• Zynga CEO Mark Pincus On Charlie Rose

    Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

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    Charlie Rose welcomed Zynga CEO Mark Pincus on his show last night for a 15 minute interview. Pincus says 60-70 million people a day are playing social games on Facebook and MySpace, and 1%-2% are willing to shell out actual cash to enhance gameplay. Mobile social gaming is still small, just 5 million – 6 million/ day, he says. But mobile is a fast growing platform.

    Pincus brought in a printed out screen of a CafeWorld game they created for Rose. Pincus, President Obama and Hillary Clinton are waiters in the cafe. Rose is the cook.

    Up to half of all user time spent on social networks is spent playing games, says Pincus.

    Pincus says his business model is direct payments for enhanced gameplay, and virtual gifts. What didn’t come up at all was Scamville. Rose also steered clear of the growing financial ties between Facebook and Zynga.

    Watch the full interview here (it will re-air tonight on Bloomberg Television at 8PM and 10PM ET).

    The transcript is below.

    CHARLIE ROSE, HOST: Welcome to the broadcast. Tonight, Mark Pincus,
    Founder and CEO of Zynga.

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    MARK PINCUS, FOUNDER AND CEO, ZYNGA: I think there is a social media
    revolution going on right now. And I think that we are changing our media
    consumption habits at a rate that we haven’t done even with the advent of
    the Internet. I think it’s going on right now.

    I think the people regularly are consuming media while they’re at work
    and while they’re doing other activities in a tab in their browser or on
    their smart phone. And I think media will change. In order to thrive I
    think media will figure out how to entertain me in several minute bites and
    in ways that are more social.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    CHARLIE ROSE: We continue with Michael Specter, the author of
    “Denialism.”

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    MICHAEL SPECTER, AUTHOR: Everyone knows what denial is. Sometimes
    you’re so depressed that that you can’t really face the facts. So you
    hide, you pretend things aren’t true. And that happens to everyone. It’s
    normal. It may even be healthy for a little while.

    When society does it, I don’t think it ever is healthy. And I think
    there are number of issues now, particularly in scientific life, where we
    are in denial as a culture.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    CHARLIE ROSE: We conclude this evening with the architect Annabelle
    Selldorf.

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    ANNABELLE SELLDORF, SELLDORF ARCHITECTS: You start with listening
    very carefully to what the mandate is. Unlike some architects, ours is not
    an architecture of grand gestures or monumental statements, but rather sort
    of subtle interventions.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Pincus, Specter, and Selldorf, next.

    (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

    CHARLIE ROSE: Mark Pincus is here. He is the founder and CEO of the
    social gaming company Zynga. It is behind some of those popular apps for
    games.

    Among them is Farmville, which allows users to manage a virtual farm.
    It has 66 million monthly active users with farms, that is more than the
    total number of farms in the United States.

    Zynga’s games are part of growing world of apps available on various
    platforms like smart phones and social networking sites like Facebook.
    Analysts say the apps economy is worth $1 billion today and could be headed
    to $4 billion by 2012.

    I am pleased to have Mark Pincus at the table for the first time. And
    one point, personal interest, I have small investment in a firm that
    invested in his company. So I’m pleased to talk to Mark Pincus about
    what’s going on in the world of apps. Welcome.

    MARK PINCUS: Thank you.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Tell me what do you.

    MARK PINCUS: Sure. So the best way to think about what’s going on
    with social games, it’s really a throwback to the kinds of board games that
    we all grew up playing with our friends and families where the game was
    really just a context for us to be social.

    And that’s really what’s going on with social networks and smart
    phones today, what we are all getting connected, and it’s like a cocktail
    party which really started with Friendster, which is really the first time
    we all got together online.

    And if you remember, people complained there’s nothing to do now that
    we’re all together on this social network. And so Facebook was one of the
    first to start to add more dimensions to that experience with feeds and
    pictures.

    And when they opened up their platform and then others like MySpace
    and the iPhone opened up, it gave independent third party game developers a
    chance, like us, a chance to build games that their users could use to
    interact with each other.

    CHARLIE ROSE: You decided to start this company, and you saw what
    opportunity?

    MARK PINCUS: Well, for me, I had started a social network actually
    before Facebook called tribe.net, which failed. But what I saw during that
    time was that people did need something to do with each other.

    And once Facebook opened up their platform to third parties, I
    immediately thought the opportunity I was most excited about was to provide
    a chance for people to play games together.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And did you have any idea of the potential of it all?

    MARK PINCUS: I’d say, at first we didn’t realize how big social
    gaming could be. But once we launched our first game and we saw how viral
    it could be and how many people would want to come and play games together,
    we started to see how big the audience could get.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And so those people who correspond in face groups, as
    an example, how much time do they play games versus what other activities
    they do?

    MARK PINCUS: We don’t have any particular data, I think only the
    networks have that. But we’ve heard that people in aggregate may be
    spending as much as half of the time on these networks playing games.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Tell me about “Mafia Wars.”

    MARK PINCUS: Sure, so “Mafia Wars’” is a game where you form a mafia
    with your friends and you — it’s kind of like a game like “World of War
    Craft” but it happens in text and pictures instead of immersive
    environments.

    The key difference is that you are relying on your friends. You’re
    collaborating together throughout the game. There’s features like “declare
    war” where if somebody attacks you, you can declare war on them and it
    tells all your friends to come help you.

    People have taken it to this much more extreme place where they have
    actually created whole clans that can have thousands of members to them. A
    game like “Cafe World,” we actually created one for you.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Great. This is great.

    MARK PINCUS: This is Charlie’s Cafe. And if you look, you’re the
    cook, I’m a waiter, Hillary Clinton is a waiter, and Obama is a waiter.
    And so you are virtually playing with all of us. And you can hire us to
    work in your restaurant, you can come to our cafes, you can gift dishes to
    each other.

    And everybody is building out their restaurants, sometimes in
    competition and often in collaborations.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Talk a little bit about virtual gifts.

    MARK PINCUS: Sure. Gifting was from early on when Facebook opened
    the platform, gifting became a very popular activity. If you think about
    what is going on in social network, I like to say that you’re in a game of
    building your social capital.

    So, if you’re playing the game of Facebook or MySpace you’re building
    out your network and you’re actually doing things that elevate your status
    with all of these other people. And gifts is a terrific way to build your
    social capital with people. And virtual gifts are much easier and quick
    tore give people than UPS-based gifts.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

    For your company, you look ahead, is games between social network
    members the principle source of revenue, or do you see this having some
    potential that you — hasn’t fully developed yet.

    MARK PINCUS: Well, you may see something I don’t, but we are excited
    about the future of social games and virtual goods as a revenue model
    within social games.

    So, what I mean by that is, our users, these are free games. And one
    to two percent of the users will spend money on the games. And they can
    spend them on virtual goods, virtual gifts we just started selling. And
    that has been a revenue model that has enabled our company to be profitable
    for eight straight quarters.

    And we are very bullish on the growth that have business, and we’re
    not really looking for other business.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Tend to your own knitting, as someone once said.
    What’s the size of the app market today?

    MARK PINCUS: There are different ways to think about it. There are
    only three ways. You can think about it in terms of the number of apps
    that have been downloaded. And there’s lots of estimates, I think it’s
    probably something in the range of four billion apps have been downloaded.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And that’s a business that was not in existence how
    many years ago?

    MARK PINCUS: Three years ago.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Three years ago. A totally new business.

    MARK PINCUS: Yes.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Go ahead.

    MARK PINCUS: Second is you can look at it by numbers of users. And
    again, there’s all kinds of estimates. But people think out of the 400
    million users on Facebook, more than half of them regularly use apps and
    probably two-thirds have participated, 80 percent of iPhone users download
    games and apps. So I think they’re supposed to grow to 50 million users.

    So I think there are several hundred million users interacting with
    apps today.

    Third, you can think of it in terms of the revenues, which is good way
    to think about businesses. And from a revenue perspective, I think people
    are estimating more than two billion in revenues next year.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And what’s the prospect say for five years out?

    MARK PINCUS: Well, you can look to the Asian market where it’s not so
    much apps as it is free games with virtual goods. And that’s already
    several billion dollars.

    I think most analysts predict that the worldwide market will grow to
    north of $8 billion in revenues in the next couple of years. And I think
    we’ll see. I think it could grow to 15 billion in the next five years.

    CHARLIE ROSE: You have no particular interest in games but you were
    just looking for entrepreneurial opportunities?

    MARK PINCUS: I saw that social games looked like a perfect
    opportunity that could be launched because of social networks.

    CHARLIE ROSE: How much of it is played by smart phones, on smart
    phones?

    MARK PINCUS: It’s actually a smaller percentage. It’s maybe — I’d
    guess five or six million people a day that might be playing games on smart
    phones.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And how many on computers?

    MARK PINCUS: I’d say that’s probably in the range ever 60 million or
    70 million a day.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Will that equation change over the next five years?

    MARK PINCUS: Yes. It’s changing rapidly. So with the iPhone and
    iPod touch, that market is growing incredibly quickly. And I expect that
    the rest of the phone market will catch up.

    CHARLIE ROSE: The Droid and everybody else will be in there with apps
    and competing, right?

    MARK PINCUS: Yes.

    CHARLIE ROSE: The penetration of smart phones will change the world
    that we know in what way?

    MARK PINCUS: I think that the penetration of the Blackberry has
    already changed our world in a way that we’re not even completely aware of
    yet. I was walking around Central Park this weekend and literally I’d say
    seven out of ten people were on their Blackberries. And –

    CHARLIE ROSE: Blackberries, and specific, not iPhones but
    Blackberries?

    MARK PINCUS: Mostly Blackberries but also iPhones. And I believe
    that it’s not all bad. I believe that what’s happened because of these
    smart devices, we can be productive all the time now. And so we can be on
    e-mail, we can be doing business, we can be social, playing games in all
    the nooks and crannies of our time.

    And it actually raises our opportunity cost of doing other activities.
    It’s hard now to sit on our airplane read a book when you can be on the
    Internet.

    CHARLIE ROSE: How else is the world changing? Who factors beyond
    that are at play that we ought to understand because it’s your business to
    understand those factors?

    MARK PINCUS: Well, I think there is a social media revolution going
    on right now. And I think that we are changing our media consumption
    habits at a rate that we haven’t done even with the advent of the Internet.
    And I think it’s going on right now.

    I think that people regularly are consuming media while they’re at
    work and while they’re doing other activities in a tab in their browser or
    on their smart phone. And I think media will change. In order to thrive I
    think media will figure out how to entertain me in several minute bites and
    in ways that are more social.

    So, more that my friend is talking about a “Charlie Rose Show,” and I
    might trip over what I call a social bread crumb. So I might be more
    likely to find your show in my news feed on Facebook or Twitter because a
    friend is talking about it then going back to your Web site.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly. And so that’s one phenomenon happening. Give
    me some others of how the landscape is changing.

    MARK PINCUS: Well, I think that more and more people are starting
    their web experience because of an SMS message or something they saw on a
    Twitter home page or Facebook home page not necessarily starting at Google
    or Yahoo!

    CHARLIE ROSE: See, that’s a huge thing. To say that is a huge thing.

    MARK PINCUS: I hope I’m right.

    CHARLIE ROSE: No, but it’s amazing to me, rather than Googling for
    something or finding it on Google, because of Twitter, because of Facebook,
    because somebody mention something and that’s within your world of interest
    and friendship, you are going to go look at it.

    MARK PINCUS: Yes. I think you may get to a public web and a social
    web, and you’ll use both. They will interact with each other.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And define how the two would be different.

    MARK PINCUS: The public web experience is what you have today. It is
    going to a destination like Google or eBay or Amazon. And you don’t have
    to be logged in. And you’re just going to book an air flight or whatever.

    And the social web experience is a logged in experience where the Web
    site that you are going to knows something about you.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Where are we in terms of the digital revolution?

    MARK PINCUS: I think we’re very early, 10 percent in. When I started
    this company I woke up in 2007 and I was amazed that I could count the
    number of major consumer net, Internet brands on one hand. And they were a
    search engine, a garage sale site with eBay, classified listings, a portal.

    It was amazing to me that there was only five or six.

    CHARLIE ROSE: And today?

    MARK PINCUS: Seven.

    (LAUGHTER)

    CHARLIE ROSE: But if you are starting out today, and if you were
    looking for other things that you thought were exciting and had a huge
    future, give us some indication wherever they are.

    MARK PINCUS: Sure. I’m turned on by all of the things that we do in
    high volume on the Internet today that could be recreated in social
    context. So my wife has launched a private sale site for home decor items,
    which I won’t plug. But it’s…

    CHARLIE ROSE: A private sale…

    MARK PINCUS: So in other words, you join her site, and every day they
    show you deals that are limited time offers…

    CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

    MARK PINCUS: It’s an alternative way to shop.

    Now, e-commerce could happen through a social lens. I could go to
    either Facebook or a site that is socially enabled and I could find deals
    on black Friday or whatever through what my friends have done. I could
    find my travel through a social lens.

    It’s not always obvious where it will be better, and that’s the
    opportunity for entrepreneurs. But I think there’s a shift in people’s
    habits. They’re spending time on socially enabled sites. They’re looking
    for much quicker short form and sometimes mobile option for entertainment.

    And I think that they’re going to instantiate new web services. So I
    think there’s an opportunity to be my travel site.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Are you in it for the money? Are you in it because of
    some other reason?

    MARK PINCUS: That’s a great question. I’m interested in creating
    what both of our friend Bing Gordon calls “Internet treasure.” And I think
    that we will be remembered in this point in history for the great consumer
    branded Internet services that were created that enhance people’s lives,
    like Amazon, like Google, like Facebook.

    And as an entrepreneur, the opportunity to potentially create one of
    those branded services is what turns me on and what I hope to one day do.

    My friends who have had big financial pay outs where they sold their
    company or are no longer at a successful company, they find themselves kind
    of bored and lost, and they have to go through these kind of mid-life
    crises every time.

    And I think so many of us are really searching for our 20-year career.
    And people said to me, Pincus, you’re a serial entrepreneur. You just love
    starting company. I say, no, I don’t. It’s really hard. And I would love
    to find a company I could be at for 20 years.

    CHARLIE ROSE: A, congratulations. B, it’s fascinating to learn about
    this. Ben Gordon did me a favor by telling me about you and what’s going
    on with Zynga, and let’s keep in touch.

    MARK PINCUS: Yes, thanks for everything me.

    CHARLIE ROSE: Thank you.

    Person: Charlie Rose
    Website: charlierose.com
    Companies:

    Charlie Rose is an American television interviewer and journalist. He entered television journalism full-time in 1974, when he became the managing editor of the PBS series Bill Moyers’ International Report. He currently hosts the Charlie Rose Show, where he has developed a reputation as a skilled interviewer.

    Learn more
    Person: Mark Pincus
    Companies: Zynga, Tribe

    Weighing in at 150 lbs, is Mark Pincus, frenetic visionary of Zynga. His DNA is one strand entrepreneur and one strand competitive gamer. Mark founded Tribe.net, one of the first social networks in 2003. Prior to Tribe, he was the founder and CEO of SupportSoft. Prior to SupportSoft, Mark co-founded Freeloader, the first consumer push information service.

    Learn more
    Company: Zynga
    Website: zynga.com
    Launch Date: July 2007
    IPO: NASDAQ:ZNGA

    Zynga was founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus and is named for his late American Bulldog, Zinga. Loyal and spirited, Zinga’s name is a nod to a legendary African warrior queen. The early supporting founding team included Eric Schiermeyer, Michael Luxton, Justin Waldron, Kyle Stewart, Scott Dale, John Doerr, Steve Schoettler, Kevin Hagan, and Andrew Trader. Zynga’s mission is connecting the world through games. Everyday millions of people interact with their friends and express their unique personalities through our...

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