Social Games: How The Big Three Make Millions
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/social-games-how-the-big-three-make-millions/

By http://bit.ly/Tweets2Delicious

annually on sales of virtual goods. Need a shotgun to do that next job on Mobsters? No problem. Pay with a credit card, paypal, or your mobile phone and it’s all yours. And people are obviously very willing to buy these virtual goods. Nothing new there.

Bam! Hits the nail on the head comparing TechCrunch to the NYT. Journalism is being done by those not the MSM.

Faced with their own demise, fearful of losing even more advertising, newspapers have made the huge mistake of becoming ever more timid, more cautious, more in bed with the companies they cover.

Every once in a while you get to see a mainstream outlet cover a story right alongside a blog, so you can put them up against each other and see why one was so much better than the other. This week TechCrunch and the New York Times (photo) provided just such a lesson. The issue was a company called Zynga, which makes online games, like FarmVille, that have become incredibly popular on Facebook among people who are missing parts of their brains.

Dude, I invented the friggin iPhone. Have you heard of it?

Interesting (somewhat provocative) analysis on the differences between the Techcrunch reporting on Zynga and scammy Facebook apps, and how the New York Times covered the same topic.

Um, New York Times? If you guys are still wondering why people are dropping their subscriptions and getting their news from blogs instead of you — this is why. And to all those people who go around wringing their hands and saying what are we going to do when the “real newspapers” all die and we have to get our news from Gawker and HuffPo and TechCrunch? Friends, I think we’re going to be just fine. Because time after time, blogs are simply beating the shit out of the newspapers. They’re the ones who still dare to go for the throat, while their counterparts at big newspapers just keep reaching for the shrimp cocktail.

"The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness.[11] We play Farmville, then, because we are trying to be good to one another. We play Farmville because we are polite, cultivated people."

Interesting read on social gaming, e.g. FarmVille: http://bit.ly/bLPIEK – Jacob Bøtter (boetter) http://twitter.com/boetter/statuses/12443260031

Cultivated Play: Farmville liszkiewicz's picture

oh sweet Jesus, Google invested in Zynga? so much for "don't be evil." http://goo.gl/FgAc – Jeff Atwood (codinghorror) http://twitter.com/codinghorror/statuses/18578849294

Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. (via TechCrunch)

"Google Secretly Invested $100+ Million In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games" http://j.mp/aaPgNh

Google starts the gaming service, actually the social network based games. At the end, Zynga is the winner who takes all the attentions from many companies interested in social games including facebook, yahoo, google and etc. That is, there is always a niche business.

Google aism to make Zynga (creators of Farmville) the cornerstone of Goolge games; expected to go live late Dec 2010 - posted circa July 2010

Google Games Part ... Duex?