1）谷歌工程师Steve Yegge日前发布博文称，他认为游戏只是Google+不及时的“马后炮”，Google+团队事先并没有计划周全，只是认为该平台需要一些游戏，然后就匆匆拉上一些主流游戏开发商入伙。他个人认为Google+此举是一种极为错误的做法，Google+应该更具有前瞻性，能够预测到用户的需求，然后为他们提供服务。

Steve Yegge(from games)

Steve Yegge在Google+上有2000多名粉丝，该博文已被多名粉丝转发，但Yegge随后又公开道歉称自己不该发表这种评论。

观察者认为，虽然最近Zynga、PopCap和Kabam等公司均在Google+发布热门游戏，但Google+现在的4300万用户中究竟有多少游 戏玩家仍是个未知数，再加上Yegge的此番言论，人们不难推测Google+确实需要进一步改进和完善才能与Facebook角力。

2）Experian Hitwise最新报告指出，今年9月份Facebook占英国社交网络访问量的52%，比8月份的48.86%上升了3.08个百分点。

另一个呈增长状态的社交网站是LinkedIn，它在英国社交网络访问量所占比例已从8月份的0.83%增长至0.96%。

UK Sept Chart(from Experian)

与此同时，YouTube在英国社交网络访问量却从8月份的23.55%降至9月份的22.5%；

Twitter则从原来的3.87%降至3.4%；

Yahoo问答从2.42%降至2.34%；

Gumtree从1.19%降至1.16%；

Tumblr从0.92%降至0.84%；

Moneysavingexpert从0.47%降至0.43%；

Myspace从0.42%降至0.39%；

Moshi Monsters（儿童虚拟世界及社交平台）从0.49%降至0.37%。

3）今年仅27岁Elena Masolova受到Zynga启发，于2009年创办了自己的公司，并成为俄罗斯社交及手机游戏公司Pixonic创始人及CEO，该公司已为本土及欧洲市场开发了40款游戏，并计划向全球拓展业务。

Elena Masolova(from games)

在成立旧金家工作室（也是其第三家工作室）之前，Pixonic发布了iPhone和iPad游戏《Little Helper》（由MobyTail公司开发）。该游戏可以算是一款俄罗斯主题的《Pet Society》手机版本，并于9月份跻身美国免费游戏榜单前10名。

该公司发布的《The Island：Castaway》这款游戏在俄罗斯社交网络大获成功，但目前在Facebook尚未取得显著成效。

Masolova表示，她认为成功并没有什么秘诀，唯一的方法是让高质量的游戏自我推销，其次就是关注市场营销层面的数据问题，她的目标是在今年底在Facebook发布数款高质量的游戏。

她称公司刚成立头3个月时，他们主要关注俄罗斯社交游戏市场，现在时机已成熟，是时候转向Facebook等其他社交平台。

4）在本周的DAU增长最快Facebook游戏榜单上，《Zynga Poker》位居榜首，其次是《Bubble Witch Saga》，第三名是《Mahjong Saga》。

《CityVille》推出的猫王品牌营销活动在10月7日得到了用户的积极参与，其DAU增长了16%，但之后就下滑到了原来的水平，该游戏DAU现在位居第四名。

Top Gainers This Week-Games(from AppData)

5）Social Game Unvierse虽然仅发布了数款Facebook游戏（游戏邦注：其最新作品是《Dirty Dancing》），但早在1996年就以Bitcasters的名称成立公司，当时的业务范围还包括音乐视频、相册，甚至是书籍。该公司现在专注于开发社交游戏，Gamezebo最近走访其加拿大工作室，并拍摄了SGU公司环境的一组照片：

大门口(from gamezebo)

进门就能看到SUG之前在音乐、电视领域的作品及奖项(from gamezebo)

墙上是SGU前身Bitcasters的发展历程(from gamezebo)

进屋可以看到SGU最新游戏的海报(from gamezebo)

SGU办公室是一个巨大的loft空间(from gamezebo)

天花板上挂着公司前美术总监创作的图画(from gamezebo)

6）Bling Media最近发布的信息图表显示了英美Facebook用户之间的不同（如下图所示）：美国Facebook用户世界排名第一，人数为1.5亿左右，覆盖率为48%；英国Facebook用户排名第四，人数为2985万，覆盖率为49%；

美国用户主要集中于18至24岁群体，其比例占25%，而英国用户多为25至34岁群体，所占比例为26%；

美国Facebook用户最喜爱的品牌依次是星巴克、Xbox、麦当劳、沃尔玛和Subway，而英国用户则更青睐巴宝丽、Skittles、Cadbury Creme Egg、Cadbury Wispa和Maltesers。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

US & UK Facebook users(from Blinq Media)

1）Google engineer rant suggests Google+ Games was an afterthought

by Joe Osborne

Believe it or not, some people aren’t very happy with Google+. Take Steve Yegge, a Google engineer who accidentally posted what was meant to be an internal rant to fellow Google employees to his over 2,000 followers on the new social network. Reposted by many of his followers, the 5,000 plus-word diatribe hits every gory to explain Yegge’s beef with Google+.

And that includes Google+ Games. Frankly, Yegge seems to think that the games portion of Google’s second attempt at a social network is, well, uninspired. “Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: ‘Gosh, it looks like we need some games. Let’s go contract someone to, um, write some games for us,’” Yegge wrote. “Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now? The problem is that we are trying to predict what people want and deliver it for them.”

While that last quip seems to contradict his previous comment on Google+ Games, his message is clear. Yegge thinks Games were an afterthought for Google, which he seems to think is why the search giant enlisted the help of major social game developers like Zynga, PopCap and Kabam to release their existing games on the platform. Yegge has since publicly apologized for accidentally posting the essay rant.

Most recently, Zynga launched its brand new Mafia Wars 2 on Google+ Games. And before that, Google updated the platform with features that, while impressive, have been considered fundamental to Facebook games for some time. Recent estimates put the number of Google+ users at around 43 million, but how many of those are playing games is still unknown. And with sentiments such as this flying around, we imagine much work needs to be done for Google+ Games to be considered a viable alternative to Facebook gaming. If you have about 30 minutes, you can read Yegge’s rant in full right here.（source:games）

2）Facebook Regains U.K. Traffic During September: Report

by David Cohen

U.K. visitors who’d strayed from Facebook during the summer months returned in September.

Experian Hitwise reported that Facebook accounted for almost 52 percent of U.K. visits to social networks in September, up 3.08 percent from 48.86 percent in August.

The only other social networking site to see a gain in the U.K. in September was LinkedIn, which trickled up 0.13 percent, to 0.96 percent of U.K. visits to social networks in September, from 0.83 percent in August.

As for the unlucky ones:

YouTube fell 1.05 percent, to 22.5 percent in September from 23.55 percent in August;

Twitter lost .47 percent, 3.4 percent, 3.87 percent, respectively;

Yahoo Answers lost .08 percent, 2.34 percent, 2.42 percent;

Gumtree lost .03 percent, 1.16 percent, 1.19 percent;

Tumblr lost .08 percent, .84 percent, .92 percent;

Moneysavingexpert lost .03 percent, .43 percent, .47 percent;

Myspace lost.04 percent, .39 percent, .42 percent; and Moshi Monsters lost .12 percent, .37 percent, .49 percent. （source:allfacebook）

3）Russian Little Helper maker Pixonic sets sights on Facebook, iPhones

by Joe Osborne

Sure, Zynga has created some of the most popular social games around, but it has also created its own competition. (See: EA, Disney, Wooga.) Elena Masolova, the 27-year-old founder and CEO of Russian social (and mobile) game developer and publisher Pixonic, was inspired by the company’s success in founding her own game company. Since its creation in 2009, the company has created 40 games for local and European networks, but has big plans for its global expansion.

Ahead of opening its third (and first international) office in San Francisco, Pixonic published Little Helper (pictured below) for iPhone and iPad. First released on Russian and European social networks, Little Helper is the mobile version of a simulator game similar to Pet Society, but with heavy Russian themes. Despite the visible cultural influences, Little Helper hit the U.S. top 10 free games chart in September, hopefully setting a precedent for future releases.

Pixonic is also slowly making headway on Facebook with The Island: Castaway, a farming-type social game that proved largely successful on local Russian networks. While it’s unfortunately not doing so well on Facebook at the moment, according to AppData, Masolova looks to make a splash in the U.S. and around the globe the old-fashioned way.

“I don’t think there’s some secret sauce–you just need to make high-quality games that promote themselves,” Masolova tells us. “Second, you need to be very numbers-oriented in marketing.

I think it’s a numbers game, and you need to look at the numbers constantly. The goal by the end of the year is to launch several high-quality games on Facebook.”

The Russian game creator and publisher also looks to bring six of its most popular social games to iOS and Android devices, likely in the same vein as Little Helper, which was developed for Pixonic by MobyTail. However, Masolova says that the company has its 46 plus employees working on three mobile games from scratch. Despite coming into the Facebook and mobile games space just as the big players begin to exert their dominance, Masolova is confident that Pixonic will succeed.

“For the first three months of the company’s existence, we were focused on Russian markets in social networks,” Masolova says. “I think for the time it was the right decision, but now we can move to Facebook and other networks and feel very comfortable there.”（source:games）

4）Zynga Poker, Bubble Witch Saga Top This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by DAU

By AJ Glasser

Last week, it was The Pokerist Club on top — this week, it’s Zynga Poker (a.k.a. Texas HoldEm Poker). Bubble Witch Saga holds steady at No.2 and Mahjong Saga rounds out our top three fastest-growing games by daily active users.

The early results of the CityVille Enrique Iglesias campaign are in and it seems that the strongest day of engagement was October 7, where we see a 16% spike in DAU. That figure has since fallen to its present-day levels, but that still reflects enough growth for the week to put CityVille at No.4 on our rankings.（source:insidesocialgames）

5）Gamezebo Cribs: Social Game Universe edition

By Andrew Webster

Social Game Universe may have only released a handful of Facebook games so far, including the recently launched Dirty Dancing, but the company has been around for quite some time, though under a different name. Originally founded as Bitcasters back in 1996, the company not only made games, but also music videos, albums, and even books. Now SGU is focused on social games, and we decided to head on over to their downtown Toronto offices to check out where those games get made in the latest edition of Gamezebo Cribs.

After climbing up five flights of stairs, this snazzy sign helped ensure we were in the right place.

Immediately inside the door we came across an ancient TV adorned with numerous awards, including several MuchMusic video awards (the Canadian version of MTV). In front you can see a poster for igapi, SGU’s own social game promotion tool, and a number of Storm Hawks action figures. SGU developed an online game for the animated TV series. And in behind is a wall that showcases SGU’s history as Bitcasters, showing off some of the many projects the company created.

Also just inside the entrance we found posters more recent SGU games, like Dirty Dancing, Grow Ops, and Avastar.

SGU’s office is located in a large, open loft space. There’s an upper level that’s perfect for storage, and even better for perching on with a camera to snap some pictures of SGUers hard at work.

The high ceilings also make a great art gallery. These four pieces are just a sample of what’s on display at the office, and each one was created by the company’s former art director.

Stay tuned to Gamezebo for our interview with the folks at SGU about the launch of Dirty Dancing and the studio’s future plans.（source:gamezebo）

6）U.K. Versus U.S. Facebook Usage: Exclusive Infographic

by Jackie Cohen

What’s the biggest difference between the way people use Facebook  in the U.S. and U.K.? The brands that they click on the most.

While the Brits prefer Burberry, Americans most frequently give the thumbs up to Starbucks,according to an infographic that Blinq Media and Visual.ly shared with us exclusively.

Let us know in the comments section what you think of the infographic below.（source:allfacebook）