Yesterday, it hinted that it will share its plans for leveraging Facebook’s new HTML5 mobile platform, but that there are other surprises to come. The event is titled “Unleashed,” so expect a lot of talk about where the company is headed with mobile in general.

Stay tuned at 10 am PT to hear the latest from the mega-successful social games company, which is currently seeking to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering.

9:57 am: Just showed up, expect the show to kick off any minute.

The press conference is taking place in Zynga’s new headquarters. In the atrium, there’s a big stage set up, and the press gallery is sitting in a bunch of retro chairs. Feels a little bit like an MTV talk show.

Zynga invited my dog, Fletch, to come play at the event, but he doesn’t have a travel budget, so he had to stay home in Seattle.

Pretty fitting that Zynga’s office, a.k.a. “the dog house,” has a hot dog stand. As you may know, the company was named after the dog, Zinga, owned by founder Mark Pincus.

10:10 am: The event may be starting. We are watching an infomercial on how Zynga was able to contribute to Haiti relief after the earthquake.

10:25 am: Ok, while we waited to get things started I was able to go get a Blue Bottle cup of coffee that takes five minutes to drip into the cup. What a perk!

Someone is getting excited. Just heard my first barking dog.

10:35 am: Here we go. There’s a montage of games from Poker to CityVille and Adventure World, Words With Friends and FarmVille. You’ve probably played one of them.

10:37 am: Founder and CEO Mark Pincus has taken the stage.

This is the first media event of any kind we have done in our new building, he says.

He jokes that they are about games, and we should feel comfortable being loud today.

He said they are launching 10 new products today, all of which have been in development for a year. Today we will meet the people and faces behind the innovation.

Pincus: There are 1,700 Zynga employees in this building alone, and at some point they will come out and say hi to us.

Pincus: He wants to know how he can get “you guys” to play games. We are all busy, and how can he get us all to play.

For us, it’s a platform. We aren’t the company that will make the next hit game, we are trying to do something broader than that. We want this experience to make up a platform for play.

10:44 am: Pincus says they spend a lot of time on the “FTUE,” or the “first time user experience.”

We want to give you a five to 15 minute experience that feels like a meal, we don’t try to ask you to change your day. Just like a good show, and I’ve been addicted to “Breaking Bad,” if you do like our games, we hope to give you enough depth for you to invest three, six months or a year.

We are going to show off Zynga Direct, whether on the Web or mobile, we are going to build a whole sandbox around the games and not just in the games. Facebook is here today and we are excited to be their launch partner for their platform announced yesterday. We’ll be showing off three HTML5 games that will be part of that.

When we unveil the pieces of Zynga Direct, we hope that you see that it is the deepest Facebook Connect experience on the Web today.

10:48 am: We are showing you CastleVille today, which is the next Ville game in our franchise. That game has been in development for more than a year, and it has beautiful art. It has new ways to collaborate and get ahead by partnering with other players in the game.

We are going to show you a new casual games category today in the hidden objects genre.

David Ko, Zynga’s chief mobile officer, will be showing a number of mobile titles launching in the next few weeks.

10:51 am: Pincus is now handing over the stage to Cadir Lee, CTO, who is in charge of building out so much of the technology in the back-end.

10:52 am: Lee: The first thing I want to talk about is our gaming engine, which has been built from scratch on Adobe’s Flash 11.

We have our own private cloud called “Z Cloud,” which is focused on being able to play our games all of the time no matter if it’s Christmas Eve. We’ve been known to deploy a 1,000 servers in one week in order to support a new game.

This isn’t the sexy stuff, but Zynga’s cloud and gaming engine technology is key. Often, the company is considered an analytics-driven company, rather than a gaming company. Lee is touching on some of this now.

Lee: We’ve long been known as an analytics company, which shows how our players engage. How do we match people up, so that you can have a social experience with a person across the street or around the world. How do we connect you with the right person at the right time.

Roy Sehgal, VP and GM, is now on stage to unveil a new genre, called “hidden objects.” It’s one that Disney’s Playdom has developed through a game called Gardens of Time.

Zynga says its first game is called Hidden Chronicles.

The concept behind hidden objects is finding clues hidden in a room, sort of like looking for Waldo. They are right in front of you, but difficult to find.

Up until Playdom’s release, critics didn’t believe that the popular PC download category could be made into a social game.

Sehgal: It’s going to be social. It’s going to be extremely easy to learn, but hard to master.

10:58 am: You can play with your friends to see who can find the most hidden objects, or provide hints to your friends.

This game is extremely interactive. No matter how many times you play an individual scene, it will be fresh. I believe it will be one of the most beautiful games you will play.

On the screen, Sehgal is showing various scenes that take place on a train, underwater or in the outdoors. The art is rich and historic-looking.

11:00 am: Now there’s a demo of the new Mafia Wars 2, which just launched yesterday, and is promising to be a much richer experience than the original version that came out three-plus years ago.

Since it’s already out, feel free to check it out on Facebook. No need to read a description here.

11:06 am: Mafia Wars 2 is also now live on Google+, which is the company’s second game on the platform after Poker. Remember, Google has a substantial stake in Zynga.

11:07 am: There’s an update to Zynga’s Poker game next. It was launched in July 2007, and after four years, we are still the largest and most social Poker game.

Zynga is unveiling Zynga Casino, including Zynga Bingo.

Casino games has been identified as one of the leading categories on Facebook with others experiencing lots of success, including DoubleDown Casino.

Zynga Bingo will be launching soon.

11:10 am: Bill Jackson, Creative Director, is now on stage. He’s from the company’s Dallas studios, and he says they developed the latest in the Ville franchise, called CastleVille.

The other Villes in the franchise are FarmVille, FrontierVille, CityVille and now CastleVille.

Jackson: It’s a new level of social, and offers the best of all the Ville games have to offer.

The game has a whole new cast of characters, who look like they are from Shrek, complete with rugged heros and refined ladies who fall in love.

Jackson: CastleVille takes storytelling to a whole new level, and in a personal way. Your journey through the game is different based on who you are.

Zynga is bringing massively mutliplayer role-playing games to the mass market.

CastleVille will have music from an entire orchestra that was recorded in Seattle. Jackson says this is the first time this has been done in a social game, although it is common in console games.

11:18 am: The peanut gallery has been asked to turn around to see all of the Zynga employees — or at least half of them — that have gathered around the balconies of the atrium.

Pincus: We just wanted you to see a few more faces.

Pincus is now introducing John Schappert, who recently joined Zynga as COO from Electronic Arts. He has taken over running all of our games, leaving Pincus to be more entrepreneurial.

11:22 am: Schappert: We are building every kind of play for everyone, everywhere.

We are building on iOS, Facebook, Android, Google+ and Tencent in China.

Helping us deliver on play anytime, anywhere, is David Ko, chief mobile officer.

Ko has an update on Zynga’s mobile plans, which have not been as aggressive as others have been in the space so far.

Ko: We’ve always felt that we need to be the best content creators out there, regardless of what platform.

It’s my pleasure to not talk to you about one or two new games, but five new games launching shortly. It is around Facebook’s HTML5 platform announced yesterday.

The first two are Words With Friends and Poker, and the third is FarmVille. All three games will be available tomorrow.

Another new game is Mafia ShakeDown. You’ll be able to request missions and have the opportunity to be the next “Don.” This game will be coming soon, so stay tuned.

The last game is called DreamZoo, which is Zynga’s first game in the zoo genre.

In a short video, Zynga shows off DreamZoo. You can collect animal varieties and feed and clean your animals.

11:29 am: Schappert is back on stage. He says they have over 60 million daily active users, and they play games over two million minutes everyday.

He is unveiling something called Project Z, which is a Facebook Connect enabled platform. It allows you to play in an environment that’s tailored just for games.

In a sneak peak, a video says players are able to chat, share and form instant communities worldwide.

Schappert: It’s a social gaming playground. You can start a game on Project Z and then continue on Facebook and vice versa. It’s not launching today, but people can start creating a gamer tag starting worldwide today.

11:32 am: Pincus is back on stage to wrap up the presentation:

We really want to build a platform for play. We haven’t changed our vision since starting. We want to be the biggest macro bet on social gaming. We believe in social gaming. We believe that everyone around the world will embrace play, so everything we are doing is an attempt to bring that to life.

We know it’s early and it’s primitive, we know so much of game play and social-ness is early, and over the next few years it’s going to be so much more. It’s going to be mobile. There’s going to be a World of Warcraft feeling, but something you can understand in five minutes.

11:35 am: OK, that’s it folks. Formal presentation is over.

In summary, before today, there were a few niches that Zynga had not yet entered. That left opportunities for competitors to do well on Facebook. With Zynga’s 10 announcements today, including a number of new mobile and social games, the gaps have narrowed significantly.

Zynga has expanded into new genres, like hidden objects and more broadly into casino, and has five new games on mobile. It is also launching its all-new standalone online game network separate from Facebook that goes direct to consumers.

If Zynga was looking for a big bang before its IPO, this might have been it.

Thanks for reading — more coverage and analysis coming shortly.

Interestingly, a number of reviews make special mention of its speed (Walt Mossberg describes it as “wicked fast”), a battery life that exceeds Apple’s claims (David Pogue says the battery on his review device lasted 12 hours on a single charge–two hours more than Apple promised), and Apple’s hopes for 1,000 specially designed iPad apps to be available by launch this Saturday.

Below, excerpts from eight of those early reviews.

I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades. But first, it will have to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough of the time, to make it a viable alternative.

– Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

The first iPad is a winner. It stacks up as a formidable electronic-reader rival for Amazon’s Kindle. It gives portable game machines from Nintendo and Sony a run for their money. At the very least, the iPad will likely drum up mass-market interest in tablet computing in ways that longtime tablet visionary and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could only dream of.

– Ed Baig, USA Today

No company can generate as much hype around a product launch as Apple. But that’s perfectly OK because no company is also nearly as successful at producing a new product that can justify almost any level of excitement that precedes it. They don’t do it with every product launch, but bloody hell: they’ve done it with the iPad….The most compelling sign that Apple got this right is the fact that despite the novelty of the iPad, the excitement slips away after about ten seconds and you’re completely focused on the task at hand…whether it’s reading a book, writing a report, or working on clearing your Inbox. Second most compelling: in situation after situation, I find that the iPad is the best computer in my household and office menagerie. It’s not a replacement for my notebook, mind you. It feels more as if the iPad is filling a gap that’s existed for quite some time.

– Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun Times

The techies are right about another thing: the iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it–books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on. For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience–and a deeply satisfying one. The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine. The only question is: Do you like the concept?

– David Pogue, New York Times

Is the iPad a perfect product? No. And the omissions will give the anti-Apple crowd plenty of ammo. Why do I need this extra device that’s not a full-fledged laptop? Where’s the camera? What about Flash? Um, how about multitasking? These are all valid complaints, but one thing I can say about most Apple products, and certainly the iPad: There may be things it doesn’t do, but what it does do, it does remarkably well. Aside from the aforementioned limitations, there isn’t a lot else to gripe about. And to my great surprise, you can actually get real work done with the iPad.

– Tim Gideon, PCMag

Manic, nonstop use revealed a number of things: battery life is better than I anticipated. I got a full day of constant internet-connected use (it barely left my hands) on one charge. It fits well in my lap when eating, and it’s easy to wipe off stray noodles and arugula leaves and get right back to Twittering….I like it a lot. But it’s the things I never knew it made possible–to be revealed or not in the coming months–that will determine whether I love it.

– Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing

It turns out the iPad isn’t as much a laptop replacement as I thought (though it could easily be used as one). Instead, it’s an entirely new category of mobile device. For example, now when I want to surf the Web from the couch or back deck, the iPad is the device I choose. Starbucks? Same thing. Think of the iPad as a new arrow in your technology quiver, an arrow that will often be the best tool for a given task. I had high expectations for the iPad, and it has met or exceeded most of them.

– Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle

Apple’s engineers know something those other companies don’t: form has trumped function. You can load up a tablet with horsepower and extra features till it can do your taxes and lick the stamp, but if it’s not instantly obvious how to use those features without a manual–and if you don’t look good using them–nobody cares. The iPad isn’t wildly feature-rich. It doesn’t run Flash, and the only browser it runs is Safari. Like the iPhone, it can’t multitask, and it doesn’t appear to have a serious file-handling system. I’ve tried its much ballyhooed full-size virtual keyboard, and it feels like typing with frostbite. It doesn’t even have a damn camera. But you will care about it, because whoever designed its graceful lines and intuitive interface cared about you.

– Lev Grossman, Time

This morning, Apple (AAPL) broadcast invitations to a product launch gathering to be held that day at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The invite features another variation of the iconic iPod silhouette and the tagline, “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” so presumably the event will focus on music, as expected.

Beatles fans will no doubt note that Sept. 9 is also the day the group’s Rock Band videogame will arrive at market. Coincidence, or could Wednesday be the day the Beatles catalog finally comes to iTunes? We’ll find out next Wednesday.

Interestingly, HTC recently said that its 2009 revenue would decline, after earlier forecasting a 10 percent increase. The reason for the fall? Delays in product launches.

Coincidence? Tough to say. One thing’s certain, though: If the Lancaster has been delayed or ends up being scrapped, it’s bad news for HTC, which will soon face increased competition from Motorola (MOT), Sony Ericsson and other handset vendors developing phones for Google’s (GOOG) Android.

Interestingly, HTC recently said that its 2009 revenue would decline, after earlier forecasting a 10 percent increase. The reason for the fall? Delays in product launches.

Coincidence? Tough to say. One thing’s certain, though: If the Lancaster has been delayed or ends up being scrapped, it’s bad news for HTC, which will soon face increased competition from Motorola (MOT), Sony Ericsson and other handset vendors developing phones for Google’s (GOOG) Android.

One of the investments we make is to introduce new products that initially cost more because they deliver an entirely new level of value to the customer. Then we ride the cost curves down with value engineering and volume manufacturing, leaving us far head of our competitors. We have some of these types of investments in front of us that I can’t discuss.”

– Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, July 21, 2008

The media will gather tomorrow at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters for an invitation-only event–presumably about updates to its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. And as with every Apple (AAPL) product launch, tomorrow’s has been preceded by feverish speculation about what form, exactly, those updates will take. Among the rumors currently making the rounds:

• Apple will uncrate a new line of MacBooks whose cases are carved from a single brick of aircraft-grade aluminum.
• Apple’s refreshed MacBook line will include a machine priced at below $1000, perhaps even as low as $800.
• The new MacBooks will feature glass, multi-touch trackpads and LED-backlit displays.
• They’ll swap out Intel’s chipset–not the central processor–for Nvidia’s MCP7A, which reportedly blows the doors off Intel’s G45 in the graphics department.
• Blu-ray will be offered as an option on high-end models.
• Finally, Apple’s new line of portables will include the unmatchable “state-of-the-art new product” to which Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook referred earlier this year, and that product will be a tablet. Something along the lines of the “MacBook Touch” described by MacDailyNews back in July.
  

  Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like but fuller-featured multi-touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. … App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too.”

An interesting spread of rumors, some quite likely, others improbable … and yet entirely plausible because, after all, it’s Apple we’re talking about. We’ll find out which of these proves true tomorrow at 10 a.m. PDT. I’ll be covering the event live, so be sure pay us a visit tomorrow.

One of the investments we make is to introduce new products that initially cost more because they deliver an entirely new level of value to the customer. Then we ride the cost curves down with value engineering and volume manufacturing, leaving us far head of our competitors. We have some of these types of investments in front of us that I can’t discuss.”

– Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, July 21, 2008

The media will gather tomorrow at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters for an invitation-only event–presumably about updates to its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. And as with every Apple (AAPL) product launch, tomorrow’s has been preceded by feverish speculation about what form, exactly, those updates will take. Among the rumors currently making the rounds:

• Apple will uncrate a new line of MacBooks whose cases are carved from a single brick of aircraft-grade aluminum.
• Apple’s refreshed MacBook line will include a machine priced at below $1000, perhaps even as low as $800.
• The new MacBooks will feature glass, multi-touch trackpads and LED-backlit displays.
• They’ll swap out Intel’s chipset–not the central processor–for Nvidia’s MCP7A, which reportedly blows the doors off Intel’s G45 in the graphics department.
• Blu-ray will be offered as an option on high-end models.
• Finally, Apple’s new line of portables will include the unmatchable “state-of-the-art new product” to which Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook referred earlier this year, and that product will be a tablet. Something along the lines of the “MacBook Touch” described by MacDailyNews back in July.
  

  Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like but fuller-featured multi-touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. … App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too.”

An interesting spread of rumors, some quite likely, others improbable … and yet entirely plausible because, after all, it’s Apple we’re talking about. We’ll find out which of these proves true tomorrow at 10 a.m. PDT. I’ll be covering the event live, so be sure pay us a visit tomorrow.

One interesting development in today’s whipsaw session was the emergence of what appears to be some selective bottom-fishing. Apple (AAPL) was the most obvious example; the stock rebounded $8.06, or 9.1 percent, to $96.80, aided by some bullish comments from Oppenheimer as well as anticipation of the company’s pending launch of new laptops at an event on Tuesday.

Read the rest of this post

iPhone is launching in one carrier in one country. We’re in about 100 countries and 300 carriers. … The momentum we are seeing in terms of product launches, carrier support in terms of product launches of BlackBerries, and subscriber additions is exceptional, and we believe it will continue on into the second half of the year.”

– Research in Motion Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie, June 2007

Looks like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays–Research in Motion. Shares in the company slipped more than 6 percent to a new 52-week low today. This after charting a new 52-week low last Friday driven by the 27 percent drop RIM took after it issued a lower-than-expected forecast for the current period. That decline was the company’s steepest in eight years, belying CEO Jim Balsillie’s claims that emerging competition from new handset makers isn’t undermining its competitive position. And though RIM’s product roadmap is relatively strong heading into the fall season, the company still has its work cut out for it scrapping with Apple (AAPL) and its iPhone and now T-Mobile (DT) and the Android-based G1.

“RIM’s business model is starting to show its pressure points. The company has become increasingly dependent on hardware sales. As a result, the timing of new product launches can have a big impact on their results,” wrote Brian Modoff of Deutsche Bank in a report. “We think this trend will only worsen and their numbers are now, more than ever, dependent on a steady stream of hit products.”

Needham and Company analyst Craig Bisagna was even more dubious of prospects for Research in Motion (RIMM), criticizing the company for its foolishly dismissive attitude toward new rivals. Just because Windows Mobile handsets haven’t proven themselves worthy competitors to the Blackberry doesn’t mean the iPhone or the G1 won’t.

“We continue to believe that the company has its head in the sand,” Bisagna said in a note to clients. “It’s delusional to think [Apple and HTC] won’t cut into BlackBerry sales as well, especially in the consumer market.”

iPhone is launching in one carrier in one country. We’re in about 100 countries and 300 carriers. … The momentum we are seeing in terms of product launches, carrier support in terms of product launches of BlackBerries, and subscriber additions is exceptional, and we believe it will continue on into the second half of the year.”

– Research in Motion Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie, June 2007

Looks like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays–Research in Motion. Shares in the company slipped more than 6 percent to a new 52-week low today. This after charting a new 52-week low last Friday driven by the 27 percent drop RIM took after it issued a lower-than-expected forecast for the current period. That decline was the company’s steepest in eight years, belying CEO Jim Balsillie’s claims that emerging competition from new handset makers isn’t undermining its competitive position. And though RIM’s product roadmap is relatively strong heading into the fall season, the company still has its work cut out for it scrapping with Apple (AAPL) and its iPhone and now T-Mobile (DT) and the Android-based G1.

“RIM’s business model is starting to show its pressure points. The company has become increasingly dependent on hardware sales. As a result, the timing of new product launches can have a big impact on their results,” wrote Brian Modoff of Deutsche Bank in a report. “We think this trend will only worsen and their numbers are now, more than ever, dependent on a steady stream of hit products.”

Needham and Company analyst Craig Bisagna was even more dubious of prospects for Research in Motion (RIMM), criticizing the company for its foolishly dismissive attitude toward new rivals. Just because Windows Mobile handsets haven’t proven themselves worthy competitors to the Blackberry doesn’t mean the iPhone or the G1 won’t.

“We continue to believe that the company has its head in the sand,” Bisagna said in a note to clients. “It’s delusional to think [Apple and HTC] won’t cut into BlackBerry sales as well, especially in the consumer market.”