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Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

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Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#71
post #43

Every day I go to 7-11 for coffee. And cringe at the zynga branding everywhere.

Really? I miss the good old days when Jedis and Jabba were on 7-11 glasses, in that case.

We don't have 7-11 here.... Let it be known that I pine for Super Nachos.

Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#72
post #29

I think Google's worry about Facebook (partly justified, partly not) is starting to cause them to make pointless (and time wasting) decisions. If I had 5mins with Sergei and Larry, I would say (after taking a long sip from the free organic drink I just got from the snack bar we're standing next to) "Look, the real enemy is not FB but Apple (and sometimes your own engineering hubris, e.g. Buzz), so focus all your troo…

And I like to think they'd respond, "Look Jun8, in 12 years we've built a company worth upwards of 150 billion dollars, and you've amassed roughly 844 karma points."

Well, how much karma has Larry Page racked up on HN??

Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#75
post #29

I think Google's worry about Facebook (partly justified, partly not) is starting to cause them to make pointless (and time wasting) decisions. If I had 5mins with Sergei and Larry, I would say (after taking a long sip from the free organic drink I just got from the snack bar we're standing next to) "Look, the real enemy is not FB but Apple (and sometimes your own engineering hubris, e.g. Buzz), so focus all your troo…

>Look, the real enemy is not FB but Apple The first thing I thought of when I read this news was precisely that it was targeted at matching Apple. All of a sudden Apple has come out of nowhere as a gaming force, threatening even Nintendo's portable gaming systems. Google investing in gaming looks like a move to reinforce their offerings in this department.

And the funny thing is, Apple doesn't give a shit about gaming.

Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#76

Can you imagine working on Farmville? I mean, it would be like going into work every day to refine the equivilent of the Fisher Price moo farm toy [1] except a) for adults and b) relatively juvenile. Imagine the meetings, mostly run by marketing idiots. "Okay, we need the new chewy coco grove coconut tree special item out by next Monday. So that means everyone's coming in on saturday." But how can you argue with 85 m…

You get to run experiments on a huge number of users. Do a split test and get a significant result in an hour. Figure out a way to make it just 1% stickier and suddenly you created value worth millions to the company. It sounds fascinating and I could easily imagine working there.

Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#78

The article says something about social graph but that doesn't make sense. Gmail basically rules the world when it comes to email so they already have a lot of social graph information just from email correspondences. There must be some other strategy they are pursuing.

In terms of userbase, GMail is still third behind Hotmail and Yahoo. I would bet that current Farmville users overlap less with GMail than other email services too.

Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#79

Can you imagine working on Farmville? I mean, it would be like going into work every day to refine the equivilent of the Fisher Price moo farm toy [1] except a) for adults and b) relatively juvenile. Imagine the meetings, mostly run by marketing idiots. "Okay, we need the new chewy coco grove coconut tree special item out by next Monday. So that means everyone's coming in on saturday." But how can you argue with 85 m…

How is this different than the rest of the game industry?

I hate to say it for fear of giving aid and comfort to my Gender Studies professors, but I think a major portion of the reason why Blizzard et al get geek cred and FarmVille does not is because FarmVille is played by women.

Re: Google Secretly Invested In Zynga, Preparing To Launch Google Games

#80

Can you imagine working on Farmville? I mean, it would be like going into work every day to refine the equivilent of the Fisher Price moo farm toy [1] except a) for adults and b) relatively juvenile. Imagine the meetings, mostly run by marketing idiots. "Okay, we need the new chewy coco grove coconut tree special item out by next Monday. So that means everyone's coming in on saturday." But how can you argue with 85 m…

Or maybe it'd be fun because you'd be making something that people can relax and enjoy and that adds a little extra social interaction to their everyday experience, often with people that they don't have another "reason" to be in contact with.

That reminds me of "provide liquidity"
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