Zynga Loosens Its Deal With Facebook:

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Zynga Loosens Its Deal With Facebook: No Longer Tied To Facebook Ad Units, Credits, Or Exclusivity:

Zynga just filed a document with the SEC outlining new terms in its agreement with Facebook. Overall, it seems that Zynga and Facebook establishing a little more distance and flexibility in their relationship, with Zynga being treated more like any other Facebook developer.

According to the filing, any “standard Zynga game page” that uses Facebook data will now be governed Facebook’s standard terms of service. That means games on Zynga’s new-ish Zynga.com platform are no longer obligated to use Facebook ad units and Facebook credits. In exchange, Zynga’s right to cross-promote its non-Facebook games using Facebook data and email addresses is now limited by the standard terms.

The filing also states that Facebook no longer has the exclusive rights to Zynga’s social game launches. Of course, Zynga still plans to have a big presence on Facebook, saying its games “will generally be available through the Facebook web site concurrent with, or shortly following, the time such game is made available on another social platform or a Zynga property.”

As Mike Issac, the amendment also states that as of March 31 of next year, “Facebook will no longer be prohibited from developing its own games,” although Facebook denies that it has any intention to actually build its own games. Sources close to Facebook-Zynga negotiations tell us Facebook didn’t even want the clause in the filing.

Here’s a statement from Zynga Chief Revenue Officer Barry Cottle:

Zynga’s mission is to connect the world through games. In order to do this, Zynga is focused on building enduring relationships with consumers across all platforms from Facebook and Zynga.com on the web to tablets and mobile. Our amended agreement with Facebook continues our long and successful partnership while also allowing us the flexibility to ensure the universal availability of our products and services.

Opera Maps Global Mobile Social Network Usage:

Opera Maps Global Mobile Social Network Usage: Facebook Most Frequently Visited On Phones In Macau, Twitter In Paraguay:

Want to see an atlas of Facebook mobile usage across the world? Browser maker Opera has released its 2012 State of Mobile Web report which measures social networking popularity by looking at the number of Opera Mini users who visit them. Data is aggregated from the servers powering the browser’s data compression — enabling the company to build up an (anonymous) picture of the mobile social web across more than 190 countries.

Here’s how Facebook mobile usage looks when mapped — with darker coloured regions denoting a higher percentage of Opera Mini visitors

From a glance at the graphic it appears that North America should claim the Facebook usage crown but the top-ranking Facebook territory, in terms of percentage of Opera Mini users who visit per month, is actually Macau — where more than 90 percent of all Opera Mini users visit Facebook at least once per month, according to Opera’s data. In the US, the figure is a more modest 49.54 percent.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook tops the list of most popular social networks globally — with 50.6 percent of Opera Mini’s 194 million users visiting it on their phone at least once during the month of October. In terms of total user numbers — not only percentage of users — Opera says Asian countries are on top of the list for Facebook: namely Indonesia and India, followed by Nigeria, Mexico, Vietnam, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia and Turkey.

Here’s the corresponding map for Twitter mobile usage

The top countries for total usage for Twitter are remarkably similar to Facebook, according to Opera’s data: with Indonesia on top, followed by India, Nigeria, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, Kenya and the Philippines. When it comes to highest number of visits to Twitter on mobile per month, Paraguay takes the lead ahead of Japan.

Opera notes that most countries have “one extremely dominant social network” but its data also shows certain countries have a more diverse spread of social-networking activity. It singles out European high-tech hub Estonia as having “remarkable” diversity compared to most other nations — as well as high Facebook and Twitter usage, regional networks such as Odnoklassniki and VKontakte also do well there, it says.

Other countries who avoid a social networking mono-diet include Israel and Latvia, according to the data.