Not 
everyone is celebrating the launch of Facebook on Wall Street.
Shares of the social media site’s close ally Zynga nosedived when Facebook shares began trading Friday morning. The company saw its stock price fall more than 14 percent at one point during the day – with Nasdaq having to halt trading of shares twice due to those fluctuations.
Facebook 
likes Zynga – a lot.
While the social game maker endured some close scrutiny during its IPO because of its reliance on Facebook, the relationship is actually more of a codependent one — and Facebook will be the first to admit that.
Five 
months after Zynga was center stage on Wall Street, Facebook is readying for its own IPO. And the parallels between the two companies are startling.
At the time (and since it began trading), FarmVille house Zynga was criticized for its over-reliance on the social media site. Investors grumbled that the offering was a dog and pony show — and investors would have no real say in the company’s operations, since the majority of shares remained controlled by Mark Pincus. And the company’s valuation seemed impossibly high.
You 
know you’ve got a hit app on your hands when Zynga shells out $170 million to buy you. The makers of Draw Something received that huge payday just weeks after their app came out – and that should be enough incentive for you to check it out.
Zynga 
raised eyebrows with its $210 million acquisition of OMGPOP, and CEO Mark Pincus said there’s more high-dollar buyouts to come. Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris examines the spending frenzy.
Just under a month ago, the games world gasped when Zynga spent $180 million for Draw Something developer OMGPOP (plus a reported $30 million in employee retention payments). While the game was dominating the app store charts, that was still a shocking amount for a company with just one hit.
It turns out, though, that may have been just the beginning. In an interview with Bloomberg this week, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said he’s hoping to do “a few” more deals for that amount or higher. And that’s when the klaxons in people’s heads should have started sounding.
It’s 
kind of hard to believe now, but when it first came out, Words With Friends really wasn’t all that popular.
The videogame — which is, in many ways, a twist on digital Scrabble — did ok for its first year, but it was only after musician John Mayer called it “the new Twitter” in an Oct. 5, 2009 Tweet, that things began to explode — and the growth rate has been phenomenal ever since.
There 
are a lot of threats to your productivity these days, but Scramble With Friends might just take the crown. The game’s best described as a multiplayer electronic version of Boggle.
A hit 
game sequel is a powerful thing indeed, but it can be tricky to pull off. Do you just repeat the first game? Come up with something new? Split the difference?
Maybe you should ask Zynga, who have managed to follow up their blockbuster Words With Friends with a Boggle-like game using the same elements. And it’s hitting just the right notes.
Forget 
singles bars — if you want to find love on Valentine’s Day, you might have better luck on your iPhone.
A study of over 118,000 Words With Friends players found that scoring isn’t necessarily limited to the game. One in 10 players, in fact, said the title has directly led to a hookup at some point.
While the gaming world was busy watching THQ implode last week, a funny thing happened in the background. Zynga began trading in positive territory.
Boosted by Facebook’s IPO filing, the social games maker finally escaped the mire of mediocrity it had been stuck in since its first day as a public company and began to grow. The question is: Is it a short-term surge or the start of a true growth curve?
Chris Morris: Journalist 