Geek of the Week: Shannon Romano, bringing a bit of Las Vegas to Facebook

Shannon Romano_Geekwire3

  Some of us like to visit casinos, but Shannon Romano is immersed in the world of casino gaming — at least in a virtual sense. Romano is game development manager for Seattle-based DoubleDown Interactive. An experienced developer, she oversees a team that makes the company’s casino-style Facebook games, a casual-gaming experience that gives users… Read More…

Facebook tests UK gambling in possible preview for US

bingofriendzy

The characters are cuddly, but don’t let those wobbly eyes fool you — the stakes in this Facebook game are very real. It’s called Bingo Friendzy, and it’s the first game on Facebook to let players win (and lose) real money. It launched this week exclusively in the UK, where online gambling is already a… Read More…

What’s in the cards for DoubleDown as online gambling talk heats up?

Could Internet gambling become a reality? Photo: Images of Money

It is looking increasingly likely that Americans — at least in some states — will soon be able to wager real dollars via online poker games. Nevada gambling regulators last week approved online gambling within the state’s borders, a move that is seen as a possible harbinger of what’s ahead in other states. Furthermore, the… Read More…

Weekend Radar: Go Daddy’s SOPA scramble, Google’s new Seattle boss, and holiday Kindle puzzles

godaddy

A roundup of news and headlines on our radar this holiday weekend …  After withdrawing its support for the controversial Stop Online Privacy Act, Internet registrar Go Daddy is now scrambling to keep its customer base intact, calling people who shifted large numbers of domains away from the company, reports the Next Web. “I think… Read More…

Q&A: DoubleDown exec takes us inside a Facebook ‘casino’

DoubleDown President Glenn Walcott in the KIRO-FM studios. (Erynn Rose photo)

Our guest on the latest GeekWire radio show and podcast was Glenn Walcott, president of Seattle startup DoubleDown Interactive, which offers the DoubleDown Casino suite of casino-style casual games, using Facebook as its platform. We talked about the company’s strategy, the games it offers, and dove into the underlying economics of running games on the… Read More…