Following up on the parody success with OneNote Mac, OneNote released a parody of “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO celebrating its new integration with Surface Pro 3. The OneNote team apparently loves taking notes on their Surface Pro 3 so much, they had to sing about it. The video was recorded and produced by the OneNote Engineering Team.
Enjoy the world premiere of I Click It and I Note It:
Welcome to the Best Cinematic Trailers of the Week, where we look back at some of the greatest clips from upcoming movies, TV shows and video games that are sure to get your heart pounding with excitement. Whether reintroducing familiar brands or staking new ground, these trailers are guaranteed to keep you entertained. Let’s get started!
Following its run of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network, the next animated series in the popular franchise will make its debut on Disney’s XD channel later this year. In Rebels, some young new heroes are introduced, battling the unstoppable Empire at every turn. Even though the footage is still early yet, it’s definitely looking, well, out of this world.
The new extended trailer for Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy has arrived, and it goes into more detail about the ragtag criminals that come together to become unlikely saviors of the universe. There’s a lot of hype going into this film, which features an all-star cast that includes Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana. It should make quite an impact when it hits theaters August 1st.
The latest trailer for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity does an outstanding job showcasing what the new Anvil engine can do in terms of recreating the French Revolution era in the game. The gritty streets, the fluid animation and the brisk action all come together into one unique experience, which gamers will be able to get their hands on when the game arrives later this year.
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch returns to the big screen later this year in The Imitation Game, a new film from The Weinstein Company. In it, Cumberbatch portrays Alan Tuning, a genius British mathematician who leads the charge to crack the German Enigma Code that helps the Allies win World War II. This drama, also featuring Keira Knightley and Mark Strong, will debut on November 21st.
Finally, Batman: Assault On Arkham, the latest animated Batman film from Warner Bros., will make its debut on August 12th. The film ties in with the events from Rocksteady Studios’ Batman: Arkham games, telling the story of the infamous prison and the nightmarish scenario that unfolds surrounding the games. It should make a big impact this week at San Diego Comic-Con.
Source: YouTube
Yahoo’s push towards the mobile front continued this week, as the company has reportedly made a $200 million play for Flurry, a mobile app analytics and advertising startup.
This is a bit surprising, although, looking at the numbers, it seems like a necessary move. Yahoo is currently looking at 450 million monthly active users, as well as a tremendous growth in search and display mobile ad revenues, to the tune of nearly 100 percent. CEO Marissa Mayer has even stated that the company is, in fact, a “mobile first company.”
Yahoo confirmed the acquisition shortly after rumors started making the rounds in a full press statement. “Yahoo is on a mission to re-imagine users’ daily habits, and mobile is at the center of everything we do,” reads the statement. “Our agreement to acquire Flurry is a meaningful step for the company and reinforces Yahoo’s commitment to building and supporting useful, inspiring and beautiful mobile applications and monetization solutions. By joining Yahoo, Flurry will have resources to speed up the delivery of platforms that help developers build better apps, reach the right users, and explore new revenue opportunities. Together, the companies can make mobile experiences better through products that are more personalized and more inspiring.
“Analytics are critical for all mobile developers to understand and optimize their applications. Yahoo and Flurry are reinvesting in developers and continuing to build great analytics products. The combined scale of the two companies will accelerate revenue growth for thousands of developers and publishers across the mobile ecosystem.”
Flurry’s statistics have been nothing short of impressive this year, with over 170,000 developers using its analytics system and 1.4 billion devices interacting in terms of app support. Yahoo can certainly take advantage of Flurry’s mobile position.
No word on when the merger will be complete, but clearly it will be beneficial for both companies.
Source: TechCrunch
Samsung has announced they have made a $13 million investment in the cross-platform mobile software company BlueStacks. The major investment will be focussed on BlueStacks’ GamePop product, a white-label solution allowing cable providers and television manufactures to offer a wide range of Android mobile games on traditional televisions.
“This is a huge win for the mobile generation,” said BlueStacks CEO, Rosen Sharma in an online piece with Mashable. “We interview a lot of young kids in our GamePop research. None of them have heard of Mario, but they all know Subway Surfers. There is a mindshare shift to mobile IP happening, and with Samsung we will bring all of this popular content into living rooms around the world.”
BlueStacks is known for its focus on mobile to in-home game integration. Just last year they launched the GamePop console that operated as a kind of “Netflix for mobile gaming,” featuring over 500 Android gaming titles. The larger, $129 version of the console was discontinued by the company not long after, however.
BlueStacks also offers a desktop player for Mac OS X and Windows which allows users to play games like Candy Crush Saga, Telegram and Temple Run 2 on their desktops.
All three channels, the white-label offering (for third-party vendors), the AppPlayer (for desktop users), and the mini-console are designed to liberate Android gaming from mobile devices and essentially blur the lines between traditional console gaming the mobile gaming.
Source: Mashable
By Sahil Patel
The Chernin Group and AT&T through their joint venture called Otter Media are nearing a deal to buy a majority stake in YouTube multi-channel giant Fullscreen.
As first reported by Recode, the deal would value Fullscreen between $200 million and $300 million. For context, Fullscreen’s biggest competitor in the YouTube space, Maker Studios, sold to Disney for $500 million, with $450 million in additional payouts depending on the company’s performance. (That said, it’s important to note that Otter Media wouldn’t buy Fullscreen outright, which is what Disney did with Maker.)
If the deal is completed, this would keep Fullscreen in the Chernin family. The Chernin Group led a $30 million Series A round in the MCN over a year ago.
More recently, The Chernin Group partnered with AT&T to launch Otter Media, a joint venture focused on investing in and acquiring over-the-top video startups. The firm has $500 million behind it and recently made its first acquisition, for Demand Media’s Creativebug, which distributes DIY arts and crafts videos.
If you’re looking for a reason for why Otter Media would want a controlling stake in Fullscreen, it’s right there: over-the-top. Fullscreen is developing an owned-and-operated video platform that would bring premium content from its network of talent as well as from other creators. This content, which the company has yet to comment on, would look to super-serve millennials.
As we said back then, a marriage between The Chernin Group and Fullscreen make a lot of sense. Fullscreen has been developing its own over-the-top video platform at the same time its investor The Chernin Group has expressed interest in owning such businesses made the two a perfect match.
According to Recode, if the deal is finalized, Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos would continue to run the company.
Other investors in Fullscreen include Comcast Ventures and WPP Digital.
More to come from this, I’m sure.
This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.
Usually, when fans go to conventions, they have to go to special booths to play certain games from companies. However, Nintendo’s latest promotion provides an interesting twist that brings the game to them.
The company has launched a new Twitter campaign that revolves around its forthcoming fighting game Super Smash Bros., which will take center stage at the San Diego Comic-Con Convention this week. Here’s how it works:
Gamers will be able to follow Nintendo’s Twitter account (@nintendoamerica), and there will be times that the company will send out a “Bring Me Smash” notice. (It won’t be hard to miss.) From there, interested parties can take a picture of themselves wherever they are on the San Diego Comic-Con show floor, along with the hashtag #bringmesmash.
From there, Nintendo will contact interested parties with a message, indicating that a rep is on the way with a 3DS copy of the forthcoming fighting game. In other words, they’ll be bringing the demo to them, within just a few minutes’ time.
For those who don’t want to take part in the promotion – or just cn’t catch a break when it comes to finding free time on the show floor – Nintendo will host its annual Nintendo Lounge at the Marriott Marquis & Marina, where players will be able to visit and get their Smash on for both Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Other games will be present as well.
It’s another example of the extra work Nintendo is putting in to hands-on marketing for Super Smash Bros. Nintendo seems convinced that the best way to sell the game is to let people get their hands on it, as they did during E3 with special demo stations set up in Best Buy stores around the country.
Super Smash Bros. will make its debut on Nintendo 3DS on October 3rd, and later in the year for Wii U.
Source: Shacknews
It was inevitable. With a new Guardians of the Galaxy movie hitting theaters on August 1st, and a huge promotional push going behind the new property, it was only a matter of time before Star-Lord and his squad of criminals-turned-heroes showed up in Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes.
Disney confirmed its inclusion today, with an official playset that features all five Guardians in playable format: Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Groot, and Rocket Raccoon. The game will have players arriving at Knowhere, with the villainous Rohan and his Sakaaran fleet hot on their tail.
Along the way, players can consult familiar characters from the Guardians universe for missions, including Yondu, Cosmo and The Collector, while also gaining access to the Toy Box mode, where players can build levels however they see fit, using components taken from the Guardians universe. How they decide to build is completely up to them.
The set will be sold separately alongside the main Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes set, which will feature an Avengers playset and three characters from that universe. A Spider-Man playset will also be available at the time of release.
A price hasn’t been given yet, but the playset will likely retail around $35, as most other Disney Infinity playsets have been priced at.
This is a perfect example of how Disney plans to exploit the Disney Infinity franchise, by using it to provide an interactive tie-in to new movies without the massive development budget or lengthy development cycle that games based on movies have taken in the past. Disney can work on improving the basic Disney Infinity engine on whatever time frame seems best, without trying to rush out an entirely new game to coincide with new movie releases. The ease of producing play sets for Disney Infinity means that they can be timed to release to take full advantage of the movie’s marketing campaign, resulting in a boost to sales without a corresponding increase in marketing costs. In short, expect to see new Disney Infinity playsets for every major movie release from Disney or the studios it owns.
Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes debuts this fall for Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.
Source: Shacknews
Back in the 90’s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise was kept simple when it came to movies, with folks hopping into animatronic suits and doing damage with ninja moves. It also left its mark with the debut of a “ninja rap” song in The Secret of the Ooze, with Vanilla Ice debuting the “Ninja Rap” number while the Turtles were fighting off the Foot Clan. You can witness this for yourself below.
With the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie set to arrive on November 8, the producers thought it would be wise to bring a new song for this generation of the Turtles, brought to life through a combination of CG and motion-capture. For this go-around, however, Vanilla Ice is out, and Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa and Ty Dolla $ign are in.
The song is called “Shell Shocked,” and, as you can hear in the video below, it’s a far cry from what Vanilla Ice did over 20 years ago. Still, it sounds like a new song for the Ninja Turtles generation, which is exactly what the filmmakers were going for.
The vibe for the new film is definitely going for a more action-packed approach than the old 90’s ones, as the Turtles once again face off against the Shredder, who’s taken on a much larger – and more dangerous – form. The Turtles will once again work with ace reporter April O’Neill, this time played by Megan Fox, with Will Arnett as her wise-cracking cameraman Vern Fenwick. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Clash of the Titans) and written by Josh Appelbaum & Andre Nemec (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol). Paramount Pictures releases the film everywhere on August 8th. It’s being produced by Michael Bay, so we can probably expect a few explosions along the way.
The era of the “ninja rap” may be gone, but as you can see, the Turtles still know how to “go, ninja, go, ninja, go.”
Source: First Showing
Casual Connect 2014 in San Francisco offered a packed schedule of sessions covering a wide variety of topics. The [a]list daily was there, and here’s some of what was discussed. Google talked about its plans for gaming, and mobile publishers discussed how they are increasingly providing more value to developers in the increasingly sophisticated mobile marketplace.
Google’s global head of games business development for Google Play, Bob Meese, discussed some of the reasons that it’s a better time than ever to be creating games fro Android. For one thing, he pointed out, there are over 1 billion monthly Active Android users. “That’s the largest group of people playing games on any platform, ever,” said Meese. Though he didn’t mention how many different devices and versions of the operating system that is spread over, an important consideration for developers. Google paid out over $5 billion to developers in the last year, Meese mentioned. (On Apple’s earnings call yesterday, the company revealed it has paid out more than $20 billion to developers so far, with $5 billion of that in the last six months.)
Meese spent a fair amount of time talking about Android TV, and how developers should be developing for a multiscreen world, with games moving from smartphone to tablet to the TV screen. Google has lined up a number of top TV makers to support Android TV, and Meese encouraged developers to go to developer.android.com/tv to get a free Android TV and Android TV development kit. “We are looking for local multiplayer experiences, and games that can be played with a simple remote,” Meese said, not expecting developers to bring their entire catalog of games to Android TV.
Meese also noted the increasing utility of Google Play, and showed some stats on how developers are benefiting from the higher quality users who log into games using Google Play. For instance, Deer Hunter players who accessed the game through Google Play logings were made 4.6x as many purchases as other uses, and had three times the LTV (lifetime value). Meese noted that Google is also helping developers extend their reach geographically, now offering support for Google Play cards in 16 countries, direct carrier billing in 25 countries, and PayPal in 12 countries.
The Mobile Publishers Executive Roundtable brought together some top executives at mobile publishers to discuss why, in fact, mobile publishers have their uses when developers can simply put titles right into the App Store or Google Play store. Why give up margin to a mobile publisher
DeNA’s Barry Dorf, VP of partnerships & alliances, established where the mobile game business is at right now. “Twenty months ago DeNA had the #1 and #2 top-grossing games on iOS and Android, but the world was a different place back then,” Dorf noted. “Getting your apps into the top ten, figuring out how users are playing, … it was the dawn of the age we’re in right now. Since then times have really changed. There are three top players; there’s Supercell, GungHo, and King, and they make up 60 percent of the App Store top-grossing. There’s about ten companies that make up about 30 percent of the top-grossing, and then indies make up the other 10 percent. That’s changing dramatically, even today. The top 60 percent is growing, the top 30 percent is getting smaller, and we’re tapping into that 10 percent. It’s harder and harder for indies to break into the marketplace today.”
Giordano Contestabile,VP of product management & revenue at Tilting Point, explained how there’s still room in the marketplace, but developers need help. “The market is dominated by a few players, but the #100 app in the US is doing $30K per day — that’s a $1 million per year run rate,” Contestabile said. That’s still a reasonable amount of money if a developer is small enough. “The App Store is dominated by a few players, but these players are all new,” Contestabile said. He explained that production values are rising, and players expect you to compete with the best in class even if you’re only a small developer. You need to have money, someone who understands user acquisition, monetization, and expertise in a lot of areas that most small developers just don’t have. Hence, mobile publishers provide the help. “If you only want to hit a single or a double, you don’t need a publisher,” Dorf added.
The publishers discussed some of the specifics about how they help developers . “We do a lot of user acquisition, but we also rely on other forms of marketing,” Contestabile noted.. “For example, we launched Leo’s Fortune a couple of weeks ago, and we premiered a live-action trailer which was a huge Rube Goldberg machine built to simulate the game environment. It was very expensive, took about 70 days to shoot, but it’s gotten 1.5 million views on YouTube so far. There are two reasons why we do that. One is because performance marketing is increasingly expensive, and we want to find other ways for people to discover the game. But really, we want to build brands, we want to build big franchises over time. I don’t think you can build a brand by buying your users one at a time. People have to feel an emotional connection to the game.”
“Performance marketing has become table stakes,” said Walter Driver, CEO of mobile publisher Scopely. “That’s just blocking and tackling now. I think you’re going to see a lot more of this offline marketing starting to be table stakes, running television campaigns, working with celebrities, influencers, creating spectacles and trailers. Those are the kind of things you need to do to break out of the pack. That’s a big financial risk for a developer who has already invested a lot of itme and capital into a single game, and may not have another game coming out for quite a while. It’s another area where you’re going to see publishers provide value.”
Between June and September people are out of their houses and on their smartphones, looking for places to go and things to do. What they’re searching for (and how) provides a window into consumer interests for this season and beyond. We took a look at Google’s data to see what’s trending this summer.
Mobile Share of “Recipes” Searches
Mobile Share of “Hotel” Searches
People use mobile devices to go online more so in the summer months than in other seasons. Through a combination of traveling on vacation, lounging on the beach, or grilling in their backyards, U.S. consumers are constantly connected.
Average Views of Video Game Content on YouTube
It comes as no surprise that views for video game content on YouTube, such as trailers and tutorials, go up in the summer months. During the school year, views of gaming content spike on weekends and then level off during the week. However, when kids are home from school for summer break, gaming content is watched much more consistently throughout the week.
Source: Think With Google
