This article titled “Facebook Cards takes networking back offline” was written by Mark Sweney, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 5th January 2012 13.10 UTC

Facebook is to encourage users to take their virtual brand into the real world with the launch of a new service enabling them to create personalised business cards based on images and posts from their profile.

The new service, called Facebook Cards, is being positioned as a “new model of social-business networking” that “bridges the gap between online and offline”.

Facebook Cards, which will become available for the social networking giant’s 800 million-plus users globally from 5pm on Thursday (GMT), has been developed in conjunction with UK-based digital printing business Moo.com.

Moo.com, which is based in the so-called Silicon Roundabout in east London that counts companies such online music service 7Digital as inhabitants, is offering the first 200,000 Facebook users 50 free personalised business cards to promote the service. The standard cost for 50 cards will be £10.

The social networking giant believes that the time is right to launch the service because users will be able to make creative business cards thanks to the launch of the new Facebook Timeline product late last year.

Facebook Timeline – which founder Mark Zuckerberg called “the story of your life” when he unveiled a preview to developers in September – replaces the Wall each user’s profile previously had with the aim of documenting their life from the cradle onwards.

“Timeline helps people tell their story on Facebook and feature the parts of their life that mean the most to them,” said Jillian Stefanki, a spokeswoman for Facebook. “The Moo.com integration makes it possible for people to take the same experience with them offline.”

Moo.com, launched in 2006 by entrepreneur Richard Moross, said that each of the business cards can feature a different photo image on the front and a favourite quote or saying on the back.

The aim, says Moross, is to allow Facebook users to have a unique stock of business cards to pair the “right images for the right business or social occasions”.

“It is clear that consumer habits of sharing business and personal information are evolving,” said Moross. “The lines between online social networking and offline business networking are not just blurring, but vanishing.”

He described the new hybrid offering as an “offline social business card”.

Moo.com has raised more than $5m (£3.2m) in venture capital from companies including the Accelerator Group, Index Ventures and Atlas Venture, investors behind internet ventures such as Skype, Betfair, LoveFilm, Last.fm and MySQL.

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This article titled “Twitter followers are worth $2.50 each a month? I’m rich at last” was written by Paul Carr, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 29th December 2011 15.00 UTC

Like you, I’ve long dreamed of my “Antiques Roadshow moment”. The life-changing – probably televised – discovery that the creaking old rocking horse which formed the cornerstone of my childhood cowboy games was once the formative plaything of a young Catherine the Great. “Conservatively,” some kindly old rocking horse expert would smile, “I’d put its value at around £200,000.” “Gosh,” I’d blush, before insisting, “but, of course, I could never part with it.” (Two hours later: eBay.)

Until yesterday lunchtime, though, my Antiques Roadshow moment remained a wonderful fantasy. And then, just after boarding my flight home from Heathrow to Las Vegas, I heard my iPhone beep.

“We’re interested in getting some comment on the story below,” began the email. I almost didn’t click the link – we’d just been told to turn off our electronic items and I didn’t want to be Alec Baldwinned off the plane. But the name in the “from” field belonged to an editor at the Guardian and – yunno – could be an easy hundred quid, I thought.

Click.

Holy shit.

My moment had arrived.

The “story below” concerned PhoneDog, an obscure phone review website that is suing former employee Noah Kravitz for $340,000 over a “stolen” Twitter account. During his employment Kravitz had set up the account – @Phonedog_Noah – to tweet the usual brand-humanising nonsense that these people tweet. On leaving the company, Kravitz insists, PhoneDog were happy for him to keep the (now renamed) account, on the understanding that he would occasionally tweet out links to their phone reviews. At some point, though the relationship got messy. Now PhoneDog wants its followers back, and it also wants a third of a million dollars in damages: $2.50 for every one of the account’s 17,000 followers, multiplied by the number of months since Kravitz left his job.

When the Guardian emailed me to ask if I wanted to write something about the lawsuit, I expect it was hoping for something along the lines of: “Sheesh. It’s as if companies have learned nothing since the late 90s when CEOs blithely entrusted the construction of their website to the teenage son (always son) of their next-door neighbour, without stopping to consider, say, the intellectual property implications of non-employees registering domain names, building databases and suchlike. The specific circumstances behind Phonedog v Kravitz remain murky but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is just the first of a cavalcade of lawsuits – and a parade of retroactive rights grabs – that we see as it once again dawns on companies that they should take all aspects of their online identity seriously.”

Maybe the Guardian hoped for even more than that. I am, after all, an expert in this bullshit. Perhaps a history lesson: how employees often spot the potential of technology before their bosses. How the first draft of the Economist’s website was a home-brewed affair, knocked up by one of its correspondents for $120 in 1996 – or how, as long ago as 1991, New York Times tech reporter John Markoff registered nyt.com on behalf of his employer, well before anyone thought to also buy nytimes.com. How, given that Twitter accounts tend to be directly associated with a single person, there are real dangers in a individual employee – simply by virtue of being the most web-savvy person in the office – becoming the de facto spokesperson for an entire company. Pseudonyms are déclassé on Twitter, but it’s possible to make a compelling argument in favour of companies creating fictional spokestweeters – “Geoff from XYZ widgets” – inhabited by whichever staff member holds he social media reins on any given day. Other staff are welcome to tweet too, of course, but following the BBC model where employees must make it clear they don’t speak for the corporation.

Recalling that I never miss an opportunity to mention that I briefly studied law at university, maybe my editors would permit me make some woefully ill-informed stab at the strength of PhoneDog’s legal position. The company seems to regard its erstwhile Twitter followers as a sort of mailing list or customer database, which brings it neatly under the heading of a trade secret. Ker-ching! But, unlike mailing lists, Twitter follower lists are publicly displayed, so a PhoneDog victory in this case could bring about an exciting new legal precedent. Or not. The case might just be tossed out. I have no idea.

The point is, when I clicked on the link and read about Kravitz and his Twitter account, I didn’t immediately think about history repeating itself, or whether companies should use shell tweeters or even if this might be a chance to trot out some half-remembered fragment from a lecture in company law. No. What I thought was this…

“This is it! This is my Antiques Roadshow moment!”

You see, I have 10,000 or so followers on Twitter and, until yesterday I had regarded them much like I might have regarded that hypothetical old rocking horse: if the rocking horse was made up of pornographers, spammers and maybe half a dozen normal people who haven’t yet got round to unfollowing me. Sure they were fun to play with: but valuable? Please.

But now, thanks to PhoneDog, I discover that all those people – my wonderful, important, mission-critical database of followers – are apparently worth somewhere north of $25,000 a month. That’s three hundred grand a year! Sorry, I’d love to write a comment on all of this, but there’s no way on Earth I’m missing out on my big payday for a lousy hundred quid. Not when I can use this opportunity to make a much more important statement …

PhoneDog – if you really, truly believe that Twitter followers are worth $2.50 a month each then this is your lucky day. I’ve got three hundred grand’s worth just lying around taking up space! I mean, of course I could never bear to part with them but – shall we say $150,000 for cash?

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This article titled “Apps Rush: Yellow Submarine, Halo Waypoint, Moshi Monsters, Dickens: Dark London, easyJet and more” was written by Stuart Dredge, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 12th December 2011 11.37 UTC

A selection of 23 apps for you today:

Yellow Submarine

Strictly speaking, this is an e-book rather than an app, but Yellow Submarine is one of the titles that is blurring the boundaries between the two categories. Nabbed by Apple as an iBooks exclusive, the free book tells the story of The Beatles’ cartoon film, with video clips, music and interactive animations alongside the text.
iPhone / iPad

Halo Waypoint: ATLAS

ATLAS (Assisted Tactical Assault System) isn’t a standalone app: it’s a new premium feature for Microsoft’s Halo Waypoint apps on Windows Phone, iOS and Android. It includes content from Brady Games to help players of Halo: Reach improve their performance, but also functions as a live map while playing the console game, showing locations of vehicles, team members and weapons.
Windows Phone / Android / iPhone / iPad

Sky Sports Live Football SC

BSkyB has taken its live football scores app to Android, offering scores, commentary, league tables, match stats, radio and a feature to find pubs showing games in 3D.
Android

Moshi Monsters: Buster’s Lost Moshlings

Barnstorming virtual world for kids Moshi Monsters has a new iOS game, courtesy of Penguin Books. Based on the book of the same name, Buster’s Lost Moshlings involves exploring Monstro City, with a tracker mode to help younger kids play.
iPhone / iPad

Dickens: Dark London

Developer Brothers and Sisters Creative has launched an interactive graphic novel for iOS based on Charles Dickens’ habit of roaming the streets of London at night, looking for inspiration for his writing. Illustrations from David Foldvari and voice narration from actor Mark Strong complement a map of the capital that will form the base for the planned series of monthly releases in this series.
iPhone / iPad

easyJet mobile

Budget flights firm Easyjet has launched an iPhone and Android app to help people search, book and manage flights on their smartphone. The link above is for the Android version, so click here for the iPhone one.
iPhone / Android

Elmo Calls

Sesame Street’s latest iPhone app lets kids receive video calls, audio calls and voicemail from its Elmo character, with parents able to schedule incoming calls for situations including going to the doctor, birthdays and potty training. In-app purchases are included for specific “call packs” including ABCs, holidays and singing.
iPhone

Dapper John : In the Days of the Ace Rock ‘n’ Roll Club

Cartoonist Eddie Campbell made waves with his In The Days of the Ace Rock’n'Roll Club comic in the 1980s, and now the editions have been collected and digitised for an iPad app. The storyline concerns a group of Southend teddy boys in the 1970s, with extra content including interviews and an unpublished strip.
iPad

Lync 2010

Microsoft’s enterprise service Lync is going mobile, although the Windows Phone app requires an existing Lync server or Office365 / Lync Online account to work. It includes presence features, instant messaging, audio conferencing and phone calls.
Windows Phone

My O2

O2 UK and its developer partner MIG have launched the My O2 app for Android smartphones, enabling customers to check their account information and manage their bolt-ons. It follows the iPhone version which came out in late 2009, and has so far been downloaded nearly 2m times.
Android

Zite Personalized Magazine

News aggregation app Zite – now owned by CNN – has been available on the iPad for some time. Now it’s been squeezed down for an iPhone version, released the same week that Flipboard made the same transition.
iPhone

Berlin: DK Eyewitness

Berlin is the latest city to get an iPad app based on Dorling Kindersley’s Eyewitness series. Expect cutaways of notable buildings, as well as offline maps and all manner of tourist hotspots highlighted.
iPad

Popular Mechanics Be The Spark

Magazine publisher Hearst has launched a new iPad spin-off from its Popular Mechanics magazine. It’s a game that sees players getting inside an engine to keep its pistons pumping.
iPad

Logostream

Even a big brand often isn’t enough to prevent an app from sinking without trace amid the hundreds of thousands of other apps nowadays. Logostream is the work of discovery service Appsfire, and helps people to browse Apple’s App Store by brands.
iPhone / iPad

Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots

Mattel has taken its Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots toy brand to Android, with a boxing game that pits a Red Rocker against a Blue Bomber.
Android (spotted by Android Police)

Pet Shop Story

Freemium games publisher TeamLava has launched the latest social iOS game in its “Story” series: Pet Shop Story. The aim is to build a thriving pet shop business while cross-breeding animals to create labradoodles, toygers and, er, chugs. A pug plus a chihuahua, if you’re wondering.
iPhone / iPad

The Salvation Army UK

The UK’s Salvation Army has an official iPhone app, offering news and tweets, and inviting people to donate online, by telephone or text message. There is also a map of the organisation’s churches and centres.
iPhone

Puzzler World 2

Puzzle publisher Puzzler has launched a new mobile game offering crosswords, wordsearches, sudoku and other puzzles. Developed by Ideas Pad, it uses in-app purchases to sell different game packs. The link above is for Android, so click here for the iPhone version.
iPhone / Android

StyleTag

There are many, many social/photo/fashion apps available for iPhone, with most of them having come out in 2011. StyleTag is the latest, promising “on-the-go fashion trend spotting” and “hottest fashions from fashionistas like you”.
iPhone

Bruce Lee

Commodore 64 classic Bruce Lee hits the App Store, as Elite Systems releases a (licensed) emulation of the platform game. As in 1984, it involves running and jumping through a succession of chambers kicking seven bells out of a green sumo wrestler and a black ninja.
iPhone / iPad

Emlyn Hughes International Soccer

Another C64 re-release from Elite Systems is the game that at one point ran Microprose Soccer close as the best (in this journalist’s eyes) 8-bit football title. Originally released in 1988, it uses Elite’s “iDaptive” virtual joystick controls.
iPhone / iPad

Mashable

Social media and entertainment news site Mashable has launched an official BlackBerry app, including the ability to comment on stories from the device.
BlackBerry

Noah and the Ark – BibleKids 3D

The latest games company to turn its hand to book-apps is RocketPop Games, with iPad title Noah and the Ark. It takes the Biblical story of Noah and presents it with interactive 3D visuals.
iPad

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This article titled “Google crowns royal wedding as fastest-rising UK search of 2011″ was written by Charles Arthur, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 15th December 2011 00.01 UTC

A royal wedding, a briefly-wedded celebrity, a Twilight film and a TV series arguably in the twilight of its existence all topped the list of “fast-rising” searches in the UK, according to Googlelatest “Zeitgeist” lists.

Thus the royal wedding – and its principal star Kate Middleton (though not her sister Pippa) – rank highest in the new searches for this year collected by the search engine, which dominates search in this country. Second on the list was an object that didn’t exist: Apple’s fabled “iPhone 5″, expected all year long to be unveiled in June, then July, then August, then September, until the company finally in October unveiled … the iPhone 4S. The company also appears for its iPad 2 product, after the first version appeared in the top 10 last year.

The impact of video games on our lives is also clear: Fifa 12 and the online game Minecraft both appear in the new “rising searches”. Meanwhile Ryan Dunn, the Jackass star who died in a car crash, and the singers Adele, Rebecca Black and Ed Sheeran all appear – compared with the lone human appearance of Justin Bieber as a name among the new searches last year. (Bieber can rest easy: he has now crossed over to become one of the most searched-for news terms.)

Kim Kardashian, whose short-lived wedding made her news fodder everywhere, was the most searched-for celebrity in the UK. She was followed by Victoria Beckham, Harry Potter star Emma Watson, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, the ever-present Britney Spears, Megan Fox, Ricky Gervais (the only male on the list, apparently on the strength of his Golden Globes presenter spot), Jessica Jane and Angelina Jolie.

Among films, Breaking Dawn – one of the Twilight saga – set the pattern in which remakes ruled. It was the most searched-for new film, followed by a rash of franchise films: Final Destination 5, Mean Girls 2, True Grit (a remake), Conan The Barbarian (another remake), Scream 4, The Inbetweeners (an original UK film), Little Fockers (third in the franchise), Transformers 3, and Unstoppable – the only other original film on the list.

Meanwhile “X Factor 2011″ was the fastest-rising search, despite its sliding TV ratings compared with last year. After that came the Apprentice 2011, X Factor USA, and then NCIS, House, Glee, Thundercats, Big Brother, Supernatural and Smallville. It’s unclear if people searching for the US series names are trying to find download links or information about them; Google said it doesn’t have any insight into that.

For deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, the news that the top “what is…?” search was “what is AV” (answer: the alternative vote system the Liberal Democrats were proposing to replace first-past-the-post elections) will confirm why the referendum was lost: too few people could understand it without resorting to the internet. But they’re also – judging by the other “what is?” search terms – puzzled by sauteed shrimp (“what is scampi?”), underground fungus and/or chocolates (“what is truffle” [sic]), while also seeking to do some medical self-help (“what is piles”).

The squeeze on UK living standards is also apparent from the food searches, which this year are headed by Asda, recipes, Tesco, Sainsburys and pizza. Close behind those budget-conscious choices, and pointing to even tighter times ahead, are chicken, chocolate, Dominos (the pizza delivery company), Morrisons (supermarket chain) and Argos. Those compare with the same category for last year, which Google’s press release then showed as starting with Tesco and recipes, and then Asda, pizza, wine, Sainsburys, Jamie Oliver, Morrisons, cakes and curry.

Meanwhile the new “How to…” category indicates that the nation’s youth increasingly turns to the internet for advice on key tasks, some of which may be worrying in their naivete: the searches, in order, try to find out how to revise, snog, reference (as in learned papers), wallpaper, draw, sleep, flirt, geek (which turns out to be instructions on computer maintenance), pronounce and shuffle.

Fastest-rising searches

1. Royal wedding

2. iPhone 5

3. Fifa 12

4. Groupon

5. iPad 2

6. Ryan Dunn

7. Adele

8. Minecraft

9. Rebecca Black

10. Ed Sheeran

Fastest-rising people

1. Ryan Dunn

2. Adele

3. Rebecca Black

4. Ed Sheeran

5. Amy Winehouse

6. Charlie Sheen

7. Steve Jobs

8. Kate Middleton

9. Nicki Minaj

10. Darren Criss

How to …

1. How to revise

2. How to snog

3. How to reference

4. How to wallpaper

5. How to draw

6. How to sleep

7. How to flirt

8. How to geek

9. How to pronounce

10. How to shuffle

What is …

1. What is AV

2. What is scampi

3. What are truffles

4. What are piles

5. What is 4D

6. What are cookies

7. What is copyright

8. What is zumba

9. What is iCloud

10. What is probate

Fastest-rising movies

1. Breaking Dawn

2. Final Destination 5

3. Mean Girls 2

4. True Grit

5. Conan the Barbarian

6. Scream 4

7. The Inbetweeners

8. Little Fockers

9. Transformers 3

10. Unstoppable

Fastest-rising sports terms

1. Haye vs Klitschko

2. Olympic tickets 2012

3. Arsenal transfer

4. Six Nations 2011

5. Wimbledon 2011

6. Grand National 2011

7. Wrestlemania 27

8. Copa America 2011

9. Randy Savage

10. Dan Wheldon

Top food and drink

1. Asda

2. Recipes

3. Tesco

4. Sainsburys

5. Pizza

6. Chicken

7. Chocolate

8. Dominos

9. Morrisons

10. Argos

Top travel destinations

1. Las Vegas

2. New York

3. Disneyland Paris

4. Jamaica

5. Orlando

6. Barbados

7. Hawaii

8. Caribbean

9. Florida

10. Cuba

Top UK searches

1. Facebook

2. YouTube

3. Hotmail

4. eBay

6. Google

7. BBC

8. Amazon

9. Argos

10. Yahoo

News top 10 (top searches on news.google.co.uk)

1. BBC News

2. Arsenal

3. Facebook

4. YouTube

5. Cheryl Cole

6. iPhone 5

7. Liverpool

8. Kate Middleton

9. Manchester United

10. Justin Bieber

Fastest-rising football searches

1. Anzhi Makhachkala

2. Arsenal transfer

3. Liverpool rumours

4. Joey Barton Twitter

5. Sky Sports transfer

6. Fifa ultimate team

7. Eric Abidal

8. Copa America 2011

9. Billy Sharp

10. Demba Ba

Top celebrities

1. Kim Kardashian

2. Victoria Beckham

3. Emma Watson

4. Scarlett Johansson

5. Jennifer Aniston

6. Britney Spears

7. Megan Fox

8. Ricky Gervais

9. Jessica Jane

10. Angelina Jolie

Fastest-rising TV programme

1. X Factor 2011

2. Apprentice 2011

3. X Factor USA

4. NCIS season 9

5. House season 8

6. Glee season 3

7. Thundercats 2011

8. Big Brother 13

9. Supernatural season 7

10. Smallville season 10

Top tickets

1. Train tickets

2. Cheap tickets

3. 2012 tickets

4. Theatre tickets

5. Ticketmaster

6. BBC tickets

7. Concert tickets

8. O2

9. Liverpool tickets

10. Leeds tickets

Bargain hunting

1. Cheap flights

2. Cheap holidays

3. Cheap hotels

4. Cheap tickets

5. Cheap insurance

6. Cheap cars

7. Cheap breaks

8. Cheap shoes

9. Cheap dresses

10. Cheap clothes

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This article titled “For sale: Tony Bennett’s nude sketch of Lady Gaga” was written by Sean Michaels, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 13th December 2011 12.29 UTC

If your living room is missing that certain je ne sais quoi, perhaps you would like a nude portrait of Lady Gaga? Drawn by Tony Bennett. The crooner’s charcoal rendition of Gaga is now up for auction, with proceeds to benefit an arts charity.

“I walked in and said, ‘Well Tony, here we are’, and I dropped my robe and I got into position,” Gaga said during her Thanksgiving TV special. She and Bennett previously collaborated on Lady Is a Tramp, a song from his recent duets album. “I felt shy and thought, ‘It’s Tony Bennett, why am I naked?’”

The sitting was part of a Vanity Fair photoshoot: Bennett stands with his sketch pad while Gaga poses in her birthday suit. “She is the most beautiful person I ever met,” Bennett said later, “but there is something special about her.”

That “but” is a little peculiar. Certainly Bennett’s sketch makes Gaga look sinister and vaguely, er, wrong. Still, if we set aside the wonky eye and weirdly oblong breast, it more or less resembles the Poker Face star. Bennett signed the portrait with his given name, Benedetto, and he is also offering a print of one of his Venice paintings.

Bidding on the Lady Gaga nude sketch begins at ,000 (£3,200).

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This article titled “Enough, Nigella” was written by Alexander Chancellor, for The Guardian on Thursday 8th December 2011 20.30 UTC

The photograph of Nigella Lawson on the cover of Stylist magazine, eyes closed in ecstasy as sticky caramel sauce trickles down her face, rather put me off the whole idea of Christmas. She denies that the picture is erotic, and I tend to agree with her. It is rather disgusting. It makes me want to send her off to the bathroom for a shower. But what it suggests more than sex is a rather unhealthy relationship with food, an addiction to the kind of self-indulgence for which Christmas is famous. In a newspaper interview this week, Nigella acknowledged the existence of a recession by recommending that people on tight budgets buy smaller turkeys than usual, which is good advice, given that no Christmas turkey ever gets finished. But she seems to have said this only to allow that gluttony could be satisfied more cheaply with ladles of sauces, gravy, stuffing and so on.

More in tune with the times is a book called Starvation Recipes recently published in Greece, where times are a good deal harder than here. Written by a high-school teacher called Eleni Nikolaidu, it draws inspiration from the Nazi occupation years, when Greeks found survival even harder than they do now. It tells you how to make do with cheap vegetables, to chew very slowly so as to feel as if you are eating more, and to throw nothing away. It even advises you to sweep all crumbs from the table and keep them in a jar. This may be going a bit far, but it is a refreshing antidote to the Nigella school of overeating.

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This article titled “Fingerprint Digital aims at kid-apps market with ‘Mom-Comm’ feature” was written by Stuart Dredge, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 5th December 2011 15.00 UTC

There is no shortage of startups providing apps for children in 2011: Toca Boca, Mindshapes, Nosy Crow, Callaway Digital… and now Fingerprint Digital.

The San Francisco-based company has launched its first five iOS apps, and is counting on a feature called Mom-Comm to help it stand out from the herd. In short, it’s like a Game Center for kids and parents, providing rewards and app recommendations for the former, and an update on their progress for the latter.

Fingerprint was founded by Nancy MacIntyre, who previously worked at electronic learning company LeapFrog Enterprises as executive vice president of product innovation and marketing. Her new company raised $1.4m (£0.9m) in September 2011 to fuel her ambitions of finding an audience among 3-8 year-olds and their parents.

“There are tens of thousands of kids’ apps out there, and for parents just discovering what apps are good and knowing how to find them in the App Store is problematic,” she says.

“Once playing, they have no idea what their kids are doing with them. We set out to create a network of high-quality kids content where it’s easy for the parent to know what games are appropriate for their children, and get an insight into what the child is playing.”

This communication goes a bit further than just telling parents what their children have been doing. Parents can send voice or text messages of encouragement to their children within the apps, while the kids can send pre-scripted messages to their parents to tell them about achievements.

Fingerprint’s first batch of iOS titles includes three in its Big Kid Life franchise, focusing on firefighters, vets and fairy princesses, with a mixture of educational puzzles and more standard gameplay.

Fingerprint Play Maker is an avatar-based app designed to teach maths and spelling skills, while DoReMi 1-2-3 is a musical app introducing pitch and melody through the medium of cute animals. This last app is the work of an external developer, Creativity Mobile.

“Our apps were created to showcase how the platform works, and train people in how to use it and engage with it,” says MacIntyre. “We’ve created an SDK that third party developers can use to plug into our system, and we’ll have several more third-party apps coming out soon.”

Children will create their own character when they first use a Fingerprint game, and will then take that avatar from app to app, and device to device. They will also be able to collect and play with virtual pets, with one unlockable in every app – through play, it should be noted, not through an in-app purchase.

MacIntyre says that in Fingerprint’s tests, the messaging features have received the strongest response from parents and children. “We see it as transforming the solo app play of one child playing an app to making it a social experience between the child and their parent or caregiver,” she says.

“A child can send a message to mom, mom can send one back, and suddenly the parent is engaged in the learning. Kids have gotten really excited about that. We want to bring parents into the apps in a way that we think is interesting and clever.”

MacIntyre is under no illusions about the competitive nature of the kid-apps market, but she also warns that no developer in this space can afford to focus solely on their direct competition.

“Kids have so many choices,” she says. “The battle ground isn’t only about your apps versus Sesame Street. It’s about your apps versus Angry Birds. You need really compelling, fun content. We hope that our shared reward system gives children a reason to go from app to app, while bringing parents into the equation.”

The competitive kid-apps market could work in Fingerprint’s favour as it tries to get more third-party developers to use its SDK in their games and apps. MacIntyre says that the company’s pitch is its ability to deliver an audience for developers’ apps, while also providing them with analytics on how they’re being used.

“It gets them out of the mode of being one of tens of thousands of apps in the App Store, and into being one of a group of highly-curated very high-quality kids apps,” she says. “It’s not about being an app developer building one app at a time. It’s about the network.”

Fingerprint’s launch games are based on its own characters, but during the interview MacIntyre alludes to conversations she’s been having with children’s brands. Licensing looks set to play a part in the company’s future, although no deals have been announced yet.

“As a small company starting out, we need to attract as many customers as possible, and some anchor licensed brands is helpful in that regard,” she says. “However, the apps market has proven its ability to create new IP, and most of the biggest app brands are new IP. We’re really optimistic about Big Kid Life.”

Much of the competition for Fingerprint – but also many of its potential licensors – come from the toys industry that is very familiar to MacIntyre, given her background.

She thinks that most big toy companies still treat apps “as a marketing element” – something to bolster the brands of their physical toys, rather than a way to create new brands and become an important new revenue stream.

“I’m quite sure all of the major toy players are really thinking about the app business,” she says, though, expressing optimism about the idea of linking real-world toys with apps – something done already by Disney with its AppMates line.

What about companies like LeapFrog and Fisher Price making their own tablets for children, and so become a rival platform for kid-app developers to consider?

“Is it possible to have a good experience with a kid-oriented tablet? The answer is yes, but it’s still a toy,” says MacIntyre. “With the price of full tablets coming down, it will be very difficult for anybody to make a meaningful business out of making proprietary devices [for kids]. Every parent with an iPhone or iPad is actually a competitor for LeapFrog or Fisher Price.”

She cites a recent survey showing iOS devices at the top of children’s Christmas wishlists in the US as a sign that Apple’s devices in particular have “done an amazing job of becoming aspirational to children”.

Can Big Kid Life and Mom-Comm become similarly attractive to children, parents and other developers? 2012 should provide the answer.

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This article titled “Mr Men tipped to be sold to owner of Hello Kitty franchise” was written by Mark Sweney, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 5th December 2011 18.50 UTC

Media rights business Chorion is close to finalising the sale of Mr Men and Little Miss brands to the Japanese owner of the hugely popular Hello Kitty franchise.

Chorion, which has been tapping up potential buyers for its stable of media rights since September after failing to tackle a £70m debt burden, is understood to be in the final stages of agreeing a deal with Japanese firm Sanrio.

The deal, which has not yet been fully agreed, is expected to be announced in the coming days assuming there is no 11th-hour breakdown.

It is not known how much the deal is worth but a report by Sky News on the talks puts the price tag at “tens of millions of pounds”.

In July, Sanrio said it planned to spend as much as 30bn yen ($377m) on looking to buy the rights to a major character to reduce its dependence on the Hello Kitty brand.

The company, founded in 1960, relies on Hello Kitty goods for as much as 80% of overseas licensing revenue.

In an interview, managing director Susumu Emori said: “We want to diversify our character portfolio instead of spending time to boost recognition of our existing characters in overseas markets.”

In September, Chorion sold the rights to The World of Beatrix Potter and The Octonauts to a new company backed by its former chairman, Lord Waheed Alli, called Silvergate Media.

The Chorion sale process, which is being run by DC Advisory Partners, includes Agatha Christie’s literary estate as well as Paddington Bear and Enid Blyton’s Noddy. The family of Agatha Christie are thought to be contenders to buy the Christie literary estate.

Mr Men and Little Miss would be the latest British children’s brands to be sold to an overseas buyer.

In October US toy giant Mattel, owner of brands including Hot Wheels and Fisher-Price, paid $680m (£426m) to buy the firm behind Thomas the Tank Engine and a host of the nation’s best-loved kids characters.

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This article titled “Facebook games firm Zynga to raise $1bn from IPO” was written by Josh Halliday, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 2nd December 2011 12.26 UTC

Facebook games maker Zynga plans to raise $1bn (£630m) in its initial public offering, valuing the fledgling internet firm at $7bn.

The company behind popular Facebook games Farmville and Mafia Wars said in a regulatory filing on Friday that it intends to sell 115m shares – 14% of its common stock – at up to $10 each.

The $7bn price tag will make Zynga the third-largest US gaming firm by market cap, behind World of Warcraft maker Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. Activision Blizzard was valued at $14.19bn and Electronic Arts was valued at $7.69bn when the stock markets closed on Thursday.

Zynga said it has 54 million active users in 175 countries across the world, many of whom play its range of Facebook games including CastleVille, Empires and Allies and Zynga Poker.

Mark Pincus, the Zynga founder and chief executive, will control 36.2% of voting stock after the flotation.

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This article titled “The Huffington Post is spending money parent AOL just isn’t making” was written by Peter Preston, for The Observer on Sunday 6th November 2011 00.30 UTC

On the one hand, the good ship Arianna continues on the crest of the waves. “We want the Huffington Post to be in Brazil, Italy, Turkey and Spain,” Ms Huffington said the other day. “Later, we will move on to Germany, Australia, New Zealand…” But, on the other hand, there’s a slight sinking feeling. For the Post is part of AOL. And AOL is still losing money.

Third-quarter figures show a loss of $2.6m. Total revenue: 6% down. Advertising growth: flat. Dial-up internet business: down 22%. Huffington Post group unique users: 97 million, not much better than 2010. OK, global ad revenues are up 8%, but it’s the whole context that counts as AOL scrabbles to create a viable company. And that’s where the other hand is probably best used for scratching heads.

Arianna is in partnership with El Pais now, and with Le Monde. She’s bent on anchoring all her sites “to the culture of each place, using local editors”. Which seems to mean employing loads and loads of people. So “we have approximately 1,400 journalists, who are pretty well-paid”. That other hand begins to scratch more frenetically.

The Huffington Post began six years ago with a few dozen employees. Last year Newsweek counted 178 employees – 88 of them editorial. How has that swelled over seven times in 12 months?

Arianna happily includes the 800 or so journalists last observed running hyperlocal Patch sites for AOL. Yet there still seem to be 400 extra bodies – presumably on the 20 new sites she’s started since the $315m AOL deal.

And there’s the rub. AOL is not making money. But the Huff seems to be spending as though there’s no tomorrow. Maybe it will all come up roses. But the moment when Arianna actually starts paying her contributors looks more long awaited than ever.

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