We were happy with 5Degrees and impressed with the team that we met while there. They put a lot of effort into the product and have been releasing updates regularly. As for Forecast, we have mixed feelings still as they continue to grow. I think we see more for the app that hasn’t been delivered yet and we hope shows up to have us use it more often.

Do not forget to catch up with all the SxSW app review videos on YouTube from Spiked Studio and Living Life Mobile.

I define the three layers for a social identity in this brief introduction to what will soon be a published book on social identity layers and steps to start creating your own layers now.  Including fake personas for security verifications on sites.

The video has taken off.  Much thanks to Pelpina, the film crew and FrankWatching.

We were very happy with the interface and functionality of Waddle. The team has made a great product. The following quote from Gigaom was awesome:

It doesn’t force you to log in with your Facebook account. It doesn’t pull in the photos you’ve shared on Instagram. It doesn’t encourage you to share your photos publicly at all. In fact, its goal is to allow you to privately share and comment on your photos with other individuals, or small groups of friends and family. That’s it.

We had mixed feelings on the experience with Gopago. From the lack of locations and the issues with registration, we are keeping it loaded to see if it survives long term on our devices.  While the device did not give us enough prompts on security, the website did have a blurb we should mention:

We are committed to ensuring your security when using GoPago. The handling of your personal information such as payment information is safeguarded by industry standard best practices. All information is sent over 256-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection and verified by VeriSign to keep information safe. Every purchase is authenticated by a four-digit pin just like using a debit card.

This makes us feel better.

We not only find amazing video games but some great apps. We find a virtual reality game called Borglar and another called Arball.  One thing is that Borglar is not available everywhere as I could find no tokens for miles when arriving home.  They just weren’t in place yet.  This is common with most startups however.

See the video for our review and make sure to watch the Screenburn 2012 walkthrough in four minutes.

After we toured the floor finding the best of the best, we made the video and give you a quick stop at each highlight.  The whole show floor in 4 minutes.

Isis really isn’t launching, yet again this year we find out.  Isis is a Near field communication technology providing your mobile device the ability to become a digital wallet.  By being in close proximity to the payment terminal and entering your pin, you can quickly check out.

Other capabilities later would include sharing information and data between devices.  They are working with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile right now to get this technology out there.  We were a bit shocked to see such a nice display and demo area for them not even being a real product again this year.

Next up was another location based service called Banjo.  This app for iOS and Android hooks into your social networks and alerts you (or not depending on your setting) if someone you know is close by.  It will also see those publicly sharing their location.  See our full review and concerns in the show.

This session as titled above coupled some university and education panelists with venture capital and then IBM employees. They were here to find some candidates for the Smarter Planet campaign that are startups. Interestingly, attendees around us stated they would rather see some smaller startups on the panel instead.

The questions were formatted in advance as most panels begin. The host read very tightly from a script. Guy Dietrich spoke about Texas A&M University and companies they have spun out. He has a wide background in software development and is currently the Vice Chancellor. I have no idea what that had to do with the session title and abstract as he went on about medical stuff.

Jani Byrne of IBM actually said exactly what the session hook was and that they want next generation IT technology they can own or license to help IBM leapfrog competition. They have started the IBM Global Entrepreneur program about 18 months ago. It takes companies less that 5 years old and less than $1m in revenue, you get free IBM software and access to mentors. To help your startup get over the hurdle. They do not provide money but backing.

Then there are 40 IBM Innovation Centers to help a startup meet IBMers. Finally they make their intellectual property available to startups for a fee to move ahead. Assets IBM considers can be commercialized.

The third panelist talked about kick starter project and funding sources for new technology. But not how IBM fits in. She mentioned how they attended a recent Angel Investor conference and amounts of funding rounds. I’m not sure how IBM fits in.

This seemed to continue throughout some of the panelists. Many people left very early when this started. The moderator blew off some questions which was strange. He wanted the panelists to get their spiel in. Not a usual panel format.

We soon followed. This session was a semi bust from IBM and didn’t address what those around us we asked anticipated what it would be as a whole session. How was any startup helped by IBM? This wasn’t answered.

They also take a different approach in the gamification reward system.  You are able to unlock badges and stickers based on how often you check into a show.  However, after so many stickers are earned you are able to have them physically sent to you.  Which that is not a huge reward system like gift cards, it brings a physical item to the hands of those participating in a virtual game.

Imagine the ability now for TV channels, sports, movies and individual shows to see how people interact and talk about their shows.  Gone are the days of the simple Nielsen ratings to a select few families.  Everyone can now be married into the Nielsen family.

I are also happy to announce that the Spiked Studio shows will be showing up on GetGLue for you to let everyone know you are watching and also discover more related material.  I want to thank the team there for being in touch and launching BlackBerry Today on GetGlue first with the success we have had breaking half a million downloads already.

Look for the rest of the shows to start appearing shortly. It is actually fun and I have found quite a few shows and how many friends watch the same ones I do.

It seems that recent announcements points to Nokia Maps for Plazes data.  Unfortunately I cannot find a single piece of it.  Locations are muddled, past reviews and check-ins seem to be non-existent.  So I found a tiny link for their Pulse beta.

What is Nokia Pulse^™?

Nokia Pulse is an exciting new way to check in with the people you care about most—your family and close friends.

Nokia Pulse automatically tags the photos, updates, and links you send with your location. So every conversation, from pickups and drop-offs to meet-ups, is as instant, private, and simple as sending a text, but far more useful and engaging.

And because it’s integrated with Nokia Maps, finding people nearby, discovering new places, and getting directions is a snap.

Pulse only runs on very specific phones and a mobile web interface for the rest.  Windows Phone  7 was the first choice listed.  You must have a Nokia account to use the service so it would have been nice if they ported over my login information and history into Pulse from Plazes.  it appears they had no intent.  With almost 1200 Plazes across 12 countries I have a lot of historical data there.

Plazes service Radar also appears in Pulse showing you close locations and people based on your contact list.  Once again I have to rebuild this in the Nokia Maps world so I have lost all of that connectivity.

Attempts the last few weeks to log into Plazes to see if I can export the data in some format return a single sad screen:

We are making the service better to handle your request the way you expected. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Check back in a minute or two.

Shame on Nokia for not taking advantage of an existing user base and historical data.

Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Mechanics by Tim Fields and Brandon Cotton

I am glad I was able to get this book for review after getting into the second chapter.  The first chapter was just introductory and gave you an idea on what the book does not cover.  I fully anticipated it to be about online and mobile games with tons of technique I could apply outside of that.

Chapter 2 has a subsection that summed up social business ideas in many enterprises.  Just being online or multiplayer in their words does not make you social.  This is a point often overlooked by businesses entering the deployment and ideas.  The ability to bring employees, partners and customers back again and again is a key component.

A highlight of the book is the interviews at the end of each section with major names in social game monetization.  They openly talk about how they built the empires and what mistakes they made along the way.  It is great knowledge and the same mistakes that we will all make.

While chapter 3 is only a few pages on the history of game monetization,chapter 4 gives the business reason to build social into the game or your company site if you look at it with the same lenses I did.  Industry terms were not as important that were shown in Chapter 5 but serve a good reference point for some analytics you will need when deploying.

I felt Chapter 7 was the most important one I read showing you how to acquire, keep and regain users.  Not only through innovation but by building in rewards and systems to keep them energized about your platform.  Acquiring the users is the highest cost a social business will have.  Providing value back to the enterprise is a grassroots effect.  Getting the data into the system and having it grow is where rewards, leaderboards and badges come into play.

For the gamers reading this the book definitely covers virtual goods, payment systems and forms of currency.  Being able to decide what platforms will be beneficial and how to set varying levels of gaming are all explored with great expertise.

This book has value for both the game writer and business trying to get into the social game.

Disclosure: The above links are Amazon affiliate links for the book.