TECH CRUNCH - Apr 19 - MindJolt, the game distribution company that was acquired by MySpace founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe last year, has made two significant acquisitions in the gaming space today— game developer Social Gaming Network (SGN) and game network Hallpass Media. Financial terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.
by Leena Rao
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BUSINESS INSIDER - July 19 - Led by founder Chris DeWolfe, MySpace
became a social networking sensation, beating out Friendster and
becoming the biggest social ntework with more than 125M users. DeWolfe
sold the company to News Corp. in 2005 for $580M Then its growth
stalled and it was eclipsed by Facebook. DeWolfe left in April 2009. He
resurfaced in March, acquiring social game firm MindJolt. With a number
of his former MySpace executives, DeWolfe wants to expand the company’s
20-million user audience through acquisitions. MindJolt has more than
1,300 casual games developed by more than 1,000 third-party game
makers. Those games have been played more than 750M times. The company
is profitable. And with the $20M+ in backing that DeWolfe raised from
Austin Ventures, the company has cash to buy other companies. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS INSIDER
GUARDIAN.CO.UK - Mar 10 - Investors are pumping more and more money into web services
that are heavily reliant on Facebook. Smartdate received $2.2m from
investors to try and build its idea of using Facebook data as the basis
of a matchmaking service. We know from a number of reports and internal
estimates that Facebook itself is due to post somewhere upwards of $1bn
in revenue for 2010. How many companies rely on Facebook to keep
themselves going? The conservative estimate must stretch into several
billions of dollars worth of business at least. Back in November,
Electronic Arts bought social gaming site Playfish, in a deal worth
~$275m, meanwhile Zynga, another developer of popular games has already
taken more than $200m of venture capital. Other companies making apps
include Slide, Mindjolt and FriendFeed (bought by Facebook for ~$50m). FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK
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This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.
EBRANDZ - Mar 8 - Former MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, who resigned
last year, has re-emerged as part of a group buying the Facebook online
game provider MindJolt. MindJolt provides access to ~1,300 games from
over 1,000 developers on the Web and distributes them through more than
20M active users on Facebook, MindJolt.com, MySpace, and other social
sites, according to the statement. An increasing number of people play
games on Facebook. Zynga Game Network, the largest developer of games
on Facebook, is worth $2.61 billion, according to SharesPost
Venture-Backed Index, which monitors trading of shares in private
companies. FULL ARTICLE @ EBRANDZ
