Re: Shame

I know next to nothing about Zynga but now am genuinely curious: Are you being sarcastically celebrating their downfall or are you suggesting they were a more likeable part of the crap that is FB and as a result feel sorry for them?

Re: Shame

Neither Facebook nor Zynga is particularly likeable. Zynga is a "game" company with the unfortunate habit of ripping off other company's games, turning them into thinly veiled skinner boxes and monetizing the hell of people addicted to them. Facebook is the company which hosted and gave them preferential status while all this crap was going on for a cut of the profits.

I wouldn't feel sad if either of them failed, but Zynga would be a good start.

Re: Shame

Thanks, I've since done the obvious thing and read up on Wikipedia. Says:

- "2009, Zynga made money from lead generation advertising schemes, [...] These were criticized as [...] in some cases, being outright scams that would download unwanted software or unwittingly sign up for a recurring subscription. One ad signed up players for subscriptions to expensive and unwanted text-messaging services. [...] Michael Arrington of TechCrunch said that Zynga intentionally worked with scam advertisers, and that lead generation made up a third of Zynga's revenue. Arrington also alleged that Facebook was complicit in this."

- "Many of Zynga's games involve players posting messages to non-players, often for in-game benefits."

- Then a lovely quote from Zynga's founder/CEO: "So I funded [Zynga] myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business."

- And another: 'an ex-employee was cited quoting Mark Pincus as saying "I don't fucking want innovation. You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."'

There is more, there also a few positives though to be fair.

Re: Shame

while they may not be a particularly nice company, I have to give them credit for their poker game. Pretty much all of the real money on-line poker games aren't a patch on their client.

It'd be nice to be able to play a real money game on my ipad, and with a half decent experience.

You don't need FB to chat with your Auntie in the Orkneys either.

If facebook was sentient then it would be a ginger step-child.