Zynga threatening to leave Facebook

[mrjohn]

FarmVille Juggernaut Zynga Might Leave Facebook Soon | Koku Gamer

I thought this was interesting.

A reliable anonymous source sent Tech Crunch information about Zynga making a shocking move by leaving the popular social network website, Facebook. The message that was sent to Tech Crunch:

Pincus announced at a 5pm meeting yesterday at Zynga that Zynga was going to launch a social game network called Zynga Live. The Zynga Live initiative was a social gaming network. Facebook and Zynga has been negotiating on Facebook Credits and the talks turned for the worst. In the negotiation process, Facebook shut off Zynga’s feeds and threatened to shut down games. Zynga in the process threatened to completely leave Facebook and prepared to do so in the previous upcoming weeks.

A month or so back we were having the "will Facebook eat domaining" conversation in a thread on NamePros.

I was quick to offer up that a lot of FB's popularity is with people who migrated from Yahoo Games and Pogo to play the Zynga games.

Could be interesting to see what the fallout for FB is if Zynga takes its football and starts its own social website.

 

[Archangel]

Interesting point. And without Zygna, would myspace reclaim its #1 position with social media? This might be something worth watching over.

 

[glaxxon]

Interesting indeed. A lot of facebook's charm is due to all the games and apps. Without it i don't know how long they can hold on.
Though they can get new games and providers but lets see if they can hold the audience.

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

IMO, Facebook is on its way out. I have never seen such a convoluted mess. Lousy interface, spammy ads, and complete strangers trying to "friend" you.

I check it about once a month, only to look at my son's photos and posts. If not for that, I'd be out of there.

*

 

[glaxxon]

Maybe true, if someone can come up with a good social network.
I don't see any of the pre-existing social networks taking Facebook's place. They'll have to totally revamp themselves for this to happen.

 

[mrjohn]

would myspace reclaim its #1 position with social media?

MySpace is never coming back. It's now viewed as the ghetto of the internet. It's viewed almost as poorly as Second Life.

IMO, Facebook is on its way out. I have never seen such a convoluted mess. Lousy interface, spammy ads, and complete strangers trying to "friend" you.

What's weird with Facebook is how quickly they allowed financial success to ruin that website.

For how many years did Facebook resist a lot of the outside interference? They shook off buyout offers from several companies. They essentially buried MySpace, Yahoo Games, Pogo, etc. And then they had this really creepy moment where they decided nothing mattered anymore.

Even a couple months ago, I had pretty high faith that Facebook would remain viable long-term. Maybe not Google type viable, but certainly better than most websites. After all this, I'm not so sure.

 

[labrocca]

Google should buy Zynga.

 

[Jaco]

MySpace is never coming back. It's now viewed as the ghetto of the internet.

Eh, demographics.
It's still pretty popular with the younger set. It will never see it's glory days again, though.

What no one saw coming was the media circling it's wagons to pump up Facebook and blackball the Murdoch owned Myspace. For a time, when Myspace was at it's zenith of user critical mass, it's buzz factor was monumental. Once Murdoch bought it, it was like complete media outlet blackout and Facebook/Twitter became the golden children.

It's understandable; classic 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' stuff.

That, and the inevitable bleed of older users to another site. No matter how you try and shake it, you cannot market simultaneously to 15 year old girls and 35 year old single men and 55 year old married women and 4 year old small businesses. Myspace was the only game in town (as far as broad use) until Facebook caught up, helped dramatically by the Murdoch blackball strategy. Facebook was the path of least resistance social networking outlet for more mature users.

 

[mrjohn]

I mentioned this in one of my older discussions about MySpace and Facebook, but it bears repeating: MySpace's crucial flaw is that it was GeoCities 2.0.

MySpace was a wildlife refuse for ugly, user-driven design. So, when the much cleaner Facebook took off, it was easier for the older demographic to migrate there.

Also, MySpace became infested with viruses because they didn't screen their Flash ads. It doesn't take to many complete reinstalls of Windows before you stop using a particular website. Especially if there is a cleaner, safer alternative.

Facebook projects trust (apparently, ill-begotten trust, but trust nonetheless). MySpace looks skeevy.

 

[SeanPreston]

Google should buy Zynga.

That should be the answer to every major site issue..."sell it to google"

lol
:hehe:

 

[labrocca]

What no one saw coming was the media circling it's wagons to pump up Facebook and blackball the Murdoch owned Myspace. For a time, when Myspace was at it's zenith of user critical mass, it's buzz factor was monumental. Once Murdoch bought it, it was like complete media outlet blackout and Facebook/Twitter became the golden children.

I never really cared who owned myspace. I always considered it's interface and user base a real problem. Is it possible that Murdoch just mismanaged the site and when a better competitor came along it was left in the dust? I mean really MySpace has not evolved imho while Facebook continues to please it's users. That's really what this is about.

 

[mrjohn]

I've gotta agree with labrocca. MySpace doesn't fit in the equation anywhere at this point.

This is really about how much power Facebook does or does not have. One thing we're going to learn soon is how much power Farmville has.

I think there are some folks at Zynga who flat-out feel they made Facebook what it is today. And they're pissed that Facebook has imposed a fee structure that amounts to a 30% tax on every dollar people put into the Zynga games.

 

[Sameh]

I'm sure FB will find a way to solve this because it will not be good (For FB) if Zynga actually left.

 

[TheLaw]

Zynga doesn't even have the power to harm FB the way it sounds. I do play the zynga poker from time to time to chill with my buddies there, but that doesn't mean I will follow my buddies if they moved outside of facebook for the game only.

The story is vice-versa, zynga became famous thanks to facebook, and it will sink down (if not will lose a nice amount of visitors) if they moved on its own network. And it will take even shorter to vanish completely by the politics they have.

Ironic enough tho, this news comes out just few months after Zynga started to collect emails from visitors and for some odd reason, i never did liked them since the beginning so i aint getting their crappy email "hey we moved here, come follow us"

 

[mrjohn]

We'll see. I'm not so sure. The folks at Zynga sound really pissed. And the FB folks have a stubborn streak themselves.

I think Zynga wants FB to take a smaller chunk. But, FB right now is monetizing every last square inch of the site. I'm not certain they're exercising good enough judgment right now to handle what should be a simple situation.

---------- Post added at 09:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

zynga became famous thanks to facebook

Microsoft became famous because of IBM. Have you seen what's happened since?

 

[TheLaw]

Microsoft became famous because of IBM. Have you seen what's happened since?

That would almost make sense if Facebook WAS a game network ....

 

[duceman]

Google should buy Zynga.

That move could potentially give their floundering Google Buzz a jump start

 

[mrjohn]

That would almost make sense if Facebook WAS a game network ....

For a significant portion of FB user, that is all Facebook is. I know people who only signed up for FB because they wanted to play Farmville. If Zynga leaves, those users leave.

 

[Archangel]

Absolutely. Without FV, Facebook would be just another social networking site.

For a significant portion of FB user, that is all Facebook is. I know people who only signed up for FB because they wanted to play Farmville. If Zynga leaves, those users leave.

 

[DutchBoyd]

I agree with the last couple posts. I wouldn't have signed up for facebook if my girlfriend hadn't kept nagging me to send her purple cows on farmville. Now I login every day to do some mafiawars jobs. Without the games, Facebook isn't really appealing to me. But if Zynga leaves Facebook, plenty of games will rush to fill the void and I don't think Facebook will be hit as hard as Zynga will.