Talk to people about online casual games and you inevitably end up talking about creativity. How beautifully designed / surreal / different / surprising / mindbendingly frustrating / just plain addicting a particular game format is, whether it's Doodlejump on iPhone or Bejewelled on PC.

When you are growing a business focus is a word that keeps coming up. It's easy with hindsight but in practice it can be difficult to distiguish between focus, missed opportunity and derisking your business. It is particularly confusing in a sector which is growing fast, hit driven and where people are making money several different ways. Online casual games is just such a sector.

Simplicity continues to matter greatly in website and mobile phone application design. People make split second judgments when they land on a site. They experience it first as a single "gestalt" view i.e. they see one whole picture in itself before any processing of individual elements takes place. Too many elements without any obvious design hierarchy and many people simply won't give it the time before bouncing off again.

What's that old adage, that if it looks too good to be true then it probably is? In most cases I would agree with that but if you are looking to launch an ecommerce or online publishing business then the choice between open source solutions and other proprietary licensed platforms is increasingly becoming a no brainer.