The recent troubles of Zynga have been well documented. After its IPO stumbled last year, the social gaming company has had a rocky first year as a public company, marked by poor acquisitions, questions about its growth, and a stock price on life support. Just this week, after seeing a steady departure of high-level of executives in recent months, the company announced a new slate of top execs.

All these problems have raised an interesting discussion. Are these problems  specific to Zynga? Or are social games a fad that’s played out?

This is a question that not only cuts to the heart of a new industry that once seemed to be disrupting the traditional gaming industry. It’s also a critical dilemma for Facebook, which depends on Zynga for a big chunk of its revenue and engagement.

This topic came up in September when Mark Zuckerberg appeared on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt.

“Zynga’s had a rough few quarters. They’re basically a strong company,” Zuckerberg said. “Other companies, like King.com and Kixeye, have gained share. We have 200 million people playing games monthly. That’s real.”

King.com? N0t a name familiar to many folks in Silicon Valley, perhaps. At least, not yet. But there’s a good reason Zuckerberg gave the British-based company a shout out. Founded in 2003, King.com is on a tear at the moment.

Riccardo Zacconi, CEO and co-founder of King.com, was recently in San Francisco to host a celebration for the release of the mobile version of its wildly popular Candy Crush Saga. The mobile version of the game was officially launched today in the iTunes store. I got a chance to chat with Zacconi, and learn a bit more about the company.

Also on the hand at the event was Sean Ryan, Facebook’s director of games partnerships, just to provide one more clue as to just how important King.com has become to the social networking company.

“Games are incredibly important to Facebook,” Ryan told me. “We’ve never dedicated more time or resources to games.”

In King.com, Facebook may have found a new partner to help it become a bit less dependent on Zynga. Today, King.com released for the first time some stats about just how fast it’s growing. According to King.com:

• “Advertising revenue from its social games has increased tenfold in 2012.”
• King.com is now the second-largest game developer on Facebook,  with over 12 million daily active players.

Over the past few months, as my 9-year-old and I have explored ways for him learn how to make video games, he’s gotten quite passionate about Scratch.

I’ve mentioned it before (See here for resources to kids who want to make video games.) But in case you haven’t heard of it, Scratch is a programming language developed for kids by the good folks at MIT.

By good fortune, a few weeks ago, I received a review copy of “Super Scratch Programming Adventure!” by The Lead Project and published by No Starch Press. You can find the materials related to the book here.

From the moment it arrived, my son practically grabbed it out of my hands, and started right in.

The book is written like a comic book. You follow “Mitch,” the computer science student, and “Scratchy,” the orange cat that is the first character you meet when you download and launch the Scratch programming interface.

After a quick overview, the book takes the reader right into building animations and games.

My son built the first one fairly quickly. He’s started in one some of the other projects, but he’s also started improvising his own games.

What’s most impressive, and something I think any parent can appreciate, is that he’s been almost totally self-motivated. And the book is written at a level where he’s able to read and comprehend the instructions with only occasional help from me.

If you’re looking for a way to get your kid interested in programming, and Scratch in particular, I can’t recommend this Scratch book enough.

I have now tried three times to use my Square account to pay at my local Starbucks. And each time it hasn’t worked.

Now, this is one person, at one Starbucks. So, I won’t make any global claims as to the overall state of the new partnership between Square and Starbucks. But still, the problem has given me a glimpse into the challenges Square faces in rolling out its payment service across Starbucks’ franchises.

I first tried using it the day it went live last week. I already had the Square app on my phone. I launched it, held it up to the scanner. And then…nothing. I wiggled the phone around for a bit, and then finally pulled out my credit card and just paid. Oh, well. First day glitches.

I went back a couple of days later, and had the same issue. Since no one was waiting, and since I was curious, I hung around a few minutes as the barista tried to get it work. He asked a few co-workers, and they were all baffled. Finally, the manager came out and looked at it.

Then, a light bulb seemed to go on. You know, she said, I think the company sent me something that I have to place in front of the scanners to get them to read this thing. The scanners are set up to read the UPC codes on Starbucks cards and its app:

Starbucks cards use UPC codes.

But the manager realized she still needed to flash something in front of the scanners to allow them to read the QR codes that Square uses:

Square’s wallet app uses QR codes.

Ah, well, there you go. Problem solved.

Except I went back today, and the scanners still weren’t reading the Square app.

Now, none of this is fatal, of course. But as simple as we often think these things are to use and to implement, it would seem the success of the Square-Starbucks partnership comes down to thousands of Starbucks managers getting around to resetting their scanners to enable them to read Square’s app. Turning this on is not a simple matter of pressing a button.

In my week or so of trying, most of the folks at the Starbucks hadn’t seemed to have heard of Square.   So it doesn’t appear to be the biggest of priorities.

Again, this is one person, at one Starbucks. Maybe the other 99.999 percent of Starbucks had their scanners re-set on day one. But if not, Square may have a lot of follow-up work to do to nudge all these franchises to get on board.

If you wonder whether things can get worse for former daily deal wunderkind Groupon, the company today answered with a resounding: “Yes!”

Groupon released earnings for the third quarter, and Wall Street is just a tad disappointed with the Chicago-based daily deals site. By “just a tad,” we mean, well, furious. That anger is driving down Groupon’s stock by  12.76 cents in after-hours trading to $3.42. Groupon had closed  Thursday up 4.26% or $0.16 to $3.92 in regular trading. But any optimism that signaled quickly vanished.

Groupon posted a loss of $2.98 million on revenue of $568.6 million for the quarter. Analysts had expected earnings of 3 cents per share and revenue of $590.1 million. The silver lining: Revenue was up from the $430.2 million posted in the same period last year.

Looking at Google Trends is always an interesting way to get a glimpse of what seems to be on the world’s mind. Typically, among the hot trends, you’ll see some celebrity news, or some big breaking story.

But, holy cow, topping the “Hot Search Trends” for Wednesday was none other than Nate Silver. Yes, that Nate Silver of the New York Times blog FiveThirtyEight who correctly forecasted the outcome of every state in the presidential election.

If Silver is topping something like Google’s search trends, it means he has officially crossed over from being a figure of great note to political insiders, to a full-fledged mainstream celebrity. That’s remarkable, considering that at the end of the day, he’s a number cruncher (a damn good one).

Felix Salmon of Reuters may have captured Silver’s appeal best when he wrote:

“Silver is the most visible of the quants, partly because of his perch at the NYT, partly because he has a new book out, and partly because he’s very good at taking his complex mathematical model and turning it into bite-sized English-language blog posts. If you think that the value of Nate Silver is in the model, you’re missing the most important part: there are lots of people with models, and most of those models are pretty similar to each other. The thing which sets Silver apart from the rest is that he can write: he can take a model and turn it into a narrative, walking his readers through to his conclusions.”

Not surprisingly, that book Salmon mentions has taken off like a rocket in the last couple of days. Says Politico:

“The New York Times’ political statistician recently released a book, and in the last 24 hours sales have skyrocketed by 850% on Amazon.com, CNNMoney reports. “It is now the second best selling book on the site, behind only popular children’s book, ‘The Third Wheel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 7.’”

Let’s hope Silver caught up on some sleep. He’ll probably only get a day or two break before people start looking for updates on the 2016 contest.

After weeks of pressing our hands against our ears and shouting, “La, la, la” in an attempt to drown out the sound of Apple’s stock crumbling, the collapse has become too large and loud to ignore. On Wednesday, Apple’s stock was down $23.37 or 4.03% to $556.83.

The stock is still up for the year (for now, anyway). But it has come down considerably in just a few weeks since it topped $700 per share in mid-September.

Yes, Apple has had some stumbles here and there. Crappy maps on the new iPhone. They chucked iOS guru Scott Forstall out on his ear. The iPad Mini debuted to mini lines. Oh, and it seems that the iPad has been losing some serious market share.

But hey, they’re still Apple, right? From Reuters:

“Apple, long a mainstay of many fund portfolios, has lost 20 percent — $130 billion of its market value — since hitting a record high in September. A 20 percent slump signals a bear market in a stock to Wall Street.”

And:

“Apple has maintained a torrid pace of growth in recent years thanks to a run of successful iPhones and iPads. But many investors question whether it can keep innovating and keep ahead of ever-more aggressive competition under new management, installed after the death of its chief inspiration Steve Jobs.”

CEO Tim Cook was the subject of many flattering profiles back in August when he celebrated his first anniversary running the company. But now the real test of his leadership has begun. Can he prove that he can keep Apple on top? Can he keep the legion of Apple fans faithful?

Cook’s second year as CEO is already looking to be filled with far more drama than his first.

For Silicon Valley globetrotters, there’s no shortage of places where they can find international news. But to help travelers find info on cultural and entertainment happenings, valley veteran Renee Blodget has re-launched We Blog The World.

The blog began life as a network for independent writers. But now it’s been re-designed and expanded to include coverage of places and events around the world. Blodgett says the content will focus on helping the “discerning and well-traveled globetrotter” find new and un-discovered places and events.

Said Blodgett: “We provide comprehensive and in-depth coverage of unique global cultural events, as well as other things important to a successful travel experience.”

The site also includes travel tips, product reviews, and stories that explore how a particular travel experience changed someone’s life.

Beyond the Web site, you can find  We Blog the World on Facebook, Twitter: @weblogtheworld, YouTube and Pinterest.

At last, it is here. Bravo’s Start-Ups: Silicon Valley debuted Monday night. And social media denizens took to their streams to deliver their verdicts.

At first glance, the Apple press release loudly proclaiming that the company sold 3 Million iPads last weekend seemed designed to quiet critics who were noting the unusually small lines for the new iPad Mini last week.

3 million iPads! Take that!

Until, of course, you read it carefully. And then you realize that it’s, well, odd. First, and foremost, because it doesn’t actually break out the numbers for the iPad Mini. That 3 million is all iPads sold.

So how did the iPad Mini do? Says Apple:

“Customers around the world love the new iPad mini and fourth generation iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We set a new launch weekend record and practically sold out of iPad minis. We’re working hard to build more quickly to meet the incredible demand.”

Practically?

Some, like M.G. Siegler, embraced the Apple story line as proof that all is right in Apple-land:

“So much for the short lines — Apple sold three million iPads in three days. To put that in perspective, they sold five million iPhone 5s in three days a few weeks ago — a device that ranges from cheaper tomuch cheaper depending on the subsidy and version of the iPad. Oh, and it’s the iPhone — Apple’s best-selling device.”

Many others, however, weren’t so sure. At ExtremeTech, Sebastian Anthony says:

“You have to wonder why Apple didn’t release specific figures for both the iPad Mini and iPad 4. Presumably, one of the tablets had a weaker launch than expected — or, if Apple really massaged the figures to include the sales of other new and refurbed iPads, then maybe both new models put in a lackluster performance.”

Investors were clearly impressed, driving Apple’s stock up $7.82 or 1.36% to $584.62. But it’s worth nothing the stock is way, way, way off it’s late-September high of more than $700 per share. Analysts appeared to be extremely bullish on the news, believing the numbers were very positive and that demand would only increase as Apple released the cellular version of the mini and iPad 4 in the coming weeks.

So what’s not to like? It should be noted that once again, like with the iPhone 5, Apple has pointed to its ability to make enough gadgets to meet demand as a reason sales might not have been as high as they might have been.

Issues with the supply chain seem to me to be the big weakness at Apple that very few people are discussing. It’s surprising to me, considering this was Cook’s role before he stepped into the CEO job. While people have been excited about the increased number of new gadgets Apple is launching, and the speed, this seems to have overburdened the company’s supply chain and manufacturing capacity.

One of the few analysts focusing on this issue is Walter Piecyk at BTIG, who today writes:

“To be clear, 3 million is an impressive number by itself but we believe it’s important for Apple to be able to expand its ability to ramp supply in order to capitalize on demand and maintain strong earnings growth.  In a compressed product cycle demand falls off more quickly in between product cycles and at some point in the not too distant future, a potential iPad mini customer will start turning their attention to speculation of a Retina display iPad mini and inevitable price cuts on existing models. “

And:

“Finally, we cannot ignore the reality that the iPad mini took 3 days to sell out of its pre-orders while the iPad 3 sold more units in just 17 hours.  This is surprising given the attractive price points of the iPad mini and the fact that is was launched in 3x the number of markets.  It’s hard to ignore this as a data point on the popularity of Apple’s new product launches but clearly it can be overcome as we approach the holiday selling season.”

The question now: Is Apple in fact trying to do too much, too fast? And in the process, will that limit the sales of some newer products, no matter how fantastic they are?

Today, Groupon filed a series of letters exchanged with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in which the agency continued to raise questions about the daily deal site’s accounting and disclosures.

The letters from the SEC can be found here. Groupon’s responses are here.

The letters are actually dated from August through October this year. And they refer to issues raised in Groupon’s 2011 1o-K and it’s first quarter 10-Q. Such documents are typically not disclosed by companies until several weeks after they are exchanged.

No action was ultimately taken. Groupon did agree to revise some disclosures.

Initially, the SEC had concerns about the information Groupon was disclosing related to a series of new services: Groupon Getaways, Groupon Live, and Groupon Goods. The agency wanted more information about how these were contributing to revenue, how many refunds customers were requesting, and the impact on Groupon’s refund reserves.

The agency was also concerned about Groupon’s disclosure of material weaknesses:

“Please explain in more detail each of the three “primary factors” that contributed to this material weakness, the specific accounts impacted by these “factors,” and how you determined that these three “factors” indicated that there was only one material weakness and it was limited to the financial close process. Additionally, please describe the considerations made in determining to aggregate control deficiencies.”

On Aug. 24, Groupon responded.

The company said the new categories were branding moves, but not really separate categories of businesses. However, it did agree to revise its 10-Q to include more information about cash flows.

Groupon also said, in response to an SEC question, that its sudden increase in cash was mainly the result of the growth of the company, and not to changes in the mix of deals or the changes it had announced in the rate it paid merchants.

Probably the most troubling part of this response, however, was the disclosure about what led to the material weaknesses. In sum, it paints a picture of a company unable to fundamentally cope with its torrid growth.

“The Company’s accounting organization and its financial statement close process were not able to adequately keep pace with the rapid growth of the Company. The year-end financial statement close process was further impacted by a number of operational and organizational changes in the fourth quarter of 2011. In addition, the Company was required to execute its close process and undergo a financial statement audit in a significantly accelerated timeframe compared to prior years. These additional factors did not allow for adequate time to complete an effective review of account reconciliations.”

The problems, specifically, quoting from Groupon’s letter:

• Implementation and formalization of written policies and procedures for the review of account analyses, reconciliations and journal entries;
• Assigning account reconciliations and journal entries during the reporting period close process to specific individuals;
• Formal documentation of procedures performed during the close process;
• Implementation of enhanced oversight procedures to ensure that the account reconciliation review process are performed prior to finalization of the financial statements at each reporting period; and
• Evaluation of accounting for non-routine judgments and estimations.

“While the activities noted in the above two factors should be performed in the ordinary course of preparing the financial statements, the Company instead needed to undertake significant efforts to complete reconciliations and investigate items identified in those reconciliations in the midst of other operational changes impacting the normal close procedures and a financial statement audit.”

It’s a wonder that the company was able to report anything. Keep in mind, this was all occurring even as Groupon was going public in November of last year. And subsequently, the company would have to restate earnings after the IPO.

Still, the SEC seemed largely satisfied with these explanations. It did have a follow-up request for more disclosure about direct revenues that Groupon received. Groupon agreed to more disclosure. And on Oct. 4, the SEC informed the company that matter was closed for now.

Again, none of this seems to be criminal. But at the same time, it remains striking at just how unprepared the company seemed to be at the very moment it was asking investors to dump millions of dollars into its stock.

Of course, we probably shouldn’t be surprised that Groupon’s stock is trading at $3.71 per share today. Just a tad off its $26.11 close on the first day of trading on Nov. 2, 2011.

Happy IPO anniversary!