Social gaming acquisition comes days after Zynga amasses 12 million more monthly users
Zynga, creator of some of the most popular games on social networking sites like Facebook, just acquired MyMiniLife, a social networking site for the interior designer in everyone.The acquisition makes perfect sense, as these two companies have much in common.
Founded in 2007, the Palo Alto-based social artistic community MyMiniLife enables users to design and decorate their dream homes, businesses, vacations, and more. Some people have taken the software to brand new heights, creating intensely elaborate fantasy visions.
Zynga has said very little, so far, as to how MyMiniLife’s staff and technology will be incorporated into Zynga’s.
The young San Francisco-based social gaming company has accrued over $40 million in venture capital funding since its July 2007 founding, and is already showing results with this and other new expansions.
Earlier this week, All Facebook reported on the dazzling success of Zynga as it rocketed past its previous estimate of 60 million monthly active users on Facebook. With the application with the most daily active users on Facebook, the company is now claiming 72 million active users a month, a hefty number attracting other entrepreneurs to the budding field of social gaming.
We previously reported in May about the launching of two gaming studios by Playdom, the creator of the then-number one MySpace application, Mobsters. With the success of that earlier incarnation, Playdom just launched a sequel, Mobsters 2: Vendetta, promising killer missions for users and killer revenue for investors.
Many have lamented the weakness of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace that right now gain most of their revenue from ads, but social gaming and the ability to sell virtual goods for big bucks may alter that dreary situation in a big way. The successes of companies like Zynga and Playdom ensure a bright future for social gaming.
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myminilife
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Our goal is to allow anyone to fully express their physical life on the web. It's as simple as that :)
We started in an apartment in Champaign, Illinois in 2006. We had two old computers named black coffee and mocha chugging away to support MyMiniLife. We built the site and privately launched during the summer of 2006. After getting a good deal of feedback, we realized we still had bugs to work out. We kept on improving the site until we re-launched with Techcrunch and the site has been growing ever since. We are currently located in Palo Alto, CA.
We are very focused on making the site user friendly. A great deal of our features are suggested by our users. These features include photos on walls, changes in how you build your home, and flash videos.
Zynga
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Zynga is the largest social gaming company with 8.5 million daily users and 45 million monthly users. Zynga’s games are available on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Yahoo! and the iPhone, and include Texas Hold’Em Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Vampires, Street Racing, Scramble and Word Twist. The company is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, IVP, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Pilot Group, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel. Zynga is headquartered at the Chip Factory in San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.zynga.com.