New Technology Reviews!.: Investment

Google listed as a Zynga investor

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<img alt="Google listed as a Zynga investor" class="aligncenter" height="135" mce_src="http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2541/550xzyngalogo.jpg" src="http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2541/550xzyngalogo.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 640px;" title="Google listed as a Zynga investor" width="550" /></div>
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Monday afternoon Farmville developer Zynga reportedly filed a 619-page document (S-1) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), tripled in size compared to its original initial public offering (IPO) filing on July 1. What this means is that the new document is jam-packed with information not provided in the previous IPO filing including a long list of investors that just so happens to reveal Google in the #1 spot.</div>
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Does this mean Google is Zynga’s biggest investor? It may be just a coincidence that it resides at the top of the list, but at least the filing clearly verifies previous reports that Google has dumped money into the developer despite denials. It also <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_fixed="1" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">doesn’t</span> mean that Google plans to yank Farmville off Facebook, as the list also includes other notable investors like LinkedIn Chairman and co-founder Reid Hoffman, early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, investment firm Union Square Ventures and others.</div>
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News of Google’s investment has lingered for more than a year, noted as a possible “strategic move” against social rival Facebook. Google’s investment was initially reported at $100 million but has since grown. There’s also been talk that the investment was tied into the launch of Google Games which will supposedly reside within the just-launched social platform, Google+.</div>
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According to AllThingsD which originally discovered Google as an investor, the amount of capital Zynega raised has not changed. In the new filing, the developer claims that it raised three official rounds between February 2008 and February 2011, totaling $845 million. Zynega reports that its largest round summed at $490 million which was raised as early as February 2011.</div>
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In a separate post, the site reports that Zynga has a commitment with Facebook in that any game it develops for the social platform — which integrates the site or its data — will be exclusive to Facebook for the duration of the agreement. These titles include Farmville, Mafia Wars, FishVille, PetVille, Cafe World and a few others. These cannot be played unless users are actively connected through Facebook.</div>
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Zynga has also agreed to inform Facebook of any upcoming games at least one week before completion. The exclusivity terms kick in as soon as the game is launched on the social website. In exchange for its obedience, Facebook will help the developer meet “certain growth targets for monthly unique users of Covered Zynga Games.” Facebook will also sell ads planted next to Zynga games and share a redacted portion of the resulting revenue.</div>
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That said, any thoughts about Farmville heading to Google Games are out the door. The filing seemingly indicates that Facebook has first dibs on any game Zynga produces, and will claim exclusivity if it chooses to host a chosen title. So far it’s unclear as to how much control Facebook may have over other Zynga titles that are not on the Facebook platform.</div>
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So what now? With both Google and Facebook serving as rivals and Zynga investors at the same time, it will be interesting to see what happens with the developer’s public offering. Zynga is seeking to raise $1 billion from its IPO<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_fixed="1" mce_name="strong" mce_style="font-weight: bold;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5;">.</span></div>
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SOURCE via <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_fixed="1" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;"><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20110718/zynga-updates-ipo-filing-to-list-investors-and-googles-one-of-them/" mce_href="http://allthingsd.com/20110718/zynga-updates-ipo-filing-to-list-investors-and-googles-one-of-them/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #0066cc; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">All Things D</a></span></div>
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Google listed as a Zynga investor

Monday afternoon Farmville developer Zynga reportedly filed a 619-page document (S-1) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC...

iDreamsky launches SkyNet, Android social gaming platform for China

<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="SkyNet android gaming iDreamsky launches SkyNet, Android social gaming platform for China" class="size-full wp-image-221313 aligncenter" height="199" src="http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/1785/skynetandroidgaming.jpg" title="iDreamsky launches SkyNet, Android social gaming platform for China" width="390" /></p><br/>Southern China-based iDreamsky, which has recently received over $2 million in funding from Hua Xiu Investment Group, announced SkyNet, a social gaming and distribution platform for Android games in the Chinese market. The SkyNet platform will come preloaded on Android devices manufactured by Lenovo, Coolpad and many others. In total, the company expects its platform to be available on more than 4 million devices by the end of this year.<br/><br/>Currently in closed beta, SkyNet is still in the “attract developers” phase. As part of these efforts, iDreamsky has teamed up with Appular to bring some of their popular games to the ever-growing Chinese market.<br/><br/>SkyNet provides a number of social gaming features such as PvP, virtual currency reward mechanics, local social media integration in Sina Weibo, QQ micro-blogging, RenRen and more. In addition, it also supports in-app purchases, integrating many of the most popular payment channels in China like QQ coins, Unionpay, Alipay and all three of Telecom’s payment gateways.<br/><br/>Developers interested to bring their Android titles to SkyNet can contact either Appular or iDreamsky…

iDreamsky launches SkyNet, Android social gaming platform for China

Southern China-based iDreamsky, which has recently received over $2 million in funding from Hua Xiu Investment Group, announced SkyNet, a so...

Tips For Protecting Your Website Investment

<br />		<p>With the internet being extensively used today in every walk of life, security issues have risen in prominence. Advances in technology have been used both positively and negatively to enhance websites and businesses as well as to destroy them. Negative impact of technology can be seen from the constantly increasing cases of hacking websites or of malware attacks that are being reported. While it is not possible to secure your website completely from such attacks, there are several steps, which as a website owner you should take, to secure your website investment. Following are some of the basic tips, which if followed, will help you to protect your website from malicious hackers and attacks:</p><p><br /><strong>Virus protection: </strong>Good virus protection is essential for ensuring complete security of your website. This can be achieved by installing a good anti-virus program on your PC, so that it will help prevent virus attacks on your website. It is important that you choose an anti-virus program that also deals with problems related to malware.<br /> <strong>Selection of alpha-numeric passwords: </strong>Secondly, it is important to keep changing or modifying your FTP password. While this could be a pretty mundane yet irritating task for many, doing so will definitely ensure complete safety to your website. It is essential to note that your passwords should be as long as you are allowed and should contain a healthy mix of numbers and alphabets, mixed properly. Never use common dates like that of birthdays, anniversaries or names while setting your passwords as these can be easily hacked. It is important to protect your databases with passwords in a similar manner. However, if you are still unsure of how to do it, you can enlist the services of an ethical hacker to help you find the vulnerabilities in your website and overcome them.<br /> <strong>Using proper security patches: </strong>The next step is to ensure that you are up to date with your security patches as the lack of these will cause Trojans and other similar viruses to enter through these gaps. When using web hosting packages to host your website, it is important that you ensure that the hosting company is diligent in ensuring that the server patches are up to date. It is important that you download and install the latest patches that are available with regard to websites and software that you are using. Failing to use the current patches will only result in your website and system becoming vulnerable to malicious virus attacks as some viruses can easily pass through existing software and require newer patches to stop them.<br /> <strong>Be judicious with your file server permissions: </strong>File server permissions should be set in such a way that you do not allow indiscriminate entry to your website and are aware of what is being uploaded or downloaded or even simply accessed. Like your home, it is important that you guard the gates of your website, especially if you do not want unsolicited entry that may harm to your website.<br /> <strong>Use Google webmaster: </strong>Linking with the Google webmaster account will help you learn about any hacking attempt immediately, which in turn will assist in determining the future action in case of any problem. This is freely available and helps you deal with your hacking problem without losing any time.<br /> <strong>Take regular back-ups:</strong> Last but not the least, you should always ensure that you regularly take back-ups of your material, either manually or with the help of your web hosting company. Taking regular back-ups of your information and website is essential as this allows you to easily restore the site without any hassle in case of any malicious attack that leads to complete loss of information.<br /></p><p>So, use these steps to protect your website investment.</p>	<br />	<br />		<br />			<br />				<br />					<br /><br />						<p>Try <a href="http://www.studio1c.com/" target="_new">Studio 1C</a>.</p>					<br />

Tips For Protecting Your Website Investment

With the internet being extensively used today in every walk of life, security issues have risen in prominence. Advances in technology ha...