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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Sparkfly Raises $2.5 Million For Its Mobile Engagement Platform SparkQuest

Atlanta, GA-based Sparkfly has landed $2.5 million in funding for its mobile engagement platform, SparkQuest, which aims to connect consumer deal redemption with merchant point-of-sale technology.

This capability basically enables consumers to get instant and repeat rewards at the merchants they frequent most (merchant list here), as well as ‘experiences’ that are tailored to their personal interests.

SparkQuest also features interactive, game-like quests that are connected to merchant deals and rewards and allow consumers to engage with their friends and social networks.

Facts of Groupon’s and LivingSocial’s stunningly fast and continued growth notwithstanding, Sparkfly founder and CEO Catherine Tabor posits that consumers have ‘burned out on one-hit, mass-marketed daily deals’.

The company, founded in 2001, says it has dedicated several years to developing the technology that ‘fills that gap’, backed with a portfolio of more than 20 issued patents.

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Adaptly Raises $2.7 Million To Facilitate Cross Platform Social Ad Buys

Social ad buying platform Adaptly has raised a total of $2.7 million in seed and Series A funding from First Round Capital, Charles River Ventures, Kirschenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners and Lerer Ventures. Angel investors also include Gary Vaynerchuk, Invite Media founder Nathaniel Turner and Interclick CEO Michael Katz .

Adaptly, which caters to clients like Pepsi’s Lipton/Brisk, makes it easier for brands to advertise across social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and Plentyoffish by thinking outside of the display ads box. “Social is NOT display,” co-founder Nikhil Sethi tells me. “What’s really important for us is to socialize the evolution of display ads. Those two dots don’t get connected and they need to be.”

Adaptly has two components: A white-label ad platform as well as a fully managed service where a team member helps brands through the process, “Imagine spending $5 million dollars on StumbleUpon ad. It’s not an easy thing to do, that scale is what we bring to the table,” says Sethi.

The ads space right now is dominated by Facebook specific-buying agencies like Blink, AdParlor and the companies that apply search metrics right next to social like Efficient Frontier.

What Adaptly does differently than the other players is that it understands that integrating ads into a site like Twitter or LinkedIn is an entirely different process and extends beyond Facebook, “Our bet is that social is not just Facebook, but that it will evolve into other sites like LinkedIn and Tumblr. Facebook is roughly 47% of the pie.” 

Adaptly recently moved its headquarters to NYC, and currently operates with a team of seven who mostly come from engineering backgrounds. Sethi tells me he will use the $2.7 million in recent funding to “build the most badass team” and has as an overall goal to put the “tech” in AdTech by building a really strong engineering-focused company.

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Vokle Raises $767K For Its Live Video Conferencing Platform

Vokle, a web-based video communication platform, announced today that it has closed a $767K round of seed funding. The round was led by Tech Coast Angels, Sierra Angels, Grammy-nominated singer Imogen Heap, Rafe Furst, and various private investors.

The round was the second part of a $200K angel investment the startup closed at the end of last year (led by the same investors), and adds to the $300K of seed capital it raised back in 2008, bringing Vokle’s total funding to $1.26 million. The startup will be using its most recent funding to continue building and scaling its user base, to step up hiring efforts, and to finish its move into new, larger office space in downtown Santa Monica, CA.

Vokle is a live, web-based video talk show platform that enables you to interact with your audience in realtime. And if that doesn’t get you, the cool thing about Vokle is that it’s a microsite, or an app if you prefer, so you can embed it anywhere, like a YouTube video. Obviously, Vokle isn’t a destination site, so you can add it to your website to give your visitors a one-stop experience, rather than redirecting to Vokle’s homepage, which gives a little boost to those user-retention/bounce stats.

Vokle’s platform also allows users to broadcast their live video and audio to a virtual auditorium of viewers, while taking live video calls and text-ed questions from the audience. So, users see the video window on their browser, plus a feedback and chat area, but the broadcaster is party to a backend that enables a number of different curation and editing tools. It aggregates questions from audience members, can assign remote co-hosts, provide screenings to approve video callers behind the scenes, or work with an editor to cut between single or multi-shots in realtime.

Unlike Justin.tv, which is really one-way broadcasting, Vokle is going for town hall-style, social video broadcasts. It wants to enable every person in the room to ask live questions and contribute to the conversation in everything from fan clubs and virtual meetups to jam sessions and charity events. Imogen Heap, for example, held live auditions for a cello player before a recent tour, and Arianna Huffington used it to interview Carl Honore. Check it out to see Vokle in action.

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