Sibblingz Launches New Version Of Multi-Device, Social Gaming Platform

Multi-device social gaming platform Sibblingz, announced a new version of its cloud-based platform, codenamed Spaceport.

Sibblingz allows developers to create games on Facebook as well as iOS and Android devices, allowing players to continue the same social game as they switch between devices. The platform also offers the developers the ability to monetize free-to-play games with virtual goods.

Spaceport allows game developers to build a game once, using Javascript, and have it play across all smartphone operating systems, with a native app-like experience and fast performance. The games run as a hybrid HTML5 – native app, and the code for the game is written once, in a simple scripting language, so that they ca then run on any device. The updating process is also relatively simple for developers using the platform. With Spaceport, developers just need to revise the JavaScript code for their game in the HTML page once. After doing so, they will see immediate updates take place in their game across every device.

The Spaceport platform, which is a server-side solution in the cloud, will initially roll out with Sibblingz’s own synchronous role-playing game, MiniQuest which demonstrates the technology. MiniQuest, which has been developed once in Javascript/HTML5, will be available in Nokia, Apple, and Android app stores this year and playable across 1 billion smart phones says the company

Sibblingz is part of the YouWeb family, a social and mobile company incubator that created global brands such as OpenFeint and CrowdStar. Over the past year, Sibblingz’s first generation multi-device gaming engine powered two of the top Facebook games, Happy Island and It Girl.

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White Label App Platform Appia Launches Pay-Per-Download Service For Developers

With Apple clamping down on incentivized downloads, white-label mobile app platform Appia (formerly PocketGear) has launched a new performance based advertising network for app developers to increase app downloads and only pay for results.

In case you aren’t familiar, Appia powers a white-label content and commerce platform for everyone and anyone who needs a mobile app store. The company now powers mobile app storefronts for more than 40 partners, including four of the world’s top five handset manufacturers (Samsung, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless). The bonus of using Appia’s white-label offering is that it enables its partners to deliver apps to more than 3,200 different mobile device makes and models. Via its partnerships, Appia currently powers more than 500,000 downloads a day from a catalog of 140,000 apps with projections to double by mid-2011.

Appia’s ad network allows developers to access a pay-per-download service that allows developers to promote their apps by targeting ads by country and platform (Android, iOS, Java, Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Palm). Developers only pay for actual downloads of their apps.

Developers will now be able to target consumers across Appia’s distribution network, which delivered 22 million downloads in March. The network now reaches more than 200 million mobile subscribers in over 200 countries. Appia’s performance based advertising network is directly integrated into the Appia Developer Program. Once an application has been uploaded to the the Appia developer portal, the developer simply sets the bid price they want to pay per download, chooses the geographies they want to target, and select a payment method. Appia’s online reporting shows campaign activity broken down by platform, device and geography; giving developers insight into where their campaign is driving app downloads.

Prior to today’s launch, Appia’s performance based advertising service has been in private beta since February but has already delivered high value sponsored downloads to trial partners including Flirtomatic and Blue Lion.

While Appia’s app platform doesn’t have the same scale as the Apple App Store, it certainly is an outlet for developers to advertise and profit. And the company’s reach is steadily increasing. Appia recently announced partnerships with Opera Software, to power the Opera Mobile Store for more than 100 million users, as well as with Telcel, Mexico’s largest operator, to power the Ideas Appstore for Telcel’s 64 million subscribers. Incentivized downloads have become a big business, and it should be interesting if developers expand to Appia’s platform to capitalize on this.

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Bnter Brings Conversation Sharing App To Android Phones, Launches Bookmarklet

We’re big fans of Bnter, an app that allows you to share your conversations with others publicly. The same way you share photos via the web or your mobile phone, Bnter allows you to share snippets of conversations you have with friends on the web. While the startup initially focused on SMS, Bnter recently broadened its scope to allow users to share any sort of conversation, including GChat, in-person chat, email and more. Today, Bnter is launching a free Android app (which joins an existing iPhone app) and is launching a bookmarklet, and in-depth Twitter integration

The Android app (which works on OS 2.1 or higher) is similar in functionality to its iPhone cousin and the web app, and allows you to read your feed of conversations and people you are following, comment, search and add conversations. And because it is a mobile app, Bnter for Android can pull your text message stream into the app so posting is fairly easy.

Bnter’s new bookmarklet, which you can download here, allows for posting conversations directly from open chats in GChat, Facebook Chat, Foursquare comments, GroupMe, Twitter and Campfire to your Bnter profile.

Bnter, which has raised seed funding from a number of high-profile investors including Founder Collective and SV Angel, has also added a feature for automatic Twitter import of mentions on the service. Bnter users easily post Twitter conversations by linking their Twitter account to Bnter, and can review all conversations in a drafts folder before deciding to post the most interesting ones to Bnter.

For the New York Based startup, this release has been somewhat of a challenge. As Sarah Lacy wrote last week, Spark Capital reportedly reneged on a termsheet offered to Bnter, forcing the bootstrapped startup to take some drastic measures (for example, co-founder Lauren Leto isn’t taking a salary) to continue the release and product development. It just goes to show that despite certain hardships and bumps in the road, founders’ passion for their ideas can help sustain a startup in the most trying situations.

Also, you can see Leto explain why she founded Bnter in this recent Founder Stories clip.

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