Socialbomb: Turning Social Athleticism into a 24/7 Affair
By the time children reach middle school, the socially-blessed ones rule the roost, while those who are shy, misanthropic, or otherwise deemed inferior get relegated to shabbier perches. Online social networks have successfully replicated these social hierarchies online. Now, SocialBomb, a startup out of NYU, is taking things a step further, leveraging both online and real-life relationships to develop mobile games that can amplify who's on top -- and who's not. “Runway Victim,” for example, awards or punishes players based on how their peers vote on the way they’ve dressed in their social network snapshots. According to an SEC filing, SocialBomb has already raised $240,000 of a $350,000 round. It's not clear if First Round Capital is an investor, but principal Kent Goldman (Yahoo's former director of corporate development at Yahoo) is named in the filing. The company also isn't unveiling its full slate of games yet; its site says they’re coming in the fall. But the very first game of SocialBomb -- which won NYU’s Stern Business Plan Competition last spring -- worked like this:
