TechCrunch reports Google has invested $100 million in Zynga. Zynga is a company that makes socially connected games and is incredibly popular on Facebook. They are the company behind Farmville.
Greg Sterling has his thoughts on how this may "fuel" a Google social networking site around gaming.
But folks at WebmasterWorld fear it is more than just a gaming pitch. By investing in Zynga Google can potentially use their influence to get data from within Facebook's iron gate, push Google ads within the games and even more.
One person said:
My concern is privacy, with Google now owning a piece of Zynga and Zynga being in nearly everyone's Facebook it seems the long tentacle of Google is extending into everything that can yield user data.
Whereas the folks at DigitalPoint Forums are confused and surprised by the investment. One person said, "Well I'm a little bit surprised... I mean there firstly was one one place where you could fond everything, now it's sorted in different topics. What is the purpose of all this?"
I doubt any of our readers are surprised by this move, at least not in hindsight.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.
