Tatter and Company-Taken over by google

Google Inc. has snapped up South Korean blogging software company Tatter and Company, or TNC, in a bid to expand the Internet search leader's reach in Asia.
The acquisition, announced by TNC's co-CEO Chang-Won Kim in a blog posting Friday and confirmed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, reflects Google's efforts to open up new distribution channels for its ads beyond its ubiquitous search engine.
Similar to Google's 2003 acquisition of the Blogger platform, the deal for TNC could also help Google continue improving its techniques for scouring and synthesizing blog content and tailor ads more precisely to specific markets.
Kim said Google has struggled to gain market share in Korea because many Internet users there are locked into Web portal-style services. Those services funnel users through one central point for all their Internet needs and limit some of the freewheeling exploration of different sites that helps Google sell more ads.
"Google isn't entitled with God-given right to become #1 in every region it operates in, just because it's Google," he wrote. "It's actually more about the Korean Web industry than about Google. I think the Korean web industry needs a player that can, as a balancing force, provide more options to the users and help create a more open Web."
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For its third acquisition in 2008, Google has for the second time gone shopping abroad.
On Friday, Google confirmed that it has acquired South Korean blog platform company Tatter and Company (TNC).

In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Chang-Won Kim, co-CEO of TNC, explains that TNC can be thought of as South Korea's equivalent of Automattic, a company that makes software to complement and extend the open source WordPress blog publishing platform.
Kim says the acquisition is the first Google has done in Asia outside of China. The deal, he expects, will help improve Google's "minor" market share in South Korea, a state of affairs he attributes to the South Korean preference for staying within Web portals rather than venturing to all manner of online sites for information and services.
"We will commit ourselves to increasing Google's market share in Korea," Kim said in a blog post. "Of course, Google isn't entitled with God-given right to become #1 in every region it operates in, just because it's Google. It's actually more about the Korean web industry than about Google. I think the Korean Web industry needs a player that can, as a balancing force, provide more options to the users and help create a more open Web."
While Google and TNC are working to create a more open Web, the South Korean government may be working against them. Stung by protests driven in part by people-powered media and bloggers, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak has been pushing for new Internet regulations to curb what online reporters can say.
In an interview last month with The Guardian in the United Kingdom, Lee Han-ki, editor-in-chief of OhmyNews, a leading Korean portal for citizen journalists, said, "The proposed legislation will not only hinder free speech by Korean netizens but seems to be aimed at controlling the public opinion of Internet news media."

EA Games-spore

Spore created by EA games,is your own personal universe in a box. In this universe you can create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations and even sculpt entire worlds. In Spore you have a variety of creation tools at your disposal that allow you to customize nearly every aspect of your universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. While Spore is a single player game, your creations and other players' creations are automatically shared between your galaxy and theirs, providing a limitless number of worlds to explore and play.
The Spore universe is made up of five stages with different challenges and goals. You may choose to start with the cell phase and nurture one species from its humble aquatic origins to its evolution as a sentient species. Or you may decide to start building tribes or civilizations on multiple planets. What you do with your universe is up to you.
Key Features
Sandbox Gameplay: Create our own personal universe where you can evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations and even sculpt entire worlds.
Evolutionary Gameplay: Lead your species through stages of evolution from pond-scum to galactic god in Spore's campaign mode.
World Creators: Easy-to-use editors allow you to make everything from creatures and buildings to vehicles and spaceships.
Shared Content: Spore automatically shares your creations with other players through the Internet. And in your game, you'll explore and interact with a galaxy of content created by other players.

About EA Mobile

EA Mobile(TM), a division of EA's Casual Entertainment Label, is the world's leading wireless entertainment publisher with award-winning games such as Tetris(R), Bejeweled(R), The Sims, and Need For Speed. The EA Mobile portfolio also includes casual games based on the company's partnership with Hasbro, Inc. including MONOPOLY, YAHTZEE and SCRABBLE(in the U.S. and Canada) as well as sports blockbusters from the EA SPORTS(TM) brand, including Madden NFL Football, FIFA Soccer and NASCAR(R). EA Mobile develops games for multiple mobile platforms including mobile phones, smartphones, the iPhone and iPod. For more information about EA Mobile, please visit www.eamobile.com.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA(TM), EA SPORTS Freestyle(TM) and POGO(TM). In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle, EA Mobile POGO, Need for Speed, Spore, Lemonade Tycoon, SimCity and The Sims are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Tetris is a registered trademark of Tetris Holding, LLC. Bejeweled is a registered trademark of PopCap Games, Inc. John Madden, NFL, FIFA, Tiger Woods, PGA TOUR and NASCAR are the property of their respective owners and used with permission. MONOPOLY, YAHTZEE, and SCRABBLE (in the U.S. and Canada) are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. iPhone, iPod, iTunes and Mac are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Nintendo DS is a trademark of Nintendo, All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Sparkpr for EA Mobile
Matt Marquess, 415-321-1874
matt@sparkpr.com
or
EA Casual Entertainment
Trudy Muller, 650-628-2926
tmuller@ea.com

Great DRM Backlash-spore

EA Mobile(TM), a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced that Spore(TM) Origins, an original game for the iPhone(TM) and iPod(R) touch will be available this month. The game takes full advantage of the devices' built-in accelerometer as players tilt, turn and twist their way through a world made of primordial ooze. In conjunction with the launch of Spore Origins, EA Mobile also announces a list of nine games in development for both the iPhone and iPod touch platforms.
Eat-or-be-eaten in Spore Origins! Designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch, Spore Origins uses the platforms' motion-sensing technology to let gamers navigate a primordial tidepool on a quest to evolve. Feast on the weak and flee from the strong through two exciting modes and 35 challenging levels. Pinch, pull, and poke your creation in the Creature Editor, customizing the texture, shape and body parts to improve your offense, defense, perception and movement as you evolve over millions of years.

"We're really excited to bring Spore Origins to the iPhone and iPod touch," said Travis Boatman, Vice President Worldwide Studios at EA Mobile. "By leveraging the unique capabilities of these devices, players can customize their own creatures and shape their destiny in an exciting evolutionary journey."

EA Mobile today also announced nine titles in development for the iPhone and iPod touch, pending regional availability. This list includes YAHTZEE Adventures, EA Mini Golf, Lemonade Tycoon(TM), Mahjong, MONOPOLY: Here & Now The World Edition, SimCity, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09, Need for Speed(TM) Undercover, and The Sims(TM) 3.

Spore Origins will be available globally from the Apple App Store on iPhone and iPod touch, or by simply visiting www.eamobile.com from an iPhone. Additional versions of Spore Origins are also available for the iPod, as well as other mobile devices. All iPod games are available for the third-generation iPod nano, iPod classic and fifth-generation iPod and can be sent as a gift using the iTunes gifting feature (www.itunes.com).

For more information on Spore Origins, carrier availability and pricing, please go online to www.eamobile.com/spore. Spore is also available for the PC, Mac(R) and Nintendo(TM) DS in participating retail stores worldwide, or by visiting

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If we can learn anything from the troubled launch of Spore, a videogame many people have been looking forward to for years, it is that binding products with digital rights management (DRM) restrictions hurts more than it helps. Spore, designed by Sims creator Will Wright, went on sale a week ago. It is expected to sell 2 million copies in September alone, and is currently the No. 3 best-selling game on Amazon.

But it also has one of the worst ratings on Amazon (2,016 out of the 2,216 ratings are one star) because of a concerted campaign by fans protesting its DRM. It has also been downloaded an estimated 500,000 times on BitTorrent, and is well on its way to becoming the most illegally downloaded game ever.

The DRM that comes with the official game only allows customers to use it on three machines (after that you have to call EA for permission to activate the game on additional machines). This is nothing more than an inconvenience. Gamers, in general, are more likely to have more than one computer, and to cycle through computers faster than other PC owners because they always want the latest, greatest, and fastest machines. Many will hit that three-machine limit quickly.

Maybe EA should join the rest of the entertainment industry in coming up with a consistent DRM policy. Unlike iTunes, which imposes a five-machine limit on most purchased songs and movies, there is no way to associate new machines or disassociate old ones from your account online. You have to call. That does not scale.


So now EA has a consumer backlash on its hands, and not because consumers don't like the game, but because they don't like EA telling them what they can do with the game after they've paid for it. What is worse, the DRM is obviously not stopping pirated versions from getting out there. And since the pirated version is DRM-free, many gamers consider it a better product than the DRMed one that Electronic Arts is trying to sell.

The silliest part of this whole affair is that EA has a much more effective weapon against piracy than the DRM: the game itself. Many of Spore's most interesting features, such as the ability to upload characters you create and explore worlds created by other players, have an online component. These are integral to the gameplay. All EA needs to do is to turn these features off to anyone who cannot prove that they've actually purchased the game. Then no self-respecting gamer will want that pirated copy.

There is a lesson here for all media companies. Whether they are producing videogames, movies, or music, adding DRM won't stop piracy. The best way to stop piracy is to hobble the pirated version, not the official one.