A group of former Halo, Halo 2 and Halo 3 developers have created a hybrid online porta that’s part Facebook, part YouTube and part flaming ninjas wrapped in bacon. Called Fyreball, the site lets users quickly combine videos, pictures, games, gossip, news and text into a single “Fyreball,” which they can send to their friends and social networks.
Fyreball’s technology automatically upscales code for videos, games, and other rich media, allowing the recipients of a Fyreball to view everything directly within that Fyreball’s page, getting rid of the need to click on several links.
Of course, this stickiness also means that Fyreball’s founders, including former Bungie Studios head Pete Parsons, get to capture more revenue from Fyreball users.
DailyGame has been in the Fyreball beta for the past several weeks, and the technology is rather simple. Users must install a tool/expansion into their Web browser, which lets them create a “fyreball” of whatever Web page or online content they’re viewing at that time. From there, the fyreball software lets users determine which friends should receive the fyreball.
In addition to CEO Pete Parsons, who headed up Halo 2 and Halo 3 at Bungie, other Fyreball founders include chief technical officer Michael Evans, who was lead engineer on Halo 2 and Oni and the multiplayer lead on Halo, and production director Michel Bastien, the former lead producer of Halo 3.
Fyreball users choose how they want to receive content (through the Fyreball network, through the Fyreball Facebook application, direct to email or via IM) and from whom they wish to receive Fyreballs. As Fyreballs “bounce” from one friend to another, the application lets users see who sent it and watch where the message is going.
