—Tapulous rolls out Riddim Ribbon game: Tapulous, the maker of the popular music-based iPhone games, like Tap Tap Revenge, has launched its latest creation—Riddim Ribbon. The game, which is now available in the iTunes app store, lets users create their own unique mixes to hot tracks while they race down down a track. The track is really “a crazy ribbon,” in which users must pick up pebbles, and choose various forks in the road, land jumps and avoid obstacles.The co-producer of the game is The Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am. Songs in the game include The Black Eyed Peas hits: Boom Boom Pow, I Gotta Feeling, and Meet Me Halfway. The app costs $3, and each additional level is 99 cents.
—Loopt goes hyper-local for ads: Location-based mobile social networking service, Loopt, has started to integrate local advertising into its mobile service that allow users to receive offers, coupons and discounts at a neighborhood level. The service is being powered by a company called Mobile Spinach, and will be limited to San Francisco at first with Los Angeles and New York coming in months. An example is an ad for Blowfish Sushi, a San Francisco Sushi restaurant, which is offering one of their signature rolls for free. No word on whether the ads will conflict with a new Apple policy, which states that if an ad is served based on a user’s location it must serve a “beneficial” purpose.
—Social media iPhone app for skiers: Digital agency Phonevalley has created a social media app for the iPhone that it claims is the first dedicated to the European skiing community. Ski Challenge – Prove it, features 3D maps and guides for 45 European resorts. It lets users record and share tricks, publish geo-localized photos and videos on those 3D maps (or send them to Facebook), and send messages to other skiers. Users can also record their runs and chart them with other stats like alitude, distance and speed. The free app, which is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, is sponsored by Nissan.