Zynga

The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering isn't just a flop on Wall Street. It's also not making waves in social gaming land. Facebook, whose popularity among its nearly 1 billion users has been partly fueled by social games published by Zynga Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and others, may be facing a collapse of its gaming ecosystem, according to a book released this week by P.J. McNealy, a media analyst with Digital World Research. "Early Days: The Social Gaming Market and Facebook's Achilles' Heel" argues that developers are no longer making as many Facebook games because it has become impossible for them to make money.

Wall Street didn't get the Facebook effect it was hoping for. In a sign that the social networking giant may have already become a bellwether for its sector, shares of virtually every social media company sank Friday with Facebook Inc.'s lackluster debut on the stock market. Anticipating that Facebook would have a big day, investors had loaded up on social media stocks in recent weeks. Many backpedaled when Facebook's shares barely budged, rising just 23 cents, or less than 1%, from the initial public offering price of $38. "They were playing for a pop and didn't get it," said Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities.

Wall Street didn't get the Facebook effect it was hoping for. In a sign that the social networking giant may have already become a bellwether for its sector, shares of virtually every social media company sank Friday with Facebook Inc.'s lackluster debut on the stock market. Anticipating that Facebook would have a big day, investors had loaded up on social media stocks in recent weeks. Many backpedaled when Facebook's shares barely budged, rising just 23 cents, or less than 1%, from the initial public offering price of $38. "They were playing for a pop and didn't get it," said Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities.

Zynga Inc. IPO Deal size: The San Francisco developer of online games CityVille and FarmVille sold 100 million shares at $10 each, raising $1 billion. It was the largest IPO for a U.S. Internet-related firm since Google Inc. raised $1.66 billion in August 2004. First-day pop: Zynga stock finished its first day of trading on Nasdaq at $9.50, down 5% of its value. It traded as high as $11.50 shortly after the session opened, but soon deflated, falling as low as $9. 2010 revenue: $597.5 million 2010 net income: $90.6 million Employees: More than 2,000 Audience: More than 150 million players from 166 countries Source: Los Angeles Times research

Zynga Inc.'s bid to cash in on Wall Street's voracious appetite for Internet stocks comes with a tantalizing prospect — a highly profitable online game business. The social gaming juggernaut hopes to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of its stock, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. That would value the creator of FarmVille, CityVille and other popular games on Facebook at about $10 billion. Zynga's filing follows stock offerings from a cluster of Internet companies, including Pandora Media Inc., LinkedIn Corp.

Zynga Inc., the biggest developer of games for Facebook, will file for an initial public offering Wednesday, according to GreenCrest Capital Management, which cited a "major investor" in the start-up. The company has chosen Morgan Stanley to be the lead underwriter of an offering that will raise more than $1 billion, said Nitsan Hargil, an analyst at GreenCrest, which focuses on closely held firms. He didn't name the investor, saying only that it was an early backer of Zynga. Zynga, known for FarmVille and Texas HoldEm Poker, is joining the biggest wave of Internet IPOs since the dot-com heyday in 2000.

Zynga Inc., the social-gaming company known for "FarmVille" and "Texas HoldEm Poker," filed to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering, letting investors bet on the surging market for virtual goods. The IPO will be managed by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Allen & Co., according to a regulatory filing today. The company didn't say how many shares it would sell or at what price. Zynga, which leads the market for games played on Facebook Inc.'s site and other social networks, is joining the biggest wave of Internet IPOs since the dot-com heyday in 2000.

Online gaming juggernaut Zynga Inc. has unveiled a slew of products aimed at diversifying its business beyond Facebook and reassuring potential investors of its growth prospects in the burgeoning social games market. In its first major announcement since filing for an initial public offering in July, the developer of FarmVille and Mafia Wars said Tuesday that it plans to launch a site separate from Facebook in which players can congregate and play its games. The San Francisco company also announced four new titles with flashier graphics and more sophisticated features, some of which can be played on smartphones and tablets.

As a hurricane barreled toward the Florida Keys, John Schappert, the chief operating officer of Zynga Inc., was on a charter boat to catch lobsters with half a dozen friends. When the winds kicked up and large waves tossed the small craft about, several passengers felt too seasick to dive. But Schappert insisted on diving until he caught close to a dozen lobsters before he was willing to call it a day. "Most of us were begging to get back to shore," recalled Steve Chiang, a close friend who was on the boat that day in July.

SAN FRANCISCO - Dustin Moskovitz, at 27 the world's youngest billionaire, gained fame and fortune after founding Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg. He also gained the "Facebook 15. " He packed on the extra pounds while chowing down on free snacks and guzzling four sodas a day at the social networking giant. Today, Moskovitz is a svelte version of his former self. He runs Asana, a start-up named after the Sanskrit word for traditional yoga sitting positions. That's fitting since the company holds twice weekly group yoga classes at its San Francisco offices.

As a hurricane barreled toward the Florida Keys, John Schappert, the chief operating officer of Zynga Inc., was on a charter boat to catch lobsters with half a dozen friends. When the winds kicked up and large waves tossed the small craft about, several passengers felt too seasick to dive. But Schappert insisted on diving until he caught close to a dozen lobsters before he was willing to call it a day. "Most of us were begging to get back to shore," recalled Steve Chiang, a close friend who was on the boat that day in July.

Picture this: Kindle Fire users finally get to join in the addictive fun of Draw Something. Amazon announced the app's release in a tweet on Wednesday night. Google Android users were already drawing stuff with the app, but the Kindle Fire tablet, which runs on an altered version of the Android operating system, doesn't have access to the apps on Google Play . Draw Something is also available for iOS users . Zynga's popular social sketching and guessing game comes in the free and ad-free $1.99 versions for the Fire.

Zynga Inc., eager to fast-track its presence in mobile games, has snatched up Omgpop, the New York-based developer of Draw Something and more than 35 other titles. The companies did not disclose the purchase price when the deal was announced Wednesday, but VentureBeat reported this week that Zynga and Japanese mobile company Gree were both considering buying Omgpop for about $200 million. Although Omgpop has been around since 2006, it wasn't until it released Draw Something six weeks ago that the company vaulted into prominence.

Zynga Inc., the maker of online social games FarmVille and Words With Friends, will seek to raise $400 million in a secondary public stock offering and rejigger when employees can sell their shares. The moves are designed to help prevent a sudden drop in the price of the San Francisco company's stock. In December, Zynga took in $1 billion in its initial public offering with an eye toward financing an ambitious strategy to expand its products both internationally and to mobile devices.

Zynga Inc. got little love on Valentine's Day from investors as the social gaming company saw its shares sink more than 5% after the release of its first quarterly financial results as a public company. The San Francisco publisher of CastleVille and Words With Friends, played on Facebook and mobile devices, said Tuesday that revenue grew to $311.2 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, up 59% from $195.8 million a year earlier. But because the company paid more than half a billion dollars in stock-based compensation to employees as a result of its Dec. 17 initial public offering of $1 billion, Zynga reported a net loss of $435 million, or $1.22 a share, compared with a $43-million profit, or 5 cents, a year earlier.

For Zynga Inc., Christmas arrived early in the form of more than $1 billion raised late Thursday afternoon from the social gaming company's highly anticipated initial public offering. In one of the year's biggest technology IPOs, the San Francisco creator of FarmVille and other social games is set to begin selling its shares Friday on Nasdaq at $10 a share, giving the 4-year-old technology company a $9-billion valuation. Although at the high end of what Zynga had suggested two weeks ago, the price was well below what some analysts on Wall Street predicted when the company first filed its initial public offering plans in July with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Here's your take-it-on-the-run Tuesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web: --Happy Valentine's Day. Here's everything you need to know: The average American will shell out $126.03 to mark the holiday, up 8.5% from last year. Jewelry sales are expected to dominate sales, with a collective tally of $4.1 billion. Meanwhile, 72 million Valentine's Day cards have been purchased by parents for the kids to hand out in the classroom. An estimated 220,000 marriage proposals will be made today.

Facebook said it's working closely with Zynga to propel growth for both companies, according to the social networking giant's amended filing for its initial public offering. Wednesday's disclosure was similar to one that Zynga made as it prepared for its December IPO. Zynga said at the time that Facebook accounts for 90% of its sales. Zynga generated 12% of Facebook's revenue in 2011. Facebook said that it has an agreement with Zynga to reach a series of growth targets. It signed the contract with Zynga last year.