Daniel Hertzberg – Businessweek: Zynga Dumps the Training Wheels

Here’s a half-pager for the latest Bloomberg Businessweek. The article was about Zynga, the company the created so many social media games on Facebook (Farmville, Words with Friends, etc), and how they (and CEO Mark Pinkus) are trying to step out of Facebook’s (and Amazon’s) shadow and become their own gaming platform. Training wheels were one of the first things that came to mind, but I was secretly hoping the butterfly emerging, spreading its wings from the Facebook pupa would be the one chosen. Another sketch I liked was the Zynga flower growing out of the Facebook plant pot.