What Facebook's game feed means for Zynga

Don't be surprised if you get an update about your friend buying a new cow on Farmville

Facebook games are undoubtedly popular. The notifications about what happens in those games, not so much. Yet as of this week, Facebook turned back on notifications, after turning them off this January.  

One company, which will certainly benefit from Facebook's move is Zynga.

That's because Zynga's games will be getting a lot more exposure on Facebook. Right now, users are probably getting most exposure to those games thorugh paid advertising. But today, with the new feed, if you're on Farmville, you will see updates from your friends who are also on Farmville. 

So, don't be surprised if you've planted a tree in Farmville sometime in the past and all of a sudden see a feed that says your friend "Jane just bought a cow on Farmville."

If you play Texas Hold 'em, you'll also see updates from friends who play that game too. People who don't play those games won't see updates from friends who are playing them.

"Previously, you've had the ability to hide an application story, or block it completely. Now, we're putting changes in place so game stories only post to your feed if you're playing them. This means people who play games can post stories to their Wall without worrying about overwhelming their friends who aren't playing, and people who don't play games won't see irrelevant stories in their feed for which they have no context," according to Facebook's blog.

These feeds, however tempered they were from the earlier ones (it used to be that all feeds were shown to everyone, including non-players) do act as a form of instant advertising. A form of advertising that has the credibility of a recommendation from the user's social group. This could be very persuasive when you consider that more than half of users will most trust friend and family recommendations, according to a study by Vision Critical.

Additionally, game feeds show up in a person's News Feed if a friend just signed up for a new game.  Zynga is building out its stable of games with recent acquisitions of Unoh, Challenge Games, and XPD Media. Any additional exposure across Facebook could do wonders for the introduction of those games. 

It makes you wonder how much influence Zynga had on Facebook's decision.

Ever since Facebook and Zynga, the largest gaming company on the site, struck a partnership, there have been some musings  about which partner had leverage over the other. While Facebook has a half-billion users, Zynga's product is what attracts many people to Facebook. With Google's recent investment in Zynga, of a not-so-insignificant $100 million, Facebook is certainly less secure about its ability to play hardball with Zynga, who's also expanded its disribution deals off Facebook, with notable partners MSN and Apple's App Store.

Will there be new protests?

The earlier notifications, about other users games, which initially spawned Facebook groups with titles like, 'Not Playing Farmville' and 'I don't care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!," prompted the changes to the notification structure in January. 

It'll be interesting to see how many user groups pop up after this latest change.