Category: Apps

Geolocation based app seeks to decriminalize cannabis

| April 16, 2015

This application provides a heat map to show an area’s “happiness” level and make marijuana legal in more countries.

A man named Paulo Costa, from Brazil, has been using cannabis to help to control the seizures that are associated with his epilepsy, and is now using a geolocation based mobile app to help to spread “happiness” and encourage the decriminalization of cannabis use, particularly for medical purposes, in more countries around the world.

The increasingly popular mobile app has been nicknamed “Foursquare for Stoners” in Brazil.

That said, as playful as the tone of the tongue in cheek geolocation app may seem, and as much as it has been designed to be fun to use, it also has a more serious purpose, underneath. Costa has been using cannabis to help to control his seizures since he was first diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 18 years. A growing body of reputable evidence has been suggesting that the promising results that Costa has been experiencing are not isolated to himself. Studies are showing that controlled use of medicinal marijuana can help to improve the quality of life of epilepsy patients.

The idea for using geolocation in a mobile app came to Costa when he was hanging out with his friends in Brazil.

Who is happy geolocation mobile appTogether, they came up with the “Who is Happy” mobile app, which uses location based technology to create a heat map of cannabis users around the world that allows them to create a real time broadcast of their “happiness”.

To use the mobile app, the idea is to simply tap the green “happiness” icon on the smartphone screen whenever cannabis is being used. This adds a haze of green smoke to a 1 kilometer radius around the current location of the individual on the map. This suggests that an application user is “happy” in that region of the world. By zooming out on the map, it becomes possible to see other local and more distant regions of the world where there are others who are “happy”. This allows for the collection of happiness stats.

Of course, it is not just happiness that is being recorded through this geolocation app. The idea is to help to add to a broader effort to decriminalize the use of marijuana in countries around the world. It has already found itself among the top 30 app downloads in Brazil and is rapidly increasing in popularity worldwide.

Mobile games are outspending consoles on national television advertising

| April 13, 2015

Small publishers are forking over huge amounts of money to make sure their products are seen.

Although the console gaming is known for the massive budgets it has for advertising its products on television, the latest trend has actually been for smaller publishers of mobile games to put together some considerable TV campaigns.

In fact, those smaller game companies are outspending their console counterparts at an incredible rate.

Recent statistics released by iSpot.tv have shown that among the top five video category advertising spenders on television, four are within the mobile games space. Together, those companies spent more than $130 million in the first quarter of this year. The top three were King, Machine Zone, and Supercell and their spending made up 30 percent of the entire video games category ad spend on television.

This spending on advertising for mobile games on TV outpaces that of the established console giants.

TV Advertising - Mobile GamesIn fact, those smaller mobile gaming companies didn’t just spend more than Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox, but they also spent a larger amount than the game manufacturers for those consoles, including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and 2K.

Speculation in the industry has suggested that the reason for this trend is due to the shifts occurring within the video game industry as a whole. In 2014, console manufacturers had still been holding the lead position in terms of spending within the video game category. The reason was that Microsoft and Sony were trying to give an explosive launch to their new generation devices (Xbox One and PlayStation 4). The combined spending of those two companies made up 36 percent of the entire category. However, during the same period this year, the combined spending of those brands represented only about 10 percent of the category.

While the first quarter of the year is typically a rather slow one when it comes to console game advertising, as they will usually spend the largest amount of money during the fourth quarter when they release their biggest titles, this doesn’t change the fact that publishers of mobile games are spending a larger amount now than they ever have before on television advertising.