Amazon Appstore & Rovio Mobile fail

Amazon today launched their Android Appstore, giving away a free copy of Rovio's latest Angry Birds: Rio game to customers for the first 24 hours. But unfortunately for Android users elsewhere, Amazon has geographical restrictions in place meaning the Appstore would not work for anyone outside the US. Not only that, within less than an hour after launching, Amazon yanked the Appstore and the promotional landing page for Angry Birds: Rio.

This isn't the first launch failure of an Angry Birds game by Rovio Mobile. The original Angry Birds was launched on Getjar who were unable to anticipate the demand on its servers.

So the question for Rovio Mobile is, with a high profile new game to launch, why did they decide to stick the game on an unproven application store when Android Market, available on almost all Android phones, works just fine?

Win an Angry Bird!

Hei it's Chinese New Year! Quick competition. Correctly guess how many Angry Birds are there in this bag on the right and you will win a bird. Only one guess per person. If more than one correctly guessed the same, the first person to do so wins. Simples. Good luck.

Ends mid day tomorrow (4 February 2011, 12pm GMT).

PS: Leave a twitter handle or something so I know who you are. Cheers.

Angry Birds Day London event

Last weekend was the first anniversary of the hit mobile puzzle game. To celebrate, Rovio Mobile, the Finnish based developer behind the game urges the fans of the game to celebrate by organising flashmobs around the world dubbed 'Angry Birds Day'.

We at #LeStudio52 has been thinking for a while on organising an Angry Birds competition using large screen, so when Rovio suggested this we immediately ceased the opportunity to turn the London event into the most memorable. We had the backing of Nokia as the main partner. Rovio also sent toys to be distributed to people attending the flashmob. Other partners includes Chillingo (the publisher of Angry Birds on iOS), Powermat and Spreadshirt.

We were divided into three groups, and we instructed to meet at 1pm at the respective meeting point. The idea was to meet up at different pubs, and have the participants of the flashmob meet up by 'finding the bird'. I was leading the group (that includes Chillingo) at The Nags Head on St James Street near Covent Garden tube station. Everyone who spotted me and my Angry Bird, got an Angry Birds plush toy.

The flashmob began at 2pm sharp on Covent Garden. After walking around the parameter of the famous market, we were stopped by security who insisted we leaved the borough, but we were allowed to continue our 'protest' on the bordering neighbour of Westminster Borough. The flashmob grew bigger as people started following us, and others caught up. We stopped outside the Zimbabwe Embassy and had a brief chat with the protesters outside. Eventually we arrived at Trafalgar Square, despite being previously warned by the authorities not to 'protest' there.

The flashmob was coming to an end, but then I shouted that we should head down to Parliament Square. Well we didn't quite make it to the former now none-Democracy Village, but we did stop outside the Horse Guards Parade and were allowed by security outside Downing Street for a quick photo stop.

The post flashmob event was held at the Northumberland a short walk from Trafalgar Square. There we held competitions, the top prize being a Nokia N8 generously donated by Nokia. Other prizes includes capacitive gloves, Powermat wireless charger and Angry Birds t-shirts.

The final consisted of a face off between Richard who won the 'most points' in Angry Birds level-5 competition and Ollie, who bested everyone by getting through six levels in the trial Angry Birds quickest (1.32 minutes). Ollie won the big prize (the Nokia N8) by hitting Richard three times using the Angry Birds plush toy.

Big thanks to Julien, the main brain behind the event, the people at Rovio and Nokia for supporting the event, 1000heads and WOMWorldNokia, Jenni and Abul from #LeStudio52, Lee for helping out with me in judging the competition and all the volunteers who made it happen (Alexa, Scott, Gareth - apologies if I forgot anybody else).

Angry Birds is available on iOS, Android, Symbian, Maemo 5 and WebOS, and soon to be available on PSP, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

More pictures here

Angry Birds Day in London

Hit mobile puzzle game Angry Birds is almost a years old. To celebrate, we at #LeStudio52 and Rovio Mobile are organising the biggest meetup in London. Flashmob, a large event and an after party at a swanky club - we've got it covered. We've even got coverage on Metro already and now. We are currently targetting about 1000 people for the flashmob so make sure you sign up today. Perhaps we can even unlock some very special Foursquare badges. ;)

Follow us on twitter @lestudio52 for the latest updates on Angry Birds day in London.