Free 3D Software with Game Development Kit

Hi there. This blog has taken a break, but new posts will come up again occasionally. I start over with a 3d graphic software, which has already been mentioned in the article The next big Thing, 3D Monitors and Virtual Reality.

It concerns the 3d software Blender, which is open source and free. This free software too includes game development tools, which enable to develop 3d games. Further information is available by the following article:

The Blender Gamekit Book: Make 3D Games With Blender

Another Game Development Project

A different game development project has been started by BigPoint, which is an established portal for browser based games. BigPoint has launched a community for professional game developers called BigPoint DevLounge.

I wonder what is the reason for this step, which has to be described as strategic. Might it be the increasing competition by game developer communities, is it a way to reduce costs or to broaden the offering?

Yahoo Widgets used in a further Interactive TV Project

Yahoo has made other announcement about the use of its widget platform to be used for interactive tv. This time cooperation with Samsung has been communicated. Formerly in August a cooperation with Intel was announced.

The cooperation with Samsung has a clear time table and first tv sets equipped with the yahoo widget engine will already be available within 2009. So one may already talk about a product. By the availability of widgets at the tv set people will be able to receive personal information and to communicate. The platform is most flexible and new applications may become developed by using tools of Yahoo Widgets.

Come2Play Widget and Social Gaming Platform

Come2Play is an online social gaming platform with some amazing opportunities. It is a platform with free multiplayer flash games to share and to embed at social networks and websites. This is already a great opportunity for gamers and to enrich sites. But by offering a couple of business opportunities Come2Play is much more.

There are business opportunities for publishers and developers available. To publishers (in this case blog or website publishers) have several options to embed content at their sites. The opportunities start with a simple widget integration followed by a customized widget gallery. In the latter case customization includes a free selection of ready to use games as well as co branding with an own logo. These game galleries may become shared by users and by this they are a free advertising and branding tool. The third option supplied is even more comprehensive. There are whole hosted gaming communities, which may become added to an existing project. At all these option there is monetization by sharing of advertising revenues.

The opportunities to game developers are amazing as those to website publishers. Come2Play offers a complete environment for game development and testing by an api. Created games may become hosted at the platform, which makes developers game publishers at the same time. Now developers are able to distribute their games through the Come2Play network or to share and develop a gaming community like it is offered to website publishers. Furthermore developers may earn even 100 % of the advertising revenue generated by their games.

For further information and advertising options visit the Come2Play homepage.

Software Development Portals

Here are two further portals for software development. One is for online collaboration and the other to find developers for collaboration.

github is an online platform, that is designed for online collaboration on software development. Too, it is a social network to get in contact with other developers.

CollabFinder is a community for software developers to find others to collaborate and work together on projects. They have implemented a lifestreaming feature to stay connected and receive updates..

Short URL's with Tracking

Business Thursday: URL abbreviation services are useful tools to make a long url suitable in many cases. They might be easy to type and look better and even might be necessary because a long url may broke into several parts and become unclickable or to post to microblogging services. Some services do offer advanced features that make these even useful in any case. Depending on the aim this might be earnings by advertising, managing shortened url's, a better look by a generic name and especially statistics to track the number of clicks.

BudURL is a service with a couple of features and url tracking. It is especially designed for tracking and offers a comprehensive statistics suite. There are charts available and the service tracks clicks by locations. The service even factors in possible effects to search engine marketing and has the option to create several generic link names to test click through rates. The service is designed for business usage and future features are announced.

Another service offering statistics and tracking is tweetburner. It has been launched to track Twitter posts. Meanwhile some additions are made to track links posted to friendfeed, too. There is a bookmarklet plugin for browsers to abbreviate and post url's while surfing. Most clicked links are visible at the homepage and an api for developers exists.

There are a couple of other interesting services. bit.ly describe themselves as a simple service to shorten url's, but there is an api to access further features and stats, too. A description of all the features is avaible at the blog. bit.ly is a development by the switchAbit Team, that is developing social networking tools.

Last but not least there is the Snipurl service also available by the domains Snipr and Snurl. This service is available in several languages and offers an account to manage url's. There is also a browser plugin to shorten url's while surfing. A browser plugin is also offered by TinyURL.com, one of the oldest services. A new feature they are offering is a preview of the url where a user becomes redirected to and there is a form to put the service at a website.

There are always new services coming up to shorten url's. As there is really a new generated need related to new applications like social networking it will be interesting to watch upcoming business models.

Online Business Applications and Application Development

Online application development is a trend and cost effective. There are general platforms called Platform as a Service and specialized ones for social networks or widgets.

Zoho is a service for webbased business applications and collaboration purposes. With Zoho Creator there is now a new online development platform dedicated to business applications. It is a service both to get applications developed and an opportunity for developers. People and enterprises who are in the need for an application can post a request to contact developers. Developers can use the platform for free to develop applications for own purposes and to develop applications for customers and on behalf of members. Developers may sell their applications or participate in the partner program generating income based on a subscription model and by referring new customers. Developed applications are represented at the Zoho Marketplace.

Open Source Microblogging Software

The popularity of Microblogging and especially Twitter with its useful tools already had a broad coverage at emediablogger. And too the ongoing development by diversificated vertical microblogging has been mentioned. Now there launched an interesting open source software that enables the integration of a microblogging interface into websites and that facilitates to send messages to third party microblogging sites that support that a particular protocol.

It is OpenMicroBlogger. This open source software supplies an interface that enables to login and send messages to third party microblogging services that do support the OpenMicroBlogging Protocol. Installation as an interface is feasible as a stand alone application or as an addition to a weblog. There are some minimal requirements like php and a database for the installation and the service to work.

A similar feature is offered by Laconica. Laconica is an open source microblogging software, which powers the Identi.ca microblogging service. Members of Laconica based microblogging services are able to send messages within a community or to another Laconica based service.

The OpenMicroBlogger software is a great tool to enhance a blog or a service with a microblogging feature and to participate in this emerging trend. It is also a chance to start and populate and an own microblogging service. For further information there are articles and a newsfeed at the OpenMicroBlogger homepage. I may recommend the following article to get an overview about the features and connections of OpenMicroBlogger and Laconica An up to date list of active microblogging services is available at
Microblogging Services and Software:

Laconica’s Not the Only Cool Kid In Town - Introducing OpenMicroblogger

CityGML is a new 3D Data Standard

There is a new markup language, CityGML (City Geography Markup Language), a standard for 3d data. This markup language has been created to capture 3d data in a professional and scientific way to describe buildings, country areas and the like.

There are several types of use one may easily imagine and something that makes it an interesting topic for emedia: for functional usage there are administrative and navigational purposes and the use for every kind of a geographical information system. But what makes it interesting at this blog is the possibility to exchange 3d data between applications that are able to understand this markup language. By this it is a new way to get the picture of the real world into virtual reality worlds and other applications. Something that playce wants to do for online games.

Toolgether, a new Web Apps and Widget Platform

Toolgether is a new platform for the development, hosting and distribution of widgets. The service targets developers and private entrepreneurs. There are tools at the platform to transform existing applications into web apps and host them for distribution. At the same time Toolgether is a marketplace to monetize web applications. The service has just come out of private beta a couple of days ago.

Connected Virtual Reality Worlds

On 31th July Second Life has announced the public beta of the Open Grid Protocol. This new technology enables to switch with one unique avatar between different virtual reality worlds and might be described as a virtual reality aggregator. This is done by seperating the creation of avatars from the surrounding environment. Now by Syntronik a first service has started for creating avatars independently from a virtual world. Entering virtual worlds with an independently created avatar is enabled by the Open Grid Protocol. Below there is a video introducing at first Syntronik and later on the functions of the protocol.


Syntronik.de Screencast from MrTopf on Vimeo

There is already a large list of participating or developed virtual worlds supporting the open grid protocol. Developers and webmaster may start their own world with the open source software OpenSimulatur. Further information for developers is available at the Open Grid Public Beta and Open Grid Protocol homepages, current news by the Second Life Blog and OpenSimulatur News.

PaaS - A new kind of Software Development Platform

PaaS is a new kind of software development platform targeting the web application market, where PaaS stands for Platform as a Service. PaaS services do offer a bundle of tools to ease the software development process and improve the time to market of new applications. Advantages are similar to SaaS services, Software as a Service also called Application Service Providers, which do offer software to rent or so called web based software. Typically this means less or no investments in IT infrastucture, updates and maintenance are done by the service providers. PaaS services do offer and maintenance the software platform and collaboration tools for software projects, tools for software testing and last but not least they may host the new developed applications.

List of PaaS services: Innovations in Internet Business Software

Web based software is a general trend and the development of new applications is fastening and going along with software innovations like Online Desktops and WebOS services, Web based Operation Systems. This trend is due to applications of general interest as well as for industrial applications and, too, significantly shown by the web 2.0 movement, where new applications and services are coming up daily.

Article: SaaS is driving the world's 60 fastest-growing software companies, study finds