Here are a few of the top stories in which eMarketer data and analysis were featured this week:

6/3: AdAge.com – Why Apple, Ford and Zappos Have All Invested in Branded Mobile Codes
Dell, Apple, Zappos, Google, Ford, Oprah, Jet Blue, ESPN, 1-800-Flowers, the Girl Scouts Coke, Good Morning America and The Chicago Bulls are among the companies in the forefront of a mobile marketing trend most haven’t even heard of yet. Read more.

6/3: Forbes.com – Who Will Be Left Standing Post-Groupon IPO?
Groupon has filed the paperwork for its IPO. Already the furious debate has started about whether it is a worthwhile investment. Read more.

6/2: Wall Street Journal – Facebook Calls Ceglia Contract A Fake
Facebook Inc. on Thursday filed legal documents calling a contract alleged to entitle a New York man to a large ownership stake in the closely-held online social network a fake. Read more.

6/2: MediaPost Online – Deal Me In: Amazon Launches AmazonLocal
Amazon invested $175 million in LivingSocial last year, but Thursday it cemented a place in its own daily deals space by launching into the first local offering through AmazonLocal. Read more.

6/2: DigiDay – The Upfront’s Biggest Loser? The Web
While various pundits will debate whether Fox or CBS or ABC fared better during this year’s broadcast upfront, there’s no doubt who the Biggest Upfront Loser was: the Web. Read more.

6/2: MediaPost Online – How To Start Winning At Online Video
With the mobile and tablet market growing daily, it comes as no surprise to many that more TV ad spend dollars are shifting to online video. eMarketer estimates that by 2015, 76% of Internet users, or 195.5 million people, will watch video content online every month. Read more.

6/2: SFGate.com – Twitter to let users put photos, videos in tweets
Twitter Inc., which started as a short text-only service, on Wednesday said it will roll out a new way to directly share photos and videos in a tweet. Read more.

6/1: Guardian Online – Twitter and Google fight back against Facebook’s Like button
Facebook’s tentacular reach across the internet was accelerated by its ‘like’ button, which now seems a ubiquitous part of the browsing experience from news and blogs to corporate and retail sites. Read more.

6/1: USA Today – New Zynga game ‘Empires & Allies’ to launch on Facebook
Launching on Facebook Wednesday, Empires & Allies goes beyond the tilling of farms and construction of cities to the building of a war machine. Read more.

6/1: Reuters – Twitter CEO says 80 percent of advertisers renew
More than 80 percent of the companies that advertise on Twitter renew their marketing efforts on the microblogging service, the company’s chief executive said on Wednesday. Read more.

5/31: Los Angeles Times – YouTube counting on former Netflix exec to help it turn a profit
Google Inc.’s YouTube was counting on Hollywood’s love affair with sequels when it hired Robert Kyncl as its emissary to the studios. Read more.

5/31: MediaPost Online – How Social, Not Search, Can Retarget Ads
Nuances in announcements, rather than the news itself, should make marketers sit up and take notice. For example, when IBM announced acquisitions related to marketing and advertising signaled that Big Blue would step heavily into online marketing and advertising services. Read more.

5/31: ClickZ.com – Niche Media Planning: Ad-Supported Mobile Games
Last year, Nielsen found that when it comes to mobile use, games – both free and paid – represent the most popular app downloads (65 percent). Read more.

For more of eMarketer’s recent news coverage, click here.

eMarketer expects the number of US social gamers to grow to 68.7 million in 2012, from 53 million in 2010. That represents 29.5% growth over two years and, coincidentally, 29% of the Internet population playing social games by 2012.

What’s behind our user projections?

Our audience forecast assumes that the fundamentals of the social gaming industry will remain in place for at least the next two years. These fundamentals are a deep well of simple games that appeal to large audiences; social sharing features on Facebook and on third-party platforms that allow users to connect to Facebook; and non-real-time playing capabilities.

eMarketer’s user estimates are based on data from sources including Trendstream/Lightspeed Research, BlogHer/iVillage, Newzoo BV, Ipsos OTX MediaCT, ThinkEquity, TrustE, NPD Group and Inside Social Games. These companies looked at social gaming across all platforms, including Facebook and MySpace.

Our figures are generally more conservative than those of other research firms. Here’s why. We noticed there has been a recent drop in cumulative monthly active users among the top 15 games on Facebook, according to Inside Social Games, a resource for user data on social gaming, which releases usage data every month on a game-by-game basis.
This index showed month-to-month drops from September to December 2010, as well as a year-over-year decrease from December 2009 to December 2010.

Since most published estimates of the social gaming audience were based on surveys conducted before this trend emerged, we thought it would be prudent to issue a more guarded estimate than other researchers.
True, there was a rebound in monthly active users in January thanks to the recent launch of Zynga’s popular CityVille, but this spike was not enough to prevent a year-over-year decrease for January 2011 as well.

It’s worth explaining that this data is not a comprehensive measure of social gaming usage. For starters, Inside Social Games compiles worldwide monthly active users on a game-specific basis without regard to overlap among games.

Also, the index that showed a downward trend was limited to the top games on Facebook, which accounts for about three-fourths of social gaming traffic, according to eMarketer estimates. The next-largest social gaming venue, MySpace, showed a 6% increase in cumulative monthly active users from January 2010 to January 2011, according to Inside Social Games.

It’s also worth considering that the drops starting in September might have been precipitated by changes in Facebook’s notification policies. The social network started limiting game notifications to users who already played games. Previously, all users were notified of their Facebook friends’ social gaming activities, which helped the viral spread of the games.

With these caveats in mind, eMarketer’s conclusion is that the Inside Social Games data is not a surefire sign of waning interest, but it does put a damper on expectations. Accordingly, we’re forecasting growth–but at a slower rate than what we’ve seen over the past two years.

Look for my upcoming report, “Social Gaming: Marketers Make Their Moves.”

A rave review in The New York Times of the motion capabilities of the Microsoft Kinect system for the Xbox 360 game console got me thinking about the ups and downs of the video game industry, and how social and mobile gaming fit into the overall picture.

Despite the Times’ enthusiasm about the Kinect box, most of the news from the traditional gaming industry has been bleak. According to NPD Group, in the first three quarters of this year US video game software, hardware and accessories revenues were down 8% compared with the same period in 2009 – and last year revenues were down 8% from 2008.

Nintendo posted its first half-year loss in seven years. And Viacom announced it’s selling the once-hot Harmonix unit, developer of Rock Band and creator of Guitar Hero. Harmonix had been pulling down Viacom’s earnings for several quarters, including a $260 million write-off in the most recent quarter.

Against this backdrop, social and mobile gaming look especially promising.

eMarketer’s short-term forecast of ad spending on social gaming is pretty aggressive. In the US, we’re expecting ad spending to hit $192 million in 2011, up 33% over 2010. And the non-US growth curve is significantly steeper at 160%—though the dollar amounts are lower.

Keep in mind that estimates of advertising on social games don’t include so-called “offers.” These are lead-generation pitches from marketers such as Netflix and Blockbuster, or surveys that reward participants with virtual cash for social games. According to ThinkEquity, these offers accounted for 47% of US social gaming revenues in 2009. Direct revenues from virtual goods made up some 44% and the remainder came from pure advertising.

On the mobile front, eMarketer expects US revenues to reach $1.5 billion in 2014, from $850 in 2010. Most of the revenue will come from paid downloads, but advertising’s share of the total will grow to 12.3% in 2014, from 6.5% in 2010. Dollar-wise, ad-supported gaming will bring in $186 million in the US in 2014.

It’s no wonder game developers, entertainment conglomerates and Internet giants are diving into social and mobile gaming. Electronic Arts acquired Playfish for $300 million, plus another $100 million if Playfish meets pre-established performance criteria. EA also bought Chillingo, the maker of the popular game app Angry Birds. Disney purchased Playdom for $563 million plus a $199 million earnout. And Google acquired social game maker Slide for $179 million and mobile gaming specialist Social Deck for an undisclosed sum.

Consider also that the granddaddy of social gaming companies, Zynga, was just valued at $5.51 billion, topping EA’s valuation of $5.16 billion. This makes Zynga the second largest video game company, behind Activision Blizzard, which is estimated to be worth $13.9 billion.

Zynga has some 210 million active users, including 62 million on FarmVille alone. Its 2010 revenues are projected at $525 million, and it’s raised $350 million in private capital so far. Most of its action happens on Facebook.

What’s in it for marketers? Quite a bit. There are many ways in which companies can tap into revenue streams associated with social games:

Branded virtual goods. These are rampant in the virtual gaming ecosystem, but to give one example, 7 Eleven partnered with Zynga to create a YoVille Big Gulp, a Mafia Wars Slurpee and FarmVille vanilla ice cream. 7 Eleven gets a cut of the revenue that consumers spend on these virtual goods

In-game billboards. Many companies are inserting their brands into the gaming space. For instance, Honda advertised its CR-Z in Cie Games’ Car Town.

Sponsorship banners. In one of the more clever examples of this kind of brand advertising, National Geographic overlaid its logo on the pitch of the soccer-themed game Bola.

Branded games. Companies are also creating their own games, following the advergaming model in the traditional video game world. One example: a Hello Kitty game.

I’m not ruling out a resurgence in console gaming. After all, this industry has had an impressive track record of reinventing itself. It did it in 2006, when the Wii led a new generation of hardware consoles. And it did it again a couple of years later, when music-themed games were all the rage.

But if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on social and mobile gaming. That’s where all the gaming action seems to be these days.

For most social games, the primary revenue stream has not been advertising. Instead, virtual goods are dominant. However, companies such as Zynga and Playdom are realizing that their games are logical advertising destinations for marketers wanting to get the attention of rabid fans.

eMarketer expects that marketers will spend $220 million worldwide to advertise in social games and social applications in 2010, rising to $293 million in 2011. These figures do not include ads within mobile applications.

eMarketer’s estimates may end up being conservative as the social game business increases its footprint. According to Next Up Research, nearly 80% of Zynga’s revenues come from virtual goods. Even so, the large audience of games such as Zynga’s Farmville is attracting advertiser attention.

For companies such as Zynga, “Advertising will be an important part of the business model,” said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in July 2010. However, he added that he believed that future social game advertising types would need to be “invented” rather than being the same things advertisers have already seen.

To learn more about eMarketer’s coverage of social network advertising and gaming, please click here.

I understand why entertainment giant Disney bought social game developer Playdom. I also understand that sometimes it’s better to buy than build, and this is probably one of those times for Disney. Disney president and CEO Robert Iger stated it clearly when he told BusinessWeek: “You don’t get the kind of growth we want by building from the inside.”

What I’m wondering is whether Playdom was worth the $563 million price tag that Disney plunked down — which will swell to $762 million if Playdom meets predetermined performance benchmarks.

Now, you might say that a few hundred million is a drop in the bucket for Disney. After all, this is a company that had $36 billion in revenues and almost $6 billion in profits in FY 2009. And Disney paid $8.1 billion for Pixar in 2006 and $4.2 billion for Marvel last year, so nosebleed acquisitions are nothing new for Mickey’s team.

Perhaps more to the point, Disney just unloaded Miramax for $660 million, so you could say it “swapped” an aging art-house film unit for an up-and-coming social game developer. Disney made a handsome profit on Miramax, which it bought for $80 million in 1993.

But the fact that Disney can afford this hefty price for Playdom doesn’t mean it makes good fiscal sense. Electronic Arts snapped up Playfish for a comparatively reasonable $275 last year — and Playfish is bigger than Playdom.

Disney is gambling on Playdom’s ability to outmatch its competition, which includes Playfish and the grandaddy of social game makers, Zynga. But Disney is also betting that social gaming won’t die off as a passing fad, and that Facebook and other social venues will continue to support these games. (If it weren’t for Facebook’s massive scale, Zynga would not be anywhere near where it is today). These are some pretty aggressive gambles.

The price tag of this deal reminds me of other notorious acquisitions of the past decade, some of which crippled their buyers: Time Warner/AOL, AOL/Bebo, News Corp./MySpace.

The latter deal didn’t seem so overblown while MySpace was riding the crest of a popularity wave during its acquisition in 2005. Of course, that was before Facebook blew it out of the water, both in user growth and advertising sales. Facebook is expected to top at least $600 million (though recent estimates put the number closer to a billion) in advertising revenue this year, while ad revenue to MySpace is expected to decline 21% to $385 million, according to eMarketer estimates. At this point, MySpace seems like an albatross for News Corp., which on multiple occasions has had to fend off rumors of a fire sale for the flagging unit.

This underscores the risks of paying top-dollar for flavor-of-the-moment properties. It’s all fine and good if those properties can retain their cool and appreciate over time. But very few do. Remember Bebo? It pioneered many of the same concepts that made Facebook successful today, and look where it ended up.

Or take Disney’s own purchase of Club Penguin for $350 million in 2007. The kids-oriented virtual world failed to meet performance benchmarks that would have sweetened the deal, and traffic to the site has been declining. Barring a stunning turnaround, it’s not looking like Club Penguin will go down in history as one of Disney’s corporate coups. Given the steep price Disney is paying, we may be saying the same thing about Playdom—another company who makes its money selling virtual goods—a few years from now.

Image courtesy of Facebook.