[Editor's note: PapayaMobile chief executive Si Shen shares her perspective on the importance of location for social gaming in Asia.]

As social gaming on mobile devices continues to grow throughout 2010, so will the number of applications offering location-based services. But will 2011 be the year that location-based social games take off in the U.S? With smartphone ownership continuing to expand, we’re presented with an opportunity to add location awareness into social games, adding unique experiences for users and creating new business models for developers.

To provide inspiration to U.S developers and to offer a glimpse of the possibilities that location-based services bring to social games, I’d like to share with you some unique insights into the Asian Market, particularly Japan, where location-based gaming has been popular for some years now.

The largest social gaming platform in Japan, Mobagetown of DeNA, was released in early 2006. China’s Tencent launched its mobile QQ with a gaming platform at the end of 2006. Although we see some U.S. developers starting to integrate location elements into mobile social games, the Asian market has a longer history of using location-based services in mobile social games.

The Japanese market has been experimenting with LBS mobile social games since 2005. One of the first location-based games, Colonial Living PLUS, was released in May 2005 by COLOPL. This game is a standalone LBS social game in which users build and maintain their cities. In mid-2010, it had about one million registered users, with 90 percent over the age of 20. The games are designed so that users have to go back in frequently to take care of their cities.

The location information adds another dimension around which users can interact and explore new opportunities for fun and entertainment. Since the location information is relevant to most mobile devices, all existing social games can be integrated with some location elements. For example, a farming game can connect virtual farms with real locations; a mafia wars game can hide the weapons in virtual locations that are associated with real locations; and the “virtual neighbors” in a pet game can be associated with pets that are close to you in the real world.

Location elements can be made as a ubiquitous API that can be integrated into any social game. Google is the first company to share location information as open APIs. A Chinese company, Beiduo, that has millions of registered users, is a pioneer in sharing location information and my company, PapayaMobile, is the first to release a LBS SDK that allows other applications to integrate location information associated with users’ social graphs.

There are more games – in various categories – on the way that are specific to LBS. The largest category is the city development games, like My Town, where users build a virtual world based on their real location. It can be easily integrated with a virtual currency system. Since the city development games are associated with real locations where users have an attachment, it is very easy to build loyalty to the game. The Japanese game Colonial Living PLUS is a good example.

The other large category is “take-over-an-area” games, such as Foursquare, in which the company’s 5 million users occupy or conquer a location by continuously visiting it. These games can be combined with promotions for local businesses. There are also other game-oriented happenings in this area in Asia. The “Mobile Country Takeover Battle” developed by Japanese company Mapion is a great example. Players use the “takeover” command to conquer the region, and repeat until they conquer all of Japan. By conquering a certain area or by answering a quiz, users earn points. However, the “Mobile Country Takeover Battle” is a relatively small game in terms of registered users.

There are other examples including scavenger hunt games, photo uploading games and even location-based dating games. One interesting example involves GPS graffiti and traces a user’s whereabouts to create a drawing on their mobile phones. Several years ago in Japan, an interesting application came via a game that focused on signal gathering – users would go to different locations and gather cell phone signals to earn experience points. Although this game is not relevant in Japan anymore, a similar game for AT&T in San Francisco would be beneficial considering the connectivity issues – and consumer complaints – that the company faces.

LBS is becoming a common feature for many social games, but in order for it to be effective on a social platform, it must achieve massive user numbers. Sharing user locations and points of interest via social networks is a trend for all game developers (LBS and otherwise). Usually third-party developers can call on LBS APIs to get users location-related information so that it can be used to enhance and personalize games. Because a lot of third-party developers use a unified database of location information and user profiles, the LBS information is more effective because it is connected to social graphs. For example, more than 50 percent of Papaya Farm users actually use the LBS check-in function of the Papaya SNS. Sharing the Papaya location database with the other developers makes it much easier to achieve a comprehensive point of interest database. There are currently eight million registered users on Papaya sharing their location information with each other, and this location based information is used by 12 Papaya applications and 150 third party applications that have integrated our Social SDK.

More importantly, LBS will bring a new business model to social games by combining local business and gaming. For virtual city based games, the virtual currency system can be easily integrated into the game. For games where virtual currency is not relevant, the combination of gaming and local business coupons can provide a great way to promote services to relevant users. The social-graph-based recommendation system, combined with location-relevant information, provides comprehensive suggestions to users for local businesses.

China’s largest local business directory, Dianping, with 10 million users, has a great business model combined with location information. When players use Dianping’s local information, it provides coupons that are relevant to their specific location and profile. It allows users to check in to specific local businesses and become the “king” of the location. The “king” is then rewarded with coupons or discounts at the specific local business.

So what does this all mean for the U.S. market? Asia is leading the way in location-based social gaming and is many years ahead already. The region is showing the world the kind of location-based social games we’re likely to experience in the near future. Expect 2011 to see the continued rise of “take-over-an-area” games such as Foursquare, a deeper integration of location-based services into mobile social games and a new wave of popular location based games that you haven’t even heard of yet.

Si Shen is the Co-Founder and chief executive of mobile social gaming network provider Papaya Mobile Inc.

Less than two years ago, teen-dominated social portal iminlikewithyou changed its name to Omgpop, partnered with like-minded MyYearbook, and began producing hit title after hit title.

Late last year, Omgpop moved onto Facebook with Cupcake Corner, a restaurant tycoon simulation akin to Zynga’s Restaurant World. Though Cupcake Corner appears to have reached the pinnacle of its popularity and has begun a slow decline, Omgpop shows no signs of following suit. January’s announcement of $10 million in additional investment to integrate with Facebook and iPhone has resulted in bringing what is arguably Omgpop’s most popular title, the tragicomically named Draw My Thing, to Facebook.

Draw My Thing is a fairly straight-forward online version of Hasbro’s Pictionary. Groups of two–to-seven players attempt to guess what is being drawn. Different colors, varying pencil widths, paint fill and other methods of helping the player to complete the image are available but with 60 seconds on the clock it is rare that they are used. If no one has guessed by 30 seconds, the word (not phrase) begins to fill in; if the word is guessed, both the person drawing and those who guessed correctly earn points.

Monetization is achieved through the purchase of the ability to choose a different term to be drawn, buying extended time, or buying hints in the form of letters before they become available to the room. Every three games a Super Tool unlocks – but only for that instance. I was given the option to purchase a t-square (yeah! straight lines with a mouse) for 15 Facebook credits; refuse and the offer becomes unavailable for at least three more games.  The immediacy and utility are strong motivators to purchase these Super Tools.

A successful answer to the question of how to match and begin a multi-player synchronous game on Facebook has to date, been out of reach. Omgpop has solved this elegantly with lobbies, hosted by the players, started by the players (small or large groups), and more importantly private games.

Private games are managed using Facebook chat. Upon starting, the player receives notification if any friends are in an active game. From here, the player starting the lobby can invite any friend who shows as available in Facebook chat through one of three ways:  friends available through chat appear in a dropdown for bulk invite (though it doesn’t refresh); friends in active games can simply be click upon;  a final option copies a link directly onto your clipboard. All of these use Facebook chat for notification either automatically, or in the case of the last by the player pasting a link into chat. The link does not work outside of Facebook.

In its native environment on omgpop.com  – not in an iframe – Draw My Thing has a few additional customizations such as a cosmetic choice of pens or the ability to buy a vowel. None are particularly important or detract from the experience on a smaller canvas. The move has been done elegantly, with efficient lobby design and exemplary positioning for micro-purchases. Most impressive is the near linear growth curve of players older than the original audience since launch. What lies ahead for Omgpop and Draw My Thing is not finding an audience, but keeping it.

Developer Happy Elements has a new casino-themed business sim out called Boss Vegas, that might appear to be along the lines of older titles like Golden Nugget Vegas Casino or My Casino. While still in the early testing stages, the game already feels very complete, and comes with a visual style far different from that of its predecessors.

The game actually takes a quasi-city-building approach to its design by tasking players to manage the aesthetic as well as the functional. That said, the current rendition feels a little bit ill-balanced in terms of player progression and the sense of accomplishment they have early on. Here’s a closer look.

The setting: players have inherited the family casino business, and it’s up to them to take over and run their father’s legacy. Don’t worry, it’s not too hard. The core of the game is actually pretty standard: Players build casino tables and games, and customers come in and play them. As the machines fill up, players collect the revenue and it’s rinse and repeat from there.

As one might expect, the higher the level of game, the more revenue it can generate, but there’s a catch to this. Though the game is a business sim, it actually has a level of management not unlike a city-builder. There are three stats that players must manage including revenue, guests, and “BLING.” Each stat has an item type that relates to it.

Obviously, revenue is tied to the slot machines and other casino games, so there’s not much to talk about here. What is curious though, is that the placement of each revenue item actually detracts from Bling. On a familiar level, this works like it does in Nightclub City, meaning that the more one has, which is generated by decorative items, the more guests one will get (and obviously more guests equals more money). What is interesting, is that Bling also operates as a requirement — sort of like Happiness in, say, City of Wonder.

In that title, Happiness is required to progress one’s population. With Boss Vegas, Bling is required to actually stay in business. That’s right. If players allow their revenue generating items to outweigh their decorative items by too much, their revenue stream will drop to nothing. There isn’t too much to worry about, though, as gambling items can be stored until the Bling requirements are met.

As for social mechanics, these are a bit basic and consist of hiring friends that play to work the various game tables around one’s space (e.g. the blackjack table). This is also where non-player character micromanagement comes into play: As friends work, their energy depletes, and will require the user to “cheer” them up at the cost of in-game currency. Furthermore, players can also hire NPCs to work tables should no friends be available, but these characters are much more expensive and last for less time. As a side note, friends’ casinos can also be visited for daily rewards and are required to expand the size of one’s virtual space (lest they spend virtual currency).

Patrons can be, sort of, micromanaged as well. As they play, their individual happiness will fluctuate based on factors such as time or if a game they like is available or not. Should they become too upset, they will outright leave the casino. That said, players can compensate them with free chips at the cost of recharging energy (energy is also consumed when collecting chips from a machine or table), sending them back up to 100% happiness. Doing so will also reward the user with extra revenue and experience. Also, some customers are marked with a “VIP” tag, meaning that they must especially be watched lest the player lose their biggest spenders.

Truth be told, however, this mechanic feels a bit arbitrary, as the happiness doesn’t drop all that quickly. It’s more of an early source of income, as many pay out rather significant chunks of change. It’s actually one of the balance issues with the game right now.

As a disclaimer, yes, the game is in testing phases, so this is likely to be changed, but while the game looks good, it feels like players are at a bit of a loss early on. Since the casino is inherited, there’s already a lot placed within the space, meaning that the user doesn’t start from scratch. It’s hard to say if this is good or bad, because while the user is able to get started more easily this way, there’s a lower feeling of accomplishment. Additionally, other than trying to complete a series of simple quests, there’s not much to do other than compensate guests with chips.

It’s also worth noting that the Bling requirement is extremely easy to met, making the mechanic feel a bit pointless, which is a shame since it is a differentiating factor for Boss Vegas. With everything pretty much given to the player right from the get-go, the hook of building out a successful business and holding a sense of progress and accomplishment just doesn’t feel there. Again, though, it is still being tweaked and tested, so such issues are subject to change.

Regarding any other points of merit, the game also allows players to build extra rooms for their casino. Since this is Las Vegas, there is more than just gambling. Players can actually construct theaters, show rooms, and even restaurants to compliment their revenue stream. Of course, while they do generate quite a bit of coin, they also detract an equivalent amount of Bling.

Overall, Boss Vegas is a decent title with some interesting concepts, but this early in its lifespan, it feels a little imbalanced towards the easy side. Too much is just given to the player right away, and it takes away any sense of reward and accomplishment. Nevertheless, the game does show a bit of promise, and certainly looks much more appealing, on a visual level, than its predecessors. Of course, whether or not it does as well as titles such as Casino City is something that only time will tell.

Ravenwood Fair has taken the number one position for the third week in a row on our weekly list of the fastest-growing Facebook Games as determined by Monthly Active Users (MAU). The game by LOLapps has gained another 20% increase this week with a new total MAU of over 8.3 million, making it the 13th most popular game on Facebook by this metric.

Both AddictingGames and Foursquare are showing high numbers on the below chart due to using Facebook Connect as their login service. AddictingGames is a Flash games portal, and Foursquare’s Facebook application simply redirects to Foursquare.com. A number of games on the list such as Loan Consolidation, Frenziac, Cubix Collect, Halloween Pumpkins, and Witch Lore are all by the developer TubeYou, and also appear to be accessed on a Flash games portal.

Mynet Çanak Okey is a Flash card game in Turkish that has been showing up week after week. Its success seems driven by it being one of the first poker games in Turkish, not by its production quality.

Name MAU Gain Gain,% 1. Ravenwood Fair 8,363,133 +1,365,714 +20% 2. AddictingGames 1,133,497 +943,693 +497% 3. Foursquare 2,533,585 +932,205 +58% 4. Texas HoldEm Poker 37,758,275 +571,053 +2% 5. Paradise Life 2,284,046 +521,836 +30% 6. Dragons of Atlantis 1,866,652 +400,443 +27% 7. Draw My Thing 975,660 +324,420 +50% 8. Happy Hospital 1,929,167 +301,240 +19% 9. Loan Consolidation 299,276 +293,959 +5,529% 10. It Girl 8,330,123 +287,211 +4% 11. Jersey Shore 1,598,726 +247,245 +18% 12. Mynet Çanak Okey 2,085,858 +231,948 +13% 13. Dog Show Friends 643,887 +223,437 +53% 14. Street Cap 216,570 +213,030 +6,018% 15. Frenziac 210,585 +206,816 +5,487% 16. Monster Galaxy 5,434,371 +204,812 +4% 17. Cubix Collect 205,093 +201,332 +5,353% 18. Halloween Pumpkins 203,222 +199,843 +5,914% 19. GodsWar Online 1,999,896 +199,839 +11% 20. Witch Lore 203,425 +199,750 +5,435%

Paradise Life is a fun and whimsical game by Icebreak Games that brings in elements from FrontierVille and combines them with a cutesy island theme to make an awfully compelling sim game. In our review of the game last December, we noted that Paradise Life has mixed in many fun and lightweight features from other games to make an experience that manages to feel evolved without being complicated. Paradise Life is highly polished with nice graphics, sound effects that make the game feel alive, and fun music. It has grown another 30% this week, bringing its total monthly player base up to almost 2.3 million.

MTV’s Jersey Shore game is showing up at number 11 on the list this week, which isn’t surprising considering the popular TV show is mid-season. Jersey Shore averages around 3.6 million viewers per episode so while there is a ceiling on the number of players who will be interested in the Facebook game, there is still room to grow. Jersey Shore’s TV demographics consist of people within the 12-34 age range which isn’t necessarily aligned with the majority of Facebook game players and payers. The Jersey Shore Facebook game does do a fair job of keeping up with the show in terms of features, and offers contests for players to meet Snooki in person. However, with the season finale looming, this game may not have the depth and staying power to last when the show is no longer fresh on people’s minds.

Tami Baribeau is Senior Community Manager at ZipZapPlay and a contributor to Inside Social Games.

With the growth of the Apple iOS and Android ecosystems over the last year, is 2011 the year that mobile social platforms finally take off in US? At Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011, we looked at what 2011 will hold for social application developers with executives from leading platforms and publishers pioneering social and monetization on mobile.

Jason Oberfest, VP Social Applications at ngmoco:) (now part of DeNA), Anil Dharni, Co-Founder at Funzio and Founder of Storm8, Asokan Thiyagarajan, Director of Platforms and Technology Strategy at Samsung and Martin Essl, Strategic Software Partner Management at Sony Ericsson joined Xyologic founder Matthaeus Krzykowski to discuss opportunities, risks, and timelines associated with emerging platforms. View the full talk below.

ISA 2011: Growth and Monetization on Mobile Social Platforms from Inside Network on Vimeo. To download an mp3 version of this talk, please email us at info (at) insidesocialapps (dot) com.

All videos currently available:

• ISA 2011: Growth and Monetization on Mobile Social Platforms
• ISA 2011: New and Alternative Social Platforms – Where Are the Biggest Opportunities?
• ISA 2011: The Future of Social Gaming, Key Questions for 2011 & The Emerging Media Landscape
• ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on Android’s 2011 Social Roadmap
• ISA 2011: The M&A Landscape for Small and Mid-Sized Developers
• ISA 2011: Monetization & Customer Acquisition on the Facebook Platform in 2011
• ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Bret Taylor on the 2011 Facebook Platform Roadmap

Photos of the event are viewable on our Facebook Page.

When the title of the game is “Galactic Trader,” one would normally forget about any sort of adventure. Most games with “trade” in the title tend to be overly bloated business-type games that just aren’t all that fun. Well, small miracles happen every day as 3 Blokes Studios have launched Galactic Trader this week, and it actually turned out to be both very involved and interesting without being weighed down by features and rules.

Published by 6 Waves, Galactic Trader still holds a good number of the business elements that have come to differentiate business games such as Trade Winds (one of the oldest examples of trading games we can think of). Nevertheless, rather than sail about passively, the game takes a much more active approach to play with a very treasure-hunting sort of concept coupled with random space battles (yes, space battles). As odd as it might sound, everything fits together quite well. The downsides: a distinct lack of an overarching goal, and overly spammy notifications.

So players are an intergalactic trader, and the idea is to build up a trade empire within a particular sector of space. Players travel about from planet to planet digging up different minerals in a treasure-hunting (e.g. Treasure Madness) sort of way. Of course, the key difference is that users aren’t using shovels, but lasers. Consuming energy, players can dig up minerals, experience, or the occasional ship part randomly at each grid space, or scan the region to see exactly what grids actually contain something.

Depending on the size of the ship one has, users can only carry so many pieces of cargo, forcing them to return to a home base periodically to make a drop off, which will cost energy upon planetary return. However, should players have a few Facebook Credits lying around, they will be able to teleport their goods back to base safely at the cost of one credit per trip.

Once it’s stored back at the home base, users can do a number of things with the ore including direct sale, research, or bolstering one’s fleet. Since the game is entitled “Trader,” the sale is the best place for us to start

When visiting the “Galactic Trading House,” players will be able to see the market value of every single mineral in the galaxy. From here they can buy and sell items, but what makes it of particular interest is that the value periodically updates itself. This means that the sale price of ore will constantly change. In addition to sale, players can also buy ore from the trading house. Typically, this costs Facebook Credits, but as it updates, random minerals will cost in-game coin instead. Furthermore, there’s a nifty feature that allows users to post a message to friends, informing them when the cost of something is particularly low.

The Trading House is also host to another social feature in that players can post up to three items for sale on the “Open Market” as well. This is a market only visible to Facebook friends and allows them to buy and sell from each other directly.

So why is this important? Well, since the galaxy is a dangerous place, it becomes prudent to build a fleet to protect one’s self, and ships require specific materials, as well as coin, to build in the first place. This goes beyond building more cargo ships (which you can do), but actually constructing attack vessels as well. When traveling around the game’s star map, such as when one is traveling from a mining local back to home base, it is possible to be randomly attacked by an evil, bug-like race of sentient critters.

This enters a rather interesting game mode, as players are able to control the flight paths and targets of each ship as they blast away at enemies. It’s an interesting concept, but feels a little shallow. While ships can be moved at the user’s discretion, enemies can shoot almost clear across the battle space anyway, thus the only strategic mechanic is to focus fire on one enemy at a time. Perhaps this becomes more tactical in later levels, but early on, it’s more just an interesting break in the routine every once and a while. Still, it does have a great deal of potential, and should this be integrated into a sort of player versus player mode, then it could become the biggest contributor to lasting appeal.

That’s really one of the noticeable qualms with Galactic Trader. Everything is heavily cyclical in the sense that players mine ore, to get better ships, to mine more ore. As it stands, the space battles are merely a brief interruption in this routine, and there is just no real goal to reach for. In most games, there is a virtual space, or some visual, to improve, while in others, it’s a competitive element (e.g. Mafia Wars). Neither is present here.

As for other elements of the game worth noting, there is also a research mechanic that allows users to transmute materials they have into rarer ones or even ship parts, so that they may build new ships faster than normal. In addition to this, Galactic Trader also allows friends to gift these materials (as well as energy). In fact, and while on the topic of social elements, many ships actually require a set number of friends to construct all together.

Coincidentally, social elements are a reason for another complaint. Players are constantly bombarded with pop-ups telling the user to gift energy, request gifts, invite friends, or some other mechanic of social play. Since the game is brand new, this will likely be fixed very quickly, but as it stands, a pop-up occurs every 25 seconds, unless the player is mining.

Regardless if existing issues, Galactic Trader is a very different take on some older ideas, and can be potentially a lot of fun. Right now, the biggest issue is the lack of long term goals (at the moment, all that exists are short term mission goals – e.g. mine X amount of Y ore), which is likely going to affect the stickiness of the game in general. Nevertheless, the app does make excellent use of Facebook Credits without forcing it upon the user, and really does get friends involved and working together. Long story short, while the game is far from perfect now, it could become very high quality with future iterations.

Now that Facebook has grown to nearly 600 million monthly active users, which platforms will offer new and emerging opportunities for social game and application developers in 2011? We examined the scope of new opportunities – both on existing platforms targeting a specific audiences and on potential new platforms from Google and other internet giants – at Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011.

Manu Rekhi, GM Games & Platform at MySpace, Carey Kolaja, Senior Director of Digital Goods Operations at PayPal, Geoff Cook, CEO at MyYearbook, and Dennis Ryan, EVP Worldwide Publishing at PopCap Games joined Crossover Technologies’ Eric Goldberg to discuss opportunities, risks, and timelines associated with emerging platforms. View the full talk below.

ISA 2011: New and Alternative Social Platforms – Where Are the Biggest Opportunities? from Inside Network on Vimeo. To download an mp3 version of this talk, please email us at info (at) insidesocialapps (dot) com.

Other videos currently available:

• ISA 2011: The Future of Social Gaming, Key Questions for 2011 & The Emerging Media Landscape
• ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on Android’s 2011 Social Roadmap
• ISA 2011: The M&A Landscape for Small and Mid-Sized Developers
• ISA 2011: Monetization & Customer Acquisition on the Facebook Platform in 2011
• ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Bret Taylor on the 2011 Facebook Platform Roadmap

Photos of the event are viewable on our Facebook Page.

Here are all the latest headlines from around Inside Network.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms, and virtual goods.

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

• ISA 2011: Photos from Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011

Monday, January 31st, 2011

• Shooting Monsters on iOS’s Warrior Nation-Gunner Loses its Thrill
• Android Upstages Nokia’s Symbian in Global Smartphone Shipments
• New Facebook Deals Page Offers Promotion Locator for Users and a Guide for Admins
• Booyah Lays Off 13 Employees After Traffic for Nightclub City, MyTown Fades

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

• Sony App Rejection Signals Stronger Enforcement Around In App Purchases
• Capcom Mobile Serves Up the Undead on iOS
• ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on the 2011 Android Social Roadmap

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

• Another Way of Slicing the Android, iOS, RIM Horserace: Facebook Monthly Actives
• Google Lets Consumers Download Android Apps Through New Web Store
• After Months of Delays, Google Finally Announces Support for In App Payments
• Apple Tries to Control In App Purchases as They Gain Traction on iOS

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

• New Hires in Mobile Gaming: Big Fish Games, EA Mobile, Flurry, & More
• The Last Defender Doubles Up on Monetization on iOS
• Another Facebook App for iPad Is Growing: Touch HD

Friday, February 4th, 2011

• Color Hypnotizes Players in Infinity Field on iPad
• Mobile Gaming Roundup: Flurry Grows, Instapaper Founder Praises Apple’s Review Process

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

• ISA 2011: Photos from Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011

Monday, January 31st, 2011

• PlayFirst Finally Brings Diner Dash to Facebook
• Applifier Adds Retargeting to Its Cross-Promo Bar
• Uncle Pennybags Gets a Makeover as Mr. Monopoly in EA’s Monopoly Millionaires
• ISA 2011: The M&A Landscape for Small & Mid-sized Developers [Video]
• Poker and Drawing Show Promise on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

• Mososh Brings More RPG Originality to Facebook with Chronicles of Herenvale
• Top 25 MySpace Games for February 2011
• Booyah Lays Off 13 Employees After Traffic for Nightclub City, MyTown Fades
• Top 25 Facebook Games for February 2011
• Lolapps and Zynga Add TrialPay’s Credits Shortcut, Implement “Frictionless Credits”

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

• Monsters, Fantasy, and Fashion Shine on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by DAU
• Amid New Competition, Game Cross-Promotion Service Applifier Raises $2M, Expands to Web
• A Look at Long-Running Facebook RPG, Age of Champions
• Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: Ubisoft, Gaia, Meteor Games, & More

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

• Redundancy Squelches Potential in Knight’s Quest on Facebook
• Designing Games with Massive Social Data
• New Hires in Social Gaming: Digital Chocolate, GSN, Loot Drop, & More
• ISA 2011: The Future of Social Gaming, Key Questions for 2011 & The Emerging Media Landscape
• Zabu Studios and Reiner Knizia Roll the Dice with Pickomino

Friday, February 4th, 2011

• Familiar Titles Dominate This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
• Localization Is More Than a Game
• Facebook Posts Implementation Details for Frictionless Payments and Buy With Friends
• Social Gaming Roundup: Hackers, Dragons, Revenue, & More

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

• ISA 2011: Photos from Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011

Monday, January 31st, 2011

• Featured Facebook Campaigns: Bud Light, Dentyne and New Belgium Brewing
• Badoo Booms, So Do All Sorts of Other Apps on This Week’s List of Top Facebook MAU Gainers
• The Facebook Marketing Bible February 2011 Edition is Now Available
• Facebook Deals Launches in Europe with Modest Promotions
• Facebook Spent $130,000 on Lobbying in Fourth Quarter, Up Threefold From Year Earlier
• ISA 2011: The M&A Landscape for Small & Mid-sized Developers [Video]
• New Facebook Deals Page Offers Promotion Locator for Users and a Guide for Admins
• Facebook Introduces a Credibility Score With New Social Commenting Plugin

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

• Facebook App Video Chat Rounds Adds Random Chat to its Suit of Games and Screen Sharing
• Top 25 Facebook Games for February 2011
• ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on the 2011 Android Social Roadmap
• Gogo Inflight Internet Tempts Users to Pay by Offering Free Facebook Access
• Lolapps and Zynga Add TrialPay’s Credits Shortcut, Implement “Frictionless Credits”
• Facebook Page Management Company Acquisitions Could Continue Through 2011

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

• Android, Foursquare, Microsoft Lead in This Week’s List of Top Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
• GraphEffect Secures $2 Million in Funding to Expand Its Facebook Ads API Services
• Facebook Deals Also Now Available for Windows Phone 7 and in Canada
• Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: Digital Chocolate, Games Cafe, & More
• Soft-World Brings Pre-Paid Cards for Facebook Credits to Key Chinese-Language Markets
• Appssavvy, ValueClick and More Networks Join Facebook’s Ad Providers Whitelist

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

• Hearsay Social Helps Corporations Manage the Facebook Pages of Their Local Branches
• Another Way of Slicing the Android, iOS, RIM Horserace: Facebook Monthly Actives
• Facebook Career Postings and Jobs: Real Estate Counsel, Policy, Asia, Mobile, Strategy and More
• ISA 2011: The Future of Social Gaming, Key Questions for 2011 & The Emerging Media Landscape
• Facebook Connect Integration Best Practices From the Platform Showcase

Friday, February 4th, 2011

• Facebook Will Allow Users to Watch and Vote on Super Bowl Commercials
• Connect Integrations, Games and Poker on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
• Momentus’ Community Health Grader Scores Facebook Pages on Engagement
• Facebook Implements Page Wall Post Comment Spam Filter
• Free Facebook Credits Will Expire February 15th for Some Users
• Facebook Roundup: Birthday, Congress, New HQ, Privacy, Deals, eBay, Gmail, and Messenger