OnLive Adds Group Voice Chat, Parental Controls And Facebook Achievement Sharing

Cloud gaming service OnLive has been getting better and better. We had a blast checking out the OnLive booth at E3 this year, and you better believe the service’s usage will have gone up since GameStop inadvertently gave OnLive a ton of great publicity yesterday. But OnLive isn’t resting on its laurels, as new features are rolling out today.

The first on our list is Parental Controls, which is kind of a necessity on just about any gaming platform. Where there are games, there is gruesome, violent, and profane content. Definitely not suitable for small kids. Parents can now set certain restrictions on the account to block M-rated games, chatting with strangers, Brag Clips, or spectating.

OnLive has also introduced a beta version of Group Voice Chat. Before today, OnLive already had a strong social element with its Game chat (for multiplayer sessions) and Spectator chat (for people watching others play). Group voice chat will let you chat with friends whether they’re playing, watching or picking their nose. Even in beta, the Group chat feature should work fine on all of OnLive’s supported devices.

And rounding out our new feature line-up: yet another opportunity for you to brag on Facebook. OnLive has today integrated Facebook achievement sharing, which automatically posts any game achievement direct to Facebook. OnLive has already been doing this with Brag Clips, which are little videos of certain stellar moves or big-time wins you’ve done within a game. If it just so happens that your game has Brag Clip Achievement configured, the achievement will get blasted out to Facebook alongside a Brag Clip, so your friends have proof of your ability to dominate.

OnLive says these newest features are the product of customer requests, and that they’re far from the last. So if you’re an OnLive junkie and have a great idea to make the platform better, ask and ye might receive. No harm in trying, right?

Onlive develops server-based video game processing, allowing games to run without game consoles or high-end computers, moving away from a system in which games are purchased and downloaded….

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Another Kick in the Face for MySpace: Facebook Moves Into the Music Biz

By Lucas Shaw at TheWrap

Fri Aug 26, 2011 7:57am EDT

Facebook seems to be sticking it to MySpace again.

When Facebook nudged MySpace out as the social-media leader, it left the latter site with one strong suit: music. Indeed, as recently as this week, Al Dejewski, MySpace’s senior vice president of global marketing, informed AdAge that the site will increase its focus on music — attempting to compete with iTunes and Spotifys of the world, even bringing on Justin Timberlake with an office and a staff of six

Well if MySpace wants to enter business against Spotify and Pandora, it may have a problem.

Now it appears Facebook wants to go into business with those services.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company sent out invites Thursday to its annual developer conference, to be held Sept. 22 in San Francisco. It’s promised that there will be new product announcements, leading bloggers to speculate about what those might be.

Near the top of the list is a music dashboard, potentially featuring services like Spotify, Pandora and Last.fm.

The idea is that users would be able to stream music, share it and see what friends are listening to as well.

Considering Spotify’s recent U.S. launch and Pandora’s good-but-not-great earnings report Thursday, this could give a big boost to both companies if sales for their subscriptions services increase

Yet the real winner may be the music industry, which could earn another avenue for selling songs.

Then there is Facebook itself. The more initiatives like this, the more it becomes a dominant marketplace for goods of all sorts and the more ad revenue trickles in.

How does this all compare to MySpace’s plan? 

There are no specifics yet, just a rash of stories about MySpace seeking to become a “destination” for music. Having Timberlake aboard should help, as could any number of other famous endorsements.

However, wouldn’t a major Facebook music initative trump anything MySpace can offer? It seems like this is the new social media titan ensuring its progenitor can’t get up off the mat.

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