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Zynga Slashes Outlook, Shares Tumble (The Wall Street Journal) Zynga rattled Wall Street Thursday by cutting its financial outlook thanks to difficulty winning audiences for the social games company’s new titles, helping send its shares plummeting after hours. Shares of Zynga fell 19 percent to $2.28 in after-hours trading, which would represent a new low. VentureBeat Mark Pincus, the chief executive of the San Francisco social gaming giant, said in a press statement and memo to employees that the company was weak in the “invest and express” category of games, or the Ville genre of games. He said the company expects to report revenue of $300 million to $305 million in the quarter and a net loss of $90 million to $105 million. AllThingsD Pincus, however, doesn’t want his employees freaking out (at least, not more than they already are). The CEO sent out a conciliatory yet upbeat letter to his troops, rallying them not to lose hope. ars technica Most notably, the company took a write-down of $85 million to $95 million on the value of OMGPOP, makers of Draw Something — more than half of what the company paid for it earlier this year. That means Zynga drastically overpaid for the smaller gaming company. TechCrunch If you look at the cash, short-term and long-term investments Zynga has on its balance sheet (which add up to just over $1.6 billion), the market is giving the company an enterprise value of between $100 million to $200 million beyond. Scary times indeed! continued…
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Shareholders Sue Facebook | Disqus Adds New Features | Oracle Acquires Vitrue
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Facebook’s fourth day of trading as a public company saw an increase in the company’s stock price and shareholder lawsuits related to the social network’s botched initial public offering. Several shareholders who bought stock in the IPO have filed lawsuits against Facebook, its executives and Morgan Stanley, the IPO’s lead underwriter. Reuters Meanwhile, Facebook is considering a stock-listing proposal put forward by the New York Stock Exchange, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters, in the wake of a disappointing initial public offering last week on the rival NASDAQ bourse. Facebook has exchanged phone calls and emails with NYSE Euronext and are considering their pitch, the source said without elaborating on specifics. CNET Facebook plans to open its first Middle East office in Dubai next week, according to the Associated Press. This United Arab Emirates city is considered the Silicon Valley of the region, so it makes sense that the social network would put its Persian Gulf hub here. The Hill Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday began to look into the debacle of what was supposed to be the social networking company’s crowning achievement. Lawmakers want to know whether institutional investors got a sneak peek at an updated analysis, written just before the initial public offering, that gave a more pessimistic assessment of Facebook’s future revenues. AllFacebook Some Facebook page administrators are seeing messages in the top-right-hand corners of their timeline pages urging them to create Facebook ads and containing a “promote your page” button. Have you seen similar messages on Facebook pages you manage? Mashable A Facebook page and a six-minute video tell the story of a 12-year-old girl whose mother died when she was 3 years old, grew up being abused by her father and bullied on her Facebook page. Eventually, the girl commits suicide. There’s just one problem: this is all fake. continued…
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