Tag: zynga

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Facebook purchases Oculus Rift. Wait, what?

This is not the polar caps are melting post. Presumably, somewhere in the fine print, something about this business transaction makes sense. Facebook has laid on the table 2 billion dollars in cash and stock options to purchase the crowdfunded virtual reality headset maker outright.  Now before we get into a tizzy, this might or might not be the death knell of virtual reality that some of you expect. The noise coming out of Camp Mark Zuckerberg at least does lip service to the prospect of the Rift remaining a game console. Yet Facebook has an unremarkable track record as…
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Maybe the guy who founded Zynga isn’t so bad after all

The other day I questioned what good could come from President Obama inviting the founder of Zynga to the Oval Office for a chat about national security. I think the sentiment was something to the effect of: what the eff?  Well, it turns out Mark Pincus of Zynga made a bold and populist contribution at the meeting. CNN reports that he asked the President that Edward Snowden should be pardoned. Snowden, of course, is the NSA employee who leaked information that the government was involved in massive snooping. Naturally, the President shot him down, presumably because he makes social games.…
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President Obama, don’t listen to anything the guy from Zynga has to say!

  The President is holding a powwow with fifteen leading figures in the tech industry, and somehow the head of Zynga got on the list. This sounds terrible because it is. The purpose for the roundtable is for the White House to get opinions on how to correct HealthCare.gov and deal with the NSA. So, it’s smart to ask the advice of people like Tim Cook of Apple and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook.  But the CPO of a company that carved out the manipulative social game market and hooked millions of listless clickers on raising virtual ears of corn? Unless…