Yahoo Integrates Zynga's Mafia Wars, FishVille

Six months after announcing it would integrate Zynga titles into its services, Yahoo has officially added the social game developer's Mafia Wars and FishVille to its online properties. As part of the "first phase of integration", starting this week, users on Yahoo's Messenger, Games, My Yahoo, Toolbar, and Pulse offerings will be able to launch, play, and share Mafia Wars and FishVille without needing to first visit Facebook, where people traditionally play these titles. Their integration was made possible through Facebook Connect and the Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP), which is designed to provide social sharing of game notifications across Yahoo's network. Yahoo also announced similar deals with social game studios ELEX (開心農場) and Omgpop (Cupcake Corner). Zynga and Yahoo initially revealed their alliance during a time when the former seemed to be aggressively expanding its titles beyond Facebook to other portals and standalone sites. This followed shortly after the social network made changes to its app notification system that resulted in many popular titles losing millions of users. The news follows just a day after a similar partnership was unveiled between Microsoft and another major social game company, CrowdStar (Happy Aquarium, It Girl). As part of the agreement, several of CrowdStar's titles will appear on Bing Games, MSN Games, and Windows Live Messenger. "Our job is to connect you with the people, places and things that matter most to you -- whether that's making a restaurant reservation, finding a discounted tee time, or playing popular online games with friends," says Yahoo's chief product officer and executive vice president Blake Irving. Irving adds, "By enhancing Yahoo!'s most popular sites and services with social experiences like Zynga and Twitter ... we're making Yahoo! an even better place for everyone to stay entertained, productive, and informed."