Games2Win’s Crapster among Top 5 Orkut applications

After the success of Slapster, Games2Win.com (G2W) recently launched a new Orkut application – Crapster. At 9 pm on July 8, Crapster was listed fourth on the popularity scale among Orkut applications.Crapster is the Social Networking Site (SNS) version of an existing G2W game called Dungfoo Donkey. It took the entire G2W team two weeks to complete Crapster.Games2win Founder and CEO Alok Kejriwal said, “With Slapster’s success, we recognized that users enjoy a bit of spunk, wit and cheekiness. Most of our games are a bit naughty too, and manage to make users laugh as they play.” Remarking on Crapster’s quick success, he added, “Crapster gives users a unique and cheeky way to interact with their friends. It’s an engaging yet light-hearted platform. Users these days don’t take each other too seriously and love to laugh - Crapster allows them to do just that.”Alok further said that very soon G2W applications will be on an array of SNS sites such as Hi-Fi, MySpace, Bebo and Friendster.About the challenges faced while creating Crapster, Alok commented, “Every project is a challenge in that it needs to appeal to our users. Be it in terms of concept, simplicity in usage, level of interaction - the fate of the application lies in the hands of our consumers. We need to understand what users are looking for and deliver just that. Therefore the real challenge begins once we are live. It’s all about the reaction of users, and not so much the action of creating an application.”The next application, he promised, is sure to be just as innovative and unique and will be unveiled soon. G2W creates up to eight new games each month on Games2Win.com and soon plans to double this number. “Our SNS applications have proven to be a big hit and we will continue making our presence felt in this space by exploring more SNS platforms and creating new applications, thus allowing users to interact with each other in a unique G2W way. Our ultimate aim is to deliver one new game each day for users,” Alok concluded. Slapster, G2W's first Orkut application is currently leading in terms of popularity.

Be a web designer? Here’s how!

In today’s e-age, web designers are in great demand. Designing an attractive interface is indeed a challenging task, as it requires technical proficiency as well as a creative bent.Job profileAccording to Maharshi Vyas, a freelance web designer, “The job of a web designer is to arrange images, text and forms in an aesthetic form, using designing tools.” Explaining this further, Chaitanya Krishnan, web designer, Flip Design, says, “Web design used to be quite similar to other design areas like print and publishing design. In fact, a lot of present-day web designers initially came from a background of print design. However, with newer technologies and websites becoming much more dynamic, this is not true anymore. Today a web designer has to be able to visualize a lot of other things when designing a website: animation, dynamic content structures, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), etc.” According to Krishnan, the job entails designing for all kinds of websites:- Sites that have static content, but are visually dynamic: Typically these sites have no more than 6 to 10 pages. The content stays the same, but through the use of Flash and DHTML/ XHTML one gets a rich/ fun experience.- Sites that have dynamic content (Content Management System (CMS) driven): Social networking sites are a classic example where the content of the site is always changing as users keep adding content.Options galoreAccording to Vyas, “Nowadays, many IT companies hire web designers who can develop websites and presentations for them.” Krishnan says, “You can get plenty of jobs at design firms these days as firms have now started realizing that there is more to communication design than just print and retail design - which is what many of the old companies have been doing for the past decades. IT companies also hire web designers to supplement their programming workforce.”Pre-requisitesThere are many paths that an aspiring web designer can take. Krishnan offers, “There are design schools that offer courses in communication design that have branches/ modules for web designing built into the course. A web design course is not to be confused with a web development course. The latter deals with the programming aspects of the website and is a different yet equally important field in itself. Web design is to do with the look and feel of the site. It also deals with other fundamental aspects of the site like the interactive experience of the user, communication requirements of the clients, etc. Web development/ programming deals with the backend of the site: the HTML, scripting, CMS system, etc. A good web design course will typically train you in the basics of design: colour theory, typography, form and space, etc. And then you study the implications of the digital medium on these concepts. Web animation and web game development are also usually part of the course.”Apart from doing a course from a reputed institute, “A web designer should have good aesthetic sense. He or she should be a good observer and have sufficient knowledge of colours,” adds Vyas. Krishnan avers, “A successful web designer should have mastered all the basics of design. He should have at least rudimentary knowledge of the backend technology. He should update himself with new emerging trends and technologies.”RemunerationStarting salaries range from Rs. 8000 to Rs. 10,000 per month. Nevertheless, with some amount of experience, you can easily go up to Rs. 30,000 per month.Future prospects“The field is developing in various areas. A web designer can also branch out into Internet marketing,” affirms Vyas. Krishnan enthuses, “The field is always reinventing itself. Every year there is something new - CSS, Ajax…and that’s just the tech aspect. As people’s tastes and demands change, the process of designing a website also adapts to them. Web designers are lucky to be in a field that is always in a state of flux. It can be challenging at times, but this field is for those who can’t imagine doing the same thing day in and day out.” - Excerpt from an article in Education Times, The Times of India

Aptech to open Animation Academy in Brazil

Aptech Global Learning Solutions will open its first animation training Academy in Brazil in May 2008. “The centre in Brazil will start functioning within three weeks. We have decided to open 35 new centres in countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Russia and Vietnam this year. These centres will be a combination of Arena Animation Academy and Aptech Computer Education training institutes,” shares Aptech executive director R. Krishnan.“We will also be expanding nationally. New centres will be opened this year at Cuttack, Rourkela, Bhubaneswar, Durgapur, Guwahati and Dibrugarh,” he further adds.The course content for the two Academies is also going to change from May. With animation and computer training institutes mushrooming everywhere, Aptech is focusing on how students can get better jobs. Hence, some new modules and methodologies will be introduced.“We have introduced a specialised demo reel-making module in the syllabus this year. Earlier, the demo reel was just a part of the curriculum. Now this demo reel will act as the portfolio of a student,” Krishnan concludes.