VS.

When I was in Tomo's class before graduating, we came up with a mechanic based on stealing for a mobile and social media game concept, so I found the following quote particularly encouraging.

Some fear that this new social farming revolution may not contribute to the positive development of society. A central feature of social farm games in China is stealing vegetables. Official state media People’s Daily reports that 70 percent of users on Kaixin001 cite it as their favorite feature, and it has even spawned the popular phrase “How many vegetables have you stolen today?” This key addictive feature has created news stories of business executives “obsessed” with stealing vegetables and broken relationships over vegetables stolen on the night shift. The game is so addictive — with players setting alarm clocks at all hours of the night to check crops — that it 
“destroys jobs and relationships.” Simplicity and stickiness are behind the global epidemic of farm games. Anyone can learn to grow crops within minutes and reap a reward for getting friends — or the entire office — addicted too,” said BloggerInsight Co-Founder Lucas Englehardt.

Another fun fact:
Season Xu, the co-founder of Five Minutes Inc. looks to be in the USC business School.

It doesn't look like the English site (thefuntheory.com) is live yet, but the Swedish site is and has a link to a contest where you can submit your own ideas for a chance to win 25,000 kronor (€2,430, $3,590). Seems like a fun project to take on.

Thanks to Victoria for sending me the initial video.

Cabulous and Find my Friend Presentation from John Wolpert on Vimeo.

This is a project I was able to work on thanks to an introduction by the USC Stevens Institute. Best Buy Corporate had set up an innovation program and I was lucky enough to get invited to create some location aware concepts for their connected personal navigation device. A few months later, the project was spun off into a separate company and now it's ready for some beta testers.

Sign up here.

(via an augmented reality blog)

The game will be shown at the Penny Arcade Expo. Though hopefully these guys will give a sneak peak to some of the Trojan Family.

Kotaku article here.
Associated Press article here.

First Project to Focus on Advancement of Augmented Reality

LOS ANGELES and Espoo, Finland (April 21, 2009) – The University of Southern California (USC) and Nokia Research Center (NRC) Hollywood today announced a research collaboration framework agreement that centers on advanced mobile user experiences. The umbrella framework agreement allows Nokia and USC to work together on multiple projects in a variety of areas and will streamline the process for commercializing USC inventions.

Max Geiger appears on SpikeTV's new show, Deadliest Warrior, premiering
April 7, 10pm on Spike.

Check out the behind-the-scenes interview with Max and Geoff Desmoullin below:

On the IGF front page today:

The IGF Organizers have announced the 12 receipients of the 2008 Independent Games Festival Student Showcase awards, from a field of over 125 entries, including USC Interactive Media Program’s quirky The Misadventures of PT Winterbottom [sic], Sheridan Institute’s stylish booger-busting Gesundheit!, and The National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment’s dual-perspective Half-Life 2 modification Flipside.

Check out the other showcase winners here.

Congrats to the PB Winterbottom team for making it in!

Some VCs that will be represented include:
Tech Coast Angels
Pasadena Angels
Zone Ventures
CalCap Partners

To get involved email Chris Pankiewicz-Nohr(C.PankiewiczNohr.2008 [at] marshall.usc.edu) with what program and year of studies you are in by Nov 5th.

USC Marshall's VENTURE CAPITAL INVESTMENT CHALLENGE

The Venture Capital Investment Challenge is an annual event hosted by USC's Marshall School of Business and the Entrepreneur and Venture Management Association (EVMA) for the purpose of exposing USC students to the world of Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship. As USC students, you will play the role of venture capitalist and participate in live presentations made by real-world entrepreneurs who will be pitching their business ideas and their strategic initiatives. Real-world Venture Capitalists will also be brought in to observe and judge the students on how well they evaluate and analyze the different Entrepreneurs and their business pitches. Teams of USC students will then present their recommendations to a panel of VC judges in a round-robin competition format.

Logistics

Date: Nov. 10th

Time: All day (tentative 8am - 5 pm depending on number of students interested)

Location: JKP

Training Session: Mandatory (strongly advised to attend) Nov. 5th Room 104 4 pm to 6:30 pm

Prizes

· 1st place -- $500 (must be split evenly by whole team).

· 2st place -- $200 (must be split evenly by whole team).

· 3st place -- $100 (must be split evenly by whole team).

Event Details

· Each team will consist of 6-8 MBA and Engineering students.

· Teams will be assigned at random (or you can make one).

· Student teams will listen to presentations made by 3-4 real-world entrepreneurs who will be pitching their business ideas, products, and strategic plans.

· Each student team will have individual Q&A sessions with each entrepreneur in order to perform a thorough analysis of the different businesses.

· Student teams will then be given time to complete their analyses of the different business and prepare a presentation summarizing their key insights and recommendations on whether an investment should or should not be made.

· Each team will present to a panel of venture capitalists who will evaluate each team on the nature of their insights, the analysis performed, and their understanding of the critical issues.

· Venture capitalists will be sitting in on all Q&A sessions and will judge all the team presentations.

· The competition will be in a round-robin, single-elimination format.

Enrollment

* If you would like to participate, please email Chris Pankiewicz-Nohr at C.PankiewiczNohr.2008@marshall.usc.edu

* In your email, please specify whether you are full-time, PM, IBEAR or Engineering student. And specify whether you are a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year MBA(if applicable)

* There is only space for 8 teams which will be assigned at random. Enrollment will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

* Enrollment will be open to full-time, PM, and IBEAR MBAs as well as engineering/med school students.

* This event is a Marshall-only event, however it is identical in format to the National VCIC MBA competition held in the spring. If you aspire to be part of the Marshall VCIC team that competes in February, your participation in the internal VCIC is strongly encouraged. Check out www.VCIC.org for more generic info.