Zynga

This Day in Tech: Interview with Mac pioneer and Google+ contributor; Twitter handles 200 million tweets daily

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Friday, July 1.

Google+ contributor and Mac pioneer talks with CNET (Q&A) A core feature of the new Google+ service is Circles, which makes it drag-and-drop easy to build "circles" of friends in the browser. Meet Andy Hertzfeld, the man behind Circles--and the original Mac. More

Living life without unlimited data CNET's Maggie Reardon helps current Verizon customers understand their data options, and also offers pointers on choosing among Apple, Google Android, and RIM … Read more

Zynga files for IPO

After a bit of a delay, FarmVille creator Zynga has announced plans to go public.

The company filed its Form S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today. According to the company, some of the shares will be sold by Zynga, while the remaining shares will be sold by "certain stockholders." Zynga has enlisted Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch, among other investment banks, to act as underwriters.

According to The New York Times, citing "a figure used to calculate the registration fee," Zynga is expecting to raise about $1 billion … Read more

Zynga IPO: Like Facebook, but sharper

Zynga is half of the big IPO we've been waiting for. The other half, if course, is Facebook. But Zynga is likely the cleaner story for investors. Expected to file its public offering papers tomorrow, we can prepare to see in them some heartening information: Most likely, we'll see a company that's raking in money from a broad base of consumers, based on a scalable and maintainable base of technology.

Zynga is a beautiful, shark-like machine. Its focus is on getting consumers to pay for online interactions, and it does that well. The company builds cartoony world-building … Read more

IPO values Zynga at $15 billion to $20 billion

Zynga, the online gaming company behind FarmVille and CityVille, plans to file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering as early as tomorrow, CNBC is reporting.

The San Francisco company plans to raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in a filing that would value the company at between $15 billion and $20 billion, according to the CNBC report.

While the Zynga filing has been expected, it would add to an already frothy lineup of Net start-ups looking to cash in on lofty valuations for tech companies. Earlier this month, daily-deals company Groupon filed papers … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1499: Finally, Venn diagrams come to social networking! (Podcast)

On today's show, we're kind of down on Microsoft Office 365 and poor MySpace's future, but we feel a tiny bit positive about the overlapping circles of nerdiness that could be possible with Google's new Plus social networking beta. Also, find out what you love on Google, if you can, and see all the movies you want for $50 a month. Plus: our new favorite word! Philanthrodorks!

E3 2011: Where are the social games?

For a trade show all about the latest and greatest in interactive entertainment, it's somewhat shocking that many of the most popular video games being played right now are either underrepresented, or not represented at all. We are, of course, speaking about the social and casual games that have audiences larger than almost any traditional console game, and what's more, have managed to tap into the recurring revenue stream of microtransactions that seems to elude so many others.

This is no unintentional oversight. Many attendees of E3, the Game Developers Conference, and other industry events say that games such as Farmville and Cityville are not "real games," and that even mentioning them in the same breath as Halo or Gears of War would be to cheapen the entire medium.

At E3, these kinds of games are woefully underrepresented, despite having in many cases tens of millions of players (MAU, or monthly active users, is the standard metric for social games--the most popular game of this genre, Zynga's CityVille, currently has 90 million monthly active users). If you looks around artfully, however, you can still find a few examples. EA's social/casual subsidiary PlayFish, is here, and has scored with games such as Pet Society and Madden NFL Superstars. At E3, a portion of EA's giant floor space was devoted to The Sims Social, a Facebook version of the popular suburban life simulation game. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1476: The Oprah Browser (Podcast)

On today's show, Apple responds to the Mac Defender concerns with a support forum and a promised OS X update, Google may announce mobile payments via NFC as early as tomorrow (Thursday), and Facebook might launch a music service with Spotify (but no, not in the U.S. -- yet). Also, TiVo makes tons of money from suing people and Brian Tong bids a teary farewell to Oprah. --Molly

Zynga about to file for IPO

Zynga is poised to file for its initial public offering, according to sources close to the situation.

The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission could come as early as this week, or next week at the latest.

The move is not entirely unexpected, given how well the recent IPOs of several Internet companies have done recently, including business networking site LinkedIn last week and Russian search giant Yandex today.

Their strong performances show the huge investor appetite for fast-growing and high-profile Web 2.0 firms. Wall Street is also prepping for eventual public offerings from social buying site Groupon … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1474: More pain for Sony (Podcast)

Sony is expecting $3.2 billion loss for its fiscal year and Sony's BMG Greece music site is hacked revealing more customer data. Google's idea of being a truly open platform goes through more growing pains and HP creates a whole new numbering system. That's "one plus" for you my friends.

The 404 820: Where we stop using cliches for show titles (podcast)

It's Friday the 13th, but nothing is creepier than this morning's news about Ashton Kutcher replacing Charlie Sheen on 'Two and a Half Men.' On today's episode of The 404 Podcast, we're talking about the list of other potential castings for the slot, the Library of Congress launching a National Jukebox, a pricey out of court settlement from Lime Wire, and a user-submitted picture of Natali Morris that's too wrong not to show.

The 404 Digest for Episode 820

Ashton Kutcher will replace Sheen on "Two and a Half Men." Library of Congress quietly announces The National Jukebox. Lime Wire settles for $105 million. Lady Gaga presents her own version of Farmville on Facebook. Oh what the hell, here's Ahmad's picture of a beautiful woman... with a beard.

Episode 820 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more