UPDATED 11:24 EDT / JULY 02 2013

Zynga Wins A New CEO & Bing’s Copyright Filter – SiliconANGLE News Roundup

Zynga’s New Chief

 

In a major effort to keep the company from going under, yesterday, Zynga announced the hiring of former president of Microsoft Interactive, Don Mattrick as the company’s new CEO.

Current CEO and founder Mark Pincus spoke about on the topic, “If I could find someone who could do a better job as our CEO, I’d do all I could to recruit and bring that person in. I’m confident that Don is that leader.”

With 61% of Zynga’s voting power, Pincus was key in the hiring of a new CEO, and it would appear that he made the right choice. Since Mattrick began overseeing the Xbox division, their customer base grew from ten to eighty million, and live subscriptions increased from six to fifty million.

As for Mark Pincus, he’ll continue to work with Zynga to develop new products as chairman and chief product officer.

E-mails Still-Sell

 

The results of a four-year-long study of online marketing surprisingly found that Email is king!

Custora, the company who ran the study, found that over the last four years, online retailers have quadrupled the rate of customers acquired through email. Over that same period, Facebook only saw a tiny percentage of users buying products from their site, with no increase over time, and Twitter didn’t register at all when it came to online sales.

According to the report, other than email, the most popular ways to attract customers was through organic search, followed by targeted cost-per-click ads. For email, though, there’s a certain unfair advantage. Shoppers have already given up their addresses to retailers, suggesting they already have some prior relationship with the site.

It goes to show that despite the avalanche of spam, a one hundred and forty character limit simply can’t offer the same personalization and marketing power as a good old-fashioned email.

Game Circle Circles Android

 

Amazon’s GameCircle just got a little more well-rounded with a major upgrade that includes the platform’s expansion to all Android devices.

Amazon’s answer to Apple’s Game Center had been limited, as it only supported the Kindle Fire at launch.

The service allowed users to sync progress and achievements between devices, as long as both devices were Kindle Fires. The latest update means that all Android users can take advantage of these features, but more importantly, the expansion into Android’s ecosystem means that the GameCircle game developers can now tap into a much larger user base.

GameCircle still falls short of Google’s new Play Game Services, which was announced at this year’s I/O conference. Google seems to have the upper hand because in addition to Android, they offer support for both iOS and the Web.

Yahoo Buyouts Continue…In Fantasy

 

Yahoo’s mobile app shopping spree continued, yesterday Yahoo acquired up-and-coming fantasy sports startup Bignoggins.

The production company is well known for being behind such products as Fantasy Monster and the related Draft Monster, both of which are used extensively by fantasy sports fans. Both apps work together to aggregate all of the user’s fantasy sports information, to provide them with the necessary stats about their fantasy teams.

Bignoggins founder Jerry Shen seemed excited about the news, commenting, “After many years as a free agent, I’d like to officially announce that Yahoo has picked me up off waivers. I’m excited to join a team of all-stars to take fantasy sports to the next level. I’ve been playing Yahoo Fantasy since high school and have wanted to work here since college, so this is really a dream come true for me.”

Yahoo Fantasy Sports is already one of the world’s largest fantasy sports providers, but this latest acquisition could push them to the front of the pack, especially for mobile users.

Bing Filters The Rights Out of Copies

 

Bing has a new feature that should make finding copyright free pictures easier than ever before.

The new function comes in the form of a search option that allows users to Search-By-License. By filtering images with the Creative Commons license, users can avoid the hassle of digging through image licensing details for their own use.

The feature currently has six different filters, making it possible for users to find images that best serve their needs. Among the filters are the ability to search through public domain, free to share and use, and free to modify share and use.

The filters can be used immediately on Bing’s image search.

And that’s all for today’s news. If you want to keep up with these stories and more, feel free to watch us every weekday morning on NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy.

photo credit: Esthr via photopin cc
photo credit: jblyberg via photopin cc
photo credit: opensourceway via photopin cc
writing credit: Andrew E. Lowe

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