Twitter Tweaks Its Ad Targeting

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Twitter announced yesterday that it has further refined its targeting tools for ads, rolling out an ‘Advanced’ platform that allows advertisers to more finely target Promoted Tweets. Advertisers can now target their messages based on accounts that users follow. They can also pick where their ads appear based on platforms, operating systems and even devices being used to access Twitter accounts.

Twitter’s new self-serve advertising options have been available by invitation only in the United States since last March. The target seems to be small-to-mid-size advertisers on the social net, equipping them with tools to customize their campaigns based on the exact audience they want. The tools include campaign reporting, analytics, and optimization accessed through a nifty control panel.

Twitter explained the targeting capabilities in their blog, “First, [advertisers] can target users with the same interests as followers of @usernames. For example, if a golf pro shop were promoting itself, it might target users who are similar to those who follow @GolfDigestMag, @GolfChannel or even a former professional golfer like Annika Sorenstam (@ANNIKA59).”

One of the improved targeting’s most impressive aspects is how advertisers can choose the platforms where they serve their ads. They can target online, mobile or tablet users, and differentiate the latter by iOS or Android operating systems. They can even distinguish between desktop and laptop computers, and further break it down by manufacturer, for instance targeting only Samsung laptop users.

Similar to Facebook ‘Likes,’ advertisers can also choose from a wide-ranging list of more than 350 ‘interest’ categories, “from auto racing to birdwatching” according to Twitter. Advertisers are given the option to use or switch to the ‘Advanced’ toolset through their Twitter account dashboard. Twitter said for now the product is only available to US advertisers.

Source Twitter

BioShock Infinite – TV Spot

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Check out the full TV trailer for BioShock Infinite featuring Beast by Nico Vega and a Q&A Ken Levine did at BAFTA. As a bonus, there’s a video of Troy Baker (voice of Booker DeWitt) and Courtnee Draper (voice of Elizabeth) recording the track, Will The Circle Be Unbroken for BioShock Infinite.

SimCity Sells 1.1 Million

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Electronic Arts has announced that the new SimCity has already sold 1.1 million copies, the biggest launch in the history of the series. About 54 percent of the sales were digital, via EA’s Origin service or other digital download outlets.

“SimCity had a great weekend with sales strong across both North America and Europe, adding to overwhelming demand at launch that has us tracking well beyond expectations for the game,” said EA COO Peter Moore.

Since SimCity‘s launch, players have racked up 15 million hours of play time and built more than 5.7 million cities containing over 780 million buildings.

Google Restores Drive Service After Outage

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Google acknowledged on Monday that the Google Drive file-sharing application was suffering interminable issues. Two hours later service was restored, and many wondered if the outage was due to an upcoming new feature.

“The problem with Google Drive should be resolved,” commented Google. “We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.”

Source: Google.com

Meat Boy Dev: DRM A Waste Of Time And Money

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The implementation of DRM is an ongoing issue for the gaming industry, with an “always online” requirement being the new and controversial way to achieve that goal. Team Meat developer Tommy Refenes argues, however, that implementing DRM hurts honest customers more than it helps recoup sales.

“As a forward thinking developer who exists in the present, I realize and accept that a pirated copy of a digital game does not equate to money being taken out of my pocket,” Refenes said. “Team Meat shows no loss in our year-end totals due to piracy and neither should any other developer.”

“Companies try to combat piracy of their software with DRM but if loss due to pirated software is not calculable to an accurate amount does the implementation of DRM provide a return on investment It is impossible to say yes to this statement,” he added. “In the retail world, you could potentially put a return back on the shelf, you could find another customer that wants it, sell it to them and there would be virtually no loss. In the digital world, because there is no set amount of goods, you gain nothing back (one plus infinity is still infinity). It’s only a negative experience. A negative frustrating experience for a customer should be considered more damaging than a torrent of your game.”

“The reality is the fight against piracy equates to spending time and money combating a loss that cannot be quantified. Everyone needs to accept that piracy cannot be stopped and loss prevention is not a concept that can be applied to the digital world. Developers should focus on their paying customers and stop wasting time and money on non-paying customers. Respect your customers and they may in turn respect your efforts enough to purchase your game instead of pirating it,” Refenes concluded.

Source: Tumblr.com

Team Fortress 2 Supporting Oculus Rift

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Valve has announced that there will be a VR Mode for Team Fortress 2 for the Oculus Rift. This will be a free update to the title and anyone with an Oculus Rift Developer Kit will be able to play all game modes and classes.

“When we first played an early version of Virtual Reality mode in Team Fortress we were blown away by the immersion we experienced,” said Valve programmer Joe Ludwig. “VR is just getting started, but it is going to have a big impact on gaming. This update will let us share that experience with more of the Team Fortress community.”

Bungie Says ‘Epic Science Fiction’ Granted Them Creative Freedom For Destiny

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According to Bungie, it took them years of pre-production to settle on “mythic science fiction” for Destiny. Bungie design director Joseph Staten says this gave them the freedom they wanted in this new franchise.

“We thought of a good handful of other genres as well,” said Staten. “We’ve had a pretty long pre-production period and we explored everything from straight-up fantasy to something a little bit more modern to many, many other things as well.”

“Ultimately we gravitated towards this mix of science fiction and fantasy because it gave us this freedom,” said Staten. “You saw small things like the prevalence of cloth in the game, a lot of characters have capes or cloaks and the combatants have cloth as well. Fantasy brings us this texture that we can wrap around sci-fi, which is really appealing, especially if you’re an artist who’s just been stuck making straight up space armor for ten years. A bit of cloth is very refreshing.”

Source: Official Xbox Magazine