How to Make Passionate Advocates Into Your B2B Sales Team for Free

Customer advocates are especially powerful in B2B sales. After all, most purchasing decisions are pretty fraught — make the wrong call, and your internal reputation (not to mention your budget) will suffer the consequences. Knowing someone you trust likes a certain product can definitely sway your pick.

But how do you motivate your customers to spread the word in the first place? Here are several ideas for turning your most passionate customers into de facto members of your sales team. Continue reading →

Four Tips for the Community Manager in Mitosis Phase

Starting July 20th, over 150 thousand of the world’s pop-culture and comic fans will descend upon the San Diego Convention Center for the 48th annual Comic-Con (SDCC). Holding several Guinness World Records including the largest annual comic and pop culture festival in the world, it’s also America’s longest continuously-run comics and popular arts convention. Continue reading →

3 Ways Steam Direct is Changing the Game

In June 2017, Valve retired its community-based approval platform ‘Steam Greenlight’ and replaced it with ‘Steam Direct’, a direct route for developers to get into the marketplace. After nervous rumours s of thousands of dollars in fees, Steam Direct settled at a $100 per game fee that’s been serving up mixed reactions from top indie developers around the world.

But what’s done is done and there’s no going back. The Greenlight community is officially dead and Steam Direct is the present and future. So how does this affect the developers, players, and community that empowered the Steam marketplace for years? Continue reading →

Game Industry News Roundup – Oculus, Logitech Acquisition, Brazilian Indie Fest

Oculus moving on from investing in smaller VR projects

Apparently, Oculus is becoming more concerned with the big picture. The virtual reality pioneers are stepping away from the kind of small titles that welcomed VR into our homes, and focusing more on projects that require investments deep into six figures. While it’s easy to jump to conclusions about their motives, Jason Rubin, VP of content, stated that their interests are shifting due to general market health, and that smaller titles no longer need significant investment to succeed in the marketplace. This announcement, coming shortly after Oculus cut the Rift/Touch bundle price, may hint at a larger move from Oculus where big titles and less expensive systems are used to promote widespread hardware acquisition.

Logitech buys Astro for $85 million

In a surprising but logical move, hardware manufacturer Logitech has acquired headset manufacturer Astro for $85 million in an all-cash deal. While Logitech is by far the larger name of the two brands, Astro has established itself as the preferred headset brand of competitive, and console, games. Logitech is commonly associated with PC gaming, which is a surprisingly limited market despite having a higher APRU. Perhaps this acquisition will be a powerful move in the growing e-sports industry, but only time will tell.

Brazil’s Independent Games Festival 2017 attracts 20,000 visitors

Between June 24th and July 2nd, Brazil’s Independent Games Festival (BIG) saw over 20,000 visitors in Sao Paulo. Over the week, well over 3,000 industry figures participated in sessions, forums, and discussions to reflect on the state of the industry and the future of indie games. While attendance and location may seem surprising, it’s important to consider Brazil’s participation in the global market. Especially in mobile markets, Brazil is a force to be reckoned with in freemium games; in the first half of 2017, Brazil accounted for almost $300 million in revenue. If Brazil’s economic and political challenges don’t halt its growth in the industry, expect it to become a massive industry figure on an international scale.



   
       
       
   
   
   

Weekly Recap: Voice Personalization, 100 Million Headlines, and Automated Photography

The Future of Voice-Driven Personalized Customer Experiences Has Arrived – The Next Web

When it comes to customer experience, how will your brand stand out from the others? In this article, Neil C. Hughes picks up on some important developments around voice-enabled devices like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, and Apple’s Siri. Not only have sales been up recently, but voice analytics are getting smarter and capable of handling even more sophisticated commands. As the technology progresses, brands will continually have to adapt to bring customers’ physical voices into each customer experience. Continue reading →