Long dismissed as the sanctuary of the adolescent fanboy, online games - or more specifically, online casual games - are becoming the domain of a new demographic:  WOMEN!  According to the Casual Games Association, over 150 million women love to play online casual games every day, and of those millions of women, over 2/3rds are over 35 years of age.

On Wednesday, July 23rd, Kathy will lead a focus group panel of six Seattle-area women over 35 who love to play games.  They’ll be on stage to share the reasons they play, what they play, who they play with, and what they’re looking for.  Check back for more insights after our panel.

The Games Women Play will be on stage at 11AM as Casual Connect Seattle, Triple Door Auditorium, Benaroya Hall.

It’s a busy news day for us here. Today, Graspr announced their Series A funding from DFJ as well as the unveiling of their syndication platform. ReQall has developed the only online native application in the Apple store that combines both voice and data. By simply shaking your iPhone, reQall will jog your memory. And King has launched an online skill game version of Cake Mania 2. Check out our News section for coverage.

Dimdim, a free, open-source web meeting service, today announced they have raised $6 million from existing investors Index Capital, Draper Richards, and Nexus India Capital.  Not only have they successfully attracted more money, but they have also attracted more than 500,000 users in more than 180 countries, in the 10 months they’ve existed.  Sounds like there are a lot of people fed-up with the inconvenient download required for costly services like WebEx.  As DD Ganguly, CEO and Dimdim proclaimed when he first unveiled Dimdim at DEMO, “WebEx is history!”  Looks like that prediction is gaining some traction.

I just couldn’t help but share this news as I’m so excited… I’ve just been informed that this painting has won me a spot in the Tiburon Arts Festival this year, which was juried by the curator at the SF MOMA and the curator of the Oakland Museum of California. I tried submitting a painting to the festival last year, but didn’t make it in so I’m truly elated that I made it through this year. The event will take place August 23-24 in Tiburon. Between now and then we’ll have to figure out our own PR plan to get the word out about my portfolio at the festival. I’ll also have to get back to the drawing board, literally, and produce a few more paintings in preparation for my first showing.

The reason I did this painting is because my friend Vic Keegan and I decided we should be more artistic and given he’s a journalist, he thought we should set a deadline for ourselves so we wouldn’t miss our assignment. For two years now, we’ve regularly met or Flickr’d our paintings which revolve around a theme we choose. You can see the evolution of our Deadline Painting Group here. You can also see my paintings here.

This particular painting was inspired by a photo taken by Thomas Hawk. It’s a wonderful story that is inspiring and motivating. Please check it out… http://thomashawk.com/2008/04/story-behind-photograph.html

reQall has been in the media spotlight including a review by David Pogue of the New York Times, being named a start-up to watch by MIT Technology Review, and being featured in the Webscape segment of the BBC’s premier technology program, Click.  Congratulations to the reQall team for helping us all make our lives a little bit easier by giving us a back-up brain.  Something we could all use (especially me).

Raph Koster, Dominic, Lane Hartwell, and me

Originally uploaded by kathyjohnson

This week we attended Supernova to hear some of our clients speak at the conference including Raph Koster of Metaplace, pictured here with Dominic, Lane Hartwell and myself. Following the session, we hit the sweltering streets of San Francisco for a photoshoot featuring Raph (hence the big silver reflector that Dominic is holding). Raph is one of those enviable guys that is incredibly smart, refreshingly down to earth, and extremely talented as well (he’s a composer, musician, poet and artist). With all that in one package, you know that when Metaplace launches, it will be something special.

Danny Bonaduce talks about coComment on CNN Showbiz Tonight

Originally uploaded by kathyjohnson

Danny Bonaduce (remember him from the Partridge Family) was just on CNN Showbiz Tonight and talked about how he uses coComment. Essentially, coComment allows him to remember all the places where he’s left comments (on websites) and he can also see who has commented on his comments. To put it another way - in real life, we make a statement about something, usually somebody else responds, and then we respond.. hence, a conversation. In the Internet, these exchanges are usually staccato - we make a comment, and then that’s it. We don’t know when somebody else writes a response or if the conversation sparks a life of it’s own. coComment solves this problem by bringing all these pieces together - just like a real life conversation. And for an opinionated guy like Danny Bonaduce (also a DJ on 97.1FM), keeping track of his conversations is a pretty important aspect of his job.

Also this week, Chris Nuttall of the Financial Times explored the rise of the commenter in his article, “Comment is freed from the blog stockade.”

The second part of the interview with Ivy Brain’s Reena Jadhav appeared today giving you tips and hints to make it in the major newspapers, how to maximize social media, and the story behind the newest buzzword, premature e-launchulation.

Here again are some of those free PR distribution links:
PR Urgent
Live-PR
PR Inside
Pressbox UK
Clickpress
UK PR Wire
US PR Wire

Congratulations to NileGuide for raising $8M since their launch on April 28th, bringing them to over $10.5M in total. The Series B investment was led by Austin Ventures and includes Lehman Brothers, Draper Richards and KPG Ventures. This is a significant validation of both the category and the company, as NileGuide is now the most well-funded travel planning site in existence.

While the experience of travel is sometimes a headache given exorbitant fuel prices, crowded planes, and long security lines, the experience of planning your trip should be easy and fun… just as your trip should be. By gaining insight from local experts, you can travel like a local and discover new points of interest to share with your friends, family and colleagues. Just in time for the summer holiday season!