Idle公司对外宣布并购三家在线网站（www.prisonblock.com, www.chixr.us, and www.tweetvibe.com. ）。

idle media

IdIle Media通过收购扩大其在线用户和吸引新的用户群体，其中包括迅速增长的女性玩家的空间和Twitter平台。

据Idle Media Inc主席兼首席执行官Marcus Frasier声称，保持原有游戏对用户的新吸引点和开发新的游戏是其公司在线游戏空间面临的挑战。这是我们在执行第一家并购的时候就必须要面对的挑战。特别是他们在facebook社交游戏新领域的表现。

今年该公司预计将推出两款facebook社交游戏。目前来讲社交游戏领域的增长潜力惊人，甚至连google也传言想zynga投注了2亿美元的资金。

该公司认为，转移用户从传统的视频游戏到社会游戏是一个主要的发展趋势，社交传媒游戏有着不可估量的市场潜力。于此同时，该公司也正凭借其网站优势进军移动网络市场。

Idle Media, Inc. today announced it has entered into an LOI to acquire the assets of three more online properties: www.prisonblock.com, www.chixr.us, and www.tweetvibe.com.

With these acquisitions Idle Media will expand its online presence into new and emerging demographic groups, including the female gamer space, which is growing rapidly, and also to the Twitter platform.

According to Mr. Marcus Frasier, Idle Media Inc.’s President and CEO, “The challenge for companies in the online gaming space is keeping fresh content within their games and launching new ones.

This is a challenge we will meet and overcome with our first online gaming acquisition, Prisonblock.com. We plan to bring all we’ve learned up to this point about online gaming and social media, to the Facebook platform, with over 400 million users worldwide.”

Prison Block already boasts almost 50,000 online users. In Prison Block the online gamer is playing the ‘role’ of an inmate. The inmate has to survive and thrive in the prison by joining or creating a gang and otherwise maneuvering to stay alive. “Most companies in this space drive revenues by allowing for the purchase of premium items. In Prison Block for example you can buy ‘respect’ or ‘favors’ from the warden, which can then be exchanged for items within the game, like a flat screen television for your cell,” added Mr. Frasier.

The company plans to launch at least 2 new Facebook games this year, on the heels of its recently acquired Backyard Buddies social media game. Social media gaming is growing rapidly. Recently, Google announced a $200 million investment in Zynga, billed as the world’s largest social gaming developer. “Aside from the games themselves, an entire community has emerged from sites that rank the top games, content sites that offer insight and even developer conferences focused in this genre. We intend to be a player in this space,” continued Mr. Frasier.

The company believes that the shifting of users from mainstream video games to social network games is a major developing trend. Inside Network estimates the US virtual goods market will reach US $1.6 billion in 2010 and the social gaming market will contribute $835 million of that total. And, according to research and asset management company Think Equity, the U.S. market for social network games will reach over US $2 billion by 2012. There are over 45 million social gamers in the U.S., with 25% saying their social network is their primary gaming destination.

“There is huge unrealized market potential in social media for companies like Idle Media,” stated Mr. Frasier. “We believe that social game developers like us will continue to focus on producing

their titles for Facebook, due to its growth and monetization potential. Just look at games like NightClub City, which launched on Facebook in April of this year and already has 4.5 million users.

These types of applications have massive revenue potential if exploited correctly.”

The company is also tapping the mobile device market by bringing its website content to iPhone/iPod Touch, Palm Pre/Pixi and Android devices, allowing users to stream, view, search, comment and rate content on the go.

Mobile social network market growth is being fueled by a surge in mobile phones, wider coverage of 3G and now 4G networks, and affordable data plans. The rising popularity of smartphones incorporating multimedia capabilities and the surfacing of new distribution channels including Google’s Android and Apple’s App Store, have significantly expanded the market for mobile content services.

According to research firm Gartner, worldwide mobile game revenue is expected to grow 19% in 2010, reaching $5.6 billion, with an expectation to more than double to $11.4 billion in 2014. And, according to Visiongain, the revenue from mobile social networking and user generated content will grow to around $60 billion in 2012.