Social Media

150 million players got cut off from their Facebook games – LOLapps games got dropped from Facebook

by admin on October 17, 2010

One of the biggest game makers on Facebook, LOLapps, produces popular social games Critter Island, Garden Life, Diva Life, Band of Heroes, Supermodel: The Game, Yakuza Lords and Facebook versions of Dante’s Inferno and Champions Online.

During the Oct 16th weekend, all the games disappeared from Facebook with the page not found message, leaving all players confused and frustrated.  LOLapps is telling its users to stay tuned for more information.

According to VentureBeat, Facebook’s spokesman stated, “We have disabled applications from LOLapps due to violations of our terms.”

Facebook is a huge portal for game developers and integration with the Facebook platform can utilize the great population within this social world.  However, we also see that the Facebook  now has the power to control developers’ behaviors and possibly creativities.  It’ll be interesting to see how the online community is going to react to this ban.  It can make some people quite upset now that Facebook becomes the one who has the power to control.  We look forward to some explanation about the action.

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How businesses are utilizing the Social Media – Starbucks, Wynn and Lucky Magazine all using Foursquare for their businesses

by admin on October 16, 2010

The concept of checking into places may seem awkward to some people as they asked why you want to do that.  As a user to Foursquare, it’s a way to connect.  During a conversation with a consultant who needs to fly around the nation, he said “Foursqaure becomes my friend with all my consultant buddies.  We can meet up at the airport if we happened to be there at the same time.”  This is how I was introduced to Foursquare.  Other than connecting to people, it’s a way to brag about all the interesting places you’ve been to.  There are different badgets you can get.  You can be mayor to places.  More and more special offers are popping up when users try to check into places.  Discounts are given to mayor of the venue or you can get freebies when showing your checkin to the store.  What an excellent idea, both for customers and businesses.

Foursquare has grew its user base to more than a million and it attracts more and more venues to partner with.  Wynn Las Vegas, Lucky Magazine and Starbucks, just to name a few, are all utilizing it for their businesses.

Wynn and Encore hotels reaches out to its customer through Foursquare checkins.  Staffs personally greeted and helped customers who checked in at one of its restaurants and expressed their needs.  Lucky Magazine did an amazing job during the Fashion week leaving tips behind for users about where to get coffee or free wifi.  The plan is to expand its use of Foursquare to promote more tips for its users in various stores nation-wide that have suggested by the magazine editors.  Starbucks engaged its customers with special prizes through its rewards program.  There’s even a special Starbucks Barista badge you can earn when you check into five different Starbucks store.

It’s amazing how this geolocation application concept used to be such a bad idea that seemed a bit ridiculous and unsafe.  Google also has developed Google latitude that does basically the same thing before Foursquare.  It was never picked up by the community .  People asked the question why someone wants to announce their own location to the world and how can you make use of that.  Foursquare definitely showed us how an idea can grow in a totally different direction if you can make it into a useful trend.

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