Social gaming is at the forefront of the drive for real-time data, as companies like Zynga look for any information that will help them target users, and that in turn has created a market for analytical tools such as Kontagent and its “user-centric” data model. Read more »
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus got lobbed some softballs this morning at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference by his investors at Kleiner Perkins. But he did give up some specific metrics about how his very metrics-driven company runs, and he talked about the larger themes at stake. Read more »
Social gaming has been the biggest success story of the four-year-old Facebook Platform, but only now is Facebook rolling out a plan to offer a dedicated gaming experience, get game developers to stop spamming its non-gaming users, and make some serious money off of ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The iTunes App Store has more than 250,000 active apps for sale. How will you get yours get noticed? After you’ve spent significant time and resources on developing and releasing it, you can’t simply wait for it to be “discovered.” In today’s crowded marketplace, you need a strategic and savvy marketing approach to sell your app — or you risk it getting lost in an ever-expanding deluge of sub-par offerings. Navigating the nuances of app marketing involves many steps, from knowing the finer points of search engine optimization to understanding Apple’s ranking policies and how to use social networks to your advantage. This guide offers strategies for all of those topics and countless others, including app design; choosing a release date; Facebook, Twitter and YouTube marketing ideas; what makes or breaks a press release; and tips on how to win the approval of the ever-influential app blogger. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Two stories attempt to deepen the public images of the early days of Facebook and Zynga, but to different effects, with Zynga employees condemning the company for its anti-innovation ethos, and a former Harvard student cleaning up perceptions of the early days of Facebook. Read more »
There’s a lot of talk these days about data-driven product development. But at least one startup, Lolapps, is finding that data isn’t everything. Now it is switching its strategy, hiring experienced game designers and conducting user tests where the goal is maximizing fun. Read more »
Russian investment fund Digital Sky Technologies is expected to go public sometime next year, according to reports. The company owns stakes in several of the hottest Internet companies around, including Facebook, social-game maker Zynga and group-buying site Groupon, as well as several leading Russian Internet companies. Read more »
Those crops need harvesting! Social phenomenon Farmville, originally announced early this month at Apple’s WWDC, is now available on the iPhone and iPod touch for free. Let the social farming begin! Read more »
Zynga, after months of rumors about a strain in their relationship and a dalliance with non-Facebook platforms like Yahoo, is sticking close to the social network for the launch of its newest game, a Farmville-style offering called Frontierville. Read more »
When Zynga launched FarmVille, it hoped for 200,000 daily active users in the first two months. For each of the first 26 weeks FarmVille added 1 million new users. The story of Mark William’s last two years has been trying to support such unpredictable growth. Read more »
There was a push and pull throughout the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this week about the role investors play in Internet startups. Sometimes, it’s worth it to find an investor who’s willing to invest at a big valuation and leave a company alone. Read more »
Social, Mobile and New Commerce — that doesn’t addup to the third wave of anything. It is the natural evolution of the Internet. It was obvious in 2002 that with more broadband, more devices and more people, the Internet revolution, which began in 1995 would continue. Read more »
The worldwide online market for digital goods will grow amid a state of continuous disruption across all forms of content markets. Fueled by an ever-growing user base, migration from physical formats to digital distribution, and a proliferation of new connected devices, the overall market for digital goods will grow to $36 billion by 2014, up from $16.7 billion in 2009. This report examines the state of paid content and the various monetization and payment models across each of the various digital goods markets. The report examines key players and market dynamics in the film and video, newspaper, online game, music and social networks space relative to their paid content strategies, and includes a revenue forecast of each of these segments relative to the overall paid content market. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Zynga, maker of the popular Facebook social game Farmville, has been hit with criticism on Twitter and elsewhere over allegations that it only sent half the money it raised for Haiti to that country. Zynga says this is based on a misunderstanding about its Farmville campaign. Read more »
As the year winds to a close, GigaOM Pro’s crack team of contributors takes a look back at what went right, what went wrong, and for whom in the world of the NewNet. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It seems Facebook employees are welcoming the invitation to get rich. The new tech IPO market, aka Russian Internet holding company Digital Sky Technologies, has upped its stake in Facebook to more than 5 percent through employee stock sales, according to Russian outlet Kommersant. Read more »
The good times are back in Silicon Valley, thanks to late-stage investors willing to bet on fast-growing Internet startups. Zynga, a San Francisco-based social games company, has raised a whopping $180 million in funding from Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm. Read more »
Social games — a subset of the gaming industry that offers simple games that run across various social networks — today received what is the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from Electronic Arts, the $4.2 billion-a-year gaming giant. EA today snapped up Playfish, […] Read more »
Social games attract tens of millions of players on Facebook and other networks, but compared with traditional PC and console-based games, they make a lot less money, a challenge impeding the genre’s growth. While millions of “hardcore” gamers willingly pay $60 per title and $15 in […] Read more »
Investors poured $237 million into virtual world-related startups and payment systems last quarter alone, according to a report released today by industry trade show producer Engage Digital, signaling venture capitalists’ continued enthusiasm in the market. (Nearly $600 million in funding went into this sector for all […] Read more »
In recent years, virtual worlds (also known as massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs) have shown tremendous growth in terms of user numbers and revenue. However, the market for them is currently in tremendous flux, with the most well-known sub-genre — the subscriber-based fantasy role playing games (MMORPGs) — suffering a growth plateau, due to the dominating success of World of Warcraft. At the same time, user activity in “freemium” virtual worlds continues to explode, most especially in the tween/adolescent market, which is likely to reach a market saturation point soon, though monetization prospects for all but the established players remain uncertain. The explosion of social networks, which share numerous traits with virtual worlds, have created a new potential audience for this genre, while the mass adoption of web plug-ins and smartphones like the iPhone have opened up new markets for the genre.
In this transitional period, many of the best investment and growth opportunities to watch are not the worlds themselves, but the solution providers offering developers the means to better monetize their existing MMOs. Opportunities also exist in niche MMOs that appeal to consumers seeking entertainment outside the established fantasy and kids social MMO space. However, new players that would enter this already crowded market must foster a community of users by rewarding user-created content and continued engagement, while also being architected with multiple revenue streams and play platforms. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Palm Pre is here, and while it hasn’t exactly felled the Goliath of Apple’s iPhone, it does have some features that are making iPhone users jealous. One is greater built-in social networking connectivity, including Facebook integration. The implementation of Facebook in Palm’s WebOS basically allows […] Read more »
