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    Zynga IPO: Tech Pros Weigh-In

    By Tom Taulli | Forbes – Mon, Dec 12, 2011

    This week, Zynga plans to launch its IPO (here's an IPO profile), raising perhaps over $1 billion.  It would actually be the largest Net deal since Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) came to the markets in 2004 (the offering was $1.7 billion).

    The Zynga deal caps off a big year for dot-com IPOs.  Other notable transactions included LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), Pandora (NYSE:P), Groupon (Nasdaq:GRPN) and Angie’s List (Nasdaq:ANGI).

    So what’s the buzz on the Zynga IPO?  Well, here are some opinions from top operators in tech:

    Jan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers:  "Zynga's pending IPO is the ultimate proof that communities are the new differentiator above price, design and premium content.  We recently found that over half of Facebook’s 800 million users play social games.  Unlike audiences of eyeballs and subscribers, the community built around Facebook is helping social media like gaming eclipse the reach and engagement of traditional media in some regions."

    Robert Botch, a venture capitalist with Tidepool Partners and a former gaming executive:  “Zynga's a great model and did an amazing job pioneering and growing the Facebook game market. The next big challenge is if it can fight the big publishers for market share. Historically they do not allocate a large amount of resources to a market until they feel it can generate enough revenue to justify it, which seems to be the case now. The battle will shift to branded titles and marketing.”

    Kord Campbell, CEO of Loggly:  "Zynga relies heavily on time series based event data to provide monitoring and analytics for their Internet games.  Event data is used to monitor strawberry harvests and pony spawns, and when a user's harvest fails, technicians are paged for immediate response.  Zynga was also one of the first companies to utilize this event data to better understand what it takes to keep users engaged.  With the Zynga IPO, these models become even more crucial, even as the amount of event data they are generating climbs well beyond 100TB/day - a far cry from their startup days.  Zynga will need to use a chunk of that IPO cash to invest in talent who can build the technology and systems which will be required to process all this 'Big Time Data' if they want to continue to extract value out of their existing users."

    Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia: “No matter the criticisms, Zynga has almost single handedly shifted game players from being the product – like Y! Social, etc. – to being the customer. And this is yet another example that you can compete and win with free."

    Robin Richards, the CEO of TweetMyJOBS and the former founding president of MP3.com:  “By being public and because of their success, Zynga will be hit-driven like everybody in the games industry. They now must deliver hits.  The problem is that the company hasn’t had many lately.”

    Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog “IPOPlaybook,” a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He is also the author of “All About Short Selling” and “All About Commodities.” Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli.

     

     

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