I stole it from you on FB. And it's already all over Facebook (at least the bits of it visible to me through my friends).
I remember you and M being kinda fed up with me bleating on and on about applications and data mining etc. Glad I never signed up for any of that crap.
Mafia Wars CEO Brags About Scamming Users From Day One
From the beginning, the profitability and viability of popular Facebook social networking gamesMafia Wars and Farmville were predicated on the backs of scams, boasts Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in this video. "I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues," he crows in the clip to a gathered bunch of fellow scumbag app developers.
In games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, YoVille and Vampires Live, you know, some of the major sources of all those garbage announcements cluttering up your Facebook, players compete to complete missions and level up. By leveling up, you can complete more difficult missions and fight off weaker opponents. You can wait for your various energies to regenerate naturally over time, or you can purchase with real money in-game boosts. Or, you can complete various lead generation offers, many of which are of the "answer page after page of questions and opt in and out of receiving various kinds of spam" variety. Some of them install malware and adware that is impossible to remove. And some of them secretly subscribe you to monthly recurring $9.99 credit card charges.
Couple this reckless profiteering with in-game incentives for recruiting more players into your network and a constant blast (if you let it) of promotional messages to your friends, and it's like Amway discovered Facebook and threw a gangster-themed house party.
Here's Mark's spiel:
I knew that i wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, fucking, now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I dont know, I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable.
I'm sorry, but if you need to scam people to keep your company going, you have a flawed business plan.
I've really enjoyed having old friends get in touch. I had a pretty amazing im chat with someone I had a rather bizarre relationship with back in uni a couple of weeks ago and we cleared up some stuff and caught up on some pretty tragic news. Anyhow the upshot of facebook is that we have a place to stay if we ever happen to be passing through Jakarta.
I've really enjoyed having old friends get in touch. I had a pretty amazing im chat with someone I had a rather bizarre relationship with back in uni a couple of weeks ago and we cleared up some stuff and caught up on some rather tragic news. Anyhow the upshot of facebook is that we have a place to stay if we ever happen to be passing through Jakarta.
Location: Still in the tunnel, looking for the light. Gender:
Posted:
Oct 13, 2009 - 2:25pm
dionysius wrote:
It's sort of cool to go to your FB account settings and pick a different language. Today, it's Latin for me! Tomorrow, I think I'll go Euskera (Basque) for maximum incomprehensibility.
Well it'll be a good workout for some of the lesser used keys on your keyboard. You want to see some of the scores you can get in Basque scrabble
It's sort of cool to go to your FB account settings and pick a different language. Today, it's Latin for me! Tomorrow, I think I'll go Euskera (Basque) for maximum incomprehensibility.
He looks like a cross between Dean Martin and Bryan Ferry... but how does he sound...
This is something that he created himself, as an add-on to a recent album he released. However, he has many different genres, which is what I've always appreciated about him.
That's him at the end, playing a pinball machine with the name of this song on it. His big "hit" in the 70s was...Pinball, which Bill's played here a few times.
I stole it from you on FB. 
And it's already all over Facebook (at least the bits of it visible to me through my friends).
Glad I never signed up for any of that crap.
to get the hell out of there all together,,,,
douche. I don't understand what the scam is if people haven't bought anything or signed up for any of their affiliates' services 
