Zynga has a variety of open source HTML5 projects in GitHub along with several new HTML5 game releases, including Words With Friends and Zynga Poker Mobile Web. As many Web-based game developers will tell you, those are not easy to create. See below for our interview with Bakaus and what Zynga is doing to move the HTML5 spec and ecosystem forward.

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Zynga’s HTML5 Products

There are now four HTML5-based Zynga games on the market: Words With Friends, FarmVille Express, Zynga Poker Mobile Web and CityVille Express. These games deliver load times comparable to native apps and, “utilize HTML5 tools such as WebSockets and CSS3 to deliver a seamless gaming experience and create fluid animations without slowing down game-play,” according to the company.

But there is more to Zynga’s contributions to HTML5 than just games. Its open source repository includes the Zynga Jukebox that helps game developers deal with the multi-layer audio limitations of HTML5 along with the Zynga Viewporter that has an essence of responsive design to it, fitting apps to the browsers they are in. One of the biggest problems, as Bakaus describes below, in HTML5 is seamless scrolling. The Zynga Scroller aims to eliminate that problem. Everybody talks about the great native scrolling in apps like Path. Bakaus hopes to give HTML5 the same capability.

Check out our interview with Bakaus below.

On background

A little bit about my background. I’m actually a developer myself. I started as a UI developer and back then we specialized in JavaScriot and UI and many years ago I joined the jQuery team, one of my first gigs, and became the creator of jQuery UI. So back then John Resig asked me if I could build the UI for jQuery. Started jQuery UI got a lot of notice from jQuery UI and started learning how JavaScript works and how people use elements on the Web and how to drive it with a reasonable performance. I then moved on to consumer projects in Japan to transform Flash applications to JavaScript and finally I started Dextrose in 2010 with a friend of mine for the purpose of creating HTML5 games.

Back then we were looking for the creation of a full blown HTML5 game community and realized that the tech was there but it wasn’t any shared tech build so we started building an HTML5 engine prototype that was called Aves Engine that would really show the world what we could do with HTML5. We put up YouTube videos and I was talking at conferences about it and really made a lot of impact back then as really the first (tie)-based HTML5 engine that would show what they Web could still offer in the future.

Later that year Zynga acquired us to work on the full blown product. So, we threw away our prototype and started from scratch for the real solution for game systems to use. So, now when we are in a place where we have built up our development studio here in Germany that focuses on delivering HTML5 tech for the whole company and we are producing tech of the future here. It is a lot of research and a lot of fun as well.

A lot of challenges of course but right now we are really at a point where we have a full blown engine. We started it in house and what we can do is super exciting and let’s hope that we can get out a lot of what we are doing here soon.

Zynga’s philosophy on HTML5

Every decision we make on tech is really to connect people through our games. So, we are really want to bring our games to anywhere our players are. I think there is not a conscious decision for one tech or another, it is really what can deliver the job best. At this point we really are looking at HTML5 to drive a lot of this because HTML5 gives us a lot of advantages that native and Flash programs just cannot give us. The cross-platform aspect of it, bringing the game to many people on different platforms is really what is killing it for us.

Also, usually you would have to port an existing game that runs on Web and native to smartphones and tablets and maybe something else as well. We don’t have to do with that HTML5 and that is super exciting.

Limitations of HTML5 for games

There are a couple of limitations, to be honest. There are certainly sound issues. Sound is still a trouble for many game devs. One of the things that I don’t recommend doing right now because it is just a matter of market share is going for WebGL. So, actual 3-D games have proved complicated at this point and it is also because the WebGL spec isn’t completely reading for consumption at this point, I think. Other than that I think today, even though there are some rough edges with the HTML5 spec because it wasn’t really created with games in mind, I think it is the right time now to start doing games. I don’t think anyone should stop building games right now or being kept up by people who say HTML5 is not ready. I think, you know, if you look back to the [1980s] when people were first creating games for the Atari and Commodore 64, we got so much less possibilities back then and people were really creative in creating games. There is so much more we can do already in HTML5 and I think the only thing left is developers jumping on it and trying not to be scared away. I think now is the time to build games.

What is keeping developers from embracing HTML5 right now?

I think there are a couple of reasons. One of them is for classical game engineers to jump on the open web stack might prove a little bit difficult because it is a completely different environment. Before, if you have been working on an XBox game for instance, there wouldn’t be any resolution difference or platform differences. There would be any cross platform code you would have to write. Writing a completely different code, not writing event-driven code like you would do with JavaScript. It is simply a very different mindset to start with.

Another big reason is that HTML5 wasn’t created with games in mind. HTML itself is really a presentational language originally meant to do documents. That is one of the things we are doing now as well, to actively work with the vendors in the W3C to work with game engineers and push for the spec in terms of game development. I think a lot of people are still scared by the fact that it is not a language that was created for game. I think that is mostly the reason.

Next page: Bakaus talks about the HTML5 ecosystem, is questioned on Zynga and/or Facebook app stores and when HTML5 games will hit an inflection point of popularity.

]]> http://www.seofacts.biz/interview-how-zynga-is-transforming-games-with-html5/feed/ 0 http://www.seofacts.biz/exclusive-interview-with-inside-apples-adam-lashinsky-video/ http://www.seofacts.biz/exclusive-interview-with-inside-apples-adam-lashinsky-video/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:55:34 +0000 admin http://www.seofacts.biz/exclusive-interview-with-inside-apples-adam-lashinsky-video/ On Friday, February 3, at the lovely Delancey St. Theater in San Francisco, ReadWriteWeb and our new home company, SAY Media, co-hosted a release party for Adam Lashinsky’s new book, Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired – And Secretive – Company Really Works. It was our first joint event since we joined SAY in December. RWW and SAY are working together to figure out the future of media, so a gathering to discuss a book about Apple was a great place to start.

Apple lives at the center of the worldwide technological transformation that’s underway, and Lashinsky’s new book sheds light on how the enigmatic company works. It profiles Apple’s leaders and their various styles and talents, it describes how the organization is woven around them, and it tells the stories of Apple insiders and outsiders at all levels.

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I got to sit down with Lashinsky for an interview about the book before MC David Richter opened it up to the whole audience. Our conversation touched on three aspects of Apple that tie the book together: the culture, the leaders and the products.

Lashinsky reveals many telling facts and anecdotes about Apple’s culture in the book. We discussed whether Apple’s obsession and perfectionism are creepy, and to what extent this is driven by the personalities of its leaders.

We considered the extreme secrecy imposed on Apple’s lower ranks and what effects that has on morale and the quality of work. We also thought about Apple’s unique sense of timing, taste and presentation that make it such a phenomenon in the culture at large.

Apple’s organization is centrally controlled by a closed group of leaders, and I asked Lashinsky about the importance of their personalities in the way the company operates. We discussed the extent to which Steve Jobs’ legacy shaped the culture and whether those shapes will hold after his passing.

Then we talked about Tim Cook’s new and starkly different style as CEO. Lashinsky has also referred to SVP of iOS Software Scott Forstall as a “CEO-in-waiting,” and the book points to the contrast between him and Cook as one of the upcoming dramas in Apple’s next chapter.

Finally, we looked at the products, the part of the company where Apple meets the public. We discussed the powerful influence of Jobs’ last products and how we’ll have to wait for the ones that come after him to see the real face of a post-Jobs Apple.

I found our conversation illuminating, and the whole evening was a lot of fun. Here’s the full video of my interview with Adam Lashinsky:

All photos and video by the excellent team at SAY Media

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During our interview, we spoke about his experience with the NewMe Accelerator, building a start-up in Silicon Valley as an African-American, the Michael Arrington/Soledad O’Brien situation, and how AisleFinder came to be.

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What got you interested in creating a company like AisleFinder?

My very first job was in a supermarket, and I learned a lot. I had the chance to see a lot of pain that the customer was having was centered around finding things.

Fast Forward to 2008, and I saw that pain was not alleviated by an app or website or any type of technology, and when I experienced that same pain, I started down the path of developing AisleFinder. I researched and had seen that a lot of people have tried this in the past, and gave up. I was determined to take it farther and I did. 3000+ stores later and here we are.

How has the feedback from users been?

So far so good, lots of great suggestions that we can really use. Our main goal is to simplify, and not add a ton of features that people don’t really care about.

How was your experience with the NewMe Accelerator, and has it been beneficial to the growth of AisleFinder?

I feel as though I really took advantage of that opportunity. After we wrapped, I just have been non-stop hustling to put my product in more heads and hands. I feel as though I have a stronger network of resources to pull from. I also got a chance to see that focus, and confidence is really the difference, that’s why lots of investors are interested in you as an entrepreneur, as well as your company.

Execution is the only currency, you did it, someone else didn’t. There are always people saying “I had the idea for [insert hot startup here]. Not enough saying “I built it.”

You have just launched an Android app. How was your experience working on Android compared to iOS, and can we expect a Windows Phone app?

You have to like them both, however as a developer and designer, I find that with Android there are a lot of great features and sensors integrated from the beginning, that iOS is just now taking advantage of.

I have had an Android for the past year, and I have been using voice to set appointments, find directions, send emails, text messages and the like. To me and probably a whole lot of Android users, when Siri got announced , there was no real thrill to go iOS just for that.

As a former Microsoft employee, I love Microsoft (AisleFinder is built with ASP.Net, also AisleFinder is a Microsoft BizSpark grad), however we don’t have any plans right now until things really heat up.

Back in November, Google announced that it would map indoor areas. What kind of effect did this have on AisleFinder, and did it change, or force you to speed up any of your plans for the company?

When we pitched to David Krane from Google Ventures at the NewMe opening, he noted that “We spend all this time mapping the outside world, it’s great to see that someone is doing the inside to take make our experiences much richer.” At AisleFinder, we love the fact that Google is the best at this, however we see ourselves as more of a license partner for this effort; if it comes to full fruition, much the same way that Google licenses images from their satellite view from mapping and cartography partners like NASA, MapJack.

This is also a very difficult thing to do when it comes to supermarkets because you are essentially dealing with aisles and “Walls” of brands, that may not want their placement on shelves to be revealed. (The grocery industry is very secretive this way.) Google has some really great stitching and blurring, however there is not much value if the users cannot see what’s on the shelves.

How often do you expand to new stores and areas?

We are averaging around 20 to 50 new stores a month.

In light of the Michael Arrington/Soledad O’Brien situation a couple of months ago, as an African-American entrepreneur, do you believe Silicon Valley is a meritocracy?

If it was simple everyone would be doing it.

I feel partly that this whole meritocracy talk provides one more excuse for black entrepreneurs to not try hard. We all have challenges, our history as black people in America has proven in order to get the attention we deserve, we must be stellar, innovative and out-work anyone else.

The people who are working the hardest don’t have the time to complain about stuff like that. Look at Soledad, do you think she got where she is because she just showed up to work? No way, she had a goal, and set about doing it. Michael, as well could have stayed an attorney. But he had something else in mind and stuck with it all the way, even when it wasn’t profitable.

It’s all about what you have done, not what you say, or hear, or want to do. Done is gold. When I penetrate those circles, I feel as though I have done something noteworthy, I also know that there is a hard ceiling to break through.

Where do you expect AisleFinder to be a year from now?

I expect us to continue simplifying our apps across the board, and adding more stores and places that people are shopping, and offering the ability to get a great set of data at a reasonable price.

Curtiss Pope photo by Adria Richards

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