Google+ takes on Facebook, adds games
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 12 August 2011, 23:19 IST
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Google+ takes on Facebook, adds games
Bangalore: Google+ seems to be in a hurry to get games running on its social network. Moreover, that's the only way when Facebook can actually feel the pressure. The popular game, Angry Birds is now included in Google+ games. This fast growing social network competes with Facebook to be the core for people's online lives. Vic Gundotra, Google senior president of engineering, said in a blog, "We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.When you're ready to play, the Games page is waiting." In addition to Angry Birds, Google+ is initially offering Bejeweled Blitz, Zynga Poker, and Dragon Age Legends. Ranzenbach, vice president of operations at PrivCo , which analyzes companies such as Facebook, Groupon, Zynga and others , says that Google+ games could affect major source of revenue for Facebook, because Google has offered to take only a 5 percent cut of virtual goods game transactions from third-party game makers, while Facebook is taking 30 percent. If developers sell virtual goods for a game on Facebook, they have to use Facebook Credits and Facebook gets to keep 30 percent of every transaction. PrivCo calculates that around two-thirds of Facebook's revenues come from advertising, while the remaining third comes from Facebook Credits. So Google+ games is attacking a third of Facebook's revenues. Facebook acclaimed a set of new features for playing online with friends, just hours after Google+ added games. Facebook's Jared Morgenstern said in a post at the social network's blog, "When you're playing games, you'll now see a separate stream of your friends' game activity, scores and achievements in a ticker," He added, "The best way to find new games is through friends, and now you'll have more opportunities to see what they're playing" According to Jared, Facebook increased the screen size of games, and made it simpler to bookmark favorite titles or adjust settings regarding which friends can see what is being played. Games are among the most popular activities at Facebook. Though Google is a latecomer in the social networking but its new site Google+ is rapidly gaining popularity. It is the fastest growing network ever and is turning out to be a big threat for Facebook which has over 750 million users all over the world.

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