Zynga and NewSchools Venture Fund create accelerator for educational gaming startups
Zynga is partnering with NewSchools Venture Fund to launch an accelerator program for educational gaming startups. Read more »
Why Nevada’s first online gambling license is more symbol than substance
photo: Doug Stevens
Casinos and social gaming sites have a lot riding on new laws and licenses that will turn on the taps to online gaming revenue. One company is set to finally open shop as soon as May — but its license strictly limits where it can operate and what it can play. Read more »
Social sports betting: market is huge but big payout is unlikely
photo: Jerry Sharp
A social gaming site called Fanhood invites players to buy tokens and make sports wagers with their friends. While they may entertain sports fans, sites like this have little hope of being part of recent moves towards legal online gambling. Read more at paidContent »
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Where the next-generation console fits in today’s video game market
The console era is over — or so a growing number of game-industry executives would have us believe. While social and mobile gaming have taken a sizable share of the video games market, there is room for growth for hardware, particularly in streaming technology and the emergence of open-source platforms. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
What stays in Vegas: how Nevada’s online gambling law will — and won’t — change social gaming
photo: Beto Chagas via Shutterstock
Nevada became the first state in the country this week to legalize online gambling — but don’t expect this to change the fortunes of companies like Zynga anytime soon. Read more »
Can a new database help get Zynga back on track?
photo: Shutterstock / z0w
Zynga has deployed nearly 100 nodes of MemSQL, the hot new database from two former Facebook engineers. It might not be a magic pill for Zynga’s woes, but it could help the company boost revenue and even build new types of games. Read more »
How the cloud helped social gaming firm Wooga prepare for its Android invasion
Berlin’s highly successful games studio is moving into Android, starting off with a new version of the hit Diamond Dash. It seemed like a good time to get a snapshot developer perspective on coding for the big two mobile platforms. Read more »
Derby Jackpot is off to the races with real-money social gaming
photo: Derby Jackpot
Bridging the gap between hardcore horse-betting and social gaming, New York-based Derby Jackpot is beta testing an online game that lets players bet real money on live horse races. The launch comes as social gaming giant Zynga also makes inroads in real money social gaming. Read more »
Facebook works on game quality, social to keep users from calling it quits
photo: GigaOM
For Facebook, the name of the game is getting more social gaming hits, using word of mouth and the new App Center to recommend games to friends that will turn users to players to payers, as company executives said Thursday to reporters in Menlo Park. Read more »
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Social third-quarter 2012: analysis and outlook
Social media technologies continue to permeate marketing and enterprise collaboration, even if investors felt let down in the third quarter by their consumer-facing businesses like Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga. So B2B technology offerings in support of marketing and collaboration will soon steal all the social tech attention. This quarterly wrap-up analyzes these events, and provides a near-term outlook for trends, technologies and companies to watch in the next 18 to 24 months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon launches social gaming studio, kicks Zynga when it’s down
Amazon enters the social gaming market with its key incumbent in Nasdaq free-fall. Does it really want to compete in a business with unproven monetization, or does it just want to make some games for Kindle owners to play? The unit’s first game launched Monday. Read more at paidContent »
Betable allows social games to add real money gambling
Betable, a UK-based startup, is introducing a platform that allows developers to easily add real-money gaming into their apps. The company is announcing a private beta developer program and plans to open the platform to all developers before the end of this year. Read more »
Facebook should be worried about Wooga’s HTML5 exit
The reasons cited by games factory Wooga when it pulled out of developing mobile browser-based games for Facebook’s platform are not going to be fixed anytime soon – and that fact should be cause for concern in the social network’s quest to conquer mobile. Read more »
Peak climbs into social gaming’s top tier, eyes Asia
The Turkish social gaming company Peak says it now has more daily active users than EA or Wooga, and it hopes that expansion plans for south-east Asia could give Zynga and King.com a run for their money too. Read more »
Forget reward points: AmEx gives users Farmville cash
American Express is teaming with Zynga on a reward program that will link offline spending on its Serve pre-paid cards to in-game rewards in Farmville. It’s an ambitious attempt at boosting the reach of AmEx’s Serve product and tying real-world spending to online virtual rewards. Read more »
Industry Moves: Tylted; XING AG; Future Publishing; mDialog; Telegraph
The latest hires in the tech and media industry… Read more at paidContent »
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Social media in Q1: commerce and discovery dominated
Media issues like advertising and discovery along with commerce dominated the activity in social and real-time Web technologies during the first quarter. Google raised some hackles, Facebook responded to demands from traditional advertisers, and Yahoo got a new chief executive. Read more in the full report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Wooga’s Diamond Dash game tops 11 million downloads
Berlin-based developer Wooga, whose gem-clearing game has already made it one of the most successful Facebook app-makers, says the linked-up iOS version has seen 11 million downloads so far. Read more »
What Zynga really wants from OMGPOP’s Draw Something
What Zynga acquired from OMGPOP isn’t just a hit game or the team that built it. It’s not buying ad or sales revenue from Draw Something users. What Zynga’s really buying is a huge engaged audience that it can funnel into its other social gaming properties. Read more »
Patent Troll Stalks Social Gaming Industry Over Virtual Payments
photo: Flickr / Shayne Kaye
A new patent troll announced its arrival this week by suing companies like Facebook, Zynga and Playfish. Its weapon is a patent that it clai… Read more at paidContent »
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Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
This report outlines the myriad issues at play in Facebook’s move, from examining how CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to rewire the world to understanding the company’s infrastructure dependency. But from every angle, it’s clear the effects will ripple throughout the startup and tech communities. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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NewNet 2012: companies and technologies set to disrupt
Don’t expect the pace of change in web technologies to slow down in 2012. The web is far from dead. Social media may have anointed one huge player in Facebook, but even if there is little room for a start-from-scratch general-purpose social network, there are several companies creating useful alternative social graphs. Companies can leverage key technologies and trends in 2012 to earn revenue and gain share, whether that’s by leveraging HTML5 for rich cross-platform experiences, doing heavy data analysis or integrating collaboration tools across businesses.Companies mentioned in this report include Dropbox, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Virtual currencies: from coins to barter
How do virtual currencies work today and where, outside of gaming, might they be effective? Right now, practical alternative payments systems like Facebook’s and PayPal’s are still based on cash, though consumers might like bartering and loyalty programs rolled into the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
5 things my 4-year-old taught me about technology
The good thing about being a parent is that it’s okay to be an old fart. Your kids will keep up with tech, and they’re already exploring it in fundamentally different ways. Observe them closely, and you’ll learn quite a bit about the future of technology. Read more »
Zynga’s declaration of independence: Project Z
Zynga may be best known for its hit online and mobile games, but the company has its eye on a much bigger prize. On Tuesday, Zynga unveiled a major new “Zynga direct” platform — codenamed Project Z — showing that its ambition goes well beyond single game experiences. Read more »
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NewNet Q3: Facebook remakes headlines in social media
Last quarter’s big headline in social media and real-time technologies came from Google, which launched Google+, its first social tech product that seems legit. In the third quarter, things were back to normal. Google+ is still growing, but Facebook’s platform update dominated the news. And as Google+ passed 25 million users and won some raves from the digerati, its competition with Facebook intensified. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Zynga, Salesforce, BranchOut and Foursquare. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
6waves Lolapps puts up $10M to fund the next big gaming app
6waves Lolapps, the newly-merged company that develops and publishes games for Facebook and other social networks, has launched a $10 million fund to invest in independent game developers. The 6L Fund is part of 6waves Lolapps’ play to become the”clear number two” to Zynga. Read more »
Please Stay Calm thinks location is key to mobile MMOs
New iPhone MMORPG Please Stay Calm takes a lot of what makes freemium gaming titles successful on the App Store, and adds in a dash of zombies, and a heaping helping of location services. It’s social survival horror in your backyard — and it’s pretty awesome. Read more »
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Flash analysis: the tech startup investment environment, Q3 2011
With the stock market in flux, do tech startups stand a chance when it comes to luring investors? To find out, we polled GigaOM readers on what’s hot, what’s not, which sectors might favor buyouts versus IPOs and how it all will change in the near ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Facebook apps need their own sites
Social games and app developers got a bit of a shock when Facebook snuck out some Platform Policy changes. So what can an app developer do to get the most out of Facebook and insulate itself as much as possible from Facebook changes? Build its own ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Zynga hit with another patent lawsuit
Social gaming giant Zynga is the subject of a new patent infringement lawsuit, the latest in a string of such claims. Now that Zynga is under a microscope as it moves toward an IPO, will its legal troubles be too much for potential investors to handle? Read more »
Zynga grabs mobile developer Astro Ape Studios
Zynga is expanding its mobile ambitions by apparently picking up New York City-based developer Astro Ape Studios. The gaming powerhouse, which is preparing to go public, has been increasingly looking to shore up its mobile efforts, which has not be as successful as its Facebook business. Read more »
Maybe a little social-media fatigue isn’t such a bad idea
As Google+ tries to compete with Facebook and Twitter, the prospect of social-media fatigue becomes a real possibility — and some argue that we are spending so much time amusing ourselves on these services we don’t have time for the real world. But is that true? Read more »
Google+ games are just the “tip of the iceberg,” says Google
Google is cautiously optimistic about its roll out of games on Google+, calling it the first steps in an ambitious plan to turn the social network into a powerful platform. Google is content to move slowly as it builds for a bigger future for Google+. Read more »
Why Nintendo should re-invent itself as an iOS developer
Nintendo’s investors think the company is wasting time and energy developing for its own devices. Instead, fund managers think Nintendo should turn its attention to developing for smartphones, especially Apple’s iPhone. Once you put all the facts on the table, it looks like the smart play. Read more »
Lolapps merges with 6waves to take on Zynga
Social game developer Lolapps has signed an agreement to merge with game publisher 6waves The newly combined company will have one major competitor in its sights: Zynga. “We’re going to be the clear number two in the space very quickly,” said Lolapps CEO Arjun Sethi. Read more »
Subscription gaming service GameTanium launches on Android
Exent is launching the first subscription mobile gaming service for Android called GameTanium Mobile, which allows users to gain Netflix-style all-you-can eat access to more than 75 games for $4.99 a month. It’s another sign that gaming on Android is improving. Read more »
Zynga’s Road to Riches: From startup to IPO
Zynga, the social gaming company recently filed to go public and raise a whopping $1 billion in its initial public offering. The folks from Namesake have put together a graphic that tells the story of Zynga, the people behind the company and how it got here. Read more »
Freemium titles generate two-thirds of App Store gaming revenues
Free-to-play games, which monetize through in-app purchases, now account for 65 percent of revenue among the top 100 games in the App Store, overtaking paid downloads, which were the most successful revenue model six months ago. It’s another sign that freemium rules for many developers. Read more »
