SnipClip is offering the following job opportunities in Germany:

Internship Web-Design

For our office in Munich, Germany, we search for an intern for web design. Find detailed information (in German) here.

Enterpreneur Internship Business Development

For our offices in Munich, Germany, and San Mateo, USA, we search for an intern for business development. Find detailed information (in German) here.

Working Student Online-Marketing

For our office in Munich, Germany, we search for working student for online marketing. Find detailed information (in German) here.

For information in English, please contact us.

During the past months, our trainee Matthias analyzed the virtual goods market, especially in the area of social gaming, social networks and virtual worlds. Today, SnipClip announced at the GamesBeat conference, where Oliver will pitch for SnipClip at the Who’s Got Game competition, that it will publish the results. The press release highlights some interesting insights:

Average revenue per monthly active user per year:

• non-gaming social apps: $0.37
• social games: $3.65
• virtual worlds: $8.04

Market potential for 2008:

• non-gaming social apps: $215 millions
• social games: $340 millions
• virtual worlds: $244 millions

Galaxy-News is Germany’s browser game web magazine. Today, Galaxy-News published an article by SnipClip about the new social gaming phenomena on the social web:

Mit der Frage „Willst Du mit mir spielen?“ schließen wir im Kindesalter unsere ersten Freundschaften. Und auch wenn wir älter geworden sind, hören wir nicht auf zu spielen. So erfreuen sich Gesellschaftsspiele über alle Altersklassen hinweg großer Beliebtheit. Sie erleichtern spielerisch das Kennenlernen und stärken bestehende Freundschaften. Gleiches gilt auch für Online Games und insbesondere die so genannten Social Games, die Thema dieses Beitrages sind.

Read on: Social Games: Willst Du mit mir spielen? – Artikel – Galaxy-News

Today, I participated at the first Web Montag in Augsburg, my home town. About 35 web developer, designer and business people joined the event at the Capitol. The event was organized by WEKA – thanks to the organizers! The next Web Montag will be held in March and again organized by WEKA.

Despite the strong interest for the first Web Montag in Augsburg, I was the only one presenting at the event. My presentation was about social games and virtual goods. Some people from the audience asked me for the slides. So here they are:

Here is an answer from Bret (an expert on social games):

Warren Buffett says that the economy in a recession. When it comes to the economy, I believe Warren Buffet. Recession is a scary word. But if you’re a social games company (or thinking about starting one), a recession may actually be a good thing.

…

When it comes to a recession, the common wisdom is that home entertainment surges, because people feeling the pinch opt for staying home rather then the more expensive option of going out. If that holds true during this recession, then online games are certain to benefit. After all, no one is giving up their Internet connection. And if you’re a free online game, then…well, I mean is there any better entertainment deal for a consumer then a free game?

Of course, the problem as always with free services on the internet, is that we rely on advertisers for our revenue stream. Fortunately, the digital goods model removes that dependency, making it even more attractive in the face of an advertising downturn. It’s still an open question whether people will buy virtual goods with a thinner wallet.

This is an aside, but I’d suggest that virtual goods can offer an excellent substitute for purchasing more expensive real goods. The desire to shop does not go away just because a consumer has less money. That desire to buy real items, such as clothes, shoes, and accessories is easily transferred to vanity virtual goods. Goods that come at a fraction of the cost of a real item, and therefore attractive even when you have a thinner wallet.

…

And if you need further convincing, the biggest games company in the world, EA, started in a recession.

Read the full article: Starting a Games Company in a Recession

The Lightspeed Ventures Partners Blog pointed me to the following article:

The following graphic from the pattern library illustrates what Yahoo calls the “competitive spectrum”, which is a way to classify the activity on your site and helps you to choose which reputation pattern might work best for your community.

This is a must read if you are going social: Social Design Patterns for Reputation Systems: An Interview with Yahoo’s Bryce Glass (Part I) – Bokardo

Another great post by Andrew Chen, this time about how to loose customers:

I imagine that many in the readership are working on social products – for any product in this space, you often have a number of fuzzy stages that a user can move through during their lifecycle. This may include stages like:

* First experience
* Soloing and single user value
* Encountering some friends(?)
* Hitting critical mass for social
* Becoming a site elder

Read the full article: Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen: 25 reasons users STOP using your product: An analysis of customer lifecycle

Very, very interesting thoughts about designing a social game:

By spending time in the “social gaming” space, it’s interesting to see the intersection of approaches from both the consumer internet folks versus the traditional game folks. In addition to business models (ads versus subs/virtual goods) or product emphasis (functionality versus storytelling/characters/etc) or other topics, I’m particularly fascinated by the difference in how they think about their players/users and their activities.

Let’s look at the two approaches – both the “Web 2.0″ view as well as the games perspective. The former is represented by a pyramid, and the other is a 2-axis landscape.

Read the full article: Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen: Social gaming design – Bartle types versus Web 2.0 participation pyramid

Include gaming mechanics in your social app and your users will love it:

In other words, messaging apps average 3 pageviews per visitor, dating apps average 20 pageviews per visitor and gaming apps average 50 pageviews per visitor. As Charles and Jing noted in their presentation, this means that while we’ve always known that gamers prefer gaming to sex, now we know how much they prefer gaming to sex – 2.5 x!

Read the full story: How social games can retain their best players « Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog

The Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog asked “what is a social game?”:

Last week I asked what distinguishes a social game from a multiplayer game and suggested that for social games, social context has an impact on gameplay and enjoyment. Parking Wars is a great example of a truly social game on Facebook.

I agree, but let me concretize the term “social context”: the social context is (in my opinion) your local social network, your peers, your friends, the people you love to communicate and to interact. Social gaming supports these interactions, improves them and strengthens the relationships. This is what (social) gaming is for – satisfying your social needs.