Rockin in the USA

Well, after 3 days in the US, I'm finally starting to feel like being in the swing of things. We arrived on Wednesday morning (after leaving Brisbane on Wednesday morning) and got straight into hanging out in Hollywood and LA with my wife Tanya. We visited a musician friend of ours in Hollywood and tried to get over the jet lag as best as possible. What was also cool was that our hotel was smack bang in the middle of the movie studio precinct - we could see into the MGM lot from our balcony! But no stars were spotted ...


Thursday morning it was onto Pittsburgh, and after leaving the hotel at 8.30am, we arrived at 7.30pm local time - another different timezone! Hotel here has been cool - stayed up late watching The Office, and seeing ads for the new season of Heroes which hasn't started in Oz yet (way cool!). Today I delivered a presentation at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Centre. These kids are seriously talented, and are the game developers of the future for EA, Sony, etc. They actually all really got into Flash Lite, and many of the them came up to me to ask about taking existing Flash games of theirs onto mobile. Some even asked me if Moket was hiring ... maybe some developers for a future Moket USA office perhaps ?!

So I'm back at the hotel now, deciding whether or not to head off to the Pirates v Cardinals game down the road, or going down to the Hard Rock for dinner and getting an early night. Tomorrow morning is onto Chicago for MAX (finally) and hoping to meet up with some FL guys for a drink. MAX has also sold out this year now, so I'm expecting a pretty full-on next week or so, but it's going to be great.





More to come!

We're officially cool!

Moket has been named one of 2007's "Top 50 Cool Companies" by Australian Anthill Magazine (an Aussie business magazine dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship and rapid business growth).

“Most business award programs are only interested in two little words: Revenue growth. Anthill is not simply about wealth creation. Of course, the ultimate goal is to make a profit, but never to profit at all cost. Cool companies are creative, fun loving and commercially astute. Moket joins a growing ‘alumni’ of cool companies, focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and business success through clever thinking.”

Read news article here.

Cool!

Moket releases "MoCarbon" brand of Flash Lite products

Moket has just released a range of innovative and educational mobile wallpaper products under the new "MoCarbon" brand name.

These wallpapers are aimed at educating users about the wasted electricity, and associated additional carbon in the atmosphere, that comes from leaving their phone chargers plugged into the power socket when the phone does not require charging. They're also just cool animations for your mobile wallpaper.

The initial range of animations were created in conjunction with Matt Pollitt and the team at Outside Media. If you are interested in opportunities to be part of further creative MoCarbon projects, please drop me a line.

The wallpapers have already been licensed by international aggregators, and have been featured in some upcoming Adobe marketing including the new "Getting Started with Flash Lite" whitepaper released this week. You may have also seen some sneak peeks around Flashforward last week.

News article here MoCarbon website here

Polar Cap Blues from Moket

We've just completed a new game this week that will be available for download very shortly - Polar Cap Blues.

Having fallen on particularly hard times, these arctic animals don't have much more to hang on to. With each fearing the bitter trials of relocation, keep each animal on the ice for as long as possible. Watch out though, the ice is melting!You are in control of an artic animal who is clinging to the last bit of polar ice they have called home. Keep your character from sliding from the ice, avoiding the buffeting winds, and try and collect bonus ice cubes to keep your score up.

Watch this space for more announcements over the coming weeks regarding new content and applciations from Moket!

Agenda for MAX Mobile and Device Boot Camp

Adobe MAX 2007 Chicago is about one week away. This year in addition to the Flash Lite and Mobile sessions there will be a special session: The Mobile and Devices Boot Camp, on Wednesday 9AM-12:30PM. The managers of the seven Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group put together the event with some great content and presenters.

The idea behind the "MaD Boot Camp" is to allow anyone interested in Mobile and Flash Lite to ask questions and share their ideas. The format of the session will be pretty informal with presentations, discussions and Q/A. We think that it's going to be great and we invite anyone to join us and bring your Flash Lite content to show to others.

Here is the tentative Agenda:

• Mobile and Devices Boot Camp introduction
• Adobe Mobile and Devices User Group Introduction
• Show Cases
• Tools and integration
• Adobe MAX Awards Mobile and Devices finalists
• OEM: Nokia, Chumby
• Flash Lite content aggregators
• Adobe Mobile and Devices team
• Open Discussion forum
• Q/A

Hope to see you there!

The Mad Dash to MAX

With one week to go before I'm on a plane to the US, things are getting a bit hectic here!

Fortunately for me, with the winding down of web-development studio I don't have the "client" headaches I normally have when going away for an extended period of time like this. This will be one of the first times in 6 years where I won't be worry about who's website has crashed and trying to get it back online for the Aussie timezone :)

I'm also in the fortunate position of now having a growing team to leave behind (sorry guys, maybe next year!) to continue development of our next range of products. On that note, I'd like to welcome to the team our recent additions of James Lee (animator) and Sam Boss-Walker (Flash Lite/Flex/AS3 developer) . We also have 3 interns from Qantm College starting this week, so welcome Tegan, Tom and Jonathan.

Before I leave next week there are a couple product launches to announce or "hint" at, a couple of new game titles to complete and several more to start, new computers to set up, and some presentations to write.

I'm very much looking forward though to MAX and catching up again with the wider mobile / Flash Lite community. There are some larger efforts being put into mobile this year (e.g. MaD Boot Camp) which will gives us all a better sense of growth in the area of Flash Lite, and a chance to neet new guys being attracted to the platform. Honestly though a big part of the trip will be my wife and I just getting away from the kids for a little bit - we need a holiday!

Moket - an Adobe Case Study

Moket has been featured on Adobe.com in the Showcase section. It's a pleasure to be up there alongside some of the great Flash Lite related companies going around at the moment.

MAX Mobile Session Summary

MAX is only weeks away, so I wanted to remind everyone of the fantastic Flash Lite / Mobile sessions that are going to be available to conference goers. "Tickets still available!" as they say ...
Introduction to Flash Lite 2 (Training Day)
Sunday 30th Sept - 9.00am - 5pm
This session is a deep-diving workshop on developing Flash Lite content and applications. We'll begin with a general Flash Lite tutorial and then move on to more detailed information on how to develop content for mobile operators, including Verizon Wireless.

From Desktop to Mobile: New Revenue Opportunities
Monday 1st Oct - 11.30am
Wednesday 3rd Oct - 1.45pm
Learn how you can make money by selling your Flash Lite content through various mobile content aggregators worldwide. If you already know Flash, then you have the potential to create Flash Lite content and generate recurring revenue for your creativity and ideas. In this session, we'll explore the entire workflow for mobile content creation, from concept development and design to determining addressable devices, selling your content, and getting paid on a recurring basis.

Creating Flash Lite Multiplayer Games
Monday 1st Oct - 11.30am
Tuesday 2nd Oct - 1.30pm
The market for multiplayer games is growing. Learn how you can take your existing desktop Flash skills and leverage them to create multiplayer Flash Lite games using Flash Lite 2.1 and Flash Lite 3. You’ll learn the process involved in developing, testing, and deploying your multiplayer games to consumers worldwide.

XD: Designing Engaging Mobile Experiences
Monday 1st Oct - 2.00pm
Wednesday 3rd Oct - 3pm
This session will cover the guiding principles for designing engaging mobile experiences, an entirely new class of mobile services. Engaging mobile experiences put the user experience first. As a result, these experiences prioritize usability, offer new services, and deliver content instantaneously. More importantly, they build a powerful affinity with the user. They provide experiences that are expressive, memorable, and more desirable. Come learn the fundamental aspects of such experiences.

Creating Flash Cast Channels for Verizon Wireless
Monday 1st Oct - 2.00pm
Tuesday 2nd Oct - 9.15am
Be among the first to build and monetize Flash Cast channels for Verizon Wireless. Use Flash CS3 Professional to deliver compelling content to North America’s second largest mobile operator. Learn the process for creating and testing Flash Cast channels and how Verizon Wireless plans to enable a Flash Cast ecosystem in North America.

Flash Lite 3 Development.
Monday 1st Oct - 3.15pm
Tuesday 2nd Oct - 4.00pm
The newest version of Flash Lite introduces support for FLV and many other exciting new features. Learn how to create compelling content for multiple devices, from smart phones to consumer electronics devices. Be the first to see Flash Lite 3 demos on the latest and greatest handsets.

Mobile Workflows with Creative Suite 3 Web Premium
Monday 1st Oct - 3.15pm
Wednesday 3rd Oct - 10.30am
Discover how to create and reuse web content such as video and images for mobile devices using Adobe Device Central CS3, the all-new mobile authoring and device intelligence tool that’s integrated across Creative Suite 3. We'll touch on Flash CS3 Professional, Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, and more. Learn tips and tricks to design, preview, and test engaging mobile content across various handsets.

20 Tricks to Improve Flash Lite Development
Tuesday 2nd Oct - 9.15am
Wednesday 3rd Oct - 1.45pm
Boost your efficiency and speed time to market with these 20 tips and tricks for improving Flash Lite development. Flash Lite experts will teach you how to optimize content, streamline workflows, and take full advantage of Adobe Device Central CS3, the new mobile authoring and device intelligence tool integrated across Adobe Creative Suite 3.

Flash Lite Success Story
Tuesday 2nd Oct - 2.45pm
Wednesday 3rd Oct - 4.15pm
Design Assembly, one of the top Flash Lite studios in Europe, has published several high-quality Flash Lite games enjoyed by consumers worldwide. Find out how this small company with a passion for Flash created a growing business on Flash Lite, and discover the many go-to-market opportunities available to Flash Lite developers.

Mobile and Devices Boot Camp
Wednesday 3rd Oct - 9.15am
Boot Camp provides a mixture of short presentations, workshops, and free-form coding. The Mobile and Devices User Group managers are planning an exciting and interesting three-hour collaborative session. Make sure to bring your laptop, your best questions, your most desired features, your coolest projects to share, and be ready to learn something new.

New viral Flash game for web and mobile

Moket has just launched a new viral Flash game (web+mobile) for Wotif.com called "Ruck-a-mole". It's just one of the many campaigns that you'll see starting to popup around the place based around the upcoming Rugby World Cup, but this one doesn't take itself too seriously.

There's a whole lot more that we could have done with it probably if we had more time (we only had 2 weeks to do it) but we're pretty happy with how it turned out. We wanted to try a few different angles on helping this go viral, so we added a quick link to post the game to your Facebook account, the mobile version, and a copy'n'paste HTML block for adding a banner to your site. So far we've had over 1000 plays in the first 24 hours.

From the mobile perspective, we wanted to try out some new frameworks Moket has been developing for game development, and see how easy it would be to port something from the browser to FLash Lite 2.0. In the end, we proably spent about 2-3 days on the mobile version, out of the 2 weeks we spent on the web version+database. Not bad I reckon. It's a good case study in approaches to cross-platform marketing for companies willing to go the extra mile and get more bang for their buck when using Flash.

Anyway, check out www.ruckamole.com

(in case you're trying to work it out, it's a whack-a-mole style game but with rugby playing moles popping up from a rugby field. And in rugby, you have this thing called a "ruck")