Here are some of the latest news and highlights in the social gaming industry that took place this week:
According to a report from VentureBeat last week, Facebook is shuttering its virtual goods store after three years and is focusing on building out its Credits online payments system. hi5's President and CTO, Alex St. John, wrote an opinion piece on this news for Industry Gamers. In this piece, St. John states that Facebook is clearly not dedicated to e-commerce as a result of shutting their own virtual gifts store, so developers should take a harder look at whether Facebook is the right platform to increase audience acquisition and monetize their games and apps. To read the full piece, visit Industry Gamers.
Early in the week, TechCrunch revealed that Google had quietly invested between $100 million to $200 million in FarmVille developer Zynga as part of its preparation to launch a new Google Games platform later this year. Digg founder Kevin Rose and a former Facebook chief technical officer, have suggested in recent weeks that the search-engine giant is working on a social network called Google Me geared toward rivaling Facebook. This social network is intended to build off of Google Buzz, which has been widely criticized by tech pundits.
Offerpal Media announced that they were laying off an unspecified number of staff, in part because it lost out to rival TrialPay in the race to provide alternative payments with Facebook's new virtual currency system, Facebook Credits. Once apps are switched to Facebook Credits, Offerpal will no longer provide offers for those apps. As a result, Offerpal has to lay off its staff and re-focus its resources on growth areas that include providing offers for other game platforms such as the open web, new internet vertical sites, and mobile apps.
On Tuesday, July 20, we will by celebrating the official launch of our new Developer Portal with an event in Seattle. If you're headed to Casual Connect Seattle, we invite you to watch hi5's Alex St. John face off against none other than the Facebook behemoth itself in the sumo wrestling battle of the decade. Come watch the live action at this can't-miss event! Doors open at 9:00pm, fight begins at 11:00pm. For more details on the event, please visit: http://hi5casualconnect.eventbrite.com.
According to a report from VentureBeat last week, Facebook is shuttering its virtual goods store after three years and is focusing on building out its Credits online payments system. hi5's President and CTO, Alex St. John, wrote an opinion piece on this news for Industry Gamers. In this piece, St. John states that Facebook is clearly not dedicated to e-commerce as a result of shutting their own virtual gifts store, so developers should take a harder look at whether Facebook is the right platform to increase audience acquisition and monetize their games and apps. To read the full piece, visit Industry Gamers.
Early in the week, TechCrunch revealed that Google had quietly invested between $100 million to $200 million in FarmVille developer Zynga as part of its preparation to launch a new Google Games platform later this year. Digg founder Kevin Rose and a former Facebook chief technical officer, have suggested in recent weeks that the search-engine giant is working on a social network called Google Me geared toward rivaling Facebook. This social network is intended to build off of Google Buzz, which has been widely criticized by tech pundits.Offerpal Media announced that they were laying off an unspecified number of staff, in part because it lost out to rival TrialPay in the race to provide alternative payments with Facebook's new virtual currency system, Facebook Credits. Once apps are switched to Facebook Credits, Offerpal will no longer provide offers for those apps. As a result, Offerpal has to lay off its staff and re-focus its resources on growth areas that include providing offers for other game platforms such as the open web, new internet vertical sites, and mobile apps.
On Tuesday, July 20, we will by celebrating the official launch of our new Developer Portal with an event in Seattle. If you're headed to Casual Connect Seattle, we invite you to watch hi5's Alex St. John face off against none other than the Facebook behemoth itself in the sumo wrestling battle of the decade. Come watch the live action at this can't-miss event! Doors open at 9:00pm, fight begins at 11:00pm. For more details on the event, please visit: http://hi5casualconnect.eventbrite.com.
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