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New Media News Every Morning

Zynga launches social platform “Zynga With Friends”

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Have you ever played any of Zynga’s multiplayer enabled games and had trouble compelling your friends to play with you? Or maybe you’ve been playing Cityville and you want to increase the number of people you interact with? It was relatively difficult to find like-minded players before. Apparently, Zynga also thought so.

Zynga has now addressed the actual social aspects of its games by announcing the creation of Zynga With Friends, a social lobby where players of Zynga’s many games can meet and play regardless of the social network they’re using or the platform on which they play. [Read more…]

Zynga releases Draw Something in Different Languages Despite Dropping Stock Prices

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Zynga has decided to up the ante on its hit social multiplayer game Draw Something. The company has released the game in 12 different languages, which includes Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and both simplified and traditional Chinese. Most of the new versions offer user interfaces that have already been translated to the supported language along with the accompanying dictionaries to truly enhance the gaming experience with the preferred language. [Read more…]

Zynga Buys Draw Something Developer For $200M

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Draw Something has been a runaway success since it became available for iOS and Android smartphone and tablet users. It has generated the kind of interest and rabid following that Words with Friends generated before.

Zynga, the creators of Words with Friends and other hit games (and arguably the top social gaming developer in the world), knows a hit when it sees it, so instead of developing a Draw Something clone to compete with the hit app, they made the best move they can make – buy the developer of Draw Something. [Read more…]

Zynga Acquires Four Game Companies

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Zynga is very intent on strengthening its already secure position as the top provider of casual games in the world. The company, who makes highly popular games like Words With Friends, has announced that it has recently bought four different mobile game companies over the last few months.

The acquisitions Zynga made, as told to Reuters, include Gamedoctors, a German company and the maker of the hit game ZombieSmash. Zynga also said that it has bought Astro Ape Studios, a New York based company. [Read more…]

Yahoo’s Latest Game Plan with Farmville Maker, Zynga

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Yahoo might have scored big time with its recent deal with Zynga, the company responsible for popular Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. The two companies have reached an agreement that will see the integration of Zynga’s social games through Yahoo’s global network.

For Zynga, this could be a viable alternative to its Facebook presence, especially since Yahoo claims of more than 600 million users worldwide across all Yahoo sites. But the question is would users be open to the idea of getting their game on via the Yahoo platform?

Most of those users who play Farmville and Mafia Wars are into these games while at the same time maintaining their social networking profiles and connections on Facebook. Most of them play these games to while away time as they wait for their friends to go online, post updates and links. In short, Zynga games on Facebook are added functionalities for a site which has social networking as the main purpose.

Comparing these to Yahoo which doesn’t have a social networking site. Users go to Yahoo to find/search for information not to socialize. So, I don’t really see these Zynga games easily fitting into the demographics of  Yahoo users.

Still, Yahoo is pretty positive that this deal would be both beneficial to both companies. Hilary Schneider, Yahoo America’s Executive Vice President tells us:

“Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users.”

And with this deal, Yahoo have finally laid down its social strategy and adds up to its previous partnership with both Facebook and Twitter. Would this finally bring some good tidings to Yahoo as a whole? That we will have to wait and see.