A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you between April 23 and 28.

Inside Mobile Apps

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

Monday, April 23

• Emerging free iOS apps: Deer Hunter Reloaded, Kingdom Age
• Conquer medieval Japan with Total War Battles
• Facebook updates Android app, adds new shortcuts to take over more of users’ homescreens
• GREE looks to stay profitable in North America with Wizcorp’s Mithril engine

Tuesday, April 24

• Test your South Park knowledge with Who Wants to be a Millionaire Special Editions
• Emerging paid iOS apps: Shark Dash, Hambo and SpellTower
• Outfit7 teams with Disney for animated Talking Friends web series
• Apple profits up 94% year-over-year to $39.2 billion
• Native Android apps can now get distribution through Facebook discovery channels
• Bubble Saga pops onto Kindle Fire; Android version in development

Wednesday, April 25

• MoPub: Without UDIDs mobile ad prices could plummet by 24%
• Kabam joins the Mobage stable with new Ngmoco publising deal
• Hunters 2: a solid addition to iOS growing strategy game library
• Emerging top grossing iOS apps: DragonVale, Kingdoms of Camelot and Modern War
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: EA, Sneaky Games, King.com and more

Thursday, April 26

• Massive Joe aims for a monstrous hit with Escape from Age of Monsters
• Flick, shoot and explode zombies in Zynga’s ZombieSmash, now on Android
• Emerging popular Android apps: Rage of Bahamut, Ice Age Village, Shark Dash
• New hires in mobile: Big Fish Games, GREE and Scale Ventures Partners
• Zynga reports highest ever bookings for Q1 at $329M
• Zynga up to 21M mobile daily active users on strength of Q1 releases

Friday, April 27

• Mobile app downloads fall 30% in March, user acquisition costs stay the same — Fiksu
• Cross-platform lexical strategy with Word Off
• Ngmoco’s Doug Scott on Japan-meets-U.S. mobile games, life after Lionside
• Mobile app news roundup: Android earnings, the Kindle Fire and Viddy

Saturday, April 28

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Sneaky Games, Kobojo, EA and more

Inside Social Games

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

Monday, April 23

• Candy Crush Saga dominates this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
• Get rich or die trying with 50 Cent’s Blackjack
• Facebook estimates 4 percent of Q1 revenue came from ads on Zynga app pages, 11 percent from Zynga directly

Tuesday, April 24

• No more lost pieces with Jigsaw World
• Latest S-1 amendment shows Zynga and Facebook untangling their finances
• How likely is to Facebook lower its 30 percent fee for developers on the platform?
• Bubble Saga pops onto Kindle Fire; Android version in development

Wednesday, April 25

• Candy Crush Saga keeps sweet lead over this week’s fastest growing Facebook games by DAU
• Build a fantasy alliance in Playdom’s Armies of Magic
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Kixeye, GameHouse, King.com and more
• Nekki brings free-running to Facebook with Vector

Thursday, April 26

• Bubble Witch Saga and CityVille this week’s gainer and loser among April’s Top 25 games
• New hires in social gaming: East Side Games, Happy Elements and Kixeye
• More shiny gem-matching with Jewel Journey
• Zynga reports highest ever bookings for Q1 at $329M
• Zynga up to 21M mobile daily active users on strength of Q1 releases
• New games lead Zynga’s revenue to increase; more titles coming in Q2

Friday, April 27

• Gunny shoots to the top of this week’s emerging games on Facebook
• Prove who is the Top Shot on Facebook
• CrowdStar still building for Facebook, just through mobile
• Social games news roundup: Zynga, Nexon and Friendster

Saturday, April 28

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, April 23

• Viddy, Dailymotion, Instagram, games, BranchOut, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
• Facebook updates Android app, adds new shortcuts to take over more of users’ homescreens
• Facebook expands arsenal with 650 patents from Microsoft, license to hundreds more
• Facebook generates $1.21 per user on average worldwide in Q1
• Facebook estimates 4 percent of Q1 revenue came from ads on Zynga app pages, 11 percent from Zynga directly

Tuesday, April 24

• Mobile, Converse, Snoop Dogg, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook pages
• How likely is to Facebook lower its 30 percent fee for developers on the platform?
• Native Android apps can now get distribution through Facebook discovery channels
• Facebook to increase profile picture size for pages
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Nixon Peabody, Courier.com, SponsorPay and more

Wednesday, April 25

• Yahoo, Metacafe, birthdays, games, Spoitfy, BranchOut, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
• Facebook partners with anti-virus software makers to provide free computer security
• Facebook updates Locations app, but feature still only available to select pages

Thursday, April 26

• Facebook lowers barriers for developers, users to switch to Open Graph apps
• Facebook platform update: real-time insights, Offers API
• Facebook hires: engineering, data center, legal, more
• Facebook career postings: legal, mobile, data centers and more
• Facebook tries new tactics to get users to rate apps

Friday, April 27

• Facebook tests button that lets page owners skip complicated ad dashboard, promote content directly from their pages
• Facebook platform supports more than 42 million pages and 9 million apps
• Facebook Offers now available to partners through API; no date for wide release
• Facebook roundup: Yahoo, IPO, Windows Phone, security

Saturday, April 28

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Nixon Peabody, Courier.com, SponsorPay and more

Hiring in the social gaming industry was steady from last week’s peak, with nine companies reporting 14 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, East Side Games saw the most activity with four hires. The highest profile hires of the week belonged to Strutta which brought on Joeline Hackman as director of marketing.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Arkadium

• Tatyana Ovsyannikova, Senior Producer – Arkadium starts off our roundup with a promotion. Ovsyannikova was formerly a producer at Arkadium.

East Side Games

• Parker Busswood, Front End Developer – Four hires at Vancouver BC’s East Side Games. Busswood is a recent graduate of the Interactive Design program at Capilano University.
• Nicholas Tay, East Side Games Art Department – Tay was previously an Art Director at Electronic Arts.
• Grant Yee, Flash Software Engineer – Yee comes to East Side Games from Magellan Interactive.
• Cindy Chow, Community Manager – Chow was previously a studio coordinator at  Slant Six Games.

Game Insight 

• Alexandr Savin, Line Producer – Savin was previously a senior tester at Noviy Disk.

GSN

• Hardin Gray, Game Developer – Gray was formerly an interactive programmer at Tumble Interactive.

Happy Elements

• Adam Zhu, Consultant – Zhu comes from Global Entrepreneur Magazine, where he worked as a reporter.

Kabam

• Patrick Lee, Global Monetization Analyst -- Lee was previously a product manager at Outspark.

Kixeye

• Joseph Kohn, Tools Engineer – Kohn was formerly a software engineer at Kabam.

Strutta

• Joeline Hackman, Director of Marketing – This week’s highest profile hire goes to Strutta. Hackman was previously the director of marketing at Techneos Systems.

Zynga

• Kami Rai, Marketing and Community Manager – Two hires and a promotion this week for Zynga. Rai was previously a customer support and community manager at Zynga.
• Arpit Rastogi, Associate Product Manager – Rastogi was formerly a project trainee at Patni Computer Systems.
• Chris Carley, QA Engineer – Carley was previously a QA tester II at NCsoft.

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you between April 16 and 21.

Inside Mobile Apps

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

Monday, April 16

• Reach for the skies with Airport City on Android
• Emerging free iOS Apps: Slide to Unlock, Design this Home and The Lorax HD
• Will $30 million in Series B help Path rise to its potential?
• Combining mobile and TV ads can boost recall by 69 percent, study finds

Tuesday, April 17

• Amazon pairs increased in-app purchase limit with new parental controls
• Defender II’s Android-exclusive castle defending sees strong success
• Appcelerator aims to become a complete mobile platform with new cloud services
• Emerging paid iOS apps: Lock My Screen, Angry Birds Space and Spelltower

Wednesday, April 18

• Drag Racing: Bike Edition races up the Top Grossing Android app charts
• Zynga puts its stamp on Draw Something, adds new social features
• Who’s next on Zynga’s acquisition list?
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Sojo, Nuukster, Bally and more
• Will South Korea’s Com2uS be the next Asian developer to conquer the west?
• Emerging top grossing iOS apps: Zynga Poker, TurboTax and Tap Paradise Cove

Thursday, April 19

• Speed Racer: The Beginning GoGoGoes on iOS
• New hires in mobile: Big Fish Games, GREE and Tapjoy
• The Windows Phone Marketplace and the Amazon Appstore are the fastest growing app stores
• Emerging popular Android apps: Zynga Poker, Crime City and Where’s Waldo Now?

Friday, April 20

• Rage of Bahamut takes Android players on a card-capturing adventure
• USPC jumps into mobile to try its luck with Zeniz Social Casino, but faces stiff competition
• Facebook expands capabilities for feature phones, adds support for pages and places
• Trouncing its rivals on engagement, Banjo leads the social discovery app race
• Mobile app news roundup: Gumi, Android malware and big revenues for TinyCo

Saturday, April 21

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Sojo Studios, Kixeye, King.com and more

Inside Social Games

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

Monday, April 16

• Zynga Slingo’s winning streak continues with this week’s fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
• Zattikka starts trading on public market, returns to social games
• Bubble Bunny brings bubble-popping ‘blitz’ gameplay to Facebook
• Social games have lower costs per click on Facebook than brands do, analysis shows
• Ubisoft’s House M.D. now live on Facebook

Tuesday, April 17

• Tetris Stars digs for victory on Facebook
• Funzio brings Kingdom Age to Facebook after Google+ exclusive

Wednesday, April 18

• GameHouse continues towards top ten position with new GM and new games
• Candy Crush Saga hits sweet spot on this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU
• Jewels of the Amazon brings yet more match-3 puzzling to Facebook
• Who’s next on Zynga’s acquisition list?
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Machine Zone, King.com, Nuukster and more

Thursday, April 19

• 6waves partners with BBC for Top Gear, Jane Austen social games
• New hires in social gaming: FiveOneNine Games, Funtactix and FunSockets
• Gold Slots goes for gold in the Facebook slot machine genre
• Zynga Slingo and The Sims Social this week’s gainer and loser among April’s Top 25 games

Friday, April 20

• Pencylvania draws on top of this week’s emerging Facebook games list
• Ubisoft prescribes House M.D. as cure for chronic boredom
• Idle Worship attempts to deliver divine fun with its god simulation
• Social games news roundup: PopCap, Funzio and 50 Cent

Saturday, April 21

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Kixeye, GameHouse, Machine Zone and more

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, April 16

• Dailymotion, social readers, Instagram, Viddy, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
• Social games have lower costs per click on Facebook than brands do, analysis shows

Tuesday, April 17

• How Facebook could monetize Instagram
• Converse, ‘Titanic,’ LMFAO, ‘The Simpsons,’ Target, Samsung, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook pages
• Facebook pages for artists now include ‘listen’ button
• New Facebook platform industry hires: TBG Digital, Spruce Media, Kontagent
• Facebook tests ‘trending articles’ feature to encourage users to try social reader apps

Wednesday, April 18

• Facebook becomes No. 1 most visited site in Brazil, according to Experian Hitwise
• Dailymotion, Instagram, Viddy, Rotten Tomatoes, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
• Facebook ad reporting change aims to help advertisers optimize campaigns for actions beyond Likes
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Agency Sacks, W3i, SponsorPay and more
• Facebook establishes Preferred Marketing Developer program with 232 companies providing tools and services

Thursday, April 19

• Facebook hires: public policy, engineering, legal, recruiting, more
• Facebook career postings: engineering, D.C., marketing, more
• BranchOut raises additional $25M for professional networking app

Friday, April 20

• News, tabs, video, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU
• Facebook expands capabilities for feature phones, adds support for pages and places
• Facebook bug temporarily brings down apps, social features on third-party sites
• Facebook modifies proposed changes to terms of service, provides explanations in response to user feedback
• Facebook roundup: Instagram, IPO, pages, Google+, Pinterest

Saturday, April 21

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: SponsorPay, Agency Sacks, King.com and more

Hiring in the social gaming industry was down from last week’s peak, with nine companies reporting 13 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, Zynga reported the most activity with three hires. The highest profile hires of the week belonged to FiveOneNine Games, which brought on Ryan Stradling as VP technology and FunSockets, which picked up Disney Playdom alumn Dave Rohrl as VP of Game Production.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

EA PopCap

Nyssa Betts, Flash Animator/Illustrator – Betts was previously an animator at House of Nice News.

FiveOneNine Games

Ryan Stradling, VP Technology — Another high profile hire at FiveOneNine Games this week. Stradling’s most recent position was a the Sr. software engineer at Row Sham Bow.

Funtactix

Aaron Berndtson, Business Development Manager – Berndtson previously worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and the William Morris Agency.

FunSockets 

Dave Rohrl, VP of Game Production — A high profile move, Rohrl leaves Disney Playdom to take up a job at the Redpoint Ventures backed FunSockets.

Peak Games

Ali Akgül, Game Master — Two hires for Peak Games this week. Akgül was previously in software support at Bilgera.

Kivilcim Kücükerciyes, Game Master – Kücükerciyes starts her career at Peak Games.

Plumbee

Fred Easey, Senior Data Analyst — Easey was also a senior data analyst at EA Playfist before joining Plumbee.

Social Point

Agustín Díaz, Data Mining Manager — Díaz comes to Social Point from LetsBonus, where he also worked as a data mining manager.

Tono G. Dueñas, Ilustrador — Dueñas was previously an illustrator at Boabab Planet.

Wooga

Florian Fuhrmann, Head of Customer Care – Fuhrmann was previously the head of customer care at Affinitas GmbH – eDarling.

Zynga

Daniel Chou, Sr. Concept Artist — Three hires this week for Zynga. First up is Chou, who was a senior artist at WMS Gaming.

Varun Ramamurthy, Associate Product Manager — Ramamurthy was previously a summer intern-investment banking at HSBC.

Christopher Haire, Senior Software Engineer — Haire was formerly the lead programmer at Firaxis Games.

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you from April 9 to April 15.

Inside Mobile Apps

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

Monday, April 9

• Saturday Morning RPG brings episodic gaming to the Japanese-style role-playing genre
• Facebook acquires Instagram for $1B

Tuesday, April 10

• 20 percent of Instagram users connect accounts with Facebook
• Activision brings Skylanders franchise to iOS with Skylanders Cloud Patrol
• Emerging paid iOS apps: Skylanders Cloud Patrol, Voice Assistant and Civilization Revolution

Wednesday, April 11

• Emerging paid iOS apps: Skylanders Cloud Patrol, Voice Assistant and Civilization Revolution
• Emerging top grossing iOS Apps: MLB at Bat, Turbo Tax and iMobsters
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: SoJo, King.com, Legacy Games and more

Thursday, April 12

• Burnout Crash’s automotive chaos smashes on to iOS
• New hires in mobile: EachScape, Gameloft and GREE
• Emerging top grossing android apps: Rage of Bahamut, Voice Search and Phase 10

Friday, April 13

• Smartphone botnet piggybacks on pirated copies of Angry Birds Space
• Dark Legends brings cross-platform MMO action to mobile, tablet and browser players
• Facebook acquires mobile loyalty startup Tagtile
• Rockstar’s Max Payne Mobile already reaching for top of the iOS charts
• Mobile App news roundup: GetJar, Apple and Voxer

Saturday, April 14

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: EA, King.com, SoJo and more

Inside Social Games

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

Monday, April 9

• Zynga Slingo yet again tops this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
• Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers takes players on a hidden object safari adventure
• After staff shake-ups, 6waves returns to publishing over 40 social titles and focuses on mobile

Tuesday, April 10

• The animal kingdom comes to blows in Survival of the Fittest
• Hidden Chronicles finds its way to Facebook’s top 5 Hidden Object games

Wednesday, April 11

• Angry Birds roosts on top of this week’s fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Machine Zone, King.com, Kobojo and more
• Build the perfect tropical getaway with Paradise Club
• Gamesville offers cash bonuses with Pirate Cove for Facebook

Thursday, April 12

• King.com breaking into match-3 genre with Candy Crush Saga on Facebook
• New hires in social gaming: Kabam, Plumbee and Playdom
• The Sims Social launches open beta in China via Tencent’s Qzone
• Pachinko puzzling with Superball
• Angry Birds and Empires & Allies this week’s gainer and loser among April’s Top 25 Facebook games

Friday, April 13

• Tetris Stars slides into top spot of this week’s emerging Facebook games
• Indulge your sweet tooth with Candy Crush Saga’s match-3 gameplay
• Social games news roundup: Zynga, pachinko and smutty social games

Saturday, April 14

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Circle of Moms, Kobojo, Machine Zone and more

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, April 9

• Yahoo, Scribd, Draw Something, Instagram, Pandora, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
• Facebook acquires Instagram for $1B
• Facebook helps Instagram with unique Open Graph app rollout

Tuesday, April 10

• ‘The Simpsons,’ LMFAO, Target, Nutella, movies, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook pages
• 20 percent of Instagram users connect accounts with Facebook
• New Facebook platform industry hires: TBG Digital, Wildfire, Involver
• Facebook ads have higher clickthrough rates on weekends, study finds

Wednesday, April 11

• TripAdvisor adds personalization based on friends of Facebook friends
• FanRx brings Spotify play button to Facebook tab apps
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Offerpop, Spruce, W3i and more
• Facebook unveils school-specific groups, allows file sharing among users with designated .edu email addresses
• Facebook hires: product design, engineering, recruiting, more
• Facebook career postings: engineering, counsel, data centers, more

Thursday, April 12

• Videos, events now featured in publisher tool for pages; Questions demoted to drop-down menu
• Facebook allows users to download expanded archive of their information
• The Facebook Marketing Bible April 2012 Edition Is Now Available
• Facebook to bring back option to invite all group members to events

Friday, April 13

• How Facebook Open Graph can enhance a marketing campaign
• Digg, games, Social Video, virtual gifts, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU
• Santorum loses fans; competition heats up between Obama and Romney this week on Inside Facebook’s Election Tracker
• Facebook tests new way to let users know which links come from social readers and whether their activity will be shared
• Facebook acquires mobile loyalty startup Tagtile
• Facebook roundup: Sandberg, Colleran, Seattle and Menlo Park

Saturday, April 14

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Spruce, Rebel Entertainment, W3i and more

Hiring in the social gaming industry was up sharply this week, with 12 companies reporting 24 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, Zynga reported the most activity with 10 hires. Despite the flurry of activity, there were no high-profile hires to report this week.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Disney Playdom

• Thomas Jung, Art Director — Our hires roundup starts the week off with a promotion for Jung, who was previously a lead concept artist at Disney Playdom.

EA Playfish

• Clay Zhong, Software Engineer — Zhong was also a software engineer at Augmentum before joining the Playfish team.

East Side Games

• Annie Dickerson, Designer — Dickerson was previously the lead designer at Digido Interactive.

GSN

• Jim Otermat, Game Developer — Otermat was a flash developer at 6waves Lolapps.

Kabam

• David Dawson, 3D Art Lead – A pair of hires for Kabam. First up is Dawson, who was a lead environment artist / senior artist at Secret Level/Sega.
• Thomas Baxter, Player Experience Agent — Baxter also works at the University of Colorado.

Kixeye

• Evan Jones, Gameplay Engineer — Jones was also a gameplay engineer at 6waves Lolapps.

Kontagent

• Sean Po, Software Developer Intern – A promotion this week at Kontagent. Po was previously a Back-end Engineer Co-op at the company.

Loot Drop

• Caulder Bradford, Software Engineer – Bradford comes from IQ212, where he was a lead Flash engineer.

Peak Games

• Eyup Citci, Software Engineer — Two hires for Peak Games. Citci was a team leader at Mynet.
• Tolga Firatoglu, Lead Software Developer — Firatoglu starts his career at Peak.

Plumbee

• Pablo Varela, Software Engineer — Varela was formerly the director of architecture at EA Playfish.
• Phillip Runyan, Marketing Consultant — Runyan makes the jump from Double Down Interactive where he was the senior marketing manager.

Social Point

• Xavier Manuel Ruiz, Community Manager – Ruiz was previously a Colaborador at RAC 1.

Zynga

• Steven Noble, QA Engineer I — Zynga dominates our roundup with 10 new hires.   First up is Noble, who worked in functionality quality assurance at THQ.
• Jon Weber, QA Manager — Weber was previously the senior manager and scrum master at Avid Technology.
• Christopher Coster, Senior Software Engineer — Zynga picks up three former 6waves Lolapps employees. Coster was a senior software developer at the company.
• Hans Park, Concept Artist — Park was also a concept artist at 6waves Lolapps.
• Tian Han, Software Engineer — Han was a game developer at 6waves Lolapps.
• Dan Alioto, Art Producer — Alioto comes from enVie Interactive, where he was a producer.
• John Mathew, Associate Product Manager — Mathew was a software engineer – team lead at L&T Infotech before joining Zynga’s Indian team.
• Nikhil Kurian, Associate Product Manager — Kurian was previously a DSP software engineer at Analog Devices.
• Aihua Liu, Software Engineer — Liu comes from Supertech Shanghai, where he was also a software engineer.
• Pavan Madhini, Content Writer — Finally we have Madnini, who was a management associate at Carpe Diem Marketing in India.

Hiring in the social gaming industry was down slightly this week, with eight companies reporting 14 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, Zynga reported the most activity with five hires.

As for high profile hires, this week Zynga announced it had hired RockYou’s former SVP/general manager Julie Shumaker as its head of North American sales. More coverage of that hire can be found here.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Disney Playdom

• Arnav Patra, Software Engineer — Patra was a senior software engineer at Accolite before joining Disney Playdom.

Kabam

• Molli Kreuser, Player Experience – Kreuser was previously a community manager and customer service rep at Blue Noodle Inc.

King.com

• Patrik Lindegrén, Game Developer –  Lindegrén was formerly a game developer at Fabrication Games.

Loot Drop

• Alexander Davis, QA Tester — Davis was a music department Intern at Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC.

Plumbee

• Kathy Li, Mobile Client Engineer — A single hire for Plumbee. Li was a lead game engineer at Yoink Games before joining Plumbee.

Progame

• Marina Sirota, DBA & Database Architect — A trio of hires at Progame. Sirota was previously a database architect at Playtech.
• Yan Lindvor, Senior Programmer — Lindvor comes to Progame from Matrix, where he was also a senior programmer.
• Roman Rozanov, Online Game Designer — Rozanov was formerly a designer at Y&R Interactive.

Peak Games

• Faruk Tarınç, Senior Artist — Tarınç was previously a concept artist-illustrator at Ulkutay Design

Zynga

• Felix Manojh, Associate Product Manager — Five hires for Zynga this week. First up is Manojh. He was formerly a software engineer at Manhattan Associates.
• Coty Goodwin, UI Designer – Next up is Goodwin. She was previously a web & mobile illustrator at Toy Studio.
• Daniel Chou, Sr. Concept Artist — Chou was a senior artist at WMS Gaming before joining Zynga.
• Garrett Breaux, QA Engineer — Breaux comes from EA, where he was QA tester.
• Tracy Rainsbury, Studio Assistant — Finally Rainsbury, who joins the Zynga team as a studio assistant.

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you from Mar. 26 to Apr. 1

Inside Mobile Apps

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

Monday, Mar. 26

• GREE’s second North American title sees players nurturing an Alien Family
• Emerging free iOS Apps: The Hunger Games, Geared and Ninjago: Rise of the Snakes
• What Apple’s UDID phase out means to the iOS ecosystem

Tuesday, Mar. 27

• Apsalar introduces even more advanced user segmenting analytics
• Castle Age comes to iOS with gorgeous art but well-worn gameplay
• Millennial amends S-1: Now reaches 300 million users, target share price upped to $11-$13
• Addmired nets $8 million Series B, changes name to Machine Zone
• Emerging paid iOS apps: Angry Birds dethrones Draw Something
• Adobe allies with Unity for Flash Player 11.2 release, introduces premium APIs

Wednesday, Mar. 28

• The Playforge remains independent as it branches out with Tree World
• On the run with Katniss in The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire
• Apple saves print media? Newsstand applications earning $70,000 a day on iPad
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: East Side Games, Sojo, BrightRoll and more
• Only two percent of Android apps use in-app purchases
• Emerging top grossing iOS Apps: Angry Birds Space, Galaxy Empire and Tap Paradise Cove

Thursday, Mar. 29

• Escape from the 35 rooms with DOOORS
• Kontagent forms alliance, releases API to standardize mobile advertising
• New hires in mobile: Gameloft, GREE and PayPal
• User acquisition costs rise as Apple’s bot crackdown drops downloads, says Fiksu
• Ngmoco’s chief publishing officer resigns

Friday, Mar. 30

• Crytek brings its graphical prowess to iOS with Fibble
• Millennial’s Media’s shares hit $25, but dip on second day of trading
• Kontagent adds funnels and custom dashboards to its mobile analytics
• Google Play delivers a quarter of the revenues Apple and Amazon do, says Flurry
• Bird-free physics puzzling in space with Gravity Fleet
• Mobile App News Roundup: DeNA, Rovio and RIM

Saturday, Mar. 31

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Sojo, East Side Games, High 5 Games and more

Inside Social Games

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

Monday, Mar. 26

• Disney Animal Kingdom Explorers mixes hidden object gameplay and wildlife education on Facebook
• Zynga Slingo tops the list of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
• Build, grow and produce with Township

Tuesday, Mar. 27

• Mob Science raises $1M in funding, preps mid-core RPG for launch on Zynga.com
• Ludia invites players to “come on down” for The Price Is Right Slots
• Adobe allies with Unity for Flash Player 11.2 release, introduces premium APIs

Wednesday, Mar. 28

• CelebrityMe wants to bring out players’ inner stars on Facebook
• RockYou settles with FTC over security flaw charges
• Zynga Slingo wins again with this week’s fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU
• Two genres collide in Vostu’s Flying Kingdoms
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: MachineZone, Bally, PT Gaming and more
• 6waves drops “Lolapps” name entirely, announces publishing deals with 32 social developers

Thursday, Mar. 29

• Fling a Thing brings physics-based bug-twanging to Facebook
• Zynga execs selling over 20M shares in secondary offering
• New hires in social gaming: Akamon Entertainment, Double Down Interactive and Zynga
• Rocket Ninja moves away from games, focuses on 3D ‘lightweight dating’

Friday, Mar. 30

• Galaxy Online II warps atop this week’s emerging games list
• Scream if you want to go faster with Rollercoaster Mania
• The Hunger Games Adventures aims for the adventure game bullseye on Facebook
• Social games news roundup: Martha Stewart, Disney and Gangs of Boomtown

Saturday, Mar. 31

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: SpeedDate.com, High 5 Games, Legacy Games and more

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, Mar. 26

• Draw Something, Rotten Tomatoes, Cities I’ve Visited, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
• App aims to simplify Facebook ad offerings, lets advertisers visualize ‘premium’ units
• ‘Offers’ on Facebook exclusive to premium advertisers for now, will be free for all pages later this year
• Facebook expands Sponsored Stories in News Feed with image, more social context
• Mediabistro’s Facebook Marketing Boot Camp Happening This Week
• Facebook adds contact form to ad dashboard, aims to respond in 4 hours

Tuesday, Mar. 27

• Clickable releases new dashboard tool to visualize Facebook, search campaign performance
• ‘Hunger Games,’ LMFAO, Miracle-Gro, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook pages
• Facebook reminds page owners of pages they haven’t posted to lately
• New Facebook platform industry hires: Kontagent, TBG Digital, BranchOut
• Users spent more than 10.5B total minutes per day on Facebook in January, not including mobile use
• Facebook amends S-1 filing to note Yahoo patent suit, Ceglia updates

Wednesday, Mar. 28

• Zynga, Draw Something, Cities I’ve Visited, ESPN, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
• Facebook now features app activity more prominently on Timeline
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Spruce Media, W3i, OfferPop and more
• Facebook gives permalinks to individual comments, hides potential spam

Thursday, Mar. 29

• ReverbNation adds feature to let artists compare their Facebook ad campaigns to those in similar genres
• Facebook to adjust calculations for total check-ins displayed on place pages
• Facebook tests simpler interface for creating ads, targeting users
• Facebook hires: privacy, public policy, data centers, mobile, more
• Facebook career postings: engineering, London, account management, more

Friday, Mar. 30

• Local Facebook pages outperform corporate pages in terms of reach, engagement percentage, study finds
• Price Is Right, Pose, Change.org, Amex, hi5, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU
• Why Timeline engagement ‘studies’ should be ignored
• Romney leads, Gingrich loses fans, plus new insights from Timeline this week on Inside Facebook’s Election Tracker
• Facebook roundup: platform updates, trading, IPO, Google, more

Saturday, Mar. 31

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Shutterstock, Rebel Entertainment, SponsorPay and more

Hiring in the social gaming industry was down after last week’s peak, with seven companies reporting 18 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, Zynga reported the most activity with six hires. This week Akamon Entertainment and Progame reported high profile moves. Akamon brought on Ignasi Faus as director of analytics and user experience, and Marc Vicente as marketing director. Meanwhile Programe appointed Eran Kariti as CTO.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Akamon Entertainment 

• Ignasi Faus, Director of Analytics and User Experience — Two high profile hires for Akamon Entertainment in our weekly roundup. Faus was previously a member of the Windows Shell Team at Microsoft.
• Marc Vicente, Marketing Director — Vicente was previously the e-commerce director at Spanish airline Spanair.

Double Down Interactive

• David Garay, Software Developer – Returning to our roundup after a prolonged absence, Double Down Interactive brings on Garay as a software developer.

EA PopCap

• Allie Ello, Senior Manager, Head of Online Marketing Strategy — A high profile hire for EA-owned PopCap Games. Ello was a group account director at VML.
• William Curtis, Flash Developer – Curtis was previously a software developer at Jolt Online Gaming.
• Joyce Zhang, Executive Assistant – Zang was formerly a sales & operations coordinator at Warner Bros. Television.

Progame

• Eran Kariti, CTO — Kariti comes to Progame from Active Labs Ltd, where he was also CTO.

Social Point

• Leonard Andreae, Game Producer — Four hires this week for Social Point. Andreae was formerly a game designer at Gameforge.
• Sandra Parra, Recruiter — Parra comes to Social Point from an HR position at Everis.
• Agustín Díaz, Datamining Manager — Díaz was previously an account manager at TNS Research International.
• Marc Jarpa, Senior PHP Developer — Jarpa also joins the Social Point team as a senior PHP developer.

Zynga

• Matt Basnett, Sr. Systems Engineer — Several hires this week for Zynga. Basnett was previously a windows systems administrator at Taos.
• Faye Hsu, Freelance Concept Artist – Hsu joins the Zynga team as a freelancer.
• Chris Carley, QA Engineer — Carley was a QA tester II at NCsoft.
• Sheetal Chopra, QA Manager — Chopra was formerly the director, quality assurance at Hobsons.
• Zhao Ma, Software Engineer — Ma was a Software Engineer at Yottaa.
• Laarni Buhay-Canoy, Office Manager – Finally Buhay-Canoy was an executive assistant at Summit Partners.

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you from Mar. 19 to Mar. 24

Inside Mobile Apps

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

Monday, Mar. 19

• Apple to spend $45 billion on dividends, share buybacks
• Emerging free iOS Apps: Air Wings, Zombie Jombie and Lowe’s Creative Ideas
• Flight Control Rocket takes Firemint’s classic to the stars
• Inside Mobile Apps is hiring
• Exclusive: 6waves Lolapps cuts development staff, focuses exclusively on publishing

Tuesday, Mar. 20

• Warheads Medieval Tales offers familiar fantasy fun
• Emerging paid iOS apps: Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation, Goodreader and iPhoto
• 44 percent of mobile games played at home according to MoPub, Miniclip
• $75 eCPM? Some developers are seeing it with PlayHaven
• Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social and Mobile Gaming Audience 2012, Is Here

Wednesday, Mar. 21

• Red Robot enters Asia with $5 million investment from Taiwan’s Next Media
• Zombie Panic in Wonderland brings WiiWare hit to iOS
• Emerging top grossing iOS Apps: Galaxy Empire, The Daily and Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy
• Gameloft’s earnings rise 17% to $217 million in 2011
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: BrightRoll, Legacy Games, King.com and more
• Zynga acquires OMGPOP
• Zynga New York split into Mobile, Social studios with OMGPOP acquisition — gearing up for mobile publishing

Thursday, Mar. 22

• Angry Birds Space rockets to the top of the App Store charts in over 28 countries
• Announcing the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit – Coming June 26th in San Francisco
• New hires in mobile: Gameloft, Tap.me and Thumb
• Emerging top grossing Android apps: Draw Something, Draw Something and Draw Something

Friday, Mar. 23

• Angry Birds Space: out of this world or crash and burn?
• The9 sees revenues increase, reports net loss of $45.2 million in 2011
• As The9 sees its mobile business grow, competition heats up
• Mobile app news roundup: Apple, Kiip and Path

Saturday, Mar. 24

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: King.com, BrightRoll, TinyCo and more

Inside Social Games

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

Monday, Mar. 19

• Exclusive: 6waves Lolapps cuts development staff, focuses exclusively on publishing
• Dungeon Rampage battles across Facebook
• Angry Birds still leading flock of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU

Tuesday, Mar. 20

• The Supernauts aiming for super-stardom on iOS and Facebook
• Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social and Mobile Gaming Audience 2012, Is Here
• 5th Planet Games acquires To Be Continued LLC
• Zynga Slingo blends two of the hottest game genres on Facebook for a simple, addictive experience
• Two years later, Backyard Monsters continues to thrive on Facebook

Wednesday, Mar. 21

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: High 5 Games, Legacy Games, King.com and more
• Zynga Slingo wins big with this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU
• Soul Crash brings over-the-top anime-style combat to your Facebook friends list
• Zynga acquires OMGPOP
• Zynga New York split into Mobile, Social studios with OMGPOP acquisition — gearing up for mobile publishing

Thursday, Mar. 22

• Lucky Slots provides polished but predictable slot machine action
• Plumbee announces funding, launches Mirrorball Slots on Facebook
• New hires in social gaming: GameHouse, Game Insight and Nordeus

Friday, Mar. 23

• Facebook pushes Credits promotion with in-game units for first-time payers
• SEC filing confirms OMGPOP’s $180 million price tag
• Foreign language games permeate this week’s emerging Facebook games
• Take to the social skies with Aviator

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, Mar. 19

• Facebook provides more insights about referral traffic for mobile apps
• Draw Something, Angry Birds, Rotten Tomatoes, Trip Advisor, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook app by MAU
• NPR seeks to help media organizations geotarget Facebook content at scale
• Facebook redesigns permalinks to match Timeline, adds buttons for Like, subscribe

Tuesday, Mar. 20

• Facebook prompts some users to return to non-game apps
• New Facebook platform industry hires: Adaptly, AdParlor, TBG Digital, BranchOut, Banyan Branch
• Adele, Kakà, Thailand, Intel, Jeremy Lin, Will Smith, Bruno Mars, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook pages

Wednesday, Mar. 21

• Draw Something, WashPo, Yahoo, Rotten Tomatoes, iPad, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
• Facebook faces another patent suit
• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: SponsorPay, Nickelodeon, King.com and more
• Will Twitter integrate Facebook Open Graph?

Thursday, Mar. 22

• Facebook to reduce image sizes, lower character count for body copy in ads
• Facebook tool helps users divide friends from acquaintances, clean out News Feed
• Facebook to implement fullscreen, hi-res photo viewing
• Facebook hires and departures: community engagement, engineering, mobile ops
• Facebook career postings: engineers, mobile, games, legal, more
• Facebook social reader app contributes to record traffic for U.K. news site
• Confirmed: Facebook buys patents from IBM

Friday, Mar. 23

• Facebook pushes Credits promotion with in-game units for first-time payers
• Friends, Digg, Gogobot, Hey Tell, tabs, games, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU
• Facebook logout ad price equal to takeovers on other sites; advertisers still question value
• The Facebook Marketing Bible: New and Improved for March 2012
• Facebook roundup: password privacy, IPO, engineering, Hacker Cup, more

Saturday, Mar. 24

• New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Nickelodeon, SponsorPay, TinyCo and more