AT.LANT.IS, the online youth community, has been relaunched.

The primary business model shifted from premium subscriptions towards item sales, along with the important (and overdue) integration of SMS payment.

Secondly, today the new AT.LANT.IS app launched on schuelerVZ, one of the biggest social network for kids and teenagers in Central Europe. This makes it possible to create your character and play and chat in Atlantis within the schuelerVZ environment (well, it’s an OpenSocial container, so you do the math ). I assume launches on studiVZ and meinVZ will follow, but the target group is mainly using schuelerVZ, so that is the most important platform to launch. Good.

Thirdly, I quit my job as CTO of plazz entertainment in June. Still, it’s nice to finally see the changes and new features we have been working on for so long go live. I hope that the new business model proves itself, and Atlantis can take advantage of the huge VZ user base.

I stumbled across this informative  Overview of Lean Software Practices, a transcript of a talk given by Tim Wingfield.

If you have been asleep the last 10 years, it lists Lean Software Development best practices in a metholodgy-agnostic way, like

• Eliminate Waste
• Build Quality in
• Create Knowledge
• Defer Commitments
• Deliver Fast
• Respect People
• Optimize the Whole

Then again, chances are if you have been asleep, you won’t be reading this blog anyway…

Well, unfortunately I do not have any of the Logic files, but you can at least listen to the tracks (and see some screenshots of the game by neo software) on YouTube:

Fact is, Flash is here to stay – at least for the next 2-3 years, I assume, until maybe HTML5, Unity and/or others have gained more traction.

A question raised by a friend in a recent discussion was: What features, advantages etc. can Flash list on the “plus” side, besides an enormous installed user base? My reply was: “You already answered your question.”

The thing is, it does not actually matter how “bad”, performance-hogging, 3D-features lacking Flash actually is, if you want to reach a very broad audience, there still is no alternative to it.

Perhaps (un)surprisingly, little has changed since early 2008 when we decided to develop AT.LANT.IS in Flash.

Daniel James of Three Rings confirmed that with the Java version of Puzzle Pirates they majority of users did not even see the start screen of the game, because they needed to confirm to “Trust” the Java applet before – something they were not used to doing, raising their suspicion and in result leaving the game before it had even started. When they changed to Flash with Whirled, that problem was gone. (He was giving some exact numbers, as he likes to do, but I can’t remember exactly).

So, still a good opportunity for all you Flash coders charging a fortune for some AS3 lines…

The thing is, there are some very cool options that appeared over the last 6 months or so, and I hope to be able to share what I will be doing in the future very soon.

plazz ist ein Publisher für interaktive Unterhaltung für Kinder und Familie. Die Firma wurde 2007 gegründet und beschäftigt sich mit Spieleproduktionen auf Basis von TV-Lizenzen und der Entwicklung von eigener IP.

In den letzten 2 Jahren haben wir uns auf die Entwicklung und den Betrieb der Youth Gaming Community AT.LANT.IS konzentriert.

Youth Communities bieten Kindern und Jugendlichen zielgruppengerechte Charaktere mit vielfältigen Personalisierungsoptionen, eine virtuelle Welt als Ordnungsprinzip mit ausgeprägten Community-Funktionen, und Casual Games ohne Einstiegshürden.

AT.LANT.IS ist eine thematisch zusammenhängende Online-Welt, in der die 8- bis 12-jährigen User online im Chat und offline über ein eigenes Mail-System miteinander kommunizieren, sich über ihre personalisierbaren Avatare ausdrücken, Mini-Games spielen und dabei eine virtuelle Währing „ORIs“ verdienen, und diese dann in virtuellen Items und Upgrades ausgeben können.

Das Projekt wurde von einem Inhouse-Team konzipiert und geleitet und von internen und externen Teams innerhalb eines 12-monatigen Produktionszeitraumes umgesetzt. Der Entwicklungsprozess lief in monatlichen Iterationen ab. Ein Feature wurde im Wiki spezifiziert, im Issue Tracker eingetragen, einer Version und einem Developer zugewiesen, und dann auf einem Entwicklungsserver laufend integriert.

Bei der Systemarchitektur wurde auf Flash als Client-Technologie mit der OpenSpace ISO-Engine, PHP für die Website, auf einen mySQL-Cluster und den kommerziellen Socketserver SmartfoxServer mit Java-Extensions und Hibernate-ORM gesetzt.

Nach Start der Closed Beta im Dezember 2008 und der Open Beta im Februar 2009 wurde Atlantis im August 2009 gelaunched.

Die ersten 6 Monate zeigten eine Verdopplung der durchschnittlichen Zeit, die ein User auf AT.LANT.IS verbringt, deutlich differenzierte Beliebtheit der einzelnen Mini-Games, ELV (elektronisches Lastschriftverfahren) als dominierende Zahlungsmethode, und die Notwendigkeit regelmässiger Anpassungen des Funktionsumfanges an das User-Verhalten.

This year again, the number of sessions about social, online, casual MMO etc. type of games increased – I should be attending most of the Social & Online Games Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, and will roam around the following days.

The plan is to cover the most interesting stuff here in the blog – we’ll see how this goes.

If you are in SF and care for a coffee or beer (or have invitations to a hot exclusive party…), let me know.

Oh, and apologies for the automated “bookmarks” posts, that contained more and more “Error 500″ links – I removed the post, and disabled the plugin. If I have any interesting links to share, I will twitter them.

“Children and family focused iPhone applications are gaining in popularity and have become big business” said Jason Petralia, CEO of People Operating Technology, a New York-based iPhone application publisher. “We’re happy that Greystripe is pioneering research into this market.”

Highlights include:

• Over 59% of iPhone moms let their children use their iPhone with 41% downloading entertainment applications 20% downloading educational apps specifically for their kids.
• 89.25% use their phone for entertainment, whether this is listening to music, browsing the Internet or using various entertainment apps.
• 96% are involved in their household purchasing decisions, with 40% being the sole decision maker.

The complete report is available as PDF.

If you have not already done so, please have a quick look at the slides:

Or you can watch a webcast of a live talk by Eric on the same subject, “How to Build a Lean Startup, step-by-step”:

Earlier this year, a Google Group was started.