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Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. The company has raised somewhere around half a billion dollars in venture capital in the last year alone, including $150 million from Softbank Capital last month and $180 million late last year from Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Institutional Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The Softbank announcement was never officially confirmed by the company, however, and the Google investment was likely part of that deal as well.
Back in Quora, someone said Google was stupid for following Facebook's model with the rumoured Google Me since Facebook's profits come from games within the network itself. (and not the social network model)
Now with this move, Google may either have gotten it right or gotten it wrong.
The big problem I see here is how there was no mention of using social networks to provide for these games which is the primary strength of these games.
from Michael Arrington
