Webware

Is "poke" the new Konami Code? Maybe not literally, but one Electronic Arts executive has hinted that at least one of the gaming behemoth's titles is headed to Facebook, further blurring the line between social-networking applications and the game industry.

In a Bloomberg TV interview, EA Sports President Peter Moore obliquely said, "you'll see us on Facebook, going forward," with regard to its storied "Madden NFL" franchise.

Blogger Nick O'Neill of Social Times quotes someone anonymous saying this does, indeed, mean that there will be a Facebook version of "Madden NFL" (rather than, say, Facebook Connect notifications from the console) and that it will be a "simpler experience" of the original game.

No further information is available thus far, but it's easy to imagine that perhaps more of EA's titles could get a Facebook presence.

EA acquired Playfish, one of the predominant manufacturers of social games on the Facebook platform, for about $300 million late last year. In doing so, it became the first of the gaming industry's titans to really acknowledge the muscle of social games, and now it has a stellar Facebook game development team in its ranks.

But so far, social games have proven to be of a separate vein than their console and PC siblings--unless you count the obvious influence of the "Sim City" franchise on the likes of Zynga's Farmville. Free to play and reliant primarily on the sale of virtual goods, these games have roped in demographics completely different from the young males who propelled "Madden" to success.

Facebook has been the big hub for the rise of these games. But at the same time, social-game manufacturers are pushing to get their titles onto the Web at large--outside of Facebook's confines.

The YouTube Piano uses YouTube's timed annotations to play notes from the video's timeline.

(Credit: CNET)

This is nowhere near as cool as that Nintendo Wario game ad/video hybrid, or the Honda headlight ad/video that surfaced on Vimeo last year. But it is more useful than both of them combined.

Meet the YouTube piano, a video of piano notes that has on-screen annotations that skip to that particular part of the video and thus the corresponding note. In practice, you could play a song, as some YouTube commenters have done with deep-linked comments. But to be honest, it can't (and won't) sound close to the real thing.

Still, this is about the only useful--and non-annoying use of on-screen YouTube annotations I've seen in a long time. Kudos to its creators, Adam Ben Ezra, Guy Dayan, and Daniel Barak, who run an entire channel of other, similar-functioning instruments. These include a pipe organ, electric guitar, and shaker.

I'm still holding out for a banjo version, so I can strum a little Deliverance.

Boxee.tv has upgraded its much-discussed software to public beta, and it can be downloaded now for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The Boxee software, which requires a physical cable connection from your computer to your television, allows users to access local and streaming media using their TV and its remote control.

Boxee uses a combination of apps, RSS feeds, and an in-program browser to make most--but not all--streaming media available to its users. In addition, the program supports content that you've stored on your hard drive, including photos, music, and videos. Boxee works with most major file formats, including OGG and MKV. There's a socializing aspect, so that you can comment on and share what you're watching with your friends, and it hooks into your Facebook and Twitter feeds, too.

The new public beta of Boxee doesn't offer much that's different from the private beta, besides now being open to all. It's not clear how many bugs were fixed in the month since the private beta was announced in December 2009, although in a blog post Boxee states that "hundreds of bugs have been opened." The company also states that it plans to announce the full stable version at CES 2011.

There's now a Boxee bookmarklet, which allows you to mark specific videos to watch later via Boxee. It's currently limited to a handful of sites, including Vimeo, Blip.tv, YouTube, Break, Metacafe, Viddler, The Onion, CollegeHumor, DailyMotion, HowCast, MTV, FunnyorDie, and Gametrailers. To place it on your toolbar, drag this link there.

New Boxee home screen

(Credit: Boxee)

Another change is that Boxee will now work on 64-bit Ubuntu, in addition to x86 versions. Boxee will work on 32-bit Windows XP, both x86 and x64 versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, and Intel-based Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and higher. There's no official support for Apple TV yet, although it is planned. For now, there's a workaround hack.

Disclosure: Boxee uses some show and community information from TV.com, a CBS Interactive property.

Muziic, the YouTube-based music application created by teenage programmer David Nelson, has been an impressive piece of work with one drawback: the desktop application only runs on Windows. Not anymore! On Christmas day, the company officially launched a Web-based version of its service, and it compares very favorably with other free online music services.

Videos from Vevo are integrated into search results on the new Muziic Web app.

Like the Muziic desktop app and U.K.-based TubeRadio.fm, the new Muziic Web player draws its content from YouTube, and allows you to queue songs and save playlists. But it's got a couple of interesting wrinkles.

First, you can get content from Vevo without the pre-roll video advertisements you'd see on the YouTube or Vevo.com versions of the advertisments. (Nelson explained that those ads are not yet incorporated into the YouTube API, so they don't show up on the Muziic player; knowing Vevo's business goals, look for this to be "corrected" soon.) A Vevo tab on the Muziic Web player lets you surf through videos on the service, but they'll also show up in search results. There's also a crossfade feature that lets you blend songs together with a 1- to 10-second overlap--that's nothing new for a desktop app, but rare in a free Web app.

In addition, there's a new Muziic Facebook app that lets you play Muziic's entire library from within Facebook and post songs to your profile, and an iPhone app is coming shortly. I still find that Grooveshark has a bigger selection, but the Muziic Web app is definitely a worthwhile addition to your bookmarks.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a hardcore gamer. I play games as often as possible. But for the most part, I play those games on consoles. But over the past couple days, I've started playing some Twitter-based games on the Web. Many of them aren't very good, but I found three titles that I really enjoyed playing.

Because of that, I've decided to share those with you in this roundup. Each title is offered on its own site, but requires your Twitter credentials to work. Whenever you achieve things within a game, it notifies your Twitter followers. The experience is fantastic. Let's check them out.

Twitter-based gaming

140 Mafia: If you're a fan of "The Godfather," you might be attracted to 140 Mafia. Although it doesn't follow that movie closely, it does a great job of keeping you engaged in the title.

When you sign up for 140 Mafia, the game gives you the option of choosing what can be sent to your followers from the title and what cannot. I liked having that option. From there, you find out that you've been asked by "The Godfather" to start your own mafia crime family. You need to recruit other Twitter users into your family, while engaging in criminal activities to build your coffers and notoriety.

140 Mafia determines your effectiveness based on your attack ability, your energy, your ability to defend yourself, and a few other metrics. To build those up, you'll need to go on missions that involve illegal activities, like burglary or theft. The point of the game is to build a big, strong mafia family that you can control. It's no simple task and it will take a while. I should also note that the more followers you have, the greater the chances that you'll be able to succeed at this game, since a key component is to recruit other Twitter users.

Overall, 140 Mafia is a really fun game. It won't get your blood pumping like Grand Theft Auto, but it should help you pass the time.

140 Mafia allows you to create a mafia family and run it.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

My GQ pose would be more convincing if I was wearing a watch.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

I've been told more than once that skills learned from video games don't really translate to the real world. To those who have told me this, I can only say: neener-neener-neener.

More and more companies are offering customers the choice to customize the products they buy. Vans, among others, allows you to create your own shoes. Heck, I've even seen a build-your-own-toy-lightsaber kit that I really wanted to buy for my son.

But this is a new wrinkle to me.

(Pause for inevitable laughter.)

The folks at ShirtsMyWay have set up a process in which for about $75 and a few minutes of your day, you can design your own men's dress shirt. Why is this thrilling, exactly? I'll tell you why. Have you ever noticed that roughly 99 percent (anecdotal research on my part) of all clothing stores are devoted to women's apparel?

Seriously, if you're a guy, you've got like maybe four colors and two styles of dress shirt to choose from. I'm not quite the average male, I suppose, but I know I would be more inclined to wear a dress shirt without the threat of death if I got to have some say about what my shirt looked like.

This is where those video game skills come in handy. The process goes roughly like this: you go to the ShirtsMyWay site, and you choose from 25 different fabrics. That's just the first part. Via the site's very user-friendly interface, you will then decide on just about every aspect of your shirt's creation.

It reminded me a lot of playing The Sims. ... Read More

Zynga, the social-gaming developer behind the wildly popular Facebook game FarmVille, announced on Thursday that it has launched a new game for the social network, this one called PetVille. The news was originally reported on the Games.com blog.

According to the company, PetVille allows Facebook users to "raise, dress, and care for a pet" that they've created. Gamers can also visit friends' in-game houses and "play with their pets to earn coins you can use to make your own house the coolest on the block!"

Although PetVille's userbase pales in comparison to Zynga's FarmVille, which currently has almost 70 million active users, the game has already added 125 gamers as of this writing and more than 400 people have become fans of the title. Considering the popularity of Zynga's other games, it's likely that PetVille will enjoy the same kind of success.

If you're a FarmVille fan or you just like playing games on social networks, you can check out PetVille by clicking here.

See also: Facebook games to hold you over until Civilization Network

Google wants to know more about how TiVo owners are exposed to commercials.

(Credit: TiVo)

Google and TiVo know you accidentally watch a few ads while fast-forwarding through the commercial breaks of your recorded programs, and they'd like a little more data to back that up.

Google plans to add TiVo "television viewing data" to its existing Google TV Ads program, the two companies said in a press release Tuesday. Google TV Ads is the company's attempt to re-create its AdWords and AdSense model on the small screen through a partnership with Dish Network, and it wants to use TiVo data to help its advertising clients measure how and when their ads are viewed.

DVRs like TiVo are not the favorite tech product of the television advertising business, as they allow viewers to watch shows whenever they like and skip the commercials. But most DVR owners (except for a few masters of the remote control) catch glimpses of ads as they whiz by, or overshoot the end of the commercial period and hit the 30-second rewind button, exposing them to the last ad shown before the program resumes.

That kind of viewing shouldn't count as a full ad impression, since the advertiser knows the viewer didn't watch the full ad, but Google seems to feel that it can't be completely ignored, either. It plans to use "anonymous second-by-second DVR viewing data" to track how viewers see ads placed through Google TV Ads. It also gives Google more access to viewer behavior on sources outside of Dish Network, including cable, satellite, and over-the-air viewers.

That could presumably make Google TV Ads more attractive to potential advertisers, since Google will be able to assemble a wealth of data on the viewing habits of DVR owners. Google also has a deal with Nielsen for viewing data, although some feel the new TiVo partnership will put a lot of strain on that relationship.

In a somewhat related move, TiVo has also partnered with MillerCoors to expose football fans to Coors Light ads when they are fast-forwarding through recorded NFL games.

If social gaming is Hollywood, the people aren't as pretty. Well, maybe the avatars are.

Yes, yes, we know that social games are taking over the bloody world: earlier this week, gamemaker Playfish announced its $300 million sale to Electronic Arts, and on Thursday, rival Playdom retorted with the announcement of $43 million in venture funding at a $260 million valuation, and the acquisitions of smaller gaming companies Green Patch (manufacturer of Facebook-based games like Lil Green Patch and Farm Life) and Trippert Labs. Green Patch's games will up Playdom's reach on Facebook by 30 percent, the company said.

Expect to see more of these sales, as smaller developers find they're having trouble treading water in an industry where the big guys--Zynga, Playfish, Playdom--have chomped up most of the market share, and where Facebook, the biggest destination for these games, has shown that it can change the rules at whim. And the big companies, too, want to scramble to get bigger.

Plus, as Playdom co-founder and chairman Rick Thompson explained to CNET News: When gaming companies grow large, they have to deal with a lot of stuff that can get in the way of producing new games and staying on top of consumer trends. That's one reason to keep investing in new talent through acqusitions.

"The hitmakers start spending all their time on operations, and on things that don't improve or enhance the games, and so they become essentially owners and operators," he said. And likewise, "people who can create things shouldn't necessarily be operating a gaming company."

He drew the evolution of a social gaming company parallel to an entertainment studio: "a lot more like Hollywood or the traditional gaming industry" than a Web start-up.

But here's the catch when it comes to acquisitions in this space: Gaming, especially social gaming, is a hit-driven business. If a parent company buys up a hot Facebook game, that game could already be running out of shelf life: which is, indeed, sort of like a Hollywood establishment signing a contract with an actor who's had five hit films in a row, as he could easily be over the hill before long. (Hello, Rob Lowe.)

"I think we're getting pretty good at really looking at their data now, and modeling how these games will evolve over time," Thompson said. "But I think there's essentially a life cycle of growth and then decay. What we really look at in acquisitions is not just daily active users, but bringing on additional team members that can really help create new games in the future."