Zynga Inc unveiled a social network for gamers dubbed "Zynga with
Friends" on Tuesday, hoping to wean itself from a longstanding, symbiotic relationship with Facebook Inc that has shaped two of Silicon Valley's closely watched Internet companies. The game publisher, which has been under pressure to reverse a steep slide in stock price in recent months, said its new network will pair gamers with opponents and make features like player profiles, an activity stream and chat available for all users, regardless of whether they play Zynga games on mobile devices or on desktop computers.
Zynga with Friends is "one network, one unified experience, and one social
lobby that will for the first time connect all of our players, no matter where they're playing," Manuel Bronstein, a senior Zynga executive, told reporters at a press event in the company's headquarters in San Francisco. "The new social features and services are designed for the sole purpose of bringing more people to play together," Bronstein said.
Zynga will also provide programming tools to help third-party developers publish
online and mobile games based on its own software, executives said, in order to foster a Zynga "ecosystem" that will expand its slate of titles beyond mainstays such as "Farmville" and "Zynga Poker."
Still, Zynga shares closed nearly 5 percent lower on Tuesday as investors saw
little in the announcement - which included the planned social network, as well as a bevy of new game titles - to drive strong long-term growth.
The company announced "FarmVille 2," a sequel to its megahit resource management
title, as well as "Matching with Friends," an addition to a suite of smartphone games that includes the popular "Words with Friends."
"One of the worries is that the whole idea of social gaming seems to be waning
somewhat," said Paul Verna, a gaming analyst at eMarketer. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of growth left, and the idea of unveiling another Ville game or FarmVille 2 - I don't get the sense that's very exciting to the financial investors."
Zynga's moves, while long expected, have stirred speculation around the future of its
cozy partnership with Facebook, a company that owed 15 percent of its first quarter revenue to fees from Zynga. The two companies also confirmed recently that Facebook has begun showing ads from its inventory inside Zynga games, which are played by some 290 million people.
Making developers happy
Meanwhile, Facebook's reach of close to 1 billion users has helped distribute
Zynga's games and propel the publisher to a dominant position in the social gaming industry, but analysts have warned that Zynga needs to seek greater independence to sustain growth, especially as Facebook's expansion inevitably slows.
Colin Sebastian, an analyst at R. W. Baird, said the Zynga with Friends network
"is a natural step in the right direction as they leverage their technology infrastructure and user base. On one hand it might help them become less dependent on Facebook, but from a practical perspective they will continue to remain dependent on Facebook for quite some time."
Asked to comment, Facebook issued a statement that betrayed no concern
about Zynga's announcement. "It's exciting to see Zynga continue to build with Facebook across web and mobile platforms."
Responding to questions from reporters on Tuesday, Zynga executives took pains
to stress that the expansion of its own social network did not threaten its existing relationship with Facebook.
"We've had a longstanding agreement with Facebook that we would do these kinds
of things," said Reed Shaffner, Zynga's director of product. "In no way are we trying to use that to say you have to play on this platform."
"The idea is that we'll help you find the best gaming friends anywhere you play,"
he added.
Executives said the platform could potentially have as many as 290 million users
with some 2.8 billion daily social interactions once it is rolled out, although a launch date was not specified.
Zynga acknowledged on Tuesday that it is also trying to boost mobile usage, targeting
a small but faster-growing wireless device gaming market that is quickly becoming a crucial battleground for so-called casual or social gaming.
To bolster its mobile offerings, Zynga purchased New York-based game developer
OMGPOP for $183 million in March. The company said Tuesday it will also team up with Atari SA to develop games, but did not elaborate.
Zynga executives said they will provide developers a set of "application programming
interfaces" - APIs - to make it easier for them to craft games using Zynga's software. "We're opening our doors today and opening Zynga Partners for Mobile. We are inviting developers from all over the world to come and join our network," said David Ko, chief mobile officer.
Zynga wants to create an ecosystem with "best-in-class mobile developers and
best-in-class mobile games," Ko said.
The company also announced new titles including ChefVille, a kitchen management
game, and The Ville, a game resembling "The Sims" that allows users to build homes and dress their avatars to interact and pursue romantic relationships with other users.
Even so, analysts said Zynga, facing mounting scrutiny from investors, may need to
look beyond its familiar repertoire to attract new gamers and keep existing ones hooked.
"One area where they may have disappointed people is, they are not showing
any games in development that target a more core gamer, or so-called mid-core gamer," said Sebastian, the Baird analyst. "That's something where we've seen a lot of growth for Facebook, and that's potentially a missed opportunity for Zynga." |
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Zynga to focus on developers to help create more games
Posted By:
Frinton Madtha
Zynga to focus on developers to help create more games
Social Media Sparks Visions of a Radically Open Future
TED Global is underway in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a lineup of more than 70 speakers set to offer their visions of “radical openness” (the theme of this year’s conference) across disciplines as diverse as corporate governance, global security and education.
The conference was kicked off by Dan Tapscott, who in 2003 authored “The Naked Corporation,” which called for new levels of corporate transparency and accountability — a novel idea at the time, when you consider there was no Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
In his talk, Tapscott defined what he sees as the four key principles for an open world: transparency, collaboration, sharing and empowerment. Offering examples like Gold Corp, which used a $500,000 contest to find $3 billion worth of gold, Tapscott said we’re moving from a world of social media to one of social production.
He also sees the need for industries like pharmaceuticals to do away with their intellectual property-based business models and instead focus on openness, and in turn allow the wisdom of the crowd to accelerate development in medicine.
Tapscott’s framework set the stage for NATO Supreme Commander James Stavridis to share his vision for “open source security.” The leader of the alliance said that security in the 21st century won’t be delivered “solely through the barrel of a gun,” calling on more cooperation between nations, agencies, and the public and private sectors, linked together through “strategic collaboration on the Internet.”
Starvidis described how NATO now collaborates with volunteer organizations for disaster relief missions, works with groups like Major League Baseball and the Department of State for goodwill projects, and teaches reading and writing in places like Afghanistan. While not necessarily “open source” in the way we think of it in technology terms, Starvidis compared his organization’s efforts to those of Wikipedia, saying “No one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together.”
Looking to add a visual twist on the “radical openness” theme, futurist and filmmaker Jason Silva created this rapid fire video looking to capture the rate at which society and technology are evolving:
Underscoring all of these ideas, of course, is the far reaching impact that social media has had on everything from business, to governments, to media and entertainment. It now seems as if the next frontier may be in applying the tenants of social media — transparency, crowdsourcing and the democratization of media — to solve a wide array of global problems.
Posted By:
Frinton Madtha
Social Media Sparks Visions of a Radically Open Future
Sheryl Sandberg Joins Facebook Board Of Directors -- The First And Only Woman To Do So
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has been appointed to Facebook's seven-person board of directors, making her the first and only woman to join the board.
Sandberg has served as COO of Facebook since joining the company in 2008 and, as head of all business operations, has helped oversee its growth and shepherd the company to its public offering earlier this year. Sandberg's appointment follows growing outcry over the company's all-male board.
"Sheryl has been my partner in running Facebook and has been central to our growth and success over the years," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a press release. "Her understanding of our mission and long-term opportunity, and her experience both at Facebook and on public company boards makes her a natural fit for our board."
In an 2011 interview, Zuckerberg noted he was grateful to Sandberg for "handl[ing] things I don’t want to," such as human resources, marketing, and other management tasks.
Sandberg has been an outspoken advocate for women in the workplace, encouraging women in TED talks, commencement addresses and internal Facebook events to "lean in" to their careers and demand a "seat at the table."
Yet Sandberg, until Monday, was denied a seat on Facebook's board. When pressed by New Yorker writer Ken Auletta to explain the lack of women on Facebook's all-male board, Zuckerberg noted his company has a "very small board," adding, "I’m going to find people who are helpful, and I don’t particularly care what gender they are or what company they are. I’m not filling the board with check boxes.”
The company's decision to add an eighth member, Sandberg, comes after months of criticism by investors and women's advocacy groups over the lack of diversity among Facebook's directors.
More than 53,000 people signed an online petition asking Facebook to add a woman to its board, and in March,protestors descended on Facebook's New York City headquarters to decry the dearth of female board members. Earlier this year, the director of corporate governance for the California State Teachers Retirement System, a Facebook shareholder and the second largest pension fund in the U.S., wrote a letter to Facebook ahead of its IPO encouraging the company to add a woman to its board.
Sandberg will join Facebook's seven-person board, which includes Zuckerberg, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, Washington Post Company CEO Donald Graham, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, former University of North Carolina president Erskine Bowles, and investor Jim Breyer of Accel Partners.
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Posted By:
Frinton Madtha
Sheryl Sandberg Joins Facebook Board Of Directors -- The First And Only Woman To Do So
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