Poor Mojo's Newswire

Advertising represents a huge slice of the social game revenue pie, and it looks like Zynga has discovered a new way to wring a few more bucks out of it. Ads in the hit doodler Draw Something were previously confined to conventional banners in the free version of the game, but now advertisers are paying Zynga to insert branded words into both the free and paid editions of the game. The National Hockey League was at the vanguard of the charge, buying hockey-related words like "puck," "Zamboni," "hat trick," "slap shot" and "Leafs suck" [I may have made that one up] and even posting some of the results on Pinterest. Dan Porter, formerly the CEO of Draw Something studio OMGPop who now serves as vice-president of mobile and general manager of Zynga's New York office, said tests of recognizable brands in the game led to the idea. "People loved to draw the Colonel and bags of Doritos," he told Ad Age.

Last week, the Manhattan DA’s office unveiled charges against a father and son accused of running a sex trafficking ring. Six livery cab drivers were indicted for their roles in the operation as promoters of prostitution. Both the two pimps and the livery cab drivers have pled not guilty (details here and here). These men are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Wonder who patronizes prostitutes? In New York City, the group includes NYC finance and real estate professionals, a doctor, a restauranteur, a musician and recent college graduates. A spokesperson for the DA’s office says that 22 “johns” have been charged in the case. Two have already pled guilty. According to the press release from the Manhattan DAs office, the father-son pimps “doled out only a few dollars a night to buy food and other necessities” to the women working for them. The men “employed other forms of psychological manipulation and domination in an effort to maintain their control over the prostituted victims. For example, they branded victims with tattoos depicting their street names, and at least one of the women was tattooed with a bar code as well.”