If you’re an avid YouTube viewer, you’ve probably noticed the growing number of videos on the site that contain clickable links within the display screen. That’s the result of Video Annotations, a feature introduced last June that allows other clips to be embedded into videos. Late...

As this holiday’s video game sales are tallied up, one thing is already clear: As an article in the Wall Street Journal makes clear, Sony’s PlayStation 3 remains in a fairly distant third place, still eclipsed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii. While it’s proba...

One reason casual game startups are still confident in these recessionary times is that the top titles attract millions of players. Our friends at casual game ad network Mochi Media have provided a list of the 10 most popular casual games hosted on its network, each of which is played millions of ti...

This year we watched a tremendous amount of money go into casual web game startups, many or most of which heavily depend on advertising as a revenue stream. As we’re all too painfully aware, however, when the economy turns sour, advertising budgets are among the first things to get slashed. So...

With the economy deep in the throes of a recession, the only question these days is who — or what — is next? Today it was Sony’s turn, which, citing “the sudden and rapid changes in the global economic environment,” said it’s laying off 8,000 employees in its elec...

Last month I had the chance to chat with a top U.S. Nintendo exec and suggest how, with a few savvy improvements to the Wii system, the company could turn it into the living room Net appliance of choice. But despite the opportunity Nintendo has with the Wii, the company seems determined to let it re...

 The holidays and Black Friday are rapidly approaching. If you’re looking for video games to give your friends and loved ones, here’s a cheat sheet of must-have titles, categorized by giftee: for the hardcore gamers you know, for your family, and of course, for your high-tech industry c...

Back in April, ex-Organic CEO Mark Kingdon took the helm of Linden Lab, replacing its charismatic founder, Philip Rosedale, at a time when the company was already struggling in an increasingly competitive market. While Linden claims to be profitable, its market share has plateaued, with scalability ...

Viral videos from giant corporations are a bit like a middle-aged vinyl salesman with a comb-over unsuccessfully trying to pick up 20-something babes at the club — then angrily denying that he’s embarrassed himself, even as they scatter. The Wall Street Journal has a nice post-mortem on ...

It’s a Web 2.0 rule-of-thumb: Give users a chance to create content, and odds are pretty good they’ll start with sex. Last week I got a sneak peek of the standalone Creature Creator for Spore, Electronic Arts/Maxis’ long-anticipated upcoming computer game which not only encourages ...