Zynga nabs another EA exec
The social gaming leader Zynga has lured away another top Electronic Arts executive, hiring Barry Cottle (pictured) as head of business development.
The news represents a blow to EA, which lost its chief operating officer John Schappert last April when he took up the same position at Zynga. Mr Cottle was head of Interactive at EA, covering the mobile and social gaming areas where EA is in direct competition with Zynga. Read more
Zynga’s early wake-up call
Zynga employees showed up for work in their hundreds at least three hours early on Friday – encouragement perhaps for all its new shareholders on its opening day on the market that the social gaming company is already working hard to provide a return on their investment.
However, the 5am start was more of an excuse to celebrate Zynga’s IPO – the Nasdaq had moved its “opening bell” button for the start of trading to Zynga HQ – the first time it had come to San Francisco for such a ceremony. Read more
Zynga’s pre-IPO management shuffle
Zynga has announced that Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook executive and chief executive of MySpace, has resigned from his position as Chief Business Officer at the leading social gaming company ahead of its IPO, surrendering 4.64m share options in the process.
The news came in a regulatory filing detailing management changes and new numbers on users – the kind of detail requested by the Securities and Exchange Commission as a public offering nears. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Downloads of Android’s apps overtook those of Apple’s iOS apps in the second quarter of 2001, Business Insider reports. According to figures from ABI Research, the market shares of Android and iOS were 44% and 31% respectively. However, Apple still gets more downloads per user than Android. Read more
Zynga says games have staying power
Zynga has updated its IPO filing with a breakdown of the sales contributions from its most popular games – FarmVille, FrontierVille, CityVille, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker – as it faces questions on whether its games cannibalise one another and on how it will maintain its record of success.
The leading social gaming company also announced it would list on the Nasdaq rather than the New York Stock Exchange, with a ticker symbol of ZNGA, although the timing is still unknown. Read more
Zynga IPO odds lengthen as profits fall
Zynga reduced the odds of its IPO on Wednesday as it revealed worsening financial numbers and complained of market volatility.
The social gaming company is earning less but is still worth more, according to an amended IPO filing . Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Amazon is in discussions with book publishers about a Netflix-style service for digital books, in which customers would pay an annual fee to access a library of content, the Wall Street Journal reports. Amazon would offer book publishers a fee for participating in the service, sources told the WSJ. Read more
Zynga cagey on IPOville
Zynga, which reportedly prepared the fastest IPO filing in history, is being a little more circumspect about its actual debut on a fragile stock market. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Apple is to phase out access to the unique device identifier, or UDID, on devices such as iPhones and iPads in the next update to its iOS mobile software, according to TechCrunch. The UDID is used by mobile ad and game networks or any app that needs to identify its users. If it is scrapped, companies would have to create their own unique identifiers to keep track of their users. This, TechCrunch warns, would mean companies may well have to get rid of all of their historical user data and start from scratch. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Online game group Zynga has teamed up with Chinese social network Tencent to launch a version of its CityVille game for the mainland Chinese market, VentureBeat reports. Tencent is China’s most popular internet service portal with more than 674m users. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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