Zynga, the online gaming publisher, is making a ton of money. Just how much? Well, earlier reports put revenue at something , but some new numbers obtained by Sarah Lacy suggests that it’s closer to $100 million. And clearly, it’s accelerating. We’re hearing that the run rate for 2009 may even be well above that.
This just shows how attention is and continues to be the scarcest commodity in an information glut world.
Maybe eyeballs mean something after all... but only if you hook it up to a way to monetize, whether its Acai Berry / daily SMS horoscope ads, OfferPal, or direct micropayments. Within the context of almost any content, that's unacceptable, but within the concept of a social game like mobwars -- all is fair game.
Yes people are making money doing low-bar / low-brow casual social network games. Why? There's no skill involved! And that's a good thing. When it's pure hedonic ramp, it's like shock of pure China White for in the arm of bored people everywhere.
If we weren't 110% consumed with building Posterous, I just might be tempted to build some of this stuff myself. ;-)