App Economy

09Nov09

A week ago Michael Arrington’s Tech Crunch article http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming-ecosystem-of-hell/ uncovered how unethical led gen ad campaigns were a significant revenue contributor to some of the largest social gaming companies. This is a potential devastating blow to this new market segment and the immediate future of the new app economy. The importance of ensuing customer trust and brand integrity can not be overstated. Once trust is lost the road back is rarely travelled successfully. Thus, it was with anxious delight that I read Mark Pincus’ (CEO Zynga) responses to the crisis http://markpincus.typepad.com/.

Leadership is always critical, but never more so than at the beginning of a crisis. It is at this point that we have the best opportunity to control our destiny. Customers will forgive and even rally behind companies that admit errors in judgment, but will desert those that fail to step-up and instead hide behind press releases and legal departments.

Social gaming is situated at the forefront of a massive new burst in innovation and delivering services to consumers. Just as CD-ROM and PC gaming gave way to consoles, as the preferred platform for home entertainment; consoles are in the beginning of a potential death-spiral and will seemingly be replaced by social and mobile platforms.

The future will unfold to us in due course and it seems that with the leadership being demonstrated by Mark Pincus, Zynga could be the leader in the new app economy.