Moods & Targeted Advertising: Will it work?

This morning in the LA Times, I came across an interesting article about a company called Moodagent and the future role that advertisers will have with its iPhone application

How will advertisers change their message and product offerings given a consumers mood? Will geo-targeting a certain demographic based on certain moods eventually change the advertising landscape as companies and products start to develop a repertoire between the consumer and brand that will eventually lead to a long-lasting relationship?

2009: The Year of Social Gaming

If 2007 was considered the year of social networking then 2009 and now 2010 must be the year of social gaming. The ever increasing worldwide popularity of Apple’s iPhone and mobile functionality of Facebook along with the release of the Google Android has allowed consumers to instantly use their mobile platforms to download games and interact with many of millions of worldwide gamers on the go, which shows an explosive growth towards social networks and games on those platforms. Facebook has played a major role in the increased presence of social gaming where it has made games a popular category and as of today, the top 10 facebook games has accounted for over 260 million active monthly users including such games as Farmville, Mafia Wars, Pet Society and RestaurantCity.

Within the past 24 hours, two of the leading social gaming companies and Facebook application developers, Zynga and RockYou have received additional rounds of financing and this comes off the big news last week when Electronic Arts (ERTS) acquired social gaming company, Playfish for $300 million. The $375 million that was used to acquire and further finance these social gaming companies shows a shift between traditional console gaming towards social and digital gaming. Read more