Last night I watched the 2^nd presidential debate unfold not only live on my computer screen, but also on my Facebook Newsfeed. Every minute a knew status would appear that would stress how well their desired candidate was doing regardless of their performance. Kids from high school who never took a politics/government class had, to my surprise, a lot to say.  I couldn’t help but observe that these students have never professed any other indication that they were interested or knew of anything about the political race.  Thus, leading me to believe that the Facebook platform had a lot to do with this influx of declamatory statements. Firstly, Facebook allows one to make a widely contentious status and hide behind a computer screen rather than having to defend their statement in person. Additionally, one can enhance their “Facebook persona” with a political statement in order to put forth a contrived intellectual façade.  And finally, it has the potential to gain more social capital through friends liking the page who affiliate with the same party. Once one of your friends likes your status you become instantly gratified and have a shared common bond. However, what started as simple “Go Mitt”, or “Barock the vote” status rapidly manifested into personal attacks and disrespectful statements. Some people responded with comments “Bring out the popcorn…round 1 starts in five,” regarding these infamously callous Facebook fights. I don’t have a problem with students becoming involved in the presidential race; in fact I promote it! I do have a problem with Facebook users exploiting the social network to attack others beliefs or argue extremely polarized thoughts with minimal education on policy issues.

Facebook was also buzzing with political memes and groups putting a facetious spin on the debates’ mishaps. After the first debate “Big Bird” was trending the web, but last night it was “binders full of women” that gained the most attention. Romney was quoted stating this remark when answering a question about rectifying gender inequality in the workforce. According to CNN.com, “binders full of women”, spiked approximately 214,000% more than any other debate-related word or phrase. Presently the “binders full of women” Facebook page has gained more than 300,000 fans, #bindersfullofwomen was trending in the U.S, and the statement now has its own twitter account with nearly 1,700 followers.  Thus, demonstrating how Facebook has transformed the standard profile centered-friend connection purpose and become a platform for not only candidates to gain supporters but users to profess their political beliefs or political mockery. Unfortunately for many educated voters on Facebook these statuses can make you feel as if you’re the moderator in the Billy Madison movie.

~ “Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.” ~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

One of the ethical topics we’ve touched on in class is the idea of being a better version of yourself on Facebook. What are the risks and benefits of this phenomenon, and what are the implications?

Pros:

• Reputation Improving/Maintaining: Whether we like it or not, Facebook has a large influence on our reputations, not only online but also in real life. Facebook, then, can easily be used as a tool for maintaining a good reputation and also improving a lesser reputation.
• Being a Role Model: This was the first reason that popped into my head, and the one which I identify with most. I assume that many of us held leadership positions for various clubs and organizations in high school. Personally, I always felt obligated to uphold a certain standard of behavior since I was deemed a role model for younger students. While I tried to uphold this standard in real life, it’s no secret that an easy way to maintain behavioral standards is through one’s Facebook reputation. By posting inspirational, funny, or meaningful statuses rather than crude or profane ones, it’s easy to be perceived as someone who in real life very rarely speaks crudely of profanely.
• Family Matters: If they feel comfortable, one should be able to be Facebook friends with the family and keep in touch easily. One consequence of being Facebook friends with family members is that they can influence your online persona. A benefit of being able to be different online is that one can be Facebook friends with family members (and alter their privacy settings) so that their lesser decisions remain hidden.

Cons:

• Being “Fake”/Nongenuine: The most obvious problem with being a “better you” on Facebook is that one is not being honest. For those that exaggerate their online persona more than others, it might even feel like they’re lying. And personality is not the only piece that gets “edited” – these days it’s all too easy to add a filter, to crop, or to remove blemishes from pictures.
• The Real You Doesn’t Match: I have a friend that posts hilarious Facebook statuses, but isn’t all that funny in real life. He’s mentioned before, “people who only know me on Facebook must think I’m hilarious.” Aside from the other ethical issue of him adding people whom he does not know in real life, there’s something powerful behind the idea that your real-life personality might be unrecognizable in comparison to your online personality. If I know I’m going to meet someone, say at a conference or an internship, I will add them on Facebook and speculate about their appearance and personality, making assumptions without ever having met them in real life.

What other Pros & Cons are there to being a “better you” online? Please feel free to comment and add to this list!

To view The Social Network Trailer: watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4

As we are watching the Social Network in class next week, I thought I would write a post evaluating how accurate a portrayal the movie creates of Facebook’s real beginnings. WARNING: This post will discuss plot details. Readers who have not seen the film before and wish the plot to remain unknown before seeing it on Tuesday, should refrain from reading this post before Tuesday’s class.

          Upon doing some research, it became clear to me that most experts agree that film creators Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher took some liberties with the truth in “The Social Network.” As Aaron Sorkin himself put it in a New York Magazine profile, “I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling.”

Much of the accuracy controversy relates to Zuckerberg and his dealings with his former business partner Eduardo Saverin. For people are interested in further exploring this debate, there are two books that give two very different views of the situation. The book Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich is a source of much of the information that was used to create the movie. It was written with the heavy cooperation of Zuckerberg’s former friend (and ousted business partner) Eduardo Saverin. It portrays a generally negative view of Zuckerberg, elements of which can be seen in “The Social Network.” The polar alternative tale is told by David Kirkpatrick in his book, The Facebook Effect, which was written with the cooperation of Zuckerberg and Facebook.

Many participants in the accuracy debate assert that whether or not the film is an accurate portrayal of real events is inconsequential. They believe the movie to be a work of art, and an entertaining one at that. But it does matter for our purposes in this class – an accurate understanding of Facebook’s beginnings and the subsequent impacts on its culture and business model are integral to our overall impression of Facebook.

To that end, here is a “The Social Network” accuracy crib sheet:

–       Eduardo Saverin was a complete victim to Zuckerberg’s villain: False.

• The film fails to mention that Facebook was starved for cash when Saverin was in New York, it got so bad that Zuckerberg’s family had to take out loans for servers.
• Despite the reversed portrayal in the movie, Saverin partied frequently while in New York. In one uncovered IM, Zuckerberg writes to Saverin about he and his coworkers in Palo Alto, “In general we don’t do fun things. But that’s OK because the business is fun.”
• Saverin also put up free ads for his own start up on Facebook without clearing it with Facebook’s other founders.
• While Saverin did invest $1000 of his own money in Facebook initially, Zuckerberg also invested significant amounts of his personal funds in the young company.
• After suing and settling with Zuckerberg, Saverin received sufficient stock to own about 5% of Facebook – equal to about 1.4 billion dollars.
• He was not Zuckerberg’s best friend or original collaborator on Facebook – that was actually Adam D’Angelo, Facebook’s first CTO.

–       Sean Parker was arrested for cocaine possession: True.

• But, contrary to the movie’s depiction, not in California and not during the fall of 2004.

–       Zuckerberg is an angry, insecure, egoist whose creation of Facebook was initially motivated by a desire to get the attention of a previous girlfriend: Probably False.

• By many account, Zuckerberg is an even-tempered fellow who is overall self-confident, if prone to bouts of silence and awkwardness.
• Although Zuckerberg is shown pining over an ex-girlfriend and hooking up with Facebook groupies, he actually began dating his current wife, Priscilla Chan, before founding Facebook and has been committed to her during most of Facebook’s existence.-       The movie accurately depicts all characters who were important to Facebook’s beginning: False.
  • The movie includes the character of “Dustin Moskovitz,” but declines to portray his crucial part in founding and expanding Facebook.
  • According to Zuckerberg, Facebook probably would not have taken off without the efforts of Moskovitz yet in the film he receives much less attention than the realistically less important character of Eduardo Saverin.

  –       The Winklevoss twins hired Zuckerberg to create software for a social network they wanted to invent called Harvard Connection: True.

  • It seems that Zuckerberg probably did misled the Winklevosses and their friend Divya Narenda about his intentions and failed to tell them that he was not creating their software until the launch of his own website was imminent.
  • The twins did compete in the Olympics in men’s rowing and they did enlist their father’s corporate lawyer to help them complain to Harvard about Zuckerberg stealing their idea.

  Enjoy the show!

  Sources:

  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/09/30/the-facebook-and-zuckerberg-in-the-social-network-arent-real.html

  http://www.businessinsider.com/is-the-social-network-true-2010-10?op=1

  http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/10/truth-and-the-art-of-the-social-network/64701/

   

   

   

   

I remember how I first heard about Twitter. It was not through a news article, or an advertisement. Rather, the news came from our beloved discussion topic – Facebook. I logged on one day, early in high school, to an outpouring of Facebook statuses regarding Twitter.

“How dumb – Twitter is just Facebook statuses.”

“Why would I want to stay updated on every second of people’s lives – that’s so narcissistic.” The sentiment in these statuses was mirrored in all of the others. While wording varied slightly, everyone seemed to agree – Twitter was pointless. Why would anyone leave Facebook to make a status? Aside from being able to easily post Facebook statuses, Facebook also had the advantage of connecting users with all of their current friends. Move to Twitter, and you have to reestablish your network.

Had Twitter’s purpose been merely to recreate Facebook status updates on a new platform, it would never have succeeded. The switching cost of creating a new network would have far outweighed any potential appeal. And for a while, it did. At least within my social network. Nobody wanted to try Twitter, and the few adventurous friends of mine who joined immediately branded it as “lame” and “pointless.”

So why the shift? Today, most of my friends have Twitter accounts, and even several of my teachers, family friends, and friend’s parents are online. While I am merely speculating from my own personal experience, I believe this shift arose because Twitter began to create its own niche in the market. People began to view Twitter as a way to keep up to date on news stories, view entertaining commentary, and even participate in conferences (as stated by our very own special guest).

This way, Twitter was able to create a new place for itself. There was no longer a “switching cost” associated with getting a Twitter account – it was now an add-on. As this popular thinking shifted, Twitter gained popularity and users, and it expanded its network (thus adding value, as stated by Metcalfe’s law). Miraculously, it was even able to take over the idea of Facebook statuses. Now, when people post insightful or interesting statuses on Facebook, the common sentiment is that it belongs in a tweet, not on a newsfeed. Looking back a couple years and thinking about what a massive shift this is, I am impressed with how Twitter was able to (perhaps unintentionally) take over one of the social media giant’s features.

“No employee is allowed to be more than a 100 feet away from a food source.”

This is what was said to me during a tour of Google New York last year. While it’s all cool and everything, this statement also really translates to society’s current connection to the web. That statement could very easily be:

“No person is allowed to be more than a 100 feet from a web source.”

We are a connected society. The way we function today encourages us to be wired. Of all of my friends, I was one of the last to get a Facebook account. It was the fall of ninth grade that I succumbed to the pressures and gave my soul to Mark Zuckerberg and his team. I was excited.

My first post was typical, I was announcing to the 100 friends I had that I was now online. “Look at me world! I’m on the internet!” While no one really cared, I felt self-important.

Over the next year and a half I became one with my Facebook, tailoring my online identity to perfection. Facebook became an extension of my personal life instead of just a supplement. It was school, facebook, work, facebook, eat, facebook. This routine kept going until I decided halfway through tenth grade and 700 friends later that I was done and so I deactivated my account.

Let me just say that it wasn’t easy. First, there was the actual act of deactivating. Facebook didn’t want that. At every step they would ask why I was making this decision and at the top of each page was a sad and pathetic attempt to keep me.

“X friend is going to miss you.” It would say while showing a picture of a person that I hadn’t spoken to in a considerable amount of time.

The next challenge was actually staying off. The first week it was easy. I was on a confidence high. I, Lovia Gyarkye, had disconnected. The idea of all the books I could read, TV I could watch and stories I could write was enough to propel me for a while.

Like a drug addict, I began to suffer through withdrawal. Even though I had so much time to waste now, I was still missing inside jokes, funny posts and was forced to remember birthdays! Despite these difficulties I stayed off Facebook for a while and eventually found my way back around 11th grade.

Since returning, my attitudes about Facebook have changed. I no longer need to really check it every day. Sometimes my notifications get to unreasonable levels but that doesn’t cause me to freak out anymore.

What surprised me even more was that as I got older I began to use Facebook in more interesting ways. It wasn’t just a place to play FarmVille and other Zynga games. Instead, I was actually reconnecting with friends, using it for school events and groups and to me getting the full effect of social networking without becoming an addict.

The time I had to disconnect really allowed to me form my own opinions about how I was going to social network my life.

So Facebook has 1 billion users now. That means out of 7 people on earth, one has a Facebook account. And if you take into account that there is only 32.7% of world population with Internet access, the rate will be even higher.

Facebook has really grown into the “country of all countries”. If we treat Facebook as a sovereign state, it then becomes the third most populous country in the world (after China and India); its “GDP” of around $42,000 million (Facebook’s current market capitalization) makes it richer than countries like Iceland and Costa Rica (which is quite a tremendous achievement considering Facebook does not really “produce” and material goods); it does not have military or political influence over other countries, yet it is one of the major players behind civil uprisings in Egypt, Libya and many other Arab countries last year and indirectly caused the resignation of a few rulers; and it is undeniably the most culturally and ethnically diverse country in the world.

Given the astonishing power of Facebook, one question comes to my mind: who should be monitoring/governing this “state”? My initial answer was “Mark Zuckerberg” without much consideration. True, he controls more than half the wealth of Facebook and has executive power. But after some thought, I found an error in this naive answer: he is only “running” the site instead of “monitoring” it. It is like the difference between the Prime Minister and the Supreme Court: the Prime Minister is the one implementing economic and social policies to ensure smooth operation of the country, but the Supreme Court plays the ultimate role in deciding what is right and wrong according to the law. We have the Prime Minister of Facebook, but where is the Supreme Court?

So I changed my answer to “the United States government and the laws of the United States”. They, in some extent, provide guidelines and regulations to control the types of activities that can take place on Facebook. However, I soon realized that the laws can never evolve as fast as the Internet community. What is codified into the law as illegal behavior might have already taken place for months or years on Facebook and could have harmed millions of people. And when one trick is banned, ten “upgraded versions” might just come out simply because someone is profiting from them. Moreover, Facebook is a global community operating in different nations and has users with different backgrounds, and a set of rules from only one country is definitely insufficient to monitor its behavior. International cooperation to govern Facebook? Seems much too serious for a virtual community whose main purpose is to help people socialize, plus governors around the world have more urgent business to do (at least they think so).

What other choices am I left with? One seemingly highly unlikely answer appears: “users”. Few people think users have much say over what is right and wrong over the service they are using – they can provide opinions on how to improve the service, but when it comes to the basic rules guiding the functioning of the system, they seem to be the ones affected by the changes rather than making any changes. Does that mean I should give up on this answer as well? No. Facebook does not fit our conventional definition of “service provider”. Socialization involves people, and people constantly change the courses of socialization as a result of changes in communal beliefs, standards, etc. So users are not passive recipients of the Facebook service; they are part of the service. And as a constituent of the system, they therefore should be making decisions for Facebook. The voices of millions of users should be heard, and majority view respected. Compared to government officials and regulators who are usually distant from such social-networking services, we users are more updated with the current situation online and can provide nearly immediate counter-actions to malicious behaviors. Of course, that calls for responsible exercise of user judgment power.

So it turns out that we users are the ones who should and could monitor Facebook. And the first step we need to take is probably to convince Facebook that this “country” should listen to more feedback from its “citizens”.

According to a recent study, Americans spend around 14 hours per person per month on Facebook. If all that lost productivity could be directly translated to minimum wage payments to the government, the national debt could be lowered by at least $15 billion per month. That’s definitely a good wad of cash.

That raises a good question: why do we use Facebook that often? I believe that the excuses people come up with to use Facebook will keep it a staple of social life.

Basically, Facebook acts as several tools for social life. First of all, it serves as a news service, but instead of broadcasting global news, it offers news that is more relevant on a personal level. Why would one use CNN to read about news that might only slightly affect his/her life if he/she could read about her friends and stay updated about community happenings?  Because each comment and interaction is from an actual, personal relation, these engagements seem more personal and we get more emotional benefit. We give others satisfaction with a simple stroke of a mouse or keyboard through likes and supportive comments, and they return the favor as well. As a result, Facebook functions as a form of entertainment. On this thought, Facebook acts as a sort of gaming platform. Of course, the graphics and level of engagement are lacking, but it is an inexpensive and convenient alternative to consoles. In addition, it offers an opportunity to play games with friends, thus making games more interesting and forging stronger relationships with friends. Due to an ability to post, accept likes, and allow comments, Facebook can resemble a Craigslist-like atmosphere or even an advertising agency. It allows large and small business owners alike to advertise free of charge through posting wall posts to its subscribers’ news feeds. Furthermore, it acts as a contact book by saving the email addresses, phone numbers, and birthdays of friends. Through a few clicks, it is very easy to locate the contact information of friends in the “About” section. By organizing the birthdays and reminding users of friends’ birthdays, it allows users to avoid the guilt and shame of forgetting a close friend’s birthday. Also, the number of birthday wishes increase as a result of Facebook notifying users of birthdays, so users feel more social acceptance by receiving these wishes. Facebook even functions as an agenda (both for past and future happenings) by allowing users to record their past events through locations and updates and to keep track of future events through its built-in events organizer. It goes further to allow users to make events and invite friends to attend through a highly convenient interface.

Clearly, Facebook offers so many services that it is becoming a one-stop shop. Google has been trying to build the same empire and has been fairly successful with developments like a popular search engine, a popular email with Gmail, and a clean calendar through Google Calendars. Facebook has lots of directions to expand in terms of offered services, but Google’s lead in dominating internet usage has dwindled.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/11/time-spent-on-facebook-mobile/

My mom, aware that I’m taking a seminar discussing Facebook, sent me the following text last week (edited for clarity):

Was at a department meeting where they brought a speaker in about marketing doctors using the web. She was in her 20s talking enthusiastically about blogs and social media and search engines. When she paused and asked, “How many of you have Facebook accounts?” expecting a unanimous response, only ONE person raised her hand (a resident). The speaker looked crestfallen and disbelieving: “You’ve heard of Google, haven’t you?!” One of the attendings responded, “We don’t have time for Facebook or blogging!” What a generation gap!

Nothing in her text took me by surprise. Do adults use Facebook? All anecdotal evidence, as well as stereotypes of those of my parents’ generation, pointed to the contrary. After all; adults don’t have large social circles that they interact with regularly; they don’t have time to waste on the Internet; they don’t even know how to use technology; and, finally, they adapt more slowly than teens to changes in modes of communication. Most importantly, I thought, adults don’t feel the need to advertise themselves — they’re married, they’ve settled down, and they’ve made all the friends that they’re going to make. On the other hand, those of the younger generations constantly prune their profiles to showcase their sharpest-looking photos, wittiest status updates, and expansive friend circles, as we’ve discussed. If adults don’t need to advertise themselves — the unspoken primary function of Facebook for many — can’t they just stick to email or pen and paper?

They can’t, and they haven’t. Studies such as this (conducted by Pew Research Center, 2010) suggest that 50% of Facebook users are 36 or older. Further data suggests that the number of users in the 18- to 24-year-old range is slowly being eclipsed by the number of 24- to 34-year-olds on the site. Also, 26% of internet users 65 and older apparently use social media. Says Mary Madden of the Pew Research Center, “Young adults continue to be the heaviest users of social media, but their growth pales in comparison with recent gains made by older users.”

Is it advantageous for Facebook to attract older users? Certainly. While it may spoil the site’s youthful image for some, and force teens to be conscious of parental privacy concerns, an expanded user demographic is a positive indication of maturity on an organization’s part. Also, it might help that a greater percentage of Facebook users are older, as younger users are less likely to become shareholders. Common sense says that if more users of “investing age” use the site, the company will attract more investors. Additionally, studies have shown that older users have higher click rates on Facebook ads, meaning greater ad revenue for the company. Most importantly, a larger and more varied user base means that Facebook is one step closer to becoming the indispensable utility that it wants to be… for an entire population, not just a generation.

You may have noticed recently that when updating a status, a little box appears asking if you would like to promote your status, meaning for $7, you can highlight how important whatever you are doing is to your friends. If clicked, your status update will be moved to the top of all your friends’ newsfeeds to guarantee that they read your uber important update about your life, or at least give it a chance among all of the other hourly updated statuses of your friends. In addition, your status will be displayed for a longer span of time than a usual update.  However, if everyone pays to promote their status, won’t we be back to square one in which everyone’s status remains among the clutter? Further, aren’t companies doing this already? They pay to promote their statuses, which is actually called advertising, a pretty popular term these days.

Why would someone want to pay to promote his or her status anyway? Maybe if you just got married and want your wedding album to be a priority on your friends’ newsfeeds. Or maybe you just had a baby and want to show off how adorable he or she is. These examples, however, just feed into the egocentric world we live in today. Everyone wants to promote their life, brag about their life, and share their life amongst everyone they know. Facebook has a good purpose as a whole, but adding a feature to promote a status? That’s about as smart an idea as the guy who just updated everyone that he took a shower.

There are a few practical reasons to promote your status if you have one that is actually worth promoting. There are numerous organizations that can get their word out by clicking promote, or maybe a band might benefit from it to inform their Facebook friends about a show coming up. Maybe you want to raise funds for a good cause, such as an animal shelter. In these cases, having the capacity to highlight your post can help your cause a great deal. However, as a whole, I think that promoting your status, which in a sense is promoting yourself, is just plain weird. We all have those friends that we know will take advantage of this tool and promote as many statuses as they can afford.

What I have come to learn from this new feature is that we live in an even more narcissistic world right now, and Facebook is just adding fuel to the fire. Facebook has convinced everyone that what you have to say is important for everyone else to hear. Paying to feed your ego is, in my opinion, a terrible idea, but as sad is it may sound, it’s not too surprising.

Recently I’ve been in a Tetris mood.

You know, sometimes you just want to fit blocks together. Sometimes, you just want to watch the world simply fall into place.

Back in the day, I would play in www.tetrisfriends.com. I wasn’t especially good, but I was good enough to put up a more-or-less decent fight against my friends. So, when I decided to start again, I had at least a few tricks up my sleeves.

But this time, I started with Facebook’s Tetris Battle.

Now, with Tetris Friends, there was a special game mode — Battle 2P. In this mode one player had to clear lines and send them across to the other player.

Playing against my Honorable Opponent Jazzy551.

Tetris Battles on Facebook also had the same mode, but this version looked a lot different.

HELIN PIEDRA…, my worthy adversary.

Now, both games were developed by the same publisher, Tetris Online, Inc, so it’s really not surprising that they seem very similar. However, the differences are much telling than the similarities.

Tetris Friends is essentially what a Tetris fiend expects when playing Tetris — five preview slots, a hold slot, and nothing else. No frills and no additional things to worry about.

But look at the Tetris Battle.

I’ve boxed the differences for you!

First off, let’s look at the bottom of Tetris Battle. Most prominently, there is the friend bar, asking poor, lonely, Edward Martrain to invite his friends. All of a sudden, Tetris has become a social thing — like Farmville. You can see all your friends and see how good they’ve become at Tetris, and even send them little gifts. Such a thing simply does not exist for Tetris Friends.

Next, you see the Shop and the My Stuff buttons. These people, Tetris Online, Inc, have managed to monetize free Tetris. To monetize it. They’ve introduced special items that give you an unfair advantage (the stack of three squares on the left) and have locked the preview boxes (Stack of four boxes on the right). And then, they give you the option to buy these items and unlock these preview boxes.

On the top you can see exactly how to buy things in the e-shop — with the coins and cash you earn as you play. Now, you can gain them in a couple of ways. The first, is the “Buy Cash and Coins” tab. Pretty self-extraordinarily, you buy in game currency for real world money. Next is the Earn Tetris Cash tab. Essentially, you sign up for various services and gain Cash for doing so.

Wow! Cash for FREE!

The last way to earn is to invite friends and have them sign up and possibly buy some cash.

The last difference is the blue energy bar at the top. Every game you play spend five energy. When you run out, you’ll have to wait for your energy to recharge before you can play again. Or alternatively, you could buy more energy.

When Tetris was Facebook-ized, it was also Farmville-ized. It was gimped and monetized and a million other things’d. If Tetris Friends was the valedictorian of online Tetris, then Tetris Battle is it’s cripple of a brother. Tetris Online, Inc clearly thinks that Facebook users would be satisfied to play a Farmville version of Tetris. Tetris Online, Inc believes that people would be happy to pay for what they get for free, in the return for the ability to see friends online.

And it seems like they are right. With 11 million users, Tetris Battle is in no way small.

The question is, why does this succeed? Every single game on Facebook is the same too — following Zynga’s pay for online cash strategy.

The question we should ask ourselves is why this happens. Why would Tetris Friends and Tetris Battle be so different? What is so different about the Facebook population that makes Tetris Online, Inc know they can monetize it so much more?