Now there’s some additional information on timing thanks to a lawsuit between Activision and some former employees.

According to confidential agreements unsealed in the court case, Microsoft’s next game console, which is referred to as the “Xbox 720,” could be released in time for the 2013 holiday season.

The Los Angeles Times originally posted the documents on Monday, but it was Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times who came up with the theory on the timing.

The lawsuit is a complicated tale, involving Activision’s insanely successful first-person shooter Call of Duty. Former Activision developers are claiming they are owed hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties and bonus payments. Activision is claiming breach of contract.

The documents, revealed last week, detail a high-profile deal between Bungie and Activision in 2010.

The 27-page agreement calls for Bungie to develop four “sci-fantasy, action shooter games,” code-named “Destiny,” released every other year, beginning in the fall of 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times. Additionally, Bungie agreed to put out four downloadable expansion packs code-named “Comet.”

Bungie is the developer behind the successful Halo franchise, but is not the developer behind Halo 4, which Microsoft is developing and releasing in November.

Here’s what Dudley is suggesting based on the contract language:

Microsoft hasn’t said when the next version of the Xbox will go on sale, but the Bungie contract suggests that it could happen in the 2013 holiday season, with “Destiny” as a key launch title. That would be similar to the way Halo was a cornerstone of the first Xbox launch in November 2001.

An Xbox spokesman declined to comment on this theory and referred questions to Activision and Bungie.

The document also says the game is expected to be released for the PlayStation 3 successor in the fall of 2014.

The big caveat to all of this guesswork is that the document is now two years old, so timing could easily change. Additionally, the name “Xbox 720″ could just be a code name or placeholder. Of course, console makers keep the timing of their upcoming hardware close to their vests, so that consumers don’t hold off on making purchases.

In March, Microsoft’s Corporate Communications boss Frank Shaw told AllThingsD that consumers probably shouldn’t expect new hardware at the E3 game conference, or “anytime soon.”

“For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360,” he added.

Meet Slade Villena.

In February, the ex-Zynga engineer publicly slammed the door in the San Francisco online social gaming company’s face in this discussion thread on Reddit, although at first he kept his real identity a secret.

With a new seven-person team and a successfully-funded Kickstarter game under his belt, Villena’s a prime example of the sort of independent game developer I wrote about last week. He’s passionate, ambitious and full of big ideas.

But even though he’s adamant about focusing now on a small niche audience, he’s also made a name for himself online directly bashing his old employer.

Welcome to the dark side — or, at least, the gray area– of indie dev culture.

Villena’s Reddit thread three months ago got hundreds of questions and thousands of upvotes, and made Zynga look pretty bad.

But today tomorrow, Zynga — which declined to comment for this article — gets a chance to strike back. In the same section on Reddit, known as IAmA, two Zynga engineers, Seth Allison and Andrew Pellerano, are scheduled to open a Q&A thread at 1 pm PT.

So, who do you trust?

When he waxes philosophical about the video game industry, Villena makes some good points. Most interestingly, that competition may be a myth in the indie space, since developers don’t necessarily have to go after a mass audience of, for example, war game-loving teenage boys. But I was surprised by just how much he was willing to put Zynga down, especially since he worked there for only eight months and quit almost a year ago.

And while some of Villena’s points are valid or plausible, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said others are “borderline psychotic.”

On the one hand are arguments you’ve probably heard before: That in the pursuit of bigger and bigger audiences, Zynga grinds its employees too hard and pushes them too far.

“I was averaging 70 hours a week because I had to,” Villena said. “They were demanding large spikes and large revenue gains in a very short amount of time.”

He said the heavy workload leads to lots of bugs, and that bugs drive away players. Pachter readily acknowledged that yes, that could happen, but questioned whether Villena was a fair judge.

“He’s probably not spending as much time playing everybody else’s games like I am,” said Pachter. “So, I can tell you that their games are less buggy than most.”

On top of that, Villena alleged a culture of unprofessionalism at Zynga, where long hours were rewarded with trips to Las Vegas and free alcohol for engineers while they worked.

Pachter said he had never observed anything of the sort any of the times he’s visited Zynga, nor had he heard anything about this supposed drinking culture from the 50-odd people he knows who work there.

Putting aside any culture clash on the social front, Villena also alleged that Zynga invades players’ privacy. I asked him to elaborate in our interview, and he compared the games’ use of player data to military-intelligence profiles he observed while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.

When he was a member of the FrontierVille team, he said, the company posted on the wall the pictures, real names, ages, habits and Facebook posts of some of the game’s biggest spenders.

Creepy? Maybe, if true. But the devil’s advocate argument, of course, is that many social gamers technically agree to give over some or all of that data to game developers in order to use their apps in the first place.

“I was told, ‘We’re getting to know our players,’ but why are you posting their names?” Villena countered. “Why not just post their game’s avatar without having to deal with their photo or their name or anything like that?”

Fair enough. But it’s really when the discussion gets into Zynga’s finances that he starts to sound, to steal Pachter’s words, “a bit unhinged.”

As we were wrapping up our interview, Villena volunteered: “I don’t expect Zynga to survive the summer at the rate that they’re going. Look at their stock, dude. They’re scraping at $7. The way I’m looking at it, by the end of the summer, they’re going to be de-listed from Nasdaq.”

Pachter’s reaction over the phone was, “HA! Ha ha ha! No.“

He later apologized for laughing, while simultaneously calling the idea of Zynga going under this year “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Even though Zynga’s stock is at record low levels, under $7 per share, it would need to trade at under $1 per share for 90 days to get de-listed. As for going bankrupt, Zynga is profitable, and doesn’t have any debt.

“And by the way, why the hell does he care?” Pachter asked. “This guy sounds pretty bitter.”

But back to things that matter: Like I said in my last article, gamers don’t have to choose between the games that come out of big companies like Zynga and indie shops like Villena’s Mercenary Game Studios.

Keep an eye on the Zynga engineers’ Reddit thread today. In theory, Redditors are supposed to be able to ask them anything, so we’ll see if and how they respond to Villena’s claims.

So far, it has deployed at 2,000 Home Depots and has plans to be at 20 major retailers by the end of the year.

Stay tuned as we cover the announcements live.

10:10 am: “Midmarket businesses represent a third of the U.S. economy, and we looked at our capability and decided to partner rather than build,” explains PayPal president David Marcus.

So rather than ripping out their existing systems, the new stuff integrates with existing point-of-sale systems.

The POS software partners are: Vend, Erply, shopKeepPOS and Leapset.

That plugs PayPal into 50,000 merchants across the country, Marcus said. And that’s added to VeriFone and Equinox POS terminal manufacturers, announced this morning, in addition to an existing relationship with Ingenico.

Cue video of the owner of a PayPal-enabled shop full of cute dresses, who says she likes seeing her customers’ faces on the register, emailing them receipts and knowing their purchase history.

Next topic: large retailers. Don Kingsborough, VP of retail and prepaid, takes the stage.

Physical retail and offline retail is no longer about “location, location, location,” but instead about access to customers, Kingsborough posits.

Kingsborough pokes fun at Google’s mobile wallet pronouncement last year in New York (not by name, but it’s obvious), and other competitors’ tests, saying PayPal is much closer to ubiquity.

PayPal’s big partner so far has been Home Depot, so it trots out the company’s Dwaine Kimmet, treasurer and VP of financial services.

10:28 am: Kimmet says PayPal has been a good partner for 1) improving and speeding up checkout 2) combating bank card acceptance costs and 3) providing value to everyone.

That last one sounds really vague, but he’s elaborating. Kimmet gives the example of how text messaging around transactions gives both added security as well as convenience for customers.

Kingsborough is back to give a list of the first 15 retailers, and says some of them will be launching in the next few weeks. This is the meat of the announcement we were expecting. Office Depot, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Jamba Juice, Foot Locker, J.C. Penney, Guitar Center, Jos. A. Bank, Aeropostale, Nine West, Advance Auto Parts and TigerDirect are the ones I could get before the slide changed.

Now for a string of video testimonials from people like J.C. Penney CTO Kristen Blum. But CEO of Jamba Juice James White is here in person.

White talks about the convergence of online and offline, customer satisfaction, incremental traffic and brand strengthening, while my mind wanders to flavors of smoothies.

Marcus is back to recap. His big theme is scale, and he says that word a bunch of times to describe PayPal’s different categories: online, mobile, different sizes of businesses.

The offline launch will enable PayPal to tap into a market that’s 17 times as large as what it has today, Marcus says.

That was short and sweet. PayPal had given a target of 20 major retailers by year’s end, so announcing 15 in May in addition to Home Depot is pretty far along.

10:55 am: Okay, got the full list of retailers. Here they are: Abercrombie & Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, Jamba Juice, J.C. Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct and Toys “R” Us.

That list includes some overlap with Google Wallet, including American Eagle Outfitters, Foot Locker and Jamba Juice. It seems clear that retailers are willing to try multiple strategies to see what works best.

The Atlanta-based company’s mobile app tries to be a resource to consumers who are looking for local merchants and events, sort of like the Web’s original CitySearch service from years ago — except that it’s on mobile. The app also distributes coupons to restaurants, but instead of charging consumers for the deals, like Groupon does, they are free, and merchants pay a flat rate to Scoutmob each time one is redeemed.

Investors in the company’s second round include AOL Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures, Capital Broadcasting, Cox Enterprises and Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer. To date, Scoutmob has raised $5 million, which means that even if it wanted to, it doesn’t have the resources to go up against Groupon and LivingSocial.

In an interview, Scoutmob co-founder Michael Tavani said the company gets lumped into the daily deals category, but said that from day one, “we tried to differentiate ourselves and to be more of a mobile company.”

So far, the strategy has worked.

The app, which is available free on iOS, BlackBerry and Android, has 1.2 million users who have redeemed one million offers. To date, the company has launched in 10 cities, with varying success rates. Some markets, like Seattle, don’t have many deals yet, while other cities, like Atlanta or Washington, D.C., are used more.

Because of its emphasis on mobile, the company was also able to to score a partnership with payment processing company First Data Corporation.

“It’s crazy, we are a two-and-a-half year-old company, and every week we have the largest payment companies in the world contacting us,” Tavani said. ”They are worried that if they don’t have mobile engagement, then what do they have?”

First Data processes about 55 percent of all transactions in the U.S., and will help Scoutmob close the loop of offering a discount, making a purchase and earning loyalty points.

The new funding will be used to support the company’s next wave of product development, which will include building out a mobile rewards program with the help of First Data and other payment companies it signs up.

Tavani said it will work like this: When users make a purchase at a Scoutmob location using a credit card, they’ll accrue points automatically. Once enough points have been accumulated, they can be redeemed at any Scoutmob retail location.

Unlike traditional loyalty programs, which require consumers to go to the same coffee shop 10 times in order to earn a free coffee, Scoutmob will let consumers earn and redeem points by visiting any merchant in its network. It’s similar to frequent flyer programs, where miles can be earned at a variety of merchants and then redeemed at a handful of airlines.

“We want to be the equivalent of an airline reward program, but for local,” Tavani said. “That’s exactly what we want to be.”

Scoutmob has landed in a sector spanning local businesses and mobile payments, which is ripe from innovation and extremely crowded by well-funded start-ups and massively large incumbents. But Tavani argues that it’s a level playing field.

“There’s going to be multiple players and lots of winners,” he said. “Groupon and LivingSocial are two with a gigantic lead. But we can go out and visit merchants today — there’s no one preventing us from having those conversations.”

The partnerships are important because it makes rolling out PayPal’s in-store payments technology to retailers much easier.

PayPal is hosting an event at its San Jose headquarters later this morning to announce the next batch of retailers that are adopting the company’s in-store payments solution. AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes will be there to cover the announcements live, starting at 10 am PT.

To date, PayPal has deployed its service to all 2,000 Home Depots, but it has a long way to go in meeting its goal of having 20 major retailers by the end of the year.

One reason why PayPal is able to deploy its services to retailers so quickly is because it only requires sending out a software update to the retailers’ terminals — in other words, retailers won’t have to purchase all new hardware. This morning, PayPal confirmed it has signed up VeriFone and Equinox Payments, the largest and third-largest providers, respectively, which will handle those software updates. PayPal already had a relationship with Ingenico, the second-largest provider.

The relationships inked today are focused on solving back-end integration problems for merchants. But the front-end experience is all about the consumer.

At participating stores, consumers will be able to pay with PayPal by either using a PayPal-issued credit card or by entering a mobile phone number and PIN code into the terminal. Down the road, PayPal could also support near field communication technology.

All told, the three terminal providers manage about roughly 40 million terminals worldwide, representing a large majority of the terminals in existence.

After Activision’s Blizzard studios launched the highly anticipated PC game on May 15, players had problems logging on and said their accounts were being hacked.

“Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough,” the company said in an apology issued last week. Yesterday, the company issued another statement, confirming that some accounts “may have been compromised.”

In addition to selling 3.5 million copies on day one, Activision said more than 1.2 million players received Diablo III as part of signing up for the World of Warcraft Annual Pass promotion. Based on that total, internal calculations and reports from distribution partners, Activision believes this makes Diablo III the biggest PC game launch in history.

By the end of the first week, Diablo sales reached 6.3 million. The game costs $60 for either the physical copy or the digital version.

“We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live,” said Blizzard’s CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime. “We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support.”

In the game, players take on one of five heroic characters — barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk or demon hunter. As that character, they must save the world of Sanctuary from the forces of the Burning Hells. As they engage in the virtual world, players gain new abilities and acquire artifacts.

For the first time ever, those artifacts can be traded for real-world currency through an auction house.

During the company’s first-quarter conference call two weeks ago, it confirmed that consumer feedback from the beta test had gone well, especially when it came to the new trading method.

Blizzard does not intend to sell any items in the auction house, in contrast to other game models where companies profit from selling in-game virtual goods. But interestingly, Blizzard will charge players a transaction fee on sales, or roughly 15 percent on most items.

There are identity thieves, stalkers and people generally trying to take advantage of you.

At least that was one of the things that I took away from a privacy conference last week in Seattle, where the word “creepy” slipped into the conversation as a description of everything from location-based services to more cutting edge Internet businesses.

But advocates argued that the cure for creepy was to make services relevant and useful — not spammy and invasive. In other words, consumers are willing to share their information — age, gender, location — if there’s a benefit to them.

I moderated a panel titled “Building Trust in the Sharing Economy,” which addressed identity issues as people become more comfortable using the Internet to find babysitters, rent out their apartments or lend their car to strangers.

In those cases, honest people typically don’t mind sharing information about themselves in order to be considered a trustworthy consumer or provider. It’s a red flag if they don’t.

Sonny Singh, the VP of sales and business development at Jumio, said it’s not creepy when you show your driver’s license to Hertz when you’re renting a car or to a hotel when you’re checking in. That’s why it shouldn’t be viewed as strange when you use sharing services like Airbnb or RelayRides.

But he said, instead, “they are assuming from your Facebook profile that you are who you say you are.”

Jumio is developing technology that allows users to verify their identity by entering their credit card and driver’s license information using a webcam or camera phone.

Participants in the panel (from left to right in the picture) are: Tricia Duryee, AllThingsD; Drummond Reed, founder, Connect.me; Sam Rosen, co-founder, Scaffold; Xin Chung, CEO and founder, Trustcloud; and Singh.

Here’s a video of the whole discussion, but you can skip to around the 26-minute mark to hear the whole discussion on “creepy.”

The Los Angeles-based company has not raised institutional funding yet, but is backed by its founders along with Brody Jenner, stepbrother to Kim Kardashian and son of Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner (see right).

Jenner has already been busy hyping RocketFrog on his official Facebook fan page, which has more than 58,000 likes, by asking fans to join him in poker tournaments for the chance to win $5 Amazon gift cards.

Additionally, the company said that Myspace founder Tom Anderson will join RocketFrog’s advisory board.

Besides its star-studded alliances, the company’s free-to-play Facebook game stands apart from other casino-based games because it allows players to win a variety of prizes, ranging from movie tickets to music, food and more.

Games include blackjack, slots, roulette, deuces wild and video poker, and prizes during the game’s first month include brands such as Creative Recreation, Steve Angello of Swedish House Mafia, Young and Reckless, World of Dance, Abbey Dawn by Avril Lavigne and Paul Oakenfold.

Many companies are scrambling to gain large casino audiences on Facebook now that it appears that online gambling will become legal in the U.S.

Late last year, the Department of Justice issued a new interpretation of the Wire Act of 1961. Under the new ruling, it interprets the act as only outlawing betting on sporting events — not all events and contests. With that clarification in place, it will now be up to each state to pass legislation outlining operating procedures.

A few companies, such as IGT, Zynga and Caesars Interactive, have already started to get ready and a few states have already passed laws.

RocketFrog’s founder Brett Calapp was previously the CEO and co-founder of Centaurus Games, a subscription-based gaming network that sold to PartyGaming in 2010. He was also the president of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, an international gambling tour, online game network and hit television show on CBS.

With an interface like Uber, Lyft users will be able to find nearby drivers and hop in for a ride, paying a suggested donation that’s approximately 30 percent less than a cab fare.

Drivers will be vetted by Lyft, and both riders and drivers authenticate via Facebook. Lyft is only in San Francisco and on iPhone for now, where there’s also a competing service called SideCar in beta testing.

Asked about the licensing and insurance issues that come with effectively turning regular cars into taxis, Zimride COO John Zimmer said, “I’m sure people will get upset about more competition. But our understanding is that when it’s ride-sharing, you can use your personal insurance policy. As for regulation, a lot of state laws are supportive of carpooling and ride-sharing and want to make that work.”

While former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson fades from the tech scene — besides getting jacked from the top job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, he’s also just come off two tech boards he had served on — the investigation over his hiring and how a fake computer science degree got into the company’s regulatory filings continues.

While the quick-fire controversy burned Thompson, as well as now former Yahoo director Patti Hart, the special committee of independent board members is still at work trying to figure out how such a mess was made in the first place.

And, more importantly, who knew what when and told whom.

At the time the committee was announced, Yahoo said it would “conduct a thorough review of CEO Scott Thompson’s academic credentials, as well as the facts and circumstances related to the review and disclosure of those credentials in connection with Thompson’s appointment as CEO.”

The special committee is chaired by Yahoo’s new Chairman Fred Amoroso and includes John Hayes and Thomas McInerney, two independent directors who joined the board in April.

Yahoo also hired independent counsel Terry Bird of the law firm Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks and Licenberg in Los Angeles to handle the inquiry.

The company also noted at the time that “the special committee and the entire Board appreciate the urgency of the situation and the special committee will therefore conduct the review in an independent, thorough and expeditious manner. The Board intends to make the appropriate disclosures to shareholders promptly upon completion of the review.”

Gripped by urgency myself, I have grown weary waiting by the phone for some official answers, which sources said will not be forthcoming for some time.

But since I am the most curious of cats — uh-oh! — I started dialing around on my own to find out what’s what.

And, according to sources — especially since Thompson has settled with Yahoo and will not get severance due to the academic falsehood — the big focus is now centering on if the company’s staff screwed up the background check of his academic credentials, thus allowing it to get into its official filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and also on Yahoo’s corporate Web site.

When Thompson was hired from eBay, where he was president of its PayPal payments division, the online commerce company had the correct bio information in its SEC filings, although not on its Web site or in its PR materials.

The question is: Did someone from Yahoo simply rely on Web bios and not check eBay filings and did anyone ever re-check Thompson’s college records? (Note: It took me 15 minutes flat to find out he did not have such a degree at Stonehill College in the Boston area.)

If lazy checking was the case, it spells rank incompetence on the part of staffers, as well as Hart, who headed the search after Yahoo fired its previous CEO Carol Bartz last fall.

A much more troubling line of inquiry taking place is aimed at the possibility that someone at Yahoo did discover the discrepancy in Thompson’s resume and either did not report it up the chain of command or did and it was either lost or ignored or, well, worse.

While this certainly ain’t Watergate, such a situation would be very hard for Yahoo to explain away as easily to shareholders, especially potentially litigious ones. As it is always said, the coverup can often be more damaging than the crime itself.

And, if it is determined by the special committee that certain employees knew of Thompson’s resume inaccuracy, it will most certainly result in dismissals of Yahoo employees.

The focus on the committee — which truly cannot sweep this under the rug, if it occurred in this much more serious scenario — is most obviously the legal department of Yahoo, which is responsible for making certain filings are accurate.

Also under scrutiny is the quickness of the hiring of Thompson.

Among the questions is how much vetting was done and whether adequate questions about him were asked among a variety of possible sources.

When he was picked in January, Thompson was a dark-horse candidate for many, including some Yahoo board members.

In fact, he was not on the initial headhunting lists prepared by outside talent search firm Heidrick & Struggles.

That’s because Heidrick had placed Thompson at eBay in mid-2000 and could not then recommend him to Yahoo. As it turned out, Thompson took it upon himself to cold email Yahoo board member and Intuit CEO Brad Smith about the job, who then passed Thompson’s interest to Hart.

Heidrick had no involvement in the checking of Thompson, although he later blamed the firm in a public meeting with Yahoo employees for putting the error in his bio in the first place from when he was hired at eBay. Heidrick quickly called the accusation “verifiably not true” in a memo to its own employees.

Sources said that meant that the firm had a resume that Thompson had submitted to it that also contained the error.

But the central mystery of how that mistake appeared on his bio will likely remain just that without further explanation from Thompson.

In a radio interview in 2009, he did not correct a specific question about the twin degrees he appeared to have held and seemed to even agree with the show’s host, Moira Gunn, about them.

Later, she told me in a video interview that Thompson had clearly indicated to her in the prep for that interview that he indeed had a computer science degree.

Still, it is still not clear — and may never be — who put the faux computer science credential on his resume in the first place.

So, with all apologies to Winston Churchill: It might remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

That’s up from the $50,000 “Host Guarantee” the company introduced last year.

The new Host Guarantee, backed by insurer Lloyd’s of London, is more like a product warranty than an insurance policy, said Airbnb Director of Customer Service Monroe Labouisse, who joined the company after a widely publicized Airbnb home-wrecking incident last year.

According to Labouisse, the million-dollar figure wasn’t chosen because the $50,000 limit was too small — in fact, there have been no significant or material claims to date, he said — but rather to further set Airbnb apart from competing rental services, which often charge a fee to cover damage.

Thanks to Amazon.com, you can now preorder it on the e-commerce site for $799.99.

For those unfamiliar with the hotly anticipated phone, here are some of the details: It’s got a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen, runs Android’s 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, has an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera as well as a front camera, and a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor. It also has “S Voice,” clearly inspired by iPhone’s Siri app, allowing a user to control certain functions on the phone using his or her voice. The phone is available in white and “pebble blue.”

But even if it’s a great phone — and even if Amazon’s Prime shipping applies — we have to say, that’s a pretty steep price to get a phone in advance of its release through carriers.

And, as the Amazon listing notes, the unlocked phone — which means its not tied to a wireless network — is “compatible with 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and/or 3G UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA 850/900/1900/2100 wireless networks.”

What does all that gibberish mean? Basically that compatibility with certain wireless networks will be an issue. The Samsung Galaxy S III being sold through Amazon is a GSM phone, which means it won’t work on Verizon or Sprint’s networks. It’s not fully supported by T-Mobile, and while it will work with AT&T’s HSPA+ network, this device won’t work with LTE or 4G networks. (Even the Amazon listing encourages buyers to check with their network providers before purchasing.)

If you don’t mind being tethered to a carrier and would rather have a 4G/LTE-ready version of the phone at a much cheaper price, you’ll probably want to wait out the month, as the phone is expected to come to the U.S. sometime this summer. And at least you’ll know that it will work with your wireless network.

American Express and Zynga are rolling out a rewards program today that will allow players to earn virtual currency when they spend money in the real world.

FarmVille fans willing to jump through a number of hoops, including signing up for a Zynga-branded prepaid card from American Express, will earn in-game currency, similarly to how consumers earn free airline miles for every dollar spent on an airline-issued credit card.

The rewards program will first roll out in Zynga’s FarmVille game and then will expand to CityVille, CastleVille and other titles over time.

The partnership is smart for American Express since it is working hard to promote Serve, its alternative payment service that is targeting a wider demographic that goes beyond its core business user.

“It opens up tremendous opportunities to address segments of the market that we weren’t able to address with traditional credit or charge products, including the youth or underserved markets,” said Dan Schulman, American Express’s President of Enterprise Growth.

By partnering with Zynga, American Express will be able to pitch the card to a lot of new users.

The two companies started implementing the program five days ago, by offering FarmVille players the chance to visit a Serve-branded farm, where they can earn a virtual tiger. In less than a week, Schulman reports that already 500,000 people have “liked” Serve and have received the tiger.

While FarmVille is one of Zynga’s older properties, it is still one of its most popular, attracting 4.5 million unique users a day.

As I said earlier, it takes a number of steps to sign up.

First, FarmVille fans who visit the Serve farm will be prompted to plant a virtual Serve Money Tree on their farm. Then, they can register to receive a Zynga Serve co-branded prepaid card in the mail. Next, they’ll have to link the card to a bank account, debit card, credit card or cash using a GreenDot MoneyPak.

Only when all the steps are completed will they then be able to use the Serve card anywhere American Express is accepted.

Initially, American Express will reward a consumer’s first five purchases of $25 or more, but over time it expects to expand the program.

Starting later this year, Schulman said the Zynga Serve Rewards program will be able to link to deals inside of the game that can be redeemed in person. For instance, Starbucks could award consumers who have planted coffee crops a chance to redeem a coupon inside the store. Because the offer is linked to the Serve card, the discount will be redeemed automatically and consumers won’t have to remember to print out the coupon.

“It’s a closed loop for Zynga players,” Schulman said. “It’s so very different than what anyone else has done.”

Zynga’s CMO Jeff Karp said the program is not replacing the company’s current rewards program, but rather represents an extension of it. “Our goal is to build and scale the blurring of the lines between the virtual world and the physical world,” he said.

He compared it to other promotions that Zynga has done where it worked with brands, such as 7-11 and Frito Lay.

He said during those promotions, consumers were able to purchase bags of chips or other items, which had codes that could be redeemed inside FarmVille or other games. In those deals, consumers were obviously able to make the mental leap from buying something in the physical world to redeeming credits in the virtual world. Karp said the promotions experienced a redemption rate that was five to 10 times industry averages.

“What’s appealing to these brands is our 292 million monthly uniques, which is providing them with the reach of TV with the effectiveness of online and gaming,” he said.

The company is the latest start-up to go after the content-sharing craze, fueled by Pinterest, which allows its members to “pin” images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.

In the same way, StyleSaint allows users to publish and share digital collages of clothing and apparel and to create “tear sheets,” using industry lingo. The collages are formed by pulling together photos and stories from around the Web.

What sets StyleStaint apart from Pinterest and other pure-play content-sharing sites is that this fall it will start designing and manufacturing its very own apparel brand based on the user-generated collections.

StyleSaint officially launched today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, but AllThingsD has the details on its funding round, which closed last year.

The company was founded by Allison Beal, who says she’s been obsessed with making “tear sheets” and “style books” since the age of 13. The other co-founders are CEO Brian Garrett, a veteran entrepreneur in the Los Angeles area, and Brian Weitman, who will be the company’s manufacturing partner and is the CEO of STC/QST and president of WTS Los Angeles, which produces Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s runway collection among other clothing lines.

Since Pinterest hit it big, raising $100 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, other sites have conveniently been claiming that they are like Pinterest but with an e-commerce twist.

Pinterest doesn’t actually sell anything directly to consumers, but it is widely known for driving major traffic to e-commerce sites. Other sites like OpenSky are trying to create the same sense of community by selling items that are sourced and shared by celebrities and other experts who add an editorial and recommendation-driven component to the site.

Joining StyleSaint’s advisory board is Brian Lee, founder of ShoeDazzle; Kate Ciepluch, former creative director of Shopbop; Irene Au, Google’s head of global design; Jimmy Yaffe, co-CEO of Fuel M+C; Brett Brewer, co-founder of Intermix Media; and Soraya Darabi, co-founder of Foodspotting.

Here’s a glimpse into the company’s style via its promo video:

That’s according to the latest data from the NPD Group’s retail tracking service. Sales of 3-D TVs in the U.S. grew 74 percent in units over last year, with 3-D TVs accounting for 11 percent of all flat-panel sales in the first quarter of 2012, the report says.

But despite the growth in sales, and the fact that some consumers are wowed by 3-D demos, “just 14 percent of consumers … say 3D is a ‘must have’ feature while 68 percent say it’s a ‘nice feature to have they may use in the future.’”

The obstacles to greater 3-D penetration are the usual suspects, NPD analyst Ben Arnold says. The overwhelming majority of consumers consider 3-D glasses a drawback to the technology, with glasses-free 3-D still far from being perfected; 14 percent say the lack of 3-D content is a deterrent (though that reason is weakening, as more content creators put out 3-D programs).

Cost is also a factor when it comes to newer, souped-up TVs. NPD says the average prices of 3-D TVs in April were 33 percent lower compared to April 2010, but a recent report from IHS iSuppli says that average prices of 3-D LCD TVs actually crept up a teeny bit from December 2011 to April of this year, to $2,492.

So why buy a 3-D TV if you’re not going to use it for 3-D? Well, for one thing, as noted here, “3-D” has been shifting from the main selling point in TV marketing schemes to an add-on feature that happens to be included in high-tech TV sets, so some consumers are buying 3-D-equipped TVs even if they’ve not totally bought into the tech.

And the underutilization of fancy TVs isn’t really a new thing: Turns out that 3-D engagement levels might be in line with some of the data we’ve seen surrounding “smart” TVs, or Internet-connected TVs. Despite the fact that Internet connectivity is often cited as an important factor for consumers making TV purchases, TechNewsDaily reported earlier this year that only half of all people who own Internet-ready TVs have actually gone online through their TVs.

(Image courtesy of Salminari on Flickr; thought bubble courtesy of AllThingsD)

Ubisoft is releasing a free version of its popular Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon franchise on Facebook today, with the goal of attracting the same hardcore audience that will pay $60 for the console version coming out tomorrow.

In a teaser video, posted on YouTube, Ubisoft’s tagline is: “Finally, a gamer’s game on Facebook.”

Not many publishers have dared to release hardcore games on Facebook because of the technical limitations of Adobe Flash, but also because the platform is largely assumed to attract an audience of 40-year-old women — not exactly the hardcore demographic.

To date, companies such as San Francisco-based Kabam and Kixeye have carved out a niche serving these fanatics, who are small in numbers but tend to get pulled into the game and spend a lot in the free-to-play model.

Now Ubisoft is experimenting with the genre on the platform with the launch of Ghost Recon Commander, a companion title to Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier, which comes out tomorrow for Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation.

Creators of the Facebook version are promising to offer a multiplayer gaming experience that is similar to console play, while still being easy enough for a casual gamer to be interested.

“I wanted a place where you felt you could vacation and also blow it up,” said Brenda Garno Brathwaite, the co-founder of Loot Drop, which developed the game on Ubisoft’s behalf.

In practical terms, that means the Facebook game will have explosions and gunfire, but realistically, it will look and behave very differently from the console version, which will have superior game mechanics and graphics (benefiting from a much bigger budget).

The game is free to play and allows users to pay for additional virtual goods using Facebook Credits.

Still, if there’s anyone who can pull off a stunt like this, it’s Garno Brathwaite. Prior to founding Loot Drop, she worked as a creative director for two social media companies, Slide (acquired by Google) and Lolapps. Before that, she worked at a variety of companies, including Atari, Sir-Tech Software and Electronic Arts. What’s more, she’s a hardcore Ghost Recon fan, having racked up 170 hours of game play in the latest version of the console game.

Drawing from her experiences as a player and game maker, she believes that Ubisoft avoided aspects of social games that hardcore players hate while making it accessible to a large audience, including moms.

“I consider myself a hardcore player. I’m a 45-year-old mom that likes to blow my friends up,” she said.

Garno Brathwaite says the multiplayer social game uses traditional console play experiences by including true combat, including blowing stuff up and shooting other players, but also makes it accessible to players who don’t own a console.

Because of that, the game is slightly different. For starters, it is not a first-person shooter. Instead, the 2-D game is played from the viewpoint of an airplane, looking down at the players. Players form multiplayer alliances with real Facebook friends and then go on missions.

Another difference is that users can play for five minutes and walk away from their computer without exiting the game. If you did that in the console version, you’d be shot dead.

One part of the game that social gamers will recognize is a player’s base camp, where no combat happens. In base camp, the game play is more strategic. Players build buildings and manufacturer resources to bulk up on armor or other things that will allow them to do better in the field.

Here’s the teaser video for the game:

Zynga and LinkedIn were also down on the news, opening off around 2 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

After what many called out as a lackluster performance on its opening day, all eyes are on the company’s ticker this week to see how the shares perform going forward. Scores of financial analysts and armchair investors and much of the technology press expected an initial first-day “pop,” a jump of 10 percent to 20 percent or more for fast-moving retail flippers to make a quick buck.

But as Friday’s trading day came and went, and the stock closed only slightly higher than it debuted, many expected that Facebook shares would open off come Monday morning, especially since underwriters were no longer able to prop up the stock by dipping into the greenshoe like they did on Friday.

A great many argued that Facebook shares were priced perfectly, leaving no money on the table for retail investors to come in and sweep up in the first-day pop that so many had expected. Exercising the allotment option was the underwriters’ job, Fortune’s Dan Primack argued vehemently; first and foremost, Facebook was priced to get the most money it could for going public.

Here’s the thing: Like Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley reminds, Amazon’s debut saw the stock break issue and stay below its IPO price for months.

It then went on — over the long haul — to rise 1000x.

FB data by YCharts

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With the rise of so-called “crowdfunding,” game makers are finding fans online who are willing to pledge a few bucks toward a game they’d like to see produced.

The primary site where these connections are being made is Kickstarter, a three-year old company. Since Kickstarter got off the ground, the games category has garnered $29 million in pledges, according to the New York Times. Other popular categories include film/video, music and design.

Further, it was reported that 854 game developers successfully reached their fundraising goals, raising an average of $29,409 apiece.

Most impressively, three game companies have raised more than $1.5 million each since the beginning of this year: Double Fine raised $3.3 million from 87,000 backers; Wasteland 2 raised $2.9 million; and Shadowrun Returns secured $1.8 million.

Another site, Gambitious, which will be exclusively dedicated to helping game companies raise money, is preparing to launch on June 5 in Los Angeles as part of E3, the industry’s big annual conference.

The shift to nontraditional fundraising is now even catching the eye of megapublishers like Electronic Arts. Last week, EA said developers who crowdsourced funding will be able to sell their games on Origin at no cost for three months.

Origin is the company’s online game store, which allows users to download PC games electronically and counts up to 12 million users worldwide.

“The public support for crowdfunding creative game ideas coming from small developers today is nothing short of phenomenal,” said David DeMartini, EA’s SVP of Origin, in a release. “It’s also incredibly healthy for the gaming industry. Gamers around the world deserve a chance to play every great new game.”

EA doesn’t disclose how much it charges because it says fees can vary, but through this program, developers will now receive 100 percent of sales during the 90-day window plus any pre-sales that are generated before the title officially launches, a spokesman confirmed.

It’s unclear whether crowdfunding is a fad and consumers will tire of it quickly, and to be clear, not every company that requests money is able to get it.

But it pairs nicely with a broader trend in the industry that AllThingsD’s Eric Johnson wrote about last week. He explained that game developers are increasingly finding it advantageous to stay small, rejecting the notion that productions need big budgets in order to create blockbusters.

The evolution has been aided by the rise of three new distribution platforms, Apple’s App Store, Facebook and Valve’s Steam Store (and to a lesser extent, EA’s Origin, which is catching up). With these digital platforms, developers can reach customers without having to package up their software and sell it at retail, saving thousands of dollars.

With the crowdfunding phenomenon completely under way, Videogame Analyst and Consultant Scott Steinberg saw the opportunity to write an e-book on the subject called “Crowdfunding Your Business: A How-To Guide.” In the recently released book, he argues that crowdfunding helps developers identify projects that consumers are willing to pay for, before they’ve wasted the money and time on developing them.

He writes that by “requesting feedback or recruiting help from public donors via open calls for assistance — you can gauge demand for and create bankable products from day one.”

The move is aimed at helping its smaller operations, such as its mobile, search and e-commerce businesses, gain more independence, analysts said. Over the past year Tencent’s profit growth has slowed as it has sought to spend on a wide array of initiatives to solidify its holdings in areas such as mobile chat and online shopping.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The San Francisco game company, led by Mark Pincus, closed at an all-time low today of $7.12 a share, down 13.91 percent, on twice the amount of normal trading volume.

At least for now, we can expect the two companies to trade in lockstep, given their relationship status.

On one hand, Zynga is Facebook’s largest partner, and on the other, Facebook is where Zynga attracts most of its user base. Last year, Zynga accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s revenue, consisting of both advertising and virtual goods sold from within social games.

At this point, Zynga couldn’t move fast enough in trying to limit its exposure to just one company, and is currently focused on increasing revenue from other sources, mainly mobile.

After Facebook opened only modestly this morning, Zynga’s stock fell 13 percent, tripping a standard circuit breaker rule that halts trading when a stock trades down more than 10 percent, according to sources familiar with Nasdaq procedures. When Zynga’s trading resumed minutes later, the company’s stock again was halted when shares shot up by 10 percent.

A Zynga spokeswoman declined to comment.

Zynga’s slide today can pretty much be explained by Facebook’s wild ride that started off at $38 a share, then shot up to $42 a share, before falling back down to close essentially flat at $38.23.

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