If you're not familiar with Zynga, the undisputed champ of social gaming, odds are that you're not a fixture on Facebook or into smartphone app gaming. This month, it rolls the dice on a big public offering. Are you game?
Nokia smartphone users starving for app extras may finally get some new toys for their handsets. App developers who previously stuck to iOS and Android are probably going to branch out, thanks to Nokia's Windows 7 deal.
Forecasting which technologies will succeed is always hazardous, but it proved especially difficult in 2010, a year full of surprises -- and also several disappointments. Facebook blew away even the most optimistic expectations for the year. Google Buzz? Not so much.
Google views Web games as a key part of its strategy to take on Facebook. Instead of confronting its rival head on, Google is assembling building blocks -- such as email, music and games -- now and hoping to connect them later.
Video-game console makers see motion-sensing technology -- playing Madden NFL 11 by running around your living room -- as salvation. Sorry, guys: Games on smartphones, social networks and in the cloud are going to eat your lunch.
Zynga, a popular maker of games used on Facebook, has acquired Chinese social-gaming company XPD Media.
Book publishers are keeping tabs on FarmVille, ChatRoulette, Facebook, and video-game companies, turning their sights onto the rapidly changing environment in digital distribution and social networking to keep their industry relevant -- and alive.
