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Zynga forays into India; opens office in Bangalore
BANGALORE: Social networking game provider Zynga has forayed into India with the launch of Zynga Game Network India.
Zynga’s first facility outside the US, the office will be based in Bangalore and will focus on game development and large scale infrastructure to support the delivery of Zynga games.
“Initially we plan to hire about 100 best of breed computer scientists and engineers over the next year for our first international facility,” said Zynga India country manager Shan Kadavil.
“Our focus will be on building the next generation infrastructure that can handle the tremendous growth of Zynga games. We plan to building game studios that can do end-to-end game development in India,” he added.
The company says that though most game players play for free, 3 to 5 per cent of the users actually pay to play games. Some of the paying players pay for ‘extra turns’, while others pay for exclusive virtual items and collecting. The desire to spend by the paying players is driven by what Zynga terms as ‘Social capital’.
Zynga CTO Cader Lee revealed that virtual goods were a better revenue generation model than an advertisement based one.
Zynga revealed that according to Think Equity LLC estimates in March 2009, for the five top daily developers, daily actual users’ size had grown by five times over the preceding six months. The top 20 of the 25 applications on Facebook were games as compared to six months before that when 16 games were among the top 50 applications of social networking sites.
Zynga Chief People Officer Colleen McCureary revealed that social networking gaming had a potential to grow to a size of around $10-12 billion over the next two years and estimates the number of social networking game users to grow to around 500 million this year.
Zynga’s has a bouquet of 20 online games currently and plans to launch four more games shortly. Its games are available on Facebook, Myspace, MSM games, Tagged, Yahoo and iPhone include FarmVille, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, Café World, FishVille and Petville.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
