VIDEO – Maha Ibrahim discusses the Zynga IPO

YouTube Description: Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Maha Ibrahim, partner at Canaan Partners, talks about the outlook for Zynga Inc.’s initial public offering and the social gaming industry. She speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Walled or not Walled…That is the Question

IEEE Spectrum has an excellent and very informative article about Facebook and Google’s different approaches to online games. Will Google be able to capture a portion of the massive social game user base on Facebook using their Chrome and Android platforms? From the article:

” In particular, Facebook is exploring the potential of Hypertext Markup Language 5, or HTML5, the latest version of the standard Web programming language. Ondrejka calls it “a potent platform for game development,” citing HTML5’s robust handling of video and audio. According to Facebook, more than 125 million people are already using HTML5-equipped browsers on their mobile phones. “

Kabam gets Hardcore Funding Round

Social game developer Kabam has raised a stunning $85 Million dollar round of funding from a group of investors that includes Google Ventures. Kabam designs social games for a hardcore Facebook gaming audience that is more engaged and willing to pony up more dough than the average social gamer. Articles and analysis from:

VentureBeat ” They’re all hardcore role-playing games where the users play for four hours at a session, compared to maybe 10 minutes for a Zynga game. About 90 percent of Kabam’s players log into their games six or seven times a week. That’s what Kevin Chou, chief executive of Kabam, calls engagement. “

Wall Street Journal ” The funding round, which also includes new strategic investor SK Telecom and previous investors such as Canaan Partners and Redpoint Ventures, is the fourth such financing round for Kabam and brings the company’s total capital raised to around $125 million, said Mr. Chou “

Mashable ” Some of Kabam’s top games include Glory of Rome, Dragons of Atlantis and Kingdoms of Camelot. Dragons of Atlantis, the company’s most popular game, has around 4 million monthly active users. “

 

New Blog! eBook Economy

I’ve added a new blog to the network. The eBook revolution has begun and is transforming the publishing industry as you read this. Track the explosive growth of eBooks and eReaders at ebookeconomy.com

Apple cashes in on Social Gaming

CNN Money discusses a report by research analytics firm Flurry that shows Apple iOS is kicking some serious butt in terms of ROI from social games. From the article:

” Of  the major platforms — Google, Apple, Facebook — developers make the most off iOS: between $14 and $20 per user per year. Google comes close with $18 per user per year, while Facebook lags behind with roughly $3 per user and Twitter claims $1 per user per year. (To give you an idea, if a social game claims a small userbase of say 1 million, that’s already $20 million in revenue a year.)”

The Game from Ipanema

The Wall Street Journal reports that social gaming company “Vostu” has obtained additional funding to continue expansion in the Brazillian market. From the article.

” Vostu has become to Brazil what Zynga, the creator of the inescapable Farmville game on Facebook, is to the U.S. market. Vostu’s biggest game is Mini Fazenda, a Farmville-like game that lets players cultivate virtual crops. “

VentureBeat ” Latin America, including Brazil, also shows a lot of promise. Accel was also an investor in Playfish and Tiger Global, a hedge fund, also has holdings in Zynga. In the past six months, Vostu has raised $50 million. Vostu’s other backers include Intel Capital and General Catalyst. “

Video of Mini Fazenda

PlaySpan using $18 Million investment for expansion

Virtual Goods company PlaySpan received $18 Million in venture capital financing from Vodaphone Ventures and Softbank Bodhi Fund. Articles and anlysis from:

Gamasutra ” The company’s monetization solutions have been implemented in more than 1,000 online games, social networks, and online videos.”

VatorNews “ Among the offerings provided by PlaySpan include UltimatePay, which incorporates over 85 payment methods through a simple and accessible user interface.  Through UltimatePay, users can expand their markets through Ultimate Game Card, the world’s first prepaid game card, and UltimatePoints, which provides for one-click in-game payments and handles transactions as small as $0.01.”

Forbes ” The Silicon Valley-based PlaySpan was founded in 2006. Its other co-founder, Mehta’s son Arjun, was in 5th grade when they started the company (that’s going to look great on his application to Harvard).”

Helium provides a very good article about how PlaySpan was created.

In 2007, Venture capital publication, “Venture Beat” reported that “Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, said on his website that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more “rewarding,” and that he started the company last year in his garage.

PRWeb (Press Release)

What will Google’s Social Network look like?

Google has recently been on an acquisition tear, picking up social games/apps developer Slide and virtual currency developer Jambool. The goal is to stop Facebook from taking over the Internet. Other investments include Social Gaming giant Zynga and their venture arm grabbed a slice of ngmoco. The big question now is, what the hell are they up to? Articles and analysis from:

Inside Facebook ” We believe that Levchin and his team will craft the rules of the platform to be extremely clear, in some places copying the best practices that Facebook’s platform has evolved to, and in other places making the platform work differently”

eWeek ” The search engine clearly feels, as Facebook and MySpace did before it, that people want to use social widgets and play games to enhance their social network experience.”

Financial Times ” Now, rather than try to build a social platform from scratch, Google looks to be building a destination for social games and applications, and hoping the social network will coalesce around it.”

TMCnet ” The interesting thing is that consumers today are finicky enough to try a new platform if it presents something new and exciting and what they perceive to be “better” than what they already have.”

EXTRA: eWeek reports on Google’s discussions to partner with PayPal to provide micro-transactions support in the Android application market.

EXTRA, EXTRA: TechCrunch reports that Google will be acquiring Like.com.

Hmmm, Like.com would add much dimension to Google’s “social search” capabilities. This just gets more and more interesting.

UPDATE: 09/27/2010 The NewYork Times weighs in on theimpact Facebook Credits will have on the social network war between Facebook and Google.

Life has its Rewards

Social Media guru Laurel Papworth breaks down the potential impact of widescale adoption of Facebook Credits virtual currency as a method of purchasing “real world” products and services. Kudos to Gamezebo for spotlighting this provocative article.

” Expect to see everyone from Nike (rewarding you for uploading your nutrition/exercise program) to TV Stations (rewarding you for becoming a Fan/Like of Lost or Big Brother page) jumping in. The current emphasis on rewards of credits going to Facebook Advertising implies that Facebook are going hungrily after Google’s Adsense/Adwords revenue.”

– Laurel Papworth

Google grabs Social Gold

TechCrunch reports that Google has acquired Jambool, developer of the “Social Gold” virtual currency platform. Will Social Gold combined with Google Checkout be the counter-punch Google needs against Facebook Credits? Additional articles and analysis by:

Gamasutra ” Jambool is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2006 by Amazon.com veterans Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein.”

Gamezebo ” For Google, this technology is applicable for both social games as well as Android, which embraces flash (unlike Apple and it’s devices).”

GigaOM ” The big problem for Google is that advertisers go where the users are, and those users are spending more and more time on social networks.”

Fortune ” Social Gold is a direct competitor with Facebook Credits for social currency that act as payments to developers and game companies.”

CNET ” With Facebook now expanding the Credits system and potentially snuffing out third-party virtual-currency providers–it’s been gradually winning over the most powerful social-game manufacturers on its developer platform–many of those start-ups are undoubtedly hunting for exit strategies.”

Forbes 8/13/2010  ” Google may be hoping that games could also be its social network hook to attract users.”

Learn more about virtual currency at VirtualCurrencyNews.com