Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Is Small Business Access to Credit About to Tighten? [CHART of the Week]

The most recent data from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) suggests that small business credit is about to become harder to get once again. Between March and April of 2011 the difference between the fraction of business owners saying that credit will become more available and the fraction saying that it will become less available turned more negative, after improving for nearly a year.

In March, the figure below shows, the share of small business owners whoRead More

From Small Business Trends

Is Small Business Access to Credit About to Tighten? [CHART of the Week]

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Angry Birds to invade TVs this summer with Roku

Yes, Angry Birds is now officially everywhere. Streaming video set-top box maker Roku has announced that it’s partnering with game maker Rovio to bring Angry Birds to televisions this summer.

The company says it will offer all three current Angry Birds games (the original, Rio and Seasons) on a new product this summer, launch an Angry Birds video channel, and sell merchandise for the series via its store channel. Roku is also looking at the partnership as the first step towards offering other popular casual games on its devices.

Roku is still being cagey about the casual gaming plans for its current and older generation players — the big problem there being that Roku’s current remote control isn’t suited to game playing at all. There also aren’t any details about the company’s next-generation player plans, but you can expect at least one model to come with some sort of gaming controller.

Rovio previously announced that it will be bringing Angry Birds to game consoles, and it’s already available on the PSP (in a version that’s also playable on the PS3). But Roku is promoting the fact that it’s delivering the first true Angry Birds TV experience.

We?ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To participate in our Who?s Got Game? contest for the best game startup, click on this link.

Tags: Angry Birds, casual games, set-top box, streaming video

Companies: Roku, Rovio




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