long until you se this feature adopted by all major blogging sites.  Well, the smart ones, anyway.

A bombshell announcement was met with a surprisingly low-key reception in much of the tech community, when Skype announced they have finally been authorized to allow calls of 3G networks.  Naturally, I tried it out immediately like a giddy schoolgirl, and giggled uncontrollably when it worked like a charm.

RFS Claymations is not a happy camper after taking Microsoft Office 2010 beta for a test drive, and delivers a rant accordingly.

No comic strip for this week’s humour, we innovate here at D2D, gosh darn it.  A blogger introduces the new Myspace Pro service, which got at least a few chuckles from me.  It’s a shame this is fake, if there was a service really like this I’d pay for it…

If you found any of the above particularly interesting or useful, please consider recommending this blog for the tech, startups, or entrepreneurs category.  Thanks for reading!^_^

by Ben Lopez

I checked my App Store updates last night for a surprise people all over the world have been waiting to see since day 1 of iPhone’s existence: the ability to place Skype calls over your service provider’s 3G network.  Global calls can now be made anytime, anywhere, no wifi needed…for free.  Well, at least until the end of 2010, anyway.  Skype announced that starting 2011, there will be a small fee, but considering their incredibly low rates on every other service they offer, I imagine it will be well worth the small cost for most iPhone users.

As if that wasn’t enough, the latest update includes several other new features, including a significant improvement to the level of “near CD-quality sound”.  

Well, I’m sold.  Let’s get a conference call going.

I hate to be so disappointing with a lack of content this past week, I’ve just been incredibly busy trying to get my new project off the ground while still juggling my day-to-day tasks.  I elaborate a little on what’s been going on with my personal projects here if anyone has any interest (unlikely, but possible, I suppose).

This week’s highlights:

I shared some encouraging and insightful quotes from Steve Jobs and Tim O’Reily.  They lend a bit of advice for startups, and provide valuable wisdom on how to treat your peers.

 Google made a huge announcement this past week as they unveiled Google TV to the world.  I made it clear that in my opinion GTV will soon change the entire market, which I believe will lead to, at long last, custom channel packages.  I had some good discussion with other bloggers on this, and even had a brief interaction with Gary Vaynerchuk, who agreed on the custom channel packages.

 Twitter dominated the #1 spot in the iPhone App Store this past week.  It was dethroned after several days by a Farmville clone…which is pretty sad when you think of the implications on our society’s priorities.

 This week’s humour comes in the form of a very unique Twitter service, which I’ve sarcastically deemed “The most useful Twitter service in the history of mankind”.  No spoilers on what it is (little clue in the thumbnail), you’ll have to read the full entry and judge for yourself how useful it is.;)

Typically I put a small mention down here to recommend this blog if you find it useful.  However, I’m not going to do that this week because I don’t think I delivered the past 7 days.  In any case, I’d like to thank you all for continuing to read From Dimes To Dollars, I read every one of your comments and e-mails.

TOMORROW:  I get opinionated in a big way, and publish an open letter to Tumblr users.  I won’t say what it’s regarding, but let’s just say not everyone is going to be happy about it.  Get your trigger finger ready to send that hate mail!

by Ben Lopez

Twitter finally launched it’s 1st-party iPhone application this Tuesday to skyrocket to the #1 spot for 4 straight days to this point.

I downloaded and tested it last night to find a very clean interface (no labels), a few borrowed touches from Twittelator (such as “pull to refresh”), and an added feature to save drafts, which is convenient on the go.  It is of course a free app, and does support multiple accounts.  However, I was surprised that there was absolutely no tweet confirmation, either visual or audio, and push alarms are not supported.

Have you tried the Twitter app yet?  Post your thoughts on the program itself, and the supreme victory of Twitter’s stranglehold in the App Store.

Hey folks, just wanted to post an update on what’s been going on with FDTD.  I’ve been rather booked lately, but I have several articles that will be posted soon.  I’ve been researching alternatives to the more mainstream social media websites lately.  I must have tried 30 SM sites in my lifetime, but there are some new players on the horizon that are doing some wildly innovative things (and some that are not!).  I’ll break down which ones are worth your time.  Also coming up is an interview with the founder of a very unique service, and an analysis on the new Facebook features once they are fully implemented and I’m able to spend some time with them.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts of what you’d like to see covered by asking a question (left sidebar), or e-mailing me at Lopez.M.Benjamin@gmail.com.  

Many thanks to all those who have subscribed so far!  My iPhone was going crazy with e-mail alerts for new subs, even at 3 AM, so I am incredibly grateful to you guys.:)  With your help, we have been growing very quickly.  And that just gives me further motivation to get you all the most informative and readable articles possible.  Cheers!

Hi everyone, glad you could make it!  

If you’re reading this blog, then we have at least one mutual interest: using the internet for business.  Perhaps you’re an aspiring entrepreneur who is determined to divert their career to the online realm.  Maybe you own a local service or brick-and-mortar store that you’d like to take online for greater business potential.  Or you may already be a well-established online presence, and are practicing the one key principle that any good entrepreneur should always be consistent in following: KEEP LEARNING.  

This Blog will focus on:

-How to stay organized and streamlined both online and offline to increase productivity

-Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the various ways to utilize these powerful tools to their full potential

-Trends, techniques, and discussion of online marketing practices

-Adopting the entrepreneur mindset

-How to build-up your own personal brand

-How to be persuasive in your writing, and personable in your everyday interactions for maximum success

-Discussing issues that will have a significant effect on online/small businesses and what it will mean for the future

But let’s pause a minute.  I’m probably being a bit too dry, aren’t I?  If I am, for pete’s sake, konk me on the head and tell me to stop writing so formally.  As long as we’re busy learning from each other, we may as well have a fun time doing it, and that’s the experience I’m aiming to deliver for this blog.  I’ll do my best to make each entry interesting and readable.  We best retain knowledge of things we have a genuine interest for, and it’s my goal to make these entries not just readable, but something you’ll be genuinely excited about!  Before long, you’ll be waking up in the morning enthusiastically saying things like, “Yes!  These stupid spreadsheets aren’t going to keep me down, I’m going to dominate them and move on to the next task…all before lunchtime!”, or “Ha!  I’ve just mapped out my hourly tweets for the rest of the month.  Nothing can stop me now!”  I hope your reason for visiting this blog will be both for business and pleasure.

I’m still fleshing this thing out, so if there are any tweaks I can implement to make things easier for you guys, just let me know.  I always invite suggestions on how things can be improved, so fire away.

I have a few articles prepped, and will start posting a little later this week if nothing changes, but I’d really like to hear from you all and get some feedback on what you’re currently working on, questions you may have, or where you’d generally like the focus to be for this blog.  Let me know if you have any useful ReBlog candidates as well, I’ll certainly consider them.  Like I said, I hope we’ll all be able to help each other in the long run for success all around!

The faster we begin the discussion, the faster we’ll be exchanging long-distance-high-fives.  Let’s get to it!