Tag: FARMVILLE

You have to hand it to Lady Gaga; she's pretty tapped into tech. Her latest venture is a partnership with Zynga, in which she's donating $1.5 million for earthquake relief via its in-game funding drives. The partnership is not particularly surprising on either end. Gaga has been making the tech rounds recently, and Zynga has long been savvy about using its games as a platform for ...

In the same way that 'Mafia Wars' has drawn attention to Jersey, and 'FarmVille' has drawn attention to... uh... Iowa (or something), Zynga's newest Facebook gaming sensation 'Ireland Town' is advertising the Emerald Isle to Facebook users enthralled by such virtual activities as brewing beer and thatching roofs. Developed by Tourism Ireland, a joint enterprise between Ireland and Northern ...

Earlier today, a British hacker was sentenced to two years in prison for five counts of hacking and theft. Ashley Mitchell, 29, hacked into Zynga (the game giant behind 'FarmVille' and 'Texas HoldEm Poker'), stole more than $11 million in credits, and laundered a third of them through Facebook. There are some potentially interesting ramifications to this case. The court ignored the defense's ...

Zynga, my favorite social game factory, has just unleashed its latest hellion from the company's bubbling cauldron of misery and profit. The deftly named 'RewardVille' isn't so much a game as an incentive program, with which Facebook fiends already hooked on 'FarmVille' and 'CityVille' can get addicted to other Zynga games. The reward? More digital ducks. Basically, you play Zynga games and ...

Perpetually baby-faced Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga and god of 'Farmville,' is now worth $1 billion, all thanks to your stupid virtual corn. "Blame only yourselves," I said when 'CityVille' grew even larger than your digital homesteads, as you merrily stuffed Facebook Credits into his gaping pockets. Now the company is valued between $7 and $9 billion, and Pincus' Bieber hair has found its way into ...

Zynga, the social gaming company behind 'FarmVille' and 'Mafia Wars,' might be worth up to $9 billion. According to the Wall Street Journal, Zynga is currently in discussions with potential investors about raising approximately $250 million in fresh capital. Sources close to the discussions say that the new deal would place the company's value at between $7 and $9 billion, though a final decision ...

Share Got Facebook on the brain? It could be because Facebook is your brain. Sort of. That's what Carnegie Mellon neurology researcher Alison Barth claims in a new study published in the December 22nd issue of a journal called Neuron. As LiveScience explains, Barth and her team of researchers arrived at their conclusion after identifying and observing a small group of highly active neurons in ...

Is it just us, or did 2010 seem like an abnormally long year? Of course, it was no longer than any other year in history. But, from a tech perspective, at least, this year saw more seismic changes and game-altering developments than any other in recent memory. From Android to Zuckerberg, 'FarmVille' to Foursquare, iPad to iPhone 4, 2010 certainly wasn't short on memorable moments. Here are 15 ...

You jerks. We told you not to do it, but you went and signed up anyway. In fact, it seems like you ignored us with great gusto, because Zynga's new money-pit 'CityVille' has just surpassed the number of users of its old money-pit, 'FarmVille.' It took less than a month for this simulacrum of real life within a Precious Moments-themed casino of broken dreams to reach 16.8 million daily active users ...

Have you ever paused, in the middle of your sixth hour of 'World of Warcraft,' or during your nineteenth 'FarmVille' till-and-sow, and thought to yourself, "Why do I spend so much time playing video games?" According to a recent New York Times report, the average American logs over 10,000 hours playing computer games by the age of 21, and researchers are starting to explore -- and exploit -- ...

We've all seen our fair share of Facebook-based viruses, but a newly released study from security software manufacturer BitDefender reminds us just how vulnerable we are when using the social network. According to the study, 20-percent of all Facebook users are exposed to malware as they troll through their friends' news feeds. The report defines "malware" as any post that, when clicked, ...

Mark Pincus admits that his ego is larger than a tycoon's. "I want to create something that will matter in a hundred years," the CEO of Zynga and creator of time-suck games like 'FarmVille,' said on Nightline last night. Parading his innocently vainglorious vision of the Internet and gaming, Pincus dismissed worries about the millions of users who funnel real money into unreal products as part of ...

Share After her 3-month-old son Dylan Lee Edmonson died in January, 22-year-old Alexandra Tobias was arrested. During her interrogation, Tobias told authorities that she had shaken young Dylan because he was crying while she was playing 'FarmVille' on Facebook. According to her statement to investigators, she shook the infant once, and then smoked a cigarette before returning to shake Dylan ...

Share A Wall Street Journal investigation recently revealed that some of the most popular apps on Facebook were handing over your data to third parties, including advertising networks and Internet tracking companies. Many apps, including the popular/obnoxious 'FarmVille,' have been sending not just your own unique Facebook ID to others (regardless of your privacy settings), but also handing over ...

Those of you... okay, those of us who rushed to the nearest Gamestop (or just got online) to throw $60 at 'StarCraft II' the day it dropped are not the future of the video game industry. According to a recent report from NPD Group, one in five Americans over the age of six has played games on a social network within the last 90 days, while spending less than the average on video games overall. Of ...