“I think it’s a good natural fit. I think, philosophically, the part people haven’t noticed yet, real money gaming is the perfect fit with virtual goods and social games.”

Zynga would be naturally well-positioned for this kind of transition. With 30 million monthly players, Zynga Poker is the largest online poker game in the world, and the company is releasing more gambling related games like Zynga Bingo.

“We’re interested, but you should expect to see us do a lot more than what you’ve seen in offshore casinos,” said Pincus.

We wander what “a lot more” means when it comes to online gambling, an already multi-million, all be it illegal industry.

This revelation may have come just in time, as many analysts believe social gaming, and Zynga in particular, has and will continue to see stagnation.

A recent Justice Department ruling may open the door for online gambling on social sites like Facebook. With people already shelling out millions for Zynga coins, just to by a virtual upgrade for their virtual farm, the possibilities for making money on gambling in that market are endless.

Regardless, Freakonomics blogger Ian Ayres reports that untraceable poker bots are on the rise and may run many online gamblers offline faster than the DOJ.

[T]he rise of gambling bots may soon depress online poker participation for a very different reason. In the very near future, online poker may become a suckers’ game that humans won’t have a chance to win. Bots are quite scale-able and it will be virtually impossible to prohibit computer or computer-assisted online playing.

Yikes. That’s bad news for poker-lovers. Worse news for online casinos. Looks like it’s back to catching cheaters the old-fashioned way – by checking their sleeves

Chad Brown, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, and Vanessa Rousso showed up; if you enjoy poker (and even if you don’t), you’ll probably recognize some of these names.  “[Y]es, it can be used as a vice,” admitted Lederer to Anne Broache, “but for most of us it’s a wonderful form of entertainment that actually massages your mind, gets you thinking.”

And for that reason, poker is a game of skill, according to the group that lobbied Congress.  Online poker’s problems come mostly as a result of it being considered a game of chance.  The group supports bills that would still regulate online poker – allowing addicts, cheats, and children to be barred – but would also allow money to be bet.

Such bills might appease the EU and WTO, which believe that, by banning online gambling, the US has violated trade agreements.  They might even make Yahoo happy – the company launched Yahoo Poker Online on its site for the UK and Ireland about five months ago, and expanding it into America would probably require little more than some currency conversions.

Euros and British pounds are the only eligible forms of money, however, as Yahoo Poker is being offered through the company’s site for the UK and Ireland.  Also, as PokerPages.com reported (and as we at WebProNews found out for ourselves), “Players resident in the USA are not currently accepted.”

Yahoo has brought more than a few friends into this endeavor, however; St Minver, which “offers fully managed ‘white label’ gaming services,” is a partner, Sam Mann’s photo is visible throughout the site, and Springboard has stepped forward to act as the sole payment provider.

That brings us to another issue – how does Yahoo plan to approach the potentially destructive nature of online poker?  Addiction has caused some people to lose their homes and families, but the search engine corporation stated, “We are committed to taking every reasonable step to discourage problem gambling.  Our systems are designed to reduce the opportunities for problem gambling to occur.”

In a hard-to-find “Responsible Gaming” section of the site, Yahoo explains, “We place monetary limits on the amounts that can be deposited in any one day/week/month,” and there are a number of other systems in place, as well.  Yahoo even points out a connection to GamCare, “the charity committed to promoting responsible attitudes towards gambling and working for the provision of proper care for those harmed by gambling dependency.”

It seems unlikely that those precautions will satisfy every critic; Yahoo Poker may create more than a bit of controversy.  It’ll be very interesting to see, though, just how much time, energy, and money Yahoo puts into this project – and if Google Blackjack launches next week.

Nielsen reports that 83 percent of Britons online now use some kind of online application like MSN Messenger, or AOL Companion. This is the first publication of Nielsen’s “Applications Index,” a ranking of the most popular, most addictive (time spent) and “stickiest” (frequency) Internet applications.

Eighty-three percent translates to 25.3 million Britons using an Internet application in November for an average of 3 hours for the month. The most addictive applications, measured in time spent, were for online poker, followed by media players. Four out of the five most popular apps were media players.

Microsoft is king of the online app in England. MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player were the two most popular apps, the two of them replacing each other for first and second.

Software that allows people to play poker online was considered the most addictive as users spent more time using them than others. Users of Pacific Poker spent on average 10 hours and 17 minutes per month, followed by PokerStars (6 hours, 7 minutes), and party Poker (3 hours, 43 minutes).

File-sharing apps are also popular in England, with BearShare, Soulseek, and BitComet all appearing in the top 10 list.

Nearly 15 million people, or just under half, of the UK Internet population used MSN Messenger in November. iTunes and LimeWire dropped in popularity, and MusicMatch Jukebox dropped out of the top 10 altogether, replaced by AOL Companion.

“As we all know, the increase in bandwidth has had a profound impact on our ability to use the Internet as an entertainment centre and communication resource,” said Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.

“Watching videos, downloading and streaming audio online have become much smoother experiences since the broadband revolution and applications are, obviously, a key beneficiary of this.”

“However, one could argue it is poker that has most effectively harnessed the always-on’ nature of broadband whilst, simultaneously, providing more ammunition for those who campaign against gambling due to its addictive nature.”

Yahoo made the list of “stickiest” applications with Yahoo Widgets, whose users averaged 37 sessions per month. File sharing apps again made a top 10 list for overall stickiness. eMule, BitComet, BearShare and Shareaza Gnutella.

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Poker has moved from the felt portraits of card-playing dogs to the digital streamed radio show called “On the Felt.”

As poker has exploded in popularity, with coverage of events on outlets like ESPN, many players have turned to Internet venues like Gaming Club Poker to play. Gaming Club Poker launched “On the Felt,” the first online radio show for poker players. Major League Poker produced the show, with Atlanta radio personality and poker player Mark Arum as the host.

The show provided coverage of the World Series of Poker in July. Tony Tomassini, CMO for Major League Poker, said the coverage was designed to complement the online experience for poker players at show sponsor Gaming Club Poker.

“On the Felt” operated smoothly, and reached several thousand players each day. That number could be potentially higher, as Major League Poker continues to analyze data related to the broadcast. Mr. Tomassini also noted they experienced “zero” technical problems.

Major League Poker has planned other online programming for 2005 and 2006. Online radio seems well-suited to the poker playing experience, as Mr. Tomassini noted a video feed would distract players from concentrating on their game.

Though “On the Felt” only had Gaming Club Poker as its sponsor, it will be interesting to see if other advertisers might express a desire to be part of poker-related online media programming.

Poker’s popularity has been reflected in the general online community too. According to Susan Timcheck at AOL, “Texas Hold’em” has been the most popular poker-related search query on AOL Search for the past two months. She also noted that queries for “World Series of Poker” spiked during the week of July 10-16.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Ajax is a recently coined name for a dense mouthful of software technologies that are built into Web browsers. The most important of them are JavaScript, a computer-programming language; dynamic HTML, which is a way of displaying information on a screen; and XMLHTTP, a procedure a Web browser can use to very quickly get information from a central server.

You can see Ajax in action when you view Google Maps.

To see what they are capable of, go to maps.google.com, zoom into a location, click inside the map and then drag the image around. It’s Ajax that is moving the map for you, scrolling it much faster than you’re probably used to on the Web.

WSJ subscribers can read the rest of the article.

Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.