Personalization and social features have become core features for web portals for quite some time now. Social networks continue to expand beyond the realms of just one website and into games, phones, apps, and portals. Personalized home pages like My Yahoo, iGoogle, My MSN, and My AOL have been adding social elements to their dashboards.

With 44 million monthly visitors, My Yahoo is currently the most popular, but with over 25 million monthly visitors iGoogle is catching up.  And now, Google has rolled out new social widgets – including a variety of popular social games – for users.

Some of the new iGoogle social games should be rather familiar: Electronic Arts’ Scrabble, and highly popular Playfish app, Who Has The Biggest Brain? They play almost exactly the same way as they do on Facebook.

iGoogle users are able to share the widgets with contacts. Recipients get an invite to the gadget and upon acceptance will have it added to their home page. Furthermore, they will be able to see any and all contributions (like comments) that the others, with whom the gadget is shared, make, via the “Updates” section.

According to Google VP, Marissa Mayer and iGoogle Product Manager, Rose Yao, the idea behind the addition is to increase engagement. While social games in a portal will probably never be as engaging as they are on Facebook, they should help a lot. It will be interesting to see how successful these games are, and who else jumps on board.

Tencent, the China-based social network, communications, and gaming company, continues to bring in staggering revenue, comprised mostly from the sale of virtual goods. In the second quarter, the company reported revenues of $421 million, a 14 percent increase from the previous quarter. From the same time last year, it represents a remarkable 79 percent increase.

Categorized “internet value added services,” virtual goods accounted for $315 million in revenue in the second quarter. That’s a 13 percent increase from last quarter, and a year over year increase of about 108 percent. Individually, most Tencent virtual goods aren’t that expensive, with many ranging from 10 cents to a $1. Players of social games use them to purchase avatars, pets, accessories, and a variety of other goods using a virtual currency that Tencent manages.

In Asia, the growth in the virtual goods market has been nothing short of astonishing. As we reported in April, it’s estimated that the Asian market for virtual goods sits at around $5 billion, a figure that is around 25 times larger than the approximate $200 million in the United States. In China alone, Pearl Research estimated that online gaming revenues in China weighed in around $2.8 billion. Of that total, 70 percent of that being generated through virtual goods.

Other areas of Tencent’s business experienced growth as well. Its online advertising revenue, an area of the gaming market that has been much more volatile due in part to the recession, reached $35 million, an increase of 65 percent from the last quarter and nine percent since last year. But in the company’s earnings statement, Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent, made no mistake where the company sees its future and continued growth.

“We strengthened our online platforms and increased monetization on our Internet value-added services, especially online games,” he says. “For our online advertising business, the industry environment remained challenging, although activities picked up modestly this quarter. We believe advertisers are still cautious on ad spend for 2009 until the global economy recovers in a more concrete and sustained manner.”

Virtual goods sales in the United States are growing quickly as well, especially within social games on Facebook and MySpace. Other social networks, like hi5, have staked a big portion of their future revenue opportunities on virtual goods as well.

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With the growth of Twitter as a communications and application platform, new approaches to monetization are beginning to appear to enable users to conduct transactions through use of the service. Though we’ve seen Twitter-based games monetize through virtual currency, new startup SocialCord is creating a payment platform for content delivered directly through Twitter.

According to founder David Dundas, the idea behind SocialCord is to allow users to subscribe to premium services in order to receive exclusive information in the form of tweets or text messages. Supported by most of the major carriers (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc.), users need only sign up by entering their phone number. Upon doing so they receive a text message containing a PIN that must be confirmed on the site, and will then receive any and all charges via their monthly phone bill. No credit cards are required.

As it stands, the phone carriers receive around 45% of all payments, with the remainder being split between SocialCord and the content provider. So, who will use such a service, and what will they pay for?

Dundas says that he wants to focus on Facebook applications wanting to charge for virtual goods or currency, musicians, and “special content providers” (i.e. stock analysts). However, tweets and text messages are merely compilations of 140 characters or so. The concern is there may be very little that people will actually pay for in that regard. Nevertheless, Dundas is hopeful, banking on music fans and other potential niches that would pay for things such as songs, live performances, and so on.

Whether this approach will work is yet to be seen, but it does feel like it could go either way. If Dundas’ assumption about loyal music fans is correct, then SocialCord’s new platform ought to do well. The company says it is looking for angel investors.

Major social game developer Zynga recently acquired young social virtual world developer MyMiniLife, and it is already using some of the company’s technology in FarmVille. The MyMiniLife team has already joined Zynga’s 400-odd staff and is primarily focused on helping grow Zynga’s virtual worlds.

MyMiniLife allows users to create their own personalized spaces and homes using styles ranging from that of a budding metropolis to a tropical island getaway. Players can then, of course, expand their creations through the purchase of items using the company’s virtual currency.

Currently, the company is relatively small, but its experience in virtual worlds is what Zynga is after.

“We’re constantly looking for the highest quality talent and technology to help us build our business,” says Mark Skaggs, VP and GM of Social RTS at Zynga. “The MyMiniLife technology and team is a perfect complement to the top notch teams here at Zynga.”

Until recently, the most successful virtual world from the company has been YoVille with just under 10.3 million monthly users this past month. However, with the staggering success of its latest title, FarmVille, it will be interesting to see how the company integrates the MML team. As of last month, FarmVille garnered an incredible 16.7 million users, ousting long time top Facebook games Texas HoldEm Poker and Mafia Wars.

“We’re very excited to join Zynga and help grow the business in any way we can,” says Sizhao Yang, CEO of MyMiniLife. “We’re looking forward to being an integral part of Zynga’s leadership and growth moving forward, and are happy to have supported FarmVille’s amazing success with MyMiniLife’s technology.”

Facebook has grown dramatically in the last year, now reaching over 250 million users per month around the world. However, there is always room for more growth around the world. As such, foreign developers are increasingly creating apps and games for the platform. Berlin based social gaming company, wooga (which stands for “world of gaming”) has just released the latest game from a European developer, called Brain Buddies.

It’s a quiz game, of course, and somewhat reminiscent of the Playfish title, Who Has the Biggest Brain? Players are tasked with completing brain-stretching mini games – for an enigmatic looking alien – that test one’s memory, logic, mathematical, and visual acuity skills.

Presented in a clean Flash format set in a space-age, alien world, the four games are very easy to play and understand (some of which will also be familiar to veteran players of Who Has The Biggest Brain?). Of course, “easy” is a relative term. While the games are simple to pick up, it becomes difficult to attain the intellectual goals you are hoping for.

Unknown to the user at first glance are a number of hidden mini-games that can be unlocked as players improve their score. If you are good with names, then you’ll probably like the memory games better. If you enjoy numbers, then the mathematics will likely be your favorites. However, in between those come different variations that tend to be a bit more specific to your personal mental agility. For example, one memory based game is more of a pattern recognition test (clicking spaces on a grid that held an object a few seconds earlier) while one of the bonus games is more object oriented (X object was removed, which one is it?).

Regardless of what suits your fancy specifically, this is certainly an entertaining app for connoisseurs of thinking games. The game was launched in eight different languages which, according to founder and managing director, Jens Begemann, is “paying off nicely.” In fact, Begemann goes on to say that Brain Buddies is “probably the most international game of its kind on Facebook.” With nearly 3 million monthly active users to date (roughly five weeks after release), a reach now within over 200 countries, and the recent investment by Holtzbrinck Ventures (investment amounts are still unknown), things are looking good for Brain Buddies.

AppData for Brain Buddies

It was late last year that we took a look at Elven Blood, the fantasy text-based Facebook RPG from Patrick Shyu who had built the app under the alias Royal East India Trading Company. In addition, Shyu also created three other popular titles including Blood Lust, Skies of Blood, and City of Blood. Though the core game play was more or less the same, the series of games encompassed very different styles, and at its peak, the original Elven Blood alone garnered over 240,000 monthly players.

However, due to multiple repeated breaches of Facebook’s Terms of Service, all of Shyu’s titles were banned completely from the Platform. This marked the first time that such a popular game, or series for that matter, was removed from Facebook. Nevertheless, Shyu was only down and not out – as he has just reappeared on Twitter with 140Blood.

As expected, all four Blood games are present and accounted for and are virtually identical to their Facebook counterparts. Players create a character, complete missions/quests to gain experience, earn money, buy items, build buildings, and team up with friends using limited resources and character stats. The only difference between them is, of course, the themes that range from the gothic vampire world of Blood Lust to the post-apocalyptic realm of cyborgs and mechanized battle suits in Skies of Blood. However, while this is the only difference between the four Twitter titles, there is one key change with the new adaptation.

Coinciding with the tradition of other previous Twitter games such as Spymaster and 140 Mafia, the World of Blood games are set up to incorporate automatic tweets. Tweets are sent out when you join, buy items, travel, win in combat, or comment on another player’s profile. As with the earlier games, the concern of tweet spam is always prevalent, but it does look like Blood has done a decent job of blunting the problem. Currently, the number of tweetable activities is relatively small, and most of them are limited to once per day with the only exception being the commentary on player profiles.

Overall, the games are just as strong as they were on Facebook. In fact, with the addition of the viral capabilities of Twitter, they are perhaps even more so. Long story short, if you enjoyed any of the World of Blood titles on Facebook, then you’ll enjoy them again on Twitter. Granted, veteran players will have to start from scratch again, but it’s better than nothing. With any luck, Shyu has learned from his negative experiences with Facebook, and the revived Blood series will be around for a while.

SGN, one of the earliest developers of cross-platform social games, has just released a new version of (fluff)Friends for MySpace. Fueled by the success on Facebook and i(fluff)Pets on the iPhone, the MySpace rendition marks the third addition to the fluff family. Players can now connect to the (fluff)Friend community and interact with players across all three platforms.

Like its predecessors, the MySpace version will contain the same high-quality visuals and game play. Users will still be able to adopt their own pet and care for it through petting, feeding, quests, and so on. (fluff)Friend members will also be able to customize their own (fluff)Habitats using what SGN calls the “(fluff)Editor” and “(fluff)Art” sharing modules.

SGN hopes it can extends fluff’s reach to many of the 130 million potential users on MySpace.

“(fluff)Friends is a dynamic world that appeals to and resonates with the demographic of the MySpace community and creates a safe environment for young people to express their imagination,” says Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN.

(fluff)Friends for MySpace will also monetize through virtual goods and currency (dubbed “munny”). Currently, SGN reports that subscribers of the Facebook version spend around $50 per month. The purchasing audience is 79% female and has an average age of 27.

Fluff’s platform-agnostic nature is an interesting model as SGN grows the “(fluff)Franchise” across more platforms and devices. It will be interesting to see if the company goes further down the web or mobile route in the future.

In 2004, King.com launched offering skill based game, and since then, it has grown to over 150 titles in 9 languages around the world. Today, King garners over 350 million games played globally each month, and is the exclusive provider of skill games for Yahoo!, MSN, Real Networks, Orange, NBC, and over half a dozen more. However, recently the company took its first steps deeper into the social gaming realm with launches on both Facebook and the iPhone.

The first Facebook game from King.com is Kalorie King. If only losing weight were this simple! Essentially, players are presented with a veritable wall of junk foods (and some healthy ones) that gradually moves down to the floor. Moving back and forth, players have to remove and match up blocks into groups of four to remove them and catch any falling health food while avoiding the unhealthy. Each level has a limited amount of time, and the objective is to “burn” as much fat as possible before the end (based on your score). Suffice to say, those dietary results work remarkably fast.

On  the iPhone, King has released Amazon Survival. Despite how the title sounds, it is actually a puzzle game that has players dropping multicolored balls in order to match up four or more. Doing so causes them to disappear until you have dropped everything below the water level at the bottom of the screen. Making direct use of the touch screen and heralding in the simple mechanics of popular puzzle games of the past, it certainly makes for a fun addition to one’s app collection. Not surprising, considering the web version is stated to have over 50 million plays in the span of three months.

Of course, if food isn’t your game (no pun intended), or you don’t have an iPhone, then the latest app added to Facebook might suit your fancy. It is an MMOG by the name Mars Lives. As one would expect, this game is about Mars, or rather, your life on Mars. In a nutshell, this is a sim-like game in which the player build up there own Martian “farm,” of sorts, to earn money to travel the “world.” Players can visit other cities, form clans, and even set up ambushes in order to rob unwary travelers.

Mars Lives is easily the most involved of these, but unfortunately throws a lot at you all at once. The “tutorials” are really merely text-heavy single screens and don’t involve the player. As such, it is likely many will skip over them and become lost rather easily. Nevertheless, if you do get past this, then the only drawback will be the number of people playing.

When you start Mars Lives, you are prompted to pick an “Episode” that has its own little backstory and what not. Each Episode runs for a period of time before it ends (a couple weeks), which adds a bit of competition, allowing users to actually “win” each one based on how well they do (i.e. how much they earn through farming minerals, or robbing others). The best part is, though, is if the Episode you just played was poor, there is always a new one just around the corner.

Despite some of the negative drawbacks that accompany Mars Lives, the overall extension to Facebook and the iPhone is an interesting move by the company. King.com has shown that it can create and manage great casual games for audiences around the world. Amazon Survival already makes for an excellent addition to the App Store, and the simple yet curious Kalorie King is a decent first step for Facebook. Though Mars Lives is a bit overwhelming, it does show the general direction King.com is going, and we look forward to seeing what they do next.

A few weeks ago at the Social Gaming Summit, I gave the opening presentation discussing an overview of the major platforms, players, and monetization stats in the social gaming industry. For those interested in checking out the video of the talk, it is embedded below. More videos from the day are available here.

And here are the slides from my presentation:

Topics covered: Facebook, Facebook Connect, iPhone, MySpace, Hi5, Twitter, Monetization, ARPUs on Facebook and MySpace, IP, copycats.