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Make more friends at Broadway cafe!

Broadway Cafe is an iPhone app. If your cafe staff have moved on, or you don’t have enough staff to manage the cafe in the last stages, you’ll have to hire new staff. To find new staff, log onto Facebook and you can register your facebook friends to be a part of your team at the cafe! This is Broadway Cafe’s main feature.
Facebook is the world biggest SNS which has more than 300 million users all over the world.

The graph below is a breakdown of Broadway Cafe users by region.

broadwaycafeuserregion

Facebook is not well known in Japan yet, there are a quite few people who got to know about facebook through Broadway cafe. They may not have many Facebook friends yet.

So what Istpika would like to suggest you to do is make an account on Facebook and make friends from all over the world!

How to make friends on facebook:

(Firstly, make an account and log onto Facebook)
a) Access Broadway cafe
FacebookのBroadwayCafe

b) Click on “Broadway Cafe” in the lower left-hand corner of the page. The Broadway Cafe introduction page will come up.

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c) Our introductory page is not used often. You’ll find basic information on the app, “reviews” and “discussion” and you can make inquiries, on the page. Also news from Broadway cafe and information on how to make progress in Broadway cafe are often up on the BBS.

bc

Anybody can write comments on the BBS and lots of Broadway cafe users are often calling for new friends to get new staff (in their own languages).

Click on their name and it’ll take you to his/her profile page.

d) This in an example of a profile page. You can’t get much information on them as many people have set not to show their detailed profile as a default setting but they are looking for freinds on the BBS so don’t be afraid, just click “Add as Friend”!

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e) Why not add a message like ” Add me plz for BroadwayCafe! thx”.

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f) That’s all you need do. When the person notices your request, he/she should accept it. Where he/she is from…? what he/she is like…? you can see all that information once you have been accepted as a friend.

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Now, you can add them as staff at Broadway cafe. If the person is really into Broadway cafe, you’ll be able to clear stages for sure!

Friends made through an SNS you don’t actually know and are called virtual friends. You have’t really met them but you can see their life style looking at their photos and the comments they make.
If you like some of the photos or comments or you are agree with their thoughts, click “like”. They might get interested in you and do the same back to you.
This kind of comminication will lead you to making friends all over the world, common for Facebook users.

It’d be nice if Broadway cafe could be one of the opportunities to make new friends.

P.S;
On the introduction page, there is a function that allows you to become a fan. Once you have become a fan of Broadway Cafe, you’ll recieve “What’s New” on your facebook. Why don’t you become a fan!?

Facebook Lite released

It’s here! I thought, but actually it was released 1 month ago ;(
Facebook Lite.

It doesn’t have the complex functionality and game app feeds. It focusses on friends’ status updates, photos and videos so it’s designed for communication with friends.

lite
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Plus+ Network

Istpika is currently focussing on information on the socialising of game platforms.
Following our previous article, OpenFeint supports multiplayer game
as information on social middle ware and social platforms, we’ve summmarised the Plus+ Network

Plus+ Network
ngmoco headhunted Simon Jeffery, the CEO of Sega, and launched the network for iPhone games.

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(bunkersofism) 1+1+2 is tough

mulu
Hello I’m Fukutopia, Concept Executive Officer of Istpika.
I have an interest in psychology and often take time to enjoy reverse engineering my own personal thought patterns.

The other day I had an ahuh moment.
I theorise that there are two working registers and one destination register in the human brain.

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Facebook Connect results and a Facebook recommendation

Broadway Cafe uses the Facebook Connect technology delivered by Facecook, to connect to the world’s largest social network – Facebook. Connect is specifically designed for the integration of Facebook and external applications.

By utilising this technology, the player is able to hire their Facebook friends and use them as staff in their iPhone game (from Stage 9).

HireStaffBut choosing any old friend may not be the wisest choice! Those friends who have played and reached a higher level, can run faster etc will be the best assistants for your cafe. So find a friend who has played Broadway Cafe for a a bit or find someone who has an iPhone, get them to buy Broadway Cafe and play hard together.

If you invite friends via the Facebook Broadway Cafe you will receive VIP points to use in your iPhone game to help you along with running speed etc.
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Mobile Business Summit2009 report.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 日本語.

From Social Application to the Gloud Generation

The #3 facebook application developer, Playfish CEO talks about consumer games becoming a niche market.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/playfishs-kristian-segerstrale?page=2

http://www.gamebusiness.jp/article.php?id=87

I think that games consoles – while they might be an important part of the industry now – might become niche in the next couple of years because it’s not at all clear if it even makes sense to deliver this type of gaming – social, with micro-transactions – on a home console.

On Facebook and other social network sites you are able to play social games for basically free, the spread is such that the word “game” will eventually be replaced with “social game”. Consumer games will become an expensive hobby, mmorpg’s will all connect online via Facebook and integrate the social platforms of today.

Why will this happen? because the very core of a game is communication with friends. You can get the highest score ever, but with no friends to share it with who cares! To play a game is to communicate. Without achieving high scores, there is a new kind of fun to be had in social games.

Games could be said to have had a similar conceptual relationship to society itself. Social games take social relationships and with that social technology produce something fun, but you wouldn’t call them efficient by any means.

Istpika is working towards the goal of furthering the ability of the world population to communicate via social applications and the experience of communicating via games.

… what’s next?

Cloud computing.
In Japan the generation of casual game sofware for mobiles and handhelds like the Nintendo DS that could be played for 1 day or longer periods, is now a thing of the past.
Gamers that played those type of games we still call casual gamers. But when those games all become social games, the definitions of social game, virtual gift and social application will become unclear.
But there’s no point in attempting to create a category without definition, users will just continue to play and enjoy themselves. Already the time people spend on social games and the time not spent playing them is unclear. Users act in ways similar to cloud technology.

Not sure what their seeking, or not sure when they’re playing – these are subtle player activities. Users or players that are vaguely connected in some way, that’s what I’d call a user cloud. These users & their devices will move beyond just the generic PC browser.

In this generation, to develop cloud technology based games is to lead the next IT industry.

The first company to take this lead is of course, Istpika.

OpenFeint to support multiplayer games

OpenFeint opens beta program for multiplayer features

OpenFeint is made by Aurora Feint and games such as PocketGod and Stickwars use their platform for social connectivity. Social middleware are libraries for iphone devvers to integrate a social network into their apps. Even making an interesting app now is no gaurentee that it will be picked up by the public. That’s where a social network platform comes in leveraging a server that share information, chat and leaderboards between apps thus connecting them in at multiple levels.
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(日本語) 「iPhoneアプリにおけるビジネスの現状と可能性」でライトニングトークを行いました

Sorry, this entry is only available in 日本語.