GigaOM

The casual games space keeps getting more interesting. Digital media company RealNetworks said today that revenue from its games division rose 33 percent in the first quarter, to $31.8 million; the company also announced it will spin off its games properties, which primarily consists of cellphone titles and its RealArcade casual game site, into a [...]

The best sign that someone’s qualified to run an Internet startup may not be an MBA degree, but level 70 guild leader status, according to the latest issue of Harvard Business Review.
“Leadership’s Online Labs” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll is based on the authors’ research into the leadership [...]

Update, May 4: Can Grand Theft Auto IV defeat “Iron Man”? The weekend box office results are in, and as I predicted yesterday, the answer to that question is a resounding “No”. In its first weekend, “Iron Man” grossed $100 million, far more than industry expectations (and mine), which pegged it at $70-80 [...]

Here’s the metaverse mystery of the week: This strange new private island with a very familiar name recently emerged on the server grid of virtual world Second Life. Spotted yesterday by Second Life blogger Tateru Nino (and confirmed when I checked the world’s dynamic map today), we have to assume it’s an official Nintendo [...]

GameRail, a startup purporting to optimize latency for gamers, has closed up shop. An announcement posted on the company web site says that: “[T]he market does not appear to be ready to support a standalone network for gaming at this time.”
I never had a chance to check out the service, though early [...]

Apple Store To Go Virtual? That’s the theory of MacNN, at least, citing an Apple patent application published on the US government site last Thursday, somewhat obscurely entitled “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere”.
The patent application’s stated goal is to create an online shopping experience that doesn’t feel “sterile and isolating” like a traditional retail [...]