Having just recently signed a five-year deal with Facebook, social games maker Zynga has today announced another major partnership. Zynga has teamed up with search portal Yahoo! to integrate its games throughout Yahoo!'s global network of sites. People will be able to play Zynga games and access personal Zynga game updates across Yahoo!’s properties including the Homepage, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger and others. Ultimately, this extends Zynga's reach to another 600 million worldwide using Yahoo! sites.
Yahoo! said that Zynga's games will be rolled out "in the coming months." The games will be integrated with the Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP), Yahoo!’s OpenSocial container through which third-party developers can develop applications on Yahoo!
“Yahoo is focused on providing compelling, personally relevant experiences and social games are core to this experience,” said Hilary Schneider, executive vice president, Yahoo! Americas. “Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users.”
“With over 35 million unique users playing our games every single day, social games are fast becoming a leading source of entertainment worldwide surpassing most television shows,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga. “Our partnership with Yahoo! gives millions of new users the ability to connect with friends and families through games.”
