Anybody who has a facebook account has no doubt heard of Zynga. Zynga is the company that popularized poker in the said social network site, allowing the users to play the game for free, with absolutely no real money risk involved. Zynga Poker is their third most popular game, after Farmville and Frontierville, and it seems as if they’re seeking to make it even more popular by expanding to the Chinese market.

Check or Fold

Zynga, if you can still recall, was the first company to provide Facebook users with a free poker application in which only virtual money was used. This allowed people to have a taste of what online poker feels like without having to risk any of their money. Needless to say, the application became viral, and millions of users were drawn in. Zynga says that there are 30 million people who have played Zynga Poker, although it is not known how many of them remain active. Zynga did not stop at facebook, either, they went on to ensure that Zynga Poker was able throughout the different social networking sites, such as MySpace, MyYahoo, and Tagged.

They even made an application for iPhones so that people can access the game anytime and anywhere as long as there’s internet connectivity. But it seems as if Zynga isn’t done with poker yet, as they have just recently made a move to make it available to the people in Taiwan and China. As you may well know, Facebook and other networking sites have been banned in these countries. They’ve launched a Chinese version of the game. This appears to be the first direct result of the acquisition of XPD Media, now called Zynga Beijing.

The Number 8 for Luck

This attempt to move into the Chinese market by Zynga was made stronger by the presence of various promotional tactics, such as the use of the number ‘8’ in sweetening the deal, so to speak. The number 8 is a powerful number in the Chinese culture and is said to bring good luck. Those who wish to join the new network will be given a chance to win $880,000 Taiwanese dollars. Furthermore, everyone who joins early will get a poker bonus of 8888 virtual chips. Zynga’s aim is to find new players from the previously untapped markets in the globe. Zynga is also planning to move into Japan with the help of the software company, Softbank.

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