Warner Bros. Tries More Facebook Movies and a New Price
Warner Bros. has expanded its Facebook movie rental experiment. Earlier this month, Time Warner’s studio started letting Facebook users watch “The Dark Knight” on the social network for $3. Now it has...
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Flixster Update: Warner Bros. Very Interested, as Yahoo Drops Out of Bidding...
Recently, BoomTown reported that Flixster–the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site–was in early acquisition discussions with several suitors. Now,...
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Facebook's Response to Groupon Launching Tonight? Probably!
Facebook will be introducing its response to the group-buying phenomenon tonight when it rolls out deals in five cities around midnight. The timing of the launch leaked out early when the New York...
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PayPal Acquisition Hints at Company's Approach to the Mobile Wallet
EBay-owned PayPal said in February it will conduct several pilot programs over the next year to enable consumers to use their PayPal accounts–at the register. But it didn’t say how it would overcome...
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Facebook Lets Users Earn Credits by Watching Commercials
Advertising start-ups such as SocialVibe, TrialPay and Sharethrough are today announcing they are part of a new Facebook Credits program that will allow users to earn virtual currency by watching video...
View ArticleUpdated: Facebook Credits Goes Global With Additional Support in 13 Countries
Update: A Facebook spokesperson clarified that it was already these 13 markets, however, they will now be offering additional payment methods through Live Gamer that were not previously available. The...
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A Sneak Peek at Zynga's IPO: How to Turn Virtual Goods Into Real Money
With Zynga’s IPO filing likely to hit any day now, the question is: What will it tell us? When it goes public, the Facebook game developer will be the first major U.S. company supported primarily by...
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One More Use for Facebook Credits: Incentives
Facebook Credits initially were used to help pay for virtual goods inside social games, then were used for other digital goods, like movies. Now other companies are leveraging Credits to lure consumers...
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What's Next for Google+ -- Maybe a Social Game Network?
On Tuesday, Google launched one of its biggest social initiatives yet, called the Google+ project. So, what might be next for the aspiring social network? Probably a social game network, and based on...
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Game Companies Deploy Facebook Credits at the Final Hour
Seven months ago, Facebook warned developers it would require all social games to start processing payments using Facebook Credits starting July 1. Despite the heads-up, a few slackers were still...
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Even as It Makes Credits Mandatory for Games, Facebook Downplays Its Payment...
On the occasion of Facebook’s preannounced July 1 deadline for game developers to exclusively process payments using Facebook Credits, we paid a visit to the company’s platform and payments executives...
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Zynga Finally Files for IPO to Raise $1 Billion
Zynga, a four-year-old company which has made its riches off selling virtual goods in social games, has filed to raise $1 billion in an IPO. The IPO may potentially rank among the largest of the year,...
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Microsoft Drops Into Social Gaming From the Cloud
Microsoft has figured out a way to get into the social games business without having to make a single game. The company instead is focusing on building tools to help other game developers get up and...
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Trading Card Company Topps Buys Facebook's Gift Card Provider
Topps, the company known for the trading cards from childhood, is expanding into digital goods with the purchase of GMG Entertainment, the gift card provider for Facebook. Terms of the deal were not...
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Videogames Discover Daily Deals as PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies Sells for Half...
The obvious similarity between Groupon and Zynga is that they are both racing to become the next darling on Wall Street. Both have been exceedingly good at getting big fast, raising tons of cash and at...
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Gilt Groupe Says F-Commerce Stands for Flash Sales and Facebook
Gilt Groupe, an e-commerce and flash sales site, is experimenting with selling items from a range of categories — on Facebook. The New York-based company said Facebook users will be able to go to a...
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Casino Social Gaming Ringing Up Big Business on Facebook
Facebook games are often compared to gambling because of their addictive qualities — both get consumers to spend a few more dollars to continue playing. So what happens if you cut directly to the chase...
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Game Companies Using Facebook Credits Even When They Don't Have To
Facebook is now allowing its virtual currency to be used off of its social network, a feature that some game companies are finding valuable as they seek new ways to monetize their own sites. In a blog...
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Facebook Loses "The Godfather" Exclusive to Google's Game Network
Kabam has chosen to exclusively launch its newest big title, The Godfather: Five Families, on Google’s game network instead of on Facebook. “It was strictly a business decision,” said Kabam’s COO Chris...
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Stuck Like Glue: Zynga Accounts for 12 Percent of Facebook Revenue in 2011
Zynga is mentioned 24 times in Facebook’s filing, but the most notable mention is related to the game company’s huge contribution to the social network’s top line. Facebook said today in its filing...
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Zynga Accounted for 15 Percent of Facebook's Revenues in Q1, Down From Last Year
Zynga doesn’t report first-quarter earnings until Thursday, but Facebook let the cat out of the bag a little early today in an updated regulatory filing for its upcoming public offering. Before you get...
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Boku Signs Up Final U.S. Wireless Operator for Carrier Billing
It has taken three-and-a-half years, but Boku has finally signed up all four major U.S. carriers for its mobile payments service. Today, the San Francisco company says that Sprint is coming on board to...
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iSwifter's New App Brings All Flash-Based Facebook Games to the iPad
Most games on Facebook are built using Adobe Flash, and therefore don’t work on the iPad. While Facebook is slowly working out the kinks to bring more games to mobile, there’s a small company in Menlo...
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Giving Credit Where Due: Facebook Streamlines Payments System
When Facebook announced last year that its Credits payment system would become the de facto form of currency for purchases made inside games hosted by Facebook, we got the first taste of the social...
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Can Amazon's Virtual Currency Pay Off Where Facebook Credits Failed?
Amazon today unveiled Amazon Coins, a new virtual currency that will be used for purchasing apps, games and in-app items on Kindle Fire in the U.S. The virtual currency sounds a lot like the defunct...
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