Virtual Goods Wrap-Up For The Week Of March 12

Welcome to the Virtual Goods News Wrap-Up for the week of March 12, 2010. The Wrap-Up is where VGN spotlights stories that we didn't get to cover individually, but still make for interesting reading about the virtual goods industry.

Credit For Kids? Kwedit Goes On The Defensive

After getting satirized on The Colbert Report for allegedly extending credit to kids, Kwedit founder Denny Shader defends the service in an interview with Time. Shader reiterates that Kwedit is intended only for users over 13. In the days since the Colbert satire, Kwedit has removed images of its previous mascot, Kweddy the Duck, from its Website.  

Facebook Credits Now The First Payment Option In FarmVille, Facebook's Biggest App

After being rumored a little over a month ago, Facebook Credits have finally appeared in Zynga's FarmVille as the first of many listed payment options. 

Foursquare Turns 1 With Half a Million Users

This week marks the one-year anniversary of location-based social gaming service Foursquare's launch. The service now reaches over 500,000 users who have checked in at over 1.4 million venues. The company employes 16 people and offers check-in specials through 1,200 partner venues. 

JVWR Issues On Virtual Economies, Goods, And Service Delivery Published

The latest issue of The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has gone digitally to print, with this issue offering many articles on virtual goods and virtual economies. The full text of the issue can be read for free online in PDF format.  

RockYou Adds More Engagement-Based Banner Advertising To Its Social Inventory

RockYou's banner advertising component is now displaying ad offers called "Deals of the Day" that offer users virtual currency in exchange for accepting the ad. Deals of the Day can ask users to Fan a Facebook page, take a poll, download a coupon, or perform other marketing actions.

Social Games Look To Outgrow Facebook

Social gaming companies may be looking to make themselves less reliant on the Facebook platform going forward, according to an article published by Forbes's tech blog Velocity. One of the divisive issues is the idea of "player ownership," with social developers currently forced to rely on their platforms for access to users. 

South Asian Mobile Social Network Mig33 Sending Twice As Many Messages A Day As Twitter

Users of the Twitter-like mobile social service Mig33 are sending each other over 1 million virtual gifts per month. Nearly 8% of the network's 500 million Chinese users pay the equivalent of about $2 per month on virtual items.

Starbucks Fans Can Become 'Baristas' On Foursquare

Foursquare has introduced a sponsored badge called the 'Barista' that users can acquire by checking in to over five different Starbucks locations. Starbucks plans to use check-in data generated by Foursquare users as part of its market research efforts. 

Turiya Media Targets Publishers With Behavioral Data Mining

Turiya's new Leafnode software can help freemium publishers analyze user behavior and use it as a basis for recommending virtual goods to them. The company expects to generate most of its revenue in the future by taking a cut of virtual goods sales made through its recommendations.

WildTangent Moves Further Into Social Gaming With Brand Offers In Playdom's Tiki Farm

WildTangent's BrandBoost service is now in action in Playdom's Tiki Farm game, though not in ad offer form. WildTangent's technology has gotten a virtual item sponsored by Herbal Essences into the game.

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