经济学人下载:押宝开心农场

What is more, Zynga depends on two other firms, Amazon and Facebook, like the cabbage crop depends on the rain. Although it operates data centres of its own, it outsources much of its computing to Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing arm of the online shopping giant. More importantly, most users play Zynga’s games on Facebook. In September the social network pushed Zynga into using its virtual currency, called “Facebook Credits”, so Facebook gets 30% of what Zynga’s users spend.

而且，就像卷心菜的收成取决于降雨的多少，Zynga依赖亚马逊（Amazon）和脸谱（Facebook）这两家公司，Zynga得看这两家公司的脸色。虽然Zynga的数据中心由自己运营，但是其大多数的计算任务都外包给了亚马逊（Amazon）的网络服务部门，该部门是这家网上书店巨头用以提供云计算服务的。更重要的是，绝大多数Zynga的用户都是在脸谱（Facebook）上玩Zynga的游戏。在9月，这家社交网站强迫Zynga采用其名叫“脸谱币”（Facebook Credits）的虚拟货币，从而使得“脸谱”（Facebook）可以从Zynga用户的花费中获得30%的分成。

With Zynga gearing up for its IPO, the question now is which other tech start-up is next in line to go public. With Groupon, an online coupon service, also about to float, the supply of hot stocks is running low.

Zynga已经为IPO做好了准备，接下来的问题就是下一家新的上市科技公司会是谁。而随着在线团购网高朋网（Groupon）的临近上市，这波热门科技股的上市潮也将接近尾声。

But Silicon Valley venture capitalists are busy replenishing the pool. On June 24th it emerged that foursquare, a location-based service, had raised $50m, a deal that values it at $600m. (Foursquare lets users electronically “check in” at bars and restaurants so their friends can join them—and the people who owe them money can avoid them.) A few days later investors pumped $100m into Square, a mobile-payments start-up, valuing it at $1 billion. Neither firm ha s ever turned a profit.

但是硅谷的风险投资家却正忙于为科技股的上市池中增添新鲜血液。6月24日，一家名叫foursqure的公司浮出水面，这是一家基于为用户提供地理位置信息服务的网站，在当天，该网站募集到了5000万美元资金，在这项融资协议中对foursquare的估值达到了6亿美元（foursqure让其用户“检入”某个地点，该地点可以是酒吧或者饭店，这样其朋友就会知道其位置从而能够加入他们一起，而欠他们钱的的人则可以回避这些地方。）几天后，投资者又向一家名叫square的新成立的移动支付公司注资1亿美元，同时对其给出10亿美元的估值。而这两家公司都还未实现盈利。