The Seven Constants Of Game Design, Part One

 In the first of a two part series exploring game design, this article discusses the idea that games operate within a universe of defined constants, meaning traits to do with play that stand independent of platform, audience or technology. Read More

Threadflip Raises $13 Million in Series B, Plans To Grow Workforce by 40%

 Threadflip, the online consignment marketplace for women’s clothing, announced $13 million in Series B funding today. Norwest Venture Partners led the round, with participation from previous investors Baseline Ventures, First Round Capital and Shasta Ventures. This latest infusion now brings the total funding for Threadflip up to $21.1 million. Threadflip will use the cash to hire at… Read More

Political Leaders Rebuke Microsoft’s Mass Layoffs

 Microsoft’s record layoffs have picked up negative attention from governmental authorities and leaders, even as the cuts have been largely welcomed by investors and the broader market. The software company accreted more than 20,000 employees when it acquired the majority of Nokia’s hardware assets. In the wake of that deal’s closing, Microsoft announced 18,000 cuts to its… Read More

Got a BYOD Problem? Blame the Millennials You Just Hired

CREATISTA / Shutterstock

If your company’s IT department is having any troubles wrestling with the “bring your own device,” or BYOD, trend, here is a handy new hook on which to hang the blame: The young people you just hired.

A new survey released last week from the company Trackvia, which helps companies build their own custom line-of-business Web and phone apps, finds that when it comes to employees and their attitudes about using third-party Web apps at the office, there’s precisely the kind of generational split you might expect.

It’s one thing for people to bring their personal iPhone or Android device to the office and to except the company to support it with access to email and calendars. It’s another to give them unfettered access to corporate data from any one of the millions of apps they might want to use, even if those apps go against company policies. That gap is the source of BYOD concerns. It’s also a new generation gap.

TrackVia asked 1,000 people via a Web survey about their use of third-party Web apps at work. Among the respondents, 70 percent of millennials (adults aged 18 to 33, per the Pew Research Foundation) admit to breaking corporate rules around using outside apps. Half of them said the approved apps aren’t good enough. And 60 percent of them said they didn’t think that by doing so they’d create a security problem for their employer.

That’s the sort of thing that makes CIOs nervous. While in general they’re opening up to support the BYOD trend, they also like to maintain as much control over the apps that run on their networks as they can.

While it’s perhaps not an entirely surprising set of findings, it’s interesting in part because so many newer cloud software companies tend to rely on people using them at the office without company approval. I’m thinking specifically of DropBox and Evernote, but those are only two examples. DropBox specifically went on to penetrate most of the world’s companies which helped it build a base of users 300 million strong. It’s now building an enterprise strategy on the back of that popularity. Evernote is too.

Those nervous CIOs will likely be happier with older workers, 69 percent of which say they don’t break the rules the way the younger folks do. But as you can guess, that will matter less over time as millenials grow into the majority of the work force, which is expected by the end of next year.

Of course some companies are embracing the BYOD trend so strongly that it has evolved into a requirement. A report by Gartner last year suggested that more than half of companies will require their employees to bring their own phone or computer to work.

With CardSpring Deal, Twitter’s E-Commerce Strategy Emerges in Time for Holidays

Vjeran Pavic

Online shopping directly from a tweet should be here by the holidays. In the meantime, Twitter is shoring up its entrance into the physical world of shopping, too.

Twitter announced this week that it intended to buy a young company called CardSpring for an undisclosed sum. CardSpring enables retailers to offer online shoppers coupons that they can automatically sync to their credit cards in order to receive discounts when they shop in physical stores.

Coupled with the in-tweet shopping, the online-to-offline promotions that CardSpring encourages will give Twitter a two-sided e-commerce strategy to pursue.

Twitter has experimented with these kinds of deals for American Express customers in the past. For example, an American Express cardholder who links a credit card account with a Twitter account can tweet #AmexBestBuy and automatically get a statement credit when he or she spends $250 in a Best Buy store.

But the CardSpring acquisition, which should become official this quarter, will allow Twitter to formalize and broaden this type of offering and make it even easier for shoppers to use. While Twitter users currently have to tweet a specific phrase to get a discount, in the future they might be able to simply click a button in a tweet to load the discount to their cards, according to a source with knowledge of Twitter's thinking. If these are embedded in promoted tweets, Twitter’s ad business could see a boost, too.

Such a feature could be used by retailers to target location-based deals to Twitter users. The move also gives Twitter a way to make some money off of shopping done in the physical world — which still accounts for 85 percent or more of all commerce in the U.S.

None of this slows down Twitter’s foray into online shopping, as Re/code has reported. The source confirmed that Twitter’s goal is to roll out a feature that would allow users to purchase a product right from a tweet in time for this holiday season. As Re/code previously reported, Twitter will most likely work with payments company Stripe to help facilitate in-tweet purchases.

#Love: My First Experience With Internet Porn

 Pornographic media has existed since the dawn of time, but it has never been as widely available and accessible as it is today. That’s largely due to the internet, which provides a launch pad for our curiosity no matter the topic. But with sex, a topic relatively more private and intimate, the internet can serve as an important resource for sexual exploration, understanding, and yes… Read More

Taptalk Taps Phone Contacts To Add Friends, And A New Game Emerges

 One of the issues I’ve been grappling with with the Taptalk social photos and location app, is that although it’s super simple and addictive — way more so that Snapchat I’d say — adding friends until now has been a chore. You had to literally type people’s handles in to the app. But, good news fellow Taptalkers! A new update to the Beta version of the app… Read More

This Little Box Hijacks Your Chromecast, Rickrolls Your Living Room

 You’re sitting in your living room. All you want to do is watch some Game Of Thrones on your day off… but your Chromecast refuses to respond. All it will do is play Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. It might be this little box’s fault. Read More