Details surface about Google’s rumored social network
Bt Dean Takahashi
VentureBeat
July 27, 2010
A few details of Google’s planned social network and its alliances with social game publishers are starting to emerge as the search giant prepares to take Facebook head on.
The Wall Street Journal reported tonight that Google is in talks with several makers of popular online games, including Playdom (which agreed to be acquired by Disney today), Electronic Arts’ Playfish, and Zynga. The Zynga relationship has already been reported since we and others have confirmed that Google is preparing to invest a large amount of money — more than $100 million — in Zynga in exchange for its support for Google’s social network. The Journal cited sources familiar with the matter. On top of that, Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt confirmed that something is coming related to Zynga.
The report did not say when Google would launch the new game platform and its accompanying social network. Games will be an important anchor of the social network, but there will be many other features as well. Schmidt declined to comment. Asked about Facebook, he said, “the world doesn’t need a copy of the same thing.” Duh. Of course, Google will have to differentiate what it does, and it will likely do so by recruiting people for its social network through every Google property, from search to Gmail.
Sadly, Google should have gotten into social games a few years ago. It had the chance when it bought Adscape, a maker of in-game ad platforms. The chairman of Adscape was Bernie Stolar, the former head of the American game console businesses of Sony and Sega. But Schmidt turned down Stolar’s entreaties to move into games, saying Google did not do content, according to our source. Google launched a virtual world chat service called Lively, but it bombed an Google shut it down. It also never did much with Adscape, whose technology was less developed than Microsoft’s Massive division, which runs an in-game ad platform.
Google has to react to Facebook because it is capturing so many eyeballs, with more than 500 million users, and it is thus also capturing a lot of advertising dollars from advertisers who want to reach Facebook’s audience. Facebook, Twitter and others have clearly stolen a march on Google in social networking.
But Google’s strategy of going after Zynga is a good one. After all, cool social games are one of the main fun things to do on Facebook. (Zynga’s hit FarmVille is pictured above.) Google also has an opening because Facebook’s decision to take 30 percent of every virtual good transaction with its Facebook Credits virtual currency has irked Zynga and other app makers. Google has its own online payment mechanism called Checkout which could be used to collect payments for social game virtual goods.
Schmidt did confirm that “you can expect a partnership with Zynga” in the future.
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