The CEO Game

Twitter watch out, Facebook beware? After Facebook has announced on a mail service, searching giant Google has announced tonight (Tuesday) on a new media sharing service and status updating platform named “Buzz”: which will transform Gmail to a social network that will compete with the large social networks. Following today’s earlier reports, Google held a press conference tonight which was broadcasted on YouTube, Google’s very own video site. The new out bursting service Buzz, will be an “entire separate world inside Gmail” according to Tod Jackson, the product manager.

Go search for your friends in Google. The goal of the new service is to allow sharing friends with links, RSS feeds, media content such as Picasa’s galleries or YouTube clips, addresses books and to allow status updates as well, just like in Twitter. Buzz will be mobile friendly and even support the iPhone and it’s URL is buzz.google.com.

Anytime Anywhere. Those mobile users will also be able to inform Buzz of their Geographic whereabouts, and therefore not only update what’s going on but where. The social network will also be available as a new GIS layer in Google’s maps service, Google Earth.

Security and Privacy. Google promises to advanced and easy security settings and moreover privacy settings such as blocking user from watching your updates, and removing them from the loop, the friend update list. Of course you will be able to watch the updates of other users who aren’t your friends, but have made their updates and statuses public.

Google has also announced future plans to create an enterprise version of Buzz which will be designated for inner organization communication. The company said that Gmail users, will soon start seeing the social network’s features in their mailboxes, while other users will be able to get more information from the site which will launch soon.

In Conclusion Google’s new Buzz, will definitely fuel the raging feud amongst the social networks and it might just be the next big thing. It sounds promising and definitely something to watch out for especially when Google says the next step is “to dial Buzz”.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

The first of two articles on the products of Tycoon Systems: IndustryPlayer and IndustryMasters. Both are online business games which join together light entertainment of multiplayer gaming with educational purposes.

Industry Masters.

IndustryMasters is an online, multiplayer, business strategy game, brought to you by Tycoon Masters, a Brazilian business education software firm and is intended to replicate real world economy. This business game first saw light in 2007, subsequent to Tycoon Masters’ additional simulation game IndustryPlayer which was launched in August 2006. In IndustryMasters, players assume the role of a company’s CEO and battle one another in real time for profit and in order to rule the market and have the highest share price. Generally, the concept behind the game is allowing the players to experience the results of their actions in this real-like situation of ongoing financial strive.

The novice CEOs (and maybe next-generation executives) who consist of business and engineering students, corporates’ trainees and amateur users; engage at running their company and must deal with all the aspects of their corporations’ business including planning strategy, financial investments, product branding, pricing, quality assurance, research and development, HR and even ecology. The game contains approximately 250 industries which are divided into 16 categories. The goal is to constantly increase the share price by making smart investments. Each week a new tournament begins, where you start out as a low level manager and get promoted with time. With each promotion the challenge and rewards gradually increase as well. The tournament consists of 100 participants hourly rounds, which represent sixty business months. Therefore, each month is one minute of game time, which in the end of – scores and market data are automatically updated. The players can play individually or group up and in the end can get analysis on their performance.

The game is available in few editions customized for different usages:

• Single User Simulations – Self paced study while competing with specific business scenarios.
• Real Time Simulations – The public RTS where you compete with players worldwide.
• Simulation Workshops – Single seminary class, lasting 1 – 2 hours, for 10-50 players.
• Simulation Seminars – A longer comprehensive 2 days simulation.
• Competitions Events -The game also provides a solution for extensive business competitions and events.

Since the game was first released in 2007, it continually grows and has expanded to Facebook, the widely renowned social network, where it has nearly 3500 active monthly users. Here in the CEO Game we tackle relatively similar issues to the ones IndustryMasters deals with, with micro and macroeconomics concepts such as product life cycle, economies of scope and scale, benchmarking and much more. Moreover, we strongly believe in creating and providing a real world business environment, influenced by day-by-day events and trends, thus creating a new, addictive, easy to learn, fun to master challenging simulation which will help predict and maneuver the global economic markets.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.