Social Games

Anyone can sound like an Internet guru with the Web Economy Bullsh*t Generator. At the push of a button, the generator randomly pulls three words from a list of Web-related technical terms, mixes them together, and voilà! Out pops a phrase that makes no sense, but sounds very official. Here are some ways the Bullsh*t Generator can help you disintermediate granular vortals and…whatever else it is that you do at work:

Despite recent stock market woes, Zynga is pushing forward with the acquisition of four social and mobile gaming companies. Reuters reports that the buyouts, which have been in the works for the last few months, were confirmed on Wednesday by Zynga mobile executive David Ko, who did not disclose the amount of the sale.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

Anyone can sound like an Internet guru with the Web Economy Bullsh*t Generator. At the push of a button, the generator randomly pulls three words from a list of Web-related technical terms, mixes them together, and voilà! Out pops a phrase that makes no sense, but sounds very official. Here are some ways the Bullsh*t Generator can help you disintermediate granular vortals and…whatever else it is that you do at work:

Tagged, a social discovery site focused on meeting new people has acquired Hi5, the social gaming network led by the boisterous Alex St. John.  Hi5′s goal over the last few years, after a major redesign, was to be a destination site for gamers and a place that gave game developers better tools and deals than were [...]

Rounds, the Facebook “communitainment” platform that lets users video chat, play games, watch videos, listen to music, look at pictures, take snapshots and engage in other activities together with friends (old and new) announced Wednesday that they will be launching nine new activities by 2012.

According to news from Wednesday morning, the world’s gaming stock enthusiasts can stop the guesswork — Zynga is going to IPO in mid-December.  Zynga plans to release 10% of it’s oustanding stock to the public at a price between $8 and $10, and it would bring Zynga around $900 million to make new FarmVilles, CastleVilles [...]

Abrams answered four questions in a matter of 10 minutes. If you look at J.J. Abrams Quora page, you will see other answers to questions from June 2011. His page has a total of nine questions and answers.

Orkut possesses 66 million active users — virtually 60 percent of which come from Brazil. SuperData also reports that games played on platforms, excluding Facebook, such as Orkut, are predicted to gain $5.6 billion in revenue by 2014.

Tapjoy and PapayaMobile today announced that they are partnering to launch Social Marketplace that provides users with recommendations on which apps to download. Both companies have released a flurry of announcements recently and this particular news could be great for developers and users alike. More after the jump.

Users can purchase or register for an app or games once, enjoy it on their Kindle Fire and other Android-based devices. Plus, all apps and games are backed up in the Amazon Cloud for re-download anytime.

As console developers continue to expand to social and mobile platforms, I had a chance to get with Bear Trickey, Jesse Venbrux and Zach Aikman of Q-Games who recently launched PixelJunk Monsters Online on Facebook in an interview where they shared their approach to developing for Facebook. More after the jump.