Gaming giant Electronic Arts has been looking closely at acquiring a leading social gaming company, Playfish, we and others have heard from multiple sources in the last couple weeks. However, we have since heard some new details about the valuation, and where the companies are at in the sale process.

Whether the deal goes through or not is significant for the still-young social gaming industry (if “industry” is even the right term at this point). A sale price would help put a valuation on many of Playfish’s rivals, and bring additional credibility to social gaming’s role within the larger gaming world.

EA has been doing due diligence on Playfish, we have heard from multiple sources, meaning it has been going through the company’s financial reports and other information to determine that it indeed does want to make the purchase. We do not know if the deal has fully closed yet. Our understanding is that Playfish has been in a “no shop” period, meaning it won’t talk other potential acquirers as EA completes its review. However, some sources have previously said that the deal may have already closed. We have also heard that Playfish’s banker is J.P. Morgan.

Neither company is speaking publicly about the deal.

> Continue reading over on Inside Social Games.

Where the Wild Things Are, the children’s book turned movie, was number one at the box office last weekend, and its Facebook page has been one of the fastest-growing on the site in recent weeks. The page had reached 1.74 million fans by the time we wrote about it on Monday as part of our weekly look at the top pages on Facebook.

This week has also been good, although not as good. Now we wonder what’s next.

The page reached 1.82 million fans as of Thursday night (Friday’s numbers aren’t in yet, obviously, as it’s still Friday). So that’s already another 80,000 fans in four days. But, judging from PageData, growth is tapering off.

The question, now that the movie is out, is what how the page can be put to use. The movie is based on a book published in 1963, that has over the decades become a standard part of children’s literature. Any previous pages for the book were apparently folded into the movie page. The only other pages for either the book or the movie on Facebook today appear to be unofficial, and very small.

This means that any future efforts to promote the book will either have to go through the movie’s page, or start over at zero with a new page. Maybe that’s okay, as author Maurice Sendak helped work on the movie — and presumably has a personal and financial interest in its ongoing success.

But after a big pre-release publicity effort, including a funny profile-picture creator application, and the surge of the opening weekend, the page has been underutilized. It has only been updated three times since last week, and only with links to a couple articles about the movie and a trailer clip.

This lack of engagement on the part of whoever is running the page is certainly not helping to further promote the page, the movie, or the book. Which is too bad, because once pages start to get popular, they tend to get more popular — when one friend engages with the page, their other friends see this activity in their news feeds and on the right-hand highlights section on the Facebook homepage.

The page has had a good run. But whoever is controlling it — whether the movie’s producer, Warner Bros., Sendak, his publisher, or whoever else — now needs to keep things moving. Regular status updates,, like mentions of how fans have received the movie, could keep people engaging with the page.

Right now could be an especially vital time to keep interest going, as the movie already appears to have the makings of a cult classic. For example, Lots of late teens and 20-somethings showed up to theaters last weekend in full movie-themed costumes. The Facebook page could be a way to stoke those feelings now, and keep them going for a long time. This might boost movie and book sales going into this second box office weekend and well beyond.

Ever since the Facebook Platform launched, many top Facebook app and game developers have built their products in Flash – a practice that’s becoming even more common today in social games. A few innovative Facebook Connect implementations have been built in Flash too.

So this past March, Facebook and Adobe announced a formal partnership around the creation of Flash client libraries to make it easier for developers to plug into the Facebook Platform inside their Flash applications. The ActionScript3 Client Library for Facebook Platform is an open-source toolkit that allows Flash developers to plug into all the core Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect APIs.

Today, those libraries are being updated to version 3.0, adding translations and support for more Facebook Platform APIs. Version 3.0 includes support for:

• Comments API
• Inbox API
• fql.multiquery

Adobe and Facebook are officially supporting the library, which should encourage more developers to build their Flash-based Facebook apps using the toolkit.

Now that both the college and professional football seasons are in full swing, here’s a closer look at how college and pro football organizations are using Facebook pages. Basically, pages aren’t huge for most football teams and their fans, but they’re becoming more important.

Pros Not At The Top Of The Game?

The NFL has been doing a decent job of tapping into social networks to reach its fanbase recently, but the official NFL fan page still leaves a lot to be desired. Fans are allowed to post the the wall, but entries are sporadic (predictably, there is an influx of activity every Sunday), and there isn’t much engagement between those running the page and the fans. The photo albums are sparsely populated, with no way for fans to add their own pics of games or tailgating. Those running the NFL page are starting to find better ways to appeal to fans, with a new NFL-endorse applications called the NFL Season Showdown. It’s a simple game where you “throw a pass” (basically, poke) friends, and earn points for your team when your friends “catch” the pass. There’s a leaderboard so the idea is to get fans competing to complete the most passes.

The NFL page has a little more than 242,000 fans, but most fans are more interested in their favorite teams’ pages rather than fanning the entire NFL — this is strikingly different from the National Basketball Association, which has 1.58 million fans. Among teams, the Steelers lead the way with more than 381,000 fans for their official page, with the Cowboys a distant second at almost 246,000.

One individual NFL team has taken a more interactive approach to its Facebook presence. The New England Patriots have made their Facebook page the official team site, after recognizing that fans logging on to check out team information were likely already active on Facebook. The move gives the Pats the ability to take advantage of all the features built into Facebook and engage fans in a more interactive way. It also gives the team a better handle on demographic information that it wouldn’t necessarily gain from its Web site.

Of course, fantasy football is a huge draw during the NFL season, and there are several applications that cater to the at-home coach. The aptly named Fantasy Football by Citizen Sports has over 200,000 active users, and FanSection’s Fantasy Football 2009 has over 100,000 active users.

Alma Mater Isn’t All That Matters To College Fans

College pages on Facebook tend to have a lot more activity than the pros, which isn’t too surprising considering the center of the activity takes place on college campuses, where there are a high number of Facebook users. College pages also seem to be a way for alumni to keep in touch across long distances, a sort of central meeting place to discuss the team, the school and any other recent events.

There also appears to be a greater level of interaction between school and fan on the collegiate pages, and a much wider selection of content. The Ohio State Buckeyes page has a very impressive collection of posts about past and present players, the team, the upcoming schedule and any number of fan discussions. It’s not solely a football page, covering the entire Buckeye sports scene, but the page is dominated by football during the season. So far, it has 198,000 fans.

Another set of popular apps is the FanSection team apps from Watercooler. FanSection has developed a very interactive template for dozens of college football teams, but you’ll have to be a fan of the bigger schools to get the most out of FanSection. The app includes forums, viral campaigns, fan polls, etc. to keep even the most intense fan busy.

Facebook gained more than 2 million new people across Latin America and the Caribbean in September to reach 35.4 million monthly active users, according to our most recent Global Monitor report. While Colombia is still the largest Facebook country in the region, with 6.51 million users, Argentina and Mexico have about caught up.

Mexico grew the most out of the 22 countries we track in the region. It gained 470,000 users to reach 5.12 million monthly actives. Argentina gained the second-most users, with 286,000 new people, to total 6.42 million. Other notables include Venezuela: Colombia’s neighbor passed 4 million monthly actives in August to reach 4.17 million, then it gained 261,000 more users last month to reach 4.42 million this past month. Colombia and Chile, the two Latin American countries that saw the most early growth, are still going pretty strong, having gained 160,000 and 179,000 new users, respectively. Peru is also coming up, having grown by 108,000.

And, in non-Spanish speaking Latin America, Brazil is continuing to see more Facebook growth — although nowhere near some of the other countries, yet. It grew 168,000 people to reach 1.66 million monthly actives.

Much of Latin America still has relatively low Facebook penetration. Chile is in the lead with 33%, by far the highest. The islands of Puerto Rico and The Bahamas have penetration rates in the low 20s. Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Colombia all have rates of around 15 percent. Facebook’s growth in the region is not the fastest we’ve seen, but it is significant and steady, so we expect it to continue.

You can see more information on Facebook’s growth around the world in the Global Monitor report.

We’ve had some early looks at the new interface for Facebook’s Ad Manager, as the company has been testing it with some advertisers. Now, the push is coming — in the next few weeks, according to a Facebook blog post today.

For anyone using Facebook’s self-serve advertising features, the new version is worth a close look. Upgrades include search, in-line editing and better campaign management.

Also, Facebook has also said there’s a bulk uploader coming soon for advertisers with many ads to run, instead of people having to manually upload and test ad creative within Facebook, or via third-party scripts. However, that feature doesn’t appear to be going live in this version.

The company also says today that advertisers will be able to toggle between the old and new versions for a couple weeks before the new version rolls out completely. You can check out Facebook’s tutorial, which we’ve embedded below and is also available for download here. For marketers interested in digging deeper, be sure check out our industry leading Facebook Marketing Bible.

Fans of pop culture magazine Entertainment Weekly can use its Facebook page to try and appear in the magazine, by submitting their favorite costume photos for the chance at being featured in an online Halloween costume gallery.

Submissions can come from any Halloween costume, and should at least have some sort of loose affiliation with pop culture. Last year’s entries ranged from a human Facebook account to the most disturbing portrayal of eco-warrior Captain Planet that I’ve ever seen.

There are already quite a few submissions in the EW photo section of their Facebook page — despite the page’s small 4,800 fans. Amongst the many Jokers and Bleeker/Juno costumes, there are some definite gems. Two of my favorites involve a man who loves confetti, and one of the best Star Wars get-ups of all time.

While this contest doesn’t hold the promise of partying with Heidi Klum, it is a fun way to share past costumes and catch a glimpse of some of the imaginative and creepy ensembles that people come up with for Halloween.

For those tracking the expansion of the virtual goods economy in the US, the explosion of the virtual goods market on the Facebook Platform has been nothing short of remarkable this year. We expect the total US market to reach $1 billion in 2009, with social applications and games leading the charge, based on research from our recently released report, Inside Virtual Goods. However, while Facebook hasn’t focused on its own direct virtual goods business as much as it has growing its brand and performance advertising businesses, it has been steadily rolling out more features over the last year, including its own virtual currency, designed to lay the groundwork for Facebook’s future e-commerce growth.

Today, the company took another step forward in those efforts, announcing the availability of licensed music and sports gifts in the Facebook Gift Shop. Here’s how it works:

- When users go to the Gift Shop, they’ll be able to choose gifts from one of several categories: Music and MP3s, Charity, Sports, Virtual Gifts, E-Cards, and Real Gifts (i.e. physical goods).

- If users choose Music and MP3s, they’ll have two options: 1) “Web songs,” which can be played from the News Feed and wall, will cost 1 Facebook Credit, and 2) Full MP3s, will cost 9 credits. Facebook’s music gifts are all licensed from LaLa.com, and are only available in the United States. Users can also access their purchased music gifts on LaLa.com by creating a normal account or logging in through Facebook Connect. MP3 recipients can also download their songs. Friends who see the music gifts in the News Feed or on a friend’s wall “will only be able to play the song in full once, after which they will be able to play a 30-second clip.” See more details from our earlier coverage today.

- If users choose Sports Gifts, they’ll be able to select officially licensed branded virtual gifts, like jerseys or mascots, from the NBA, MLS, and “a number of major U.S. colleges.” Virtual gifts have proven very popular inside sports applications on the Facebook Platform for obvious reasons – people love to brag about their favorite teams and smack talk their friends when they win. (Update: Facebook is licensing content from the NBA, MLS, and universities through Virtual Greats.)

- If users choose Charity Gifts, they’ll be able to purchase items whose net proceeds are donated to the organizations. Charities already involved include Kiva, Project Red, TOMS Shoes, Charity Water and the World Wildlife Fund. Starting today, gifts from the Facebook application Causes will also be included in the Charity Gifts section of the Facebook Gift Shop.

- E-Cards will allow users to send gifts from developers like JibJab, Real Gifts will allow users to send physical items, and Virtual Gifts will allow users to send the virtual gifts that have been in Facebook’s gift shop for a long time.

Overall, Facebook’s BD efforts to sign licensing deals with LaLa, Virtual Greats, and more coming soon are meaningful steps toward expanding the company’s digital goods library through partnerships with various rights holders, and reflect the company’s desire to make e-commerce an increasingly important part of its revenue future.

Facebook has recently expanded the availability of its virtual currency, Facebook Credits, for purchase in more currencies and through more payment methods. We expect those tests – as well as tests of Facebook’s platform payment system – to continue to expand in the months ahead.

To dig deeper into the virtual goods market, check out our new report: Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2009 – 2010.

There were a lot of rumors about Facebook’s music efforts last year — including the possibility of streaming full-song playlists on the site. But the rumors ended rather quietly. Last we heard, back in December and January, Facebook was talking to music site Lala about some sort of service. Now, we know a little more about what that is.

Lala is going to be offering virtual gifts in Facebook’s gift store, The New York Times reports. The service, as we’ve covered, has already been available for third-party developers since August. From the Times:

But adding songs from Lala is clearly the most interesting step. People can give friends, say, Elvis Costello’s aging ballad, “Veronica” for their 40th birthday. And Lala is the perfect partner for this. It charges 10 cents (or one Facebook credit) for a “Web song” which can be played online in perpetuity; for full price, usually around 10 credits, the recipient of the music gift will be able to download the song and transfer it to their iPod.

The Times report didn’t give any indication of what regions virtual gift songs on Facebook would be available in, and whether prices would vary internationally (prices for normal Facebook gifts don’t vary from region to region, but music licenses can vary significantly by country). Currently, Facebook requires all users to first buy Facebook Credits in one of 14 local currencies. Most Facebook gifts cost 10 Credits, or USD $1, but the “Web song” version of Facebook’s music gifts will only cost 1 Credit.

Facebook says it is indeed still looking at music initiatives, but isn’t revealing more. The statement from the company:

We recognize that sharing music plays an important role in how people stay connected and express common interests on Facebook. We are always talking with potential partners about new ways to provide users a richer experience on Facebook, but we don’t have anything to announce pertaining to music at this time.

So the Lala deal isn’t streaming playlists, but this move sure sounds interesting. The addition of music gifts could help drive revenue for a lot of people: The record labels, Facebook, Lala, and even musicians. We estimate that virtual gifts are still a small minority of Facebook’s overall revenues this year.

It’s not clear how many Facebook users make their status updates publicly available, but for those who do, Microsoft has struck a data partnership to presumably index them in its Bing search engine more efficiently. So if you’re a Facebook user who has chosen the “everyone” option for your updates from within the site’s privacy settings page, you’re about to get some more exposure.

Bing will also include Twitter updates, AllThingsD reports, and both deals will be announced at the Web 2.0 conference today in San Francisco by Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division. [Update: Lu has since confirmed both deals]. The deal isn’t expected to go live for weeks. It’s not clear if any money is changing hands. Twitter has also been in talks with Google about a direct-data deal for months, but Facebook is also apparently in discussions with Google about including public status updates, the report says.

Facebook had this when we asked for confirmation: “We don’t comment on speculation. Later today, COO Sheryl Sandberg and VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer will be speaking at Web 2.0 at which time they will be available to answer questions regarding Facebook.”

The company has previously said that its 300 million-some users generate  “more than 40 million status updates each day.” It’s not clear how many of these updates are publicly available — the default is that they’re not.

The report adds another interesting note at the end: “Facebook will provide users with a numbers of new tools” for making their updates publicly accessible.

The company has already been moving in this direction. Mark Zuckerberg told us in March that Facebook is pushing more towards a hybrid private-public model for information-sharing on the site, around when the company introduced new features for making various pieces of profile data more public. Then, in June, the company announced it was testing a new “publisher” that included a more obvious option for making status updates public. Then, in August, it rolled out a new, real-time search interface on the site.

Here’s more on those “new tools,” from TechCrunch:

Facebook is creating privacy controls, we’ve learned, that will allow users to set even previously public status updates to private, meaning search engines will be prohibited from indexing the content. It won’t be perfect, since anything published on the Internet is often spread far and wide. But it may allow users to hide previously public data to some extent.

Meanwhile, status updates are already available via Facebook’s “live stream” API, which Microsoft has already integrated into its Live.com site. Bing, of course, is also integrated into Facebook’s main site, as its web search engine.

So, given what we already know about Facebook’s search plans, and its history of cutting deals with strategic investor Microsoft (see: Xbox, banner ads, etc.) perhaps the most interesting part of this report is that Facebook is talking to Google.