Social game maker Zynga's much anticipated debut on Wall St. didn't go quite as well as planned Friday.

The company finished the trading day at 9.50, 5 percent below its offering price – as investors, fearful of a new tech bubble, steered clear and analysts ripped the company on growth concerns.

Before shares even began trading, one of the gaming industry's more notable analysts – Sterne Agee's Arvind Bhatia – initiated coverage with an "sell" rating, citing the notable slowdown in the company's growth in recent months. And Cowen and Company's Doug Creutz gave the company a "neutral" rating in coverage today.

It's an ugly debut for the company, but not one that will negatively impact it. Founder Mark Pincus holds 70 times more voting power than all of the common stock that went up for sale today, so the performance of the stock has no impact on him (or the rest of Zynga, really). If the company tanks and investors call for his head, he can ignore them. If it soars to Google or Apple territory, he profits.

It's a true win-win – unless you're an investor.

It takes a lot of guts for a social game to turn its back on Facebook, but you probably would expect nothing less of a game based on the Godfather franchise.

The Godfather: Five Families has decided to bypass the largest social networking site and launch exclusively on Google+.

"As Michael Corleone said, 'It’s not personal... It’s strictly business,'" Kabam VP of marketing Ted Simon told Gamasutra. "As we were evaluating our options, Google+ games came to us and put together the most compelling marketing and merchandising package to support the expansion of The Godfather: Five Families and help drive traffic to their platform."

The game, developed by Kabam and backed by Paramount, acts as a prequel to the book and films. Set 10 years before the first film, the game will let players be a part of the rise to power of the Corleones, Straccis, Cuneos, Barzinis and Tattaglias.

The game isn't likely to stay off of Facebook forever, though. Google+ only has a 45 day window of exclusivity, at which time the studio can bring the game to other sites.

Less than three months after formally bursting onto the scene in the United States, streaming music service Spotify has established an impressive foothold.

Reuters reports the company has signed up more than 250,000 paying customers here since its launch. The company revealed last month that its worldwide paying customer base has topped 2 million.

Spotify has not commented on the numbers.

The growth can partially be attributed to the pend up demand for Spotify in recent years. The company built a sterling reputation in Europe, which had US audiences craving it, so an initial burst of registrations wasn't surprising.

Things went into overdrive, though, when Facebook brought the company on stage at its f8 conference this year to showcase its new app structure that will allow users to share content. That put Spotify front and center among the social network's 800 million users. Today, the service is being used by almost 7 million Facebook users.

Launched in 2006, Spotify offers both a free as-supported service as well as the ad-free premium service, which can also be used on mobile devices. The service has a catalog of roughly 13 million songs, adding as many as 10,000 per day.

Facebook's a great way to waste 10-15 minutes. You can catch up with friends. You can let everyone know about the mundane details of your day. And you can learn more about your favorite brands and entertainment content.

Unfortunately, that 10-15 minutes often ends up being a lot longer per day – and, as a result, social media has grown into a viable threat to entertainment companies who are alredy fighting for viewers' attention..

A new Nielsen study finds that Americans spend more time on Facebook than anywhere else on the Web. While there's no real surprise there, the sheer volume of time people are spending is staggering.

In May 2011, we spent 53.5 billion minutes on the site. In other words, in one month, people spent the equivalent of over 101,000 years reading status updates and looking at photos.

Put another way, Facebook's dwell time is higher than that of Yahoo!, Google, all of the AOL sites and all of the MSN/Bing sites put together – with nearly 3 billion minutes to spare.

That's why more studios are looking to monetize that audience. Warner Bros. began offering movie rentals through Facebook in March. Now Miramax is jumping on that bandwagon, utilizing the Ooyala social service, allowing people to chat about the movies with others as they watch.

Facebook (and other, smaller social networks) present an attractive potential audience for video on demand – and an additional revenue stream. So far, though, the experiments have focused on older catalog releases. What many people want to know, though, is when a studio will be willing to try streaming a new home release on the site.

Social networks also present an opportunity. Ooyala's tech lets studios arrange private film streamings/screenings, which could be a low-cost way to run focus groups for trailers or test bonus content for DVD/Blu-Ray.

Facebook represents a wide open world for the entertainment industry. The question is: Who will learn to capitalize on it first?

Social network games maker Zynga may postpone its debut on Wall Street, giving the company time to address SEC concerns and ride out the current instability among investors.

The company's IPO, initially planned for early September, had been looked at as one of the most promising listings of the year, perhaps even moreso than LinkedIn, whose shares more than doubled when they began trading in May.

The New York Post reported late Sunday that the game developer/publisher had opted to push its first ay of trading as far back as November due to the rocky nature of the stock market since the downgrade to the U.S. credit rating this month.

However, CNBC adds that the delay is also due to questions the Securities and Exchange Commission has about how the company measures daily and monthly users.

In its filing with the SEC at the beginning of July, Zynga said it was averaging 62 million daily active users to its games as of March 31. Collectively, they spend 2 billion minutes per day playing the games. And the number of people playing them has increased steadily since last September.

CNBC did not specify exactly what sort of questions the SEC had raised about the calculations, but noted Zynga had had "extensive talks" with the commission about the subject.

At long last, Zynga has confirmed its plans to go public.

The company on Friday filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission, announcing plans to raise $1 billion through publicly traded shares. That wasn't the interesting part, though. The really fascinating stuff was in the details.

Here are a few of the highlights from Zynga's S-1 (which you can read in its entirety here):

Current number of employees: 2,268

Global player base: 232 million

2010 profits: $90.6 million

First quarter 2011 profits: $11.8 million

Amount of time players spend in Zynga games per day: 2 billion minutes

Year the company's terms of service contact with Facebook expires: 2015

CEO Mark Pincus' 2010 salary: $300,000

CEO Mark Pincus' 2010 salary (including bonuses): $520,239

EVP Owen Van Natta's 2010 salary (including bonuses): $43.2 million

Odd bonuses: Reggie Davis, the company's general counsel, was given a paid two-night trip to see a concert out of town in thanks for his long hours.

Number of shares owned by Mark Pincus: 105.6 million

Rent Zynga pays for office space: $28,000 per month

Owner of that office space: Mark Pincus

Amount paid to use private aircraft for business trips in 2009-2010: $145,000

Owner of that aircraft: Mark Pincus

As if Facebook weren't a big enough time suck, one of the most addictive titles in the video game industry is set to invade the social network.

"Civilization World," which has been development for years and in closed beta testing for months, may finally go live to the general public this summer, says developer Sid Meier.

The founder of Firaxis Software tells CNN that bringing the game, where players strive for world domination, to Facebook has been one of its most dramatic stretches to date – but seemed a natural way to re-imagine the game.

"What was really intriguing to us was being able to emphasize cooperative game play, which was something that really hadn't been a major part of 'Civilization' up to now," he said. "A lot of our design in 'Civ World' was taking advantage and using these opportunities for players to work together -- teamwork, communication, planning. Those are all the things that become really important to 'Civ World.'"

While it's nice to finally have some idea of when to expect the game, don't mark it in ink on your calendar just yet. First announced in October 2009, "CivWorld" was originally slated to go into beta testing last June – but the deadline came and went without an acknowledgement.

Video game industry veteran John Schappert, who has served as chief operating officer at Electronic Arts for the past two years, has quietly left the company.

Schappert's last day was yesterday – and media reports indicate he plans to join social gamers maker (and EA rival) Zynga in an undisclosed role.

If those reports are accurate, it would be one of Zynga's most high-profile hires to date. The company has quietly been cherry picking developers from several studios, but with Schappert in a senior role, the company would be much better positioned for its long-rumored IPO.

Before his stint at EA, Schappert spent two years running Microsoft's Xbox Live division. He is also the founder of Tiburon Studios, which makes the Madden (and several other sports) games for EA. All totaled, he comes with over 20 years of industry experience.

EA, of course, has been expanding steadily into the social gaming space, where Zynga is the undisputed market leader. In 2009, the company bought Playfish in a deal worth up to $400 million. Since then, EA has been increasingly relying on that division to drive up digital revenues.

Last year, Zynga's estimated market cap surpassed that of EA, topping $5.5 billion. Insiders have been waiting for the company to announce plans for an IPO for some time now, noting that the company has grown much too big to be acquired. 

Social game maker Zynga is shoring up its Hollywood ties.

Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffery Katzenberg has joined the company's board of directors. The move is the latest in a series of moves by Zynga to align itself with the broader entertainment industry.

“Jeffrey redefined storytelling when he launched DreamWorks Animation,” said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga in a statement. “He turned an independent studio into a brand name, and his vision will be an asset as we work to define the future of play.”

Katzenberg joins an all-star board, which already includes former EA executive Bing Gordon and venture capitalist Brad Feld. The appointment is effective immediately.

Zynga and DreamWorks first worked together last year, promoting "Megamind" through an in-game promotion in "FarmVille". And the collaboration could help the company tie into other studios looking to capitalize on the rising social gaming genre.

Zynga, for its part, made the public announcement with its tongue firmly planted in cheek, as usual.

"DreamWorks Animation is a revolutionary technology company, a recognized consumer brand, and at its core, a media company," the company wrote on its blog. "It’s easy to see the value that Jeffrey will add to Zynga as we grow and look for more ways to delight our players. … I'm looking forward to his guidance, his leadership, and about 1,500 tickets to the opening night of 'Kung Fu Panda 2'."

Warner Bros. is doubling down with Facebook.

Roughly three weeks after offering "The Dark Knight" for streaming via the social network, the studio has added five more films – including a trio of recent releases.

“Inception,” “Life as We Know It” and “Yogi Bear” are all available immediately, each carrying a $4 price tag. That's a buck higher than the catalog content the studio offers, which (in addition to "The Dark Knight") now includes “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets".

Warner's being selective with its rollouts, relying on the popularity of films with the Facebook audience guide its choices. Execs say the fan pages for Harry Potter and "Inception" are "two of the most popular and active communities on the site."

As with the first Facebook offering, Buyers will be able to watch the film through their Facebook account for up to 48 hours from purchase and pay with Facebook credits, rather than directly via a credit card.

Films can be viewed in full-screen and watched in segments (with the film resuming where left off the next time user log in). Users can also use other Facebook features while watching the film, such as posting comments or status updates.