Creative Mobile Revs Up With ‘Fetty Wap Nitro Nation Stories’

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Adding superstars to mobile games seems to be a key to success, evidenced by the millions of dollars generated by hits like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. Creative Mobile decided to try to catch the same kind of fame when it released Fetty Wap: Nitro Nation Stories this week, working alongside the developers at MOOR Games to connect the fast-paced street racing experience with an award-winning hip-hop artist.

“Fetty Wap has great taste in cars, that’s what makes him so perfect for this game,” said Creative Mobile co-founder Vladimir Funtikov in the press release earlier this week. “We’re really excited to have such a stellar hip-hop star partnering with us, he’s got talent and a great team behind him.”

To gain more insight on Fetty Wap’s involvement with the game, and what players can expect from the racing experience, we chatted with Artur Grigorjan, Creative Mobile’s head of marketing.

Grigorjan

What is the game about, and how did Fetty Wap got involved with the project?

Fetty Wap: Nitro Nation Stories is a story-driven racing adventure game that features hip hop sensation Fetty Wap, his partner Monty and the RGF Productions team. We were approached by Moor Games, who was searching for a studio with experience in the mobile market, to help bring their vision of a branded Fetty Wap game to life. We’ve fit the entire game around Fetty Wap, with the soundtrack featuring songs like “Jugg (feat. Monty),” “Trap Luv,” “My Way (feat. Monty),” “Boomin,” and “Monty-Overnight (feat. Fetty Wap),” and the ability to use Zoo cash as in-game currency, and the chance to win real rewards signed by Fetty Wap and Monty.

You’re offering rewards to players who take part in the game. How does that work?

In order to give the game a personal touch, we’re giving away real-world merchandise autographed by Fetty Wap and Monty, including T-shirts, concert tickets and other paraphernalia. Each week a top player in the Underground Tournament is eligible to receive a unique promo code. All they have to do is fill in their shipping information and send it to us. Players even have a chance to win a personal meet and greet with the guys. There isn’t any other celebrity game doing these kinds of things.

How do players interact with Fetty Wap in the game?

Fetty Wap is the best friend of the player, he helps to drive the game’s plot and assists you throughout the game. Monty runs the “black market” where players can upgrade their cars with after-market parts. Later in the year we’ll have seasonal tournaments where players can race against Fetty Wap, Monty and the guys from RGF Productions.

How many cars will players be able to interact with? 

In total there are over 30 street and race cars to choose from (Alfa Romeo, BMW, Cadillac, and so on). All models are licensed from real-world brands. Players will start with the starter pack of cars, and as they progress, they will be able to win or buy new cars and upgrades.

Do you think the presence of celebrities in mobile games help give them the proper push they need to be popular?

It’s an ideal situation for both sides. The mobile games market is fiercely competitive these days, so brands and celebrities are bringing their audiences to games who are hungry for players. At the same time, mobile games offer celebrities and brands a new medium to reach their audiences and target demographics worldwide. Fetty Wap and his team are rising stars in the hip-hop world, and we’re bringing them to an international platform in 13 languages. At the same time, we’re gaining major exposure in the U.S. markets and building partnerships for future projects.

What kind of updates can we expect from the game in the weeks ahead?

We’ve got lots of planned promotions, weekly events and seasonal tournaments coming up later this year with some huge prize giveaways.

Radiohead’s Disappearing Act Gets Huge Buzz

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Here’s one way to get attention from the Internet: remove traces of yourself from it.

That’s exactly what the band Radiohead did this week, as it managed to blank its official website on Sunday morning, following the removal of social media posts across its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Some fans showed concern as to why the band would do this, but it soon became clear that the act tied in with one of its previously released songs, “How To Disappear Completely.” In truth, there was no need for concern, as the band eventually returned to the Internet, and announced a new album in the process.

Radiohead debuted a new stop-motion music video, directed by Chris Hopewell, just two days after its vanishing act, titled “Burn the Witch.” So far, it’s gained huge social media buzz, and has garnered over eight million views on YouTube site in under a week.

The video was just a small piece of a much bigger picture for the band. It just announced today that it will release a new album through XL Recordings digitally on Sunday, followed by a physical release on June 17. Although the album remains unnamed, the band continued to build up hype for the new release with yet another new video, a live-action piece directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights).

So, between its disappearing/reappearing act, and its sudden push for its first new studio album in five years (The King of Limbs released in 2011), Radiohead managed to pull off a unique social media trick: grabbing attention by quietly going away, then coming back with all-new material.

Chase Highlights Small Businesses With ‘Morning Bell’ Campaign

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The New York Stock Exchange rings in each day literally with the opening bell, celebrating the power of big business. Meanwhile, small businesses like Gregory’s Coffee, just a few blocks away on Wall Street, receives no such fan fare—until this morning. The coffee shop’s founder, Gregory Zamfotis, in partnership with Chase for Business, rang the iconic Stock Exchange Bell with a message: “Small business also has a voice on Wall Street.”

“The Morning Bell for Small Businesses” is a new campaign that celebrates those hard-working individuals who dare to build their own companies from the ground up. Chase is asking business owners to submit videos of them ringing their own bells to start the day, some of which will be featured on the Chase billboard in Times Square, Chase’s website and shared on social media. Highlighted bell-ringers on Chase’s website include Moomers Ice Cream in Traverse City, Michigan and Seaside Deli & Convenience in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Chase for Business offers credit to start-up and small business owners like Zamfotis, who gave up practicing law to open his first Gregory’s Coffee in 2006. He now has 17 locations in New York City. “Telling stories like his helps bring Chase’s initiatives to life,” said Allison Bennett, the chief marketing officer for Chase for Business. “It’s such a pleasure to talk to Gregory, and it’s so much fun to talk about how, in 10 years, he’s gone from zero to 17 stores. It’s more about him than it is about us, but his vision and our sponsorship helped get him there.”

The ringing of bells has been associated with celebrations since ancient times, from weddings to new calendar years and even death. In this way, Chase is using the same storytelling method that our ancestors used to find explanation, meaning and ritual, a simple, yet powerful way to engage their target demographic.

While The New York Stock Exchange bell rings at 9:30 a.m. ET, many small business owners have been up before dawn. “Some of them start at four or five in the morning,” Bennett said. “So these stories are inspirational, and they make the small-business community unique.”

Wistia Launches 360 Video Platform For Businesses

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Wistia has added 360-degree video support to its business video platform, as well as a Wistia 360 iOS app. The company works with clients such as Amway, HubSpot, MailChimp, Sephora and Tiffany & Co. to help them connect with customers and employees. Wistia has also introduced new heatmap technology designed for analyzing how consumers view 360-degree video.

Chris Savage, CEO and co-founder of Wistia, explains what 360-degree video is already opening up for businesses across various verticals.

How does Wistia currently work with the 200,000 businesses across 50 countries with its current video platform?

Wistia is a video hosting solution and marketing tool for companies that want to share content on their websites and grow their audiences. We share detailed video analytics to improve their production and content strategy.

How much demand was there from these companies to create and host 360-degree content?

This is a relatively new space for our typical customers, but we heard rumblings here and there. More than anything, we saw the potential for businesses to have a completely different type of conversation using 360. We felt empowered to create this type of content, and believed our customers could too.

We’ve also had early interest from video production agencies. They’re getting requests from their clients that are ready to push the envelope with 360 content. There is the expectation that more and more businesses will want to take advantage of 360 because of its ability to engage with viewers in a way that sets them apart from their competitors.

How easy is it to integrate 360-degree video through Wistia?

Three-sixty videos are treated the same way as any other videos that a business uploads to Wistia. It’s a simple file upload and a single checkbox to indicate that you’re sharing a 360 video. Once the video is in Wistia all of the branding and lead generating customizations can be applied.

There’s been early research that 360-degree video content is currently more engaging than traditional video. How will your app and platform allow companies to track and analyze this engagement?

Our 360 video player is recording individual viewing sessions and will provide companies with a heatmap that indicates the parts of the video each viewer watches, skips, etc. Since 360 video allows the viewer to navigate around a space, we needed to track an additional dimension. Our 360 video analytics also allow companies to retrace their individual viewer’s path throughout the video and overlay an infrared-style heatmap over the video to see areas of the video that the entire audience found most interesting.

How do you see this technology impacting the way 360-degree video and marketing content is created moving forward?

With a medium as new as 360 video, analytics are critical to understanding if your message is resonating and if your audience is actually paying attention to the parts of the video you’re trying to highlight.

Wistia’s spatial heatmaps give marketers the insight into which parts of the video are attracting the most attention and the parts that viewers miss entirely. That information should be used to inform future video production and content strategy.

What separates your platform from more consumer-focused platforms such as Facebook 360 and YouTube 360?

Wistia’s offering is really focused on helping businesses share 360 content securely and providing an excellent experience for viewers. Unlike with YouTube and Facebook, Wistia allows you to control where your videos can be embedded, customize the video player to match your brand, and then measure every interaction with the video right down to the user level. Wistia’s 360 heatmaps provide tracking at a far more detailed and actionable level than any consumer platform, meaning businesses can determine exactly where people are looking throughout their 360 videos, and use this data to make smarter marketing decisions.

Are there any examples of businesses already using your 360 platform or app?

Automotive Advertising Group in Florida created 360 walkthroughs of available cars at dealerships and the specific features in cars.

Bottle Rocket Media in Chicago created interactive 360 content for clients, like a 360 cocktail walkthrough with a bartender.

Are there particular industries or sectors that are early adopters of 360-degree video?

We’re definitely seeing real estate, live action events (NBA, surfing, etc.), journalism (interactive storytelling), and the travel industry (tours of monuments) adopt 360-degree video first.

What impact are all of these new consumer-friendly 360-degree cameras having on marketing in this new space?

The impact that the consumer-friendly 360 cameras are having is huge. Expectations are starting to change and businesses are realizing they have an opportunity to get in front of early adopters if they jump on 360 now.

How big a role do you believe 360-degree videos will play in marketing and the way businesses interact over the next five years?

We’re already seeing the huge investments that companies like Google and Facebook are making to support 360 video and virtual reality content. They’re betting big on this technology, and we feel just as confident that it is going to play a huge role in marketing in the next five years. There is a lot of potential for companies to connect with their audience in a more tangible way with 360 video. We created the 360 video player to support those types of experiences. By inviting viewers into a story or experience, they’re having a more memorable interaction with a company. Businesses increase their brand’s recognition by building a more engaged audience.

How has the influx of smartphones and mobile VR headsets such as Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR impacted the decisions for companies to enter this 360 space?

360 video is an entirely new medium. Consumers are walking around with smartphones and laptops that let them easily watch 360 videos. We’re just a few years away from a time when people also walk around with the headsets their phones will attach to, which will make 360 truly immersive. As this shift occurs, marketers that don’t think about and invest in communicating through 360 videos will be missing an opportunity to find their core audiences at their most engaged moments.

 

Car Manufacturers Are Using Virtual Reality To Engage With Consumers While Cutting Costs

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ZeroLight is disrupting the standardized and sometimes monotonous car-buying process for consumers and dealers alike with virtual reality technology.

The omni-channel visualization platform is driving new sales and marketing for the auto industry by efficiently engaging customers through real-time 3D solutions.

Earlier this year at shows like CES, NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference, and the VR Summit, the U.K.-based startup unveiled their suite of projects to support the Audi City dealerships initiative. The German automaker’s next-generation virtual showrooms are designed to offer customers tailored capability like reimagining colors, schemes and specs during the car-buying process.

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Joseph Artgole, a marketing executive for ZeroLight, told [a]listdaily that the “dealership in a briefcase” model will turn into the modern way of selling cars. The new tool serves to be a big boon as auto sales are already on a record pace.

“The Audi activation received great reception in terms of how you can actually go in and explore the car, by putting your face through the actual model, almost like an X-ray, and exploring in every way, and even under the hood. You can see every single element of the car that you wouldn’t be able to normally experience if you had it sitting in front of you.”

The VR concept also cuts costs for dealerships who spend endless amounts of cash on showroom space. According to Bloomberg, U.S. dealers spend $2.75 billion annually on interest to keep new vehicles on their lots.

Marcus Kühne, the project lead for Audi’s VR experience and immersive technologies, says the collaboration has “led to the creation of one of the most sophisticated and intuitive digital automotive retail solutions in the world.”

ZeroLight has also worked with car brands like Italian bespoke luxury car manufacturer Pagani for its $1.6 million Huayra model. Pagani makes 40-to-50 cars a year, and has just 20 showrooms to flaunt it. Using VR to showcase extremely high-end cars that are low on production is crucial for raising brand awareness, not to mention demand.

“What you’re seeing at the moment is a huge shift in automotive retail. Automotive is an industry in particular that hasn’t really evolved as fast as the other industries. Technology is coming in and changing everything, and really causing a real revolution,” says Artgole. “You have all of these manufactures coming in and taking up the opportunities to control the cost of floor space by implementing things like the 4K UltraHD screens and VR headsets solution.”

Pagani-Huayra-BC-Geneva-2__header__a253e820 VR also offers an extra level of immersion and engagement while giving the customer a compelling experience that leads to increased sales and higher specification purchases. It’s a modern way of buying and selling cars without the prototypical salesman-like approach.

Naturally, a big uptick in VR and AR activations has already arrived—specifically with Volvo’s partnership with Microsoft HoloLens. BMW also announced earlier this month that it’s using HTC Vive headsets and mixed reality to help develop new models. Other forward-thinking brands like Lexus, Nissan, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler and Ford are furthering their footprints and testing the waters from Brazil to Berlin, using VR to sell cars before you even try to take Miss Daisy out for a spin.

The prospective storm lead GP Bullhound, one of Europe’s leading technology investment banks, to bill ZeroLight as a company that displays the potential to become a $1 billion business.

“Reach and connecting with the customer globally is key. If you want to see the exact configuration of a car, then your best bet is to have technology that gives you access to every single configuration possible,” Artgole says. “You’re seeing dealership influence decrease because people are doing their research on the Internet. Now they can use their VR headset, go into the car, move around, and use 4K demonstrations instead of reading or viewing someone else’s experience.”

Follow Manouk Akopyan on Twitter @Manouk_Akopyan

Live Nation Lines Up One-Two Punch With VR Promos

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Live Nation is one of the leading companies behind promoting live concerts and other music events, and now it’s taking shows to an all-new level with virtual reality.

The company was involved in a pair of announcements this week could make the company a well-known name in the VR world by bringing concert viewers a “you are there” experience.

Its first partnership is with NextVR, in which it will broadcast a variety of concerts through virtual reality. The deal, which is expected to go for five years, will begin this summer with a yet-to-be-named act, according to Re/Code.

“This agreement actually spans from what you might consider an intimate performance to very large music festivals,” said NextVR co-founder Dave Cole.

The deal is expected to begin with free events, although pay-per-view concerts could be a possibility down the road. It could go a long way toward popularizing VR technology, depending on which artists Live Nation features.

The second partnership involves the streaming video service Hulu. The online channel recently announced that it’s working with Live Nation to create a new virtual reality series; one that recreates the feeling of walking out onto a concert stage for the first time.

No other details about the VR series have been revealed yet, but it be exclusive to the Samsung Gear VR headset (where Hulu recently launched its VR app), and will be separate from the company’s other services.

We’re likely to learn more about Live Nation’s VR initiatives over the summer, and then we’ll see who’s ready to take the virtual concert stage.

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Turtle Beach Talks About OpTic Gaming ESports Partnership

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Earlier this week, headset manufacturer Turtle Beach announced a major new eSports partnership with the popular competitive team OpTic Gaming to promote its new Elite Pro Headset and gear at upcoming events. It’s a major partnership that showed how Turtle Beach was more than ready for the next level of pro gamer support.

To get a better idea of what led to the partnership, [a]listdaily talked with Turtle Beach’s communication director, Maclean Marshall, about what it meant for the company, and what it could mean for future eSports partnerships down the road.

Did the growing popularity of eSports prompt Turtle Beach to make a more advanced line of products?

Absolutely. A few years back, as eSports was gaining more and more momentum and popularity, Turtle Beach took a hard look at the audio gear the teams and players were using at the time, with the goal of creating something more uniquely tailored to this specific audience of pro gamers. We spent three years developing the Elite Pro headset, Tactical Audio Controller and accessories, including deeply researching how to build a better headset in terms of both design and performance, garnering feedback from pro players on what they’d like to see in an eSports focused headset. And then we spent nearly the last year refining everything to make sure the Elite Pro delivered on that goal.

What does your partnership with OpTic Gaming mean for eSports partnerships down the road?

Yeah, we’re really excited about our new partnership with OpTic Gaming, and it certainly speaks volumes about the Elite Pro. Hector and the OpTic guys wouldn’t have jumped on board with us if the Elite Pro didn’t meet or exceed their desires. As for more partnerships down the road, it’s something we’re definitely continuing to look at, as well as many other companies (gaming or non-gaming). ESports is big, and as this space continues to grow and become more mainstream, I think we’ll continue to see more teams and players looking for strong partnerships like the one we announced today.

Maclean

Will Turtle Beach products continue to be featured with tournaments?

I sure hope so! One of the things that a lot of people don’t know or sometimes forget is that Turtle Beach has been around for a long time. Last year was our 40th year in business. A decade ago, Turtle Beach was the first to create console gaming headsets which allowed gamers to start talking to one another when playing multiplayer, and today multiplayer has evolved into the world of competitive gaming. Turtle Beach has always been a part of the competitive gaming space, and now with the Elite Pro our hope is that we will see even more teams and players wearing Turtle Beach when they compete.

What are the expected prices and release dates for the Elite Pro gear?

Our expected release timing for the Elite Pro headset and accessories is this summer. We’ll announce more specific availability details in the coming weeks. Price-wise, the Elite Pro Tournament Gaming Headset is $199.99, the Elite Pro Tactical Audio Controller is $199.99, the Elite Pro Tournament Noise-Cancelling Mic is $39.99, and the Elite Pro A.M.P for PS4 and Elite Pro Tactical Audio Adaptor for Xbox One are $39.99 and $59.99 respectively.

The headset can be pre-ordered on the official Turtle Beach page, starting May 24.

6 ‘Doom’ Promotions That Raised Hell

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No game is has made as deep of an impression on the gaming world as Doom. Originally released in 1993, the game that famously popularized first-person shooters and PC gaming with its gore and over-the-top violence, which practically made id Software a household name. Now Doom is ready to make a big comeback, this time published by Bethesda Softworks, known for wildly successful games like Fallout 4 and the Elder Scrolls series.

Doom, which will launch on May 13, returns to the original roots of the game with extreme violence, a variety of weapons that range from chainsaws to giant energy guns (the BFG), fearsome demons, and intense multiplayer action. But it would take more than the name alone to get fans ready for the carnage. These are some of the main ways Bethesda got players ready for an all-new blood-soaked battle.

Wolfenstein Leads The Way

Bethesda and id Software played early promotion of Doom very close to the chest during its early promotion. Doom‘s first details were revealed when the publisher announced that entry into the closed beta would be included with every pre-order of Wolfenstein: The New Order, which was fitting, considering how Wolfenstein 3D helped establish id’s reputation in the ’90s before the original Doom released. Confirmation that a new Doom was just on the horizon was enough to stir early excitement, and it likely helped boost sales for The New Order, but there was no information on when the closed beta would take place. Players might have been left with more questions than answers, but this would work to the game’s benefit.

Lurking In The Shadows

Fans were given a small taste of what to expect with a short-but-sweet E3 trailer in 2014, which actually showed very little, but was enough to generate a great deal of excitement. As it turned out, the trailer was an appetizer, with the main course to be served at QuakeCon a month later. However, Bethesda announced that the QuakeCon reveal of Doom would be exclusive to those attending the convention, and it was true to its word.

Attendees were treated to a first-look at the gory game, while those viewing via livestream were blacked out. They were expressly forbidden to record the Doom reveal, so everything that people outside the convention would learn anything about the video, including how it featured a demon ripping a character’s arms off, until attendees took to social media to talk about how they were comletely blown away. Keeping Doom exclusive to attendees, comprised mainly of fervent fans, did wonders to generate hype for the game through word-of-mouth.

Doom Steals The Show

Doom shed its mystery in 2015, when Bethesda hosted its first pre-E3 briefing to showcase its upcoming games. Although there were many surprise announcements and reveals, none matched the same kind of energy Doom had when it took the stage. Bethesda had teased the gameplay reveal with a 12-second trailer released weeks before, but it did little to prepare fans for the all-out action that would be seen.

To be sure, Doom would feature plenty of violence, signature weapons like the chainsaw and double-barreled shotgun, along plenty of demons to shoot or tear apart with your bare hands. Fans were clearly ready to get in on the action, which is why pre-orders had already begun on Steam and at other retailers, even though it would be almost a year before the game’s released.

Day Of Doom

In March, in the days leading up to the Doom closed beta, Rooster Teeth worked with Bethesda to host Day of Doom, an event where the popular YouTube stars teamed up with real athletes to go head-to-head in an all-out live 6v6 competition.

The four teams were led by:

  • Antonio Brown and Justine Ezarik (iJustine)
  • Thierry Henry and Alia Shelesh (SSSniperWolf)
  • Rob Gronkowski and Michael Jones (Achievement Hunter)
  • Chad “OchoCinco” Johnson and Adam Kovic (Funhaus)

Some of the world’s greatest athletes had a chance to show-off their gaming prowess while showcasing Doom‘s multiplayer features. It was the perfect event to get fans psyched for the game.

Fight Like Hell

Nothing makes a bigger impression than letting players try a game for free. The Doom open beta took place on April 15-17 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, giving players everywhere a chance to jump in and get a taste of the multiplayer action. Although the open beta weekend was limited to multiplayer matches, it included all the modes and many of the maps. Players interested in the single player content could learn about it through livestreaming events and trailers. This would be one of the final big pushes to win fans over before the game was set to release less than a month later. To sweeten the deal even more, Bethesda recently announced that a free copy of

To sweeten the deal even more, Bethesda recently announced that a free copy of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (a prequel to The New Order) would be included with the pre-orders of Doom on Steam, further stengthening the connection between the two franchises.

Speed Demon

It’s a well-known fact that you need excellent speed and reflexes to win a competitive Doom match, but Bethesda (in partnership with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) will be taking that concept to a new level. A Doom care will premiere at the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis on May 14, which is the day after the game’s release. The No. 7 car is being driven by SMP Racing driver, Mikhail Aleshin, and will also compete in the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 29.

“We couldn’t imagine a more perfect sponsorship fit,” said Pete Hines, vice president of PR and Marketing for Bethesda Softworks, said in a press release. “Doom is all about pushing forward with incredible speed. We’ll all be cheering on Mikhail and the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team as we celebrate the game’s launch.”

The Doom IndyCar certainly gives the term, “hell on wheels” a whole new meaning.

 

Samsung Extends Mobile App Program To Promote Indie Developers

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Samsung’s “Made For Samsung” program has been quite effective in promoting mobile apps for devices such as the Galaxy S7, and now it’s extending that brand power to help independent game developers.

As reported by Yahoo Games, Mihai Pohontu, vice president of emerging platforms for Samsung, announced the extension of the program during the GamesBeat Summit 2016 event this week. He stated that its service will reach beyond partners such as Weather Channel and CNN to assist indie developers in creating exclusive titles for the Galaxy App Store.

“We want to work with indie devs to launch their products exclusively on Samsung platforms,” said Pohontu regarding the program.

Samsung hopes to bolster its Galaxy App Store, which comes standard on all of its smartphones and tablets, so that it can better compete with digital stores like Google Play (which is on every Android device) and Apple’s App Store.

However, Samsung is taking a unique approach when it comes to appealing to indie developers. Rather than offering cash or investment deals, it’s going with non-cash services to assist developers, including product testing, promotion, operations, distribution, open platform and analytics, and the tools necessary to keep the developer ecosystem moving.

“Exclusivity for us can be time bound,” said Pohontu. “We can continue to promote an app or game even after the exclusivity program is over. In the game industry, developers would normally find it hard to obtain Hero image featuring in the other app stores.”

Pohontu stated that it wants gaming to be a vital part of its ecosystem, pointing out that an app can actually reach 40,000 installs per month based on the right promotional events. “That’s a reasonable performance level, and it doesn’t include preloads on other devices,” he noted. “We will push your game to a very good audience. We realize the biggest developers won’t do this. But we are thinking of under-served areas of the world.”

It’s hard to tell how far the Made For Samsung program will grow, but the company has an interesting ace in the hole with its Samsung Gear VR headset. Retailing for $100, the device can prominently showcase virtual reality experiences alongside other mobile games.

“Developers can get prime featuring on Gear-VR-compatible games,” noted Pohontu. “If you launch your VR app with us, you can also launch your mobile game and we’ll promote it.”

How The Lumi App Tailors News To Personal Tastes

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At the same time that Yahoo is up for sale, and huge media companies are struggling to generate ad revenue from an audience uninterested in advertising, a small startup in London hopes to solve the issue of content aggregation. After all, there has never been more articles written on a daily basis about any topic that might interest you. But there’s also a tremendous amount of clutter and noise (especially through social media channels) that gets in the way when trying to find those stories.

Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel, two of the founders of data-driven music curation company Last.fm, have launched Lumi News. The free app launched today for iOS and Android devices, although a beta version of the Android app has been in testing for the past year with 120,000 users.

Although the app looks extremely simple, there’s a lot of technology behind it. Lumi has three data scientists in its office. And the technology is using search result optimization, retargeting, and click stream analysis to benefit and analyze a user’s interests. Much of this technology has previously been used to target advertising to users online.

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Lumi News selects the top 100,000 articles every day from a social media feed of over 200 million articles. In addition to tapping into the social media feeds of its users, the app quickly ascertains the user’s personal interest by the swipe of a finger.

Miller and Stiksel officially retired from the tech space back in 2009, in part because they had sold Last.fm to CBS for $289 million in 2007. But ever the entrepreneurs, the partners re-entered the space in 2011.

“We started talking about browsing history, Miller said. “We dreamed of this search engine portal all based on the browsing history of things you liked. We spent two years of research on this, and at the same time refreshed ourselves on new data science technology. We learned a lot, and tried and failed a lot of times.”

Ultimately, the duo realized that the biggest need out there would be for people reading content. Specifically, connecting the right users to the right articles, which is what all the tech giants have been chasing.

“Twitter, Flipboard, and Facebook were all failing because they weren’t making it easier to find content,” Stiksel said. “We set out to bring our technology mainstream, so my Mom can be an online expert. She can read all the right bits from all the publishers and user-generated bloggers that gets produced and appears as noise online.”

Lumi News feeds whole articles to your device, and the user simply swipes right to read it or left to skip it. Another story is always right behind it for you to read. Within a matter of minutes, the data science kicks in, and relevant content procured from over 40,000 outlets of all sizes, is delivered to your smartphone or tablet.

“We see you spending time reading an article and it goes into a list,” Stiksel said. “The swipe action learns from that, so the next story will appear just behind it. The difference with our app is like a restaurant that’s new to you and you don’t know what you want, versus a local restaurant where they know your order when you walk in.”

Of the 120,000 beta downloads, Lumi built up 50,000 active monthly users. Miller said the content they were interested in had a technology slant, but the app already covered a breadth of topics from health to sustainability to music articles. As the app scales up with users, so will the variety of content.

Last.fm grew to 50 million unique tracks with metadata based on the listening histories of 40 million people. Stiksel said that technology auto-fingerprinted everything, creating a giant catalog and the most comprehensive relationships on top of that. The data science analyzed what was similar with every single track.

“People would expand their horizon very quickly within this ecosystem,” Stiksel said. “We expect the same to happen with Lumi News.”

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The new app was built with more advanced data science than Last.fm, as technology is always evolving. Every article that enters the app is its own entity. Miller said if a story is great, it gets pushed to the right eyeballs. But it needs to cross that initial social media threshold to enter, although users can also select any story and enter it manually into the app.

“You have all these words in certain combinations that mean a certain thing,” Stiksel said. “The system is clever enough so that in news and articles, a word like ‘Donald Trump’ could be viewed as positive or negative by individual users. If it’s a negative association, all stories about that word will be deleted from your recommended feed.”

If the app can reach critical mass with millions of active users, the Lumi founders believe it could help media companies. The startup has already begun showing its early results to some publishers. The app pulls directly from websites and blogs, complete with advertising, delivering those sites the traffic.

“If your whole company culture is about produce content, we’re here to make it easy to find the right stuff,” Miller said. “We only ever work with articles already published. We navigate the entire space and boil it down to one specific user. Our belief is everybody who has smartphone technology should be able to tap into this.”

The Lumi founders believe the smartphone will remain the where news article consumption is going to happen primarily for the foreseeable future.

“There are over 3 billion smartphones worldwide and the news business isn’t getting healthier,” Stiksel said. “Publishers are struggling, but the problem is in getting the content to the right audience. Home pages aren’t working, and social networks have too much going on and not enough coherence.”

Ultimately, Miller said Lumi News was built as a surefire way to deliver only satisfying articles to the right people.

“This is a hot space right now because of Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles, but the results are still the same in that they don’t solve discoverability,” Stiksel said. “We’re about getting into the user’s headspace and giving them something to read right away.”