Donde es my iPad? Okay, so I've never been that great with second languages, but I've always desperately wanted to learn: and now I just might be able to do that, all while playing one of my favorite mobile word games! Zynga has announced this week that a total of siete (I'm told that means seven) new languages have been introduced into the popular mobile word game, Words with Friends, including: Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Swedish, and Portuguese.
Liabilities! Bulldog markets! Synergy! Such are the terms we use to describe business, and this post is no different. Zynga has teamed up with Hasbro to create board games based on a handful of their social games, including FarmVille, CityVille, Words With Friends, and Draw Something.
Yesterday, we reported Zynga bought out Draw Something developer OMGPOP for $210 million ($180 million plus another $30 million in employee payouts). Earlier today, Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter stated that the likeliest reason for such a high price point is a bidding war. Schachter pointed out that, despite Draw Something's popularity boom over the past few weeks, OMGPOP's $200 million price tag seem a little steep.
Ever since the dawn of mankind, as defined as since the release of FarmVille, Zynga has had the number one app on Facebook in terms of daily average users (DAU's) until now.Today, OMGPOP's Draw Something is officially the most popular app on Facebook with 10.8 million DAU's, compared to Words with Friends with 8.6 million DAU's according to AppData.
One of the best things about Words With Friends (aside from making Alec Baldwin look like a raging blowhard) is that it hooks you up with gamers from across the planet. You can meet people you never would otherwise, learn words and phrases from faraway lands, and maybe make a new friend or two. Oh, and maybe —just maybe— you'll wind up saving a life, which is what happened over the weekend.
Dean Takahashi of Venturebeat has written what amounts to a book about the growth story that is Zynga. Seriously, it's 12 web pages long and my guess is that they'll turn it into a for-pay e-book once Zynga goes public this week. In the meantime, read it for free here. In other Zynga news, the company is planning to go public in what could be the biggest game company IPO ever. As luck would have it, or as game launch strategy and a huge marketing campaign would happen, the top 5 games on Facebook are Zynga games this week, driven by the new release of CastleVille and renewed popularity of Word with Friends. And someone at Zynga needs to send a gift to Alec Baldwin for giving them and Word with Friends the greatest public relations gift alive on the week of going public. Here's the SNL skit if you're curious.
If you're Zynga, you can't really buy better press than this. Former Jack Ryan, current Jack Donaghy, and all around jack... guy Alec Baldwin likes Words With Friends--a lot. So much so that he was ejected from an American Airlines flight Tuesday afternoon because of his love for the game, or so his spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik told CNN.
If you're a fan of Words With Friends, then you'll love this: The world's largest round of the game it about to kick off. The game is the end result of one of the most unlikely collaborations: Zynga, American auto-maker Ford, and actress Jenny McCarthy.