Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

Farmville Helped Facebook Beat Orkut

DNA INDIA - Nov 16 - In May this year, Facebook beat Orkut as the top social networking destination in India. According to Vizisense,  which tracks web audience measurement in India, social media apps like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafe World have been the biggest contributors to Facebook’s success in India. Farmville clearly leads the pack and other apps are now following suit. Apps see the highest usage and the most time spent on Facebook. Men, specifically users aged between 15 and 24 years, spend 52% of their online time on apps. FULL ARTICLE @ DNA INDIA

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Zynga Brings FarmVille To The iPad

TECH CRUNCH - Oct 21 - Zynga has just announced the launch of FarmVille for the iPad, which is the company’s first native app for Apple’s tablet. FarmVille’s iPhone app has steadily gained traction since its launch in June. The app has spent more than 50 days in the Top 25 games on iTunes and players in 85 different countries send more than 100,000 gifts via the app each day. More than 60M people across the world play FarmVille, ~1% of the global population. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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McDonald's And FarmVille Join Forces

MARTKET WIRE - Oct 7 - Today, McDonald's will have its own farm in FarmVille which players will have the chance to interact with and receive unique rewards. Players visiting the McDonald's Farm can help by growing tomato and mustard seed crops. Player interaction is rewarded with a FarmVille McCafe Consumable, a valuable item that makes game-play easier. The McCafe Consumable delivers energy to players to move about their farms at twice the speed. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKET WIRE

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Zynga’s FarmVille Now Rolling Out To The App Store

TECH CRUNCH - Jun 23 - FarmVille is finally coming to the iPhone. The game is now available in the New Zealand App Store, and appears to be propagating to other countries worldwide — expect it to go live in the US later this evening. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Farmville App Officially Announced For iPhone

THE TECH HERALD - June 8 - Farmville is now heading towards the iPhone and iPod Touch via Apple’s App Store. Neither a formal release date nor a price point have been issued by for the app at this time, although the developer has indicated it will be ready in time to coincide with the anniversary of Farmville’s original release – which would suggest an arrival on or around June 19. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH HERALD

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Zynga Gunning Up For War Against Facebook

TECH CRUNCH - May 7 - The relationship between Facebook and its biggest gaming partner, Zynga, are at an all time low. Some of the frustration goes back to last year’s limitations on messaging users. But a much bigger concern now is Facebook’s force feeding of Facebook Credits as the only payment platform. Facebook takes 30% for Credits. Facebook is trying to get Zynga to agree to a long term deal where Zynga remains primarily on the Facebook platform. During negotiations Facebook has taken some steps to punish Zynga, such as shutting off notifications for Farmville and other games, and Facebook has threatened to simply shut some of Zynga’s games down permanently. Zynga has already taken steps to distance itself from Facebook in the event of a breakup, such as launching Farmville at Farmville.com. On Thursday Zynga CEO Mark Pincus held an all hands meeting to tell employees that they may need to prepare for a break with Facebook. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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FarmVille Could Be Headed To iPhone, iPad And Android

MASHABLE - Apr 20 - Soon people will be able to play FarmVille on their mobile phone. Supported devices will probably include the iPhone, the iPad and Android smartphones, and some sort of text messaging-based play could be in the works too. Speculation about this bubbled up when Tumblr blog Supererogatory discovered that the domain names farmvilleandroid.com, farmvilleipad.com, farmvilleiphone.com and farmvillesms.com were registered with DNStination Inc. DNStination is the third party that also holds farmville.com, the official website for Zynga’s very successful and popular online game. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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FarmVille Adds Facebook Credits Payment Option

MASHABLE - Mar 10 - The Facebook platform game FarmVille now supports the Facebook Credits virtual currency. The popular online game uses two units of in-game currency: Farm Cash and Farm Coins. Previously, you could buy them with a credit card or PayPal. Now the game offers Facebook Credits as an option. We recently learned that Facebook takes 30% of developers’ Facebook Credits revenue. Analysts have speculated that Facebook might surpass $1 billion in revenue this year, and the social network’s virtual currency could be a vital part of growth beyond that. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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FarmVille Surpasses 80 Million Users

MASHABLE - Feb 21 - FarmVille, the massively popular Facebook game, surpassed 80M monthly active users this week (source: AppData). Facebook has ~400M users in total. FarmVille’s daily active user count is currently 29.7M — that’s ~30M people using FarmVille every day. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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FarmVille Partners With MSN Games Partnership

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 4 - Zynga’s FarmVille will now be featured on MSN Games, Microsoft’s casual gaming portal. This marks the first time that a Zynga game will be featured on a full-fledged gaming site. Zynga says that more of its games will be appearing on MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger in the near future. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Brits Spending 500 Million A Year On Virtual Goods

LITTLE ABOUT - Jan 18 - Britons are shelling out more than 500M pounds a year to buy virtual goods on social networking and dating sites. Virtual goods firm Zynga, whose FarmVille app on Facebook has 56M users spending on animals and equipment that does not exist outside world wide web, reportedly made 91.4M pounds last year. FULL ARTICLE @ LITTLE ABOUT

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Zynga Has Raised $1 Million For School Children In Haiti

TECH CRUNCH - Jan 8 - Zynga has raised over $1M from virtual goods for school children in Haiti. This came just from the sale of one virtual good within Farmville: Sweet seeds. Zynga has sold over $2M worth of these seeds with a full 50% of the sales going to the charity. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Social Network Updates A Friend To Charities

SF CHRONICLE - Oct 26 - Social networks have quickly become a powerful yet inexpensive tool to raise money and awareness for charities. A week ago, a record number of status updates on Twitter and Facebook using the phrase "#BeatCancer" helped raise $70,000 for four non-profit cancer organizations. Meanwhile, sales of a virtual crop for the popular Facebook game FarmVille raised  $500 000 to feed poor children in Haiti. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE

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