Matthew Lynley

Matthew Lynley is VentureBeat\’s GreenBeat writer. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francisco, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.

stories by Matthew Lynley

Facebook changes how it tracks users, raising questions about true audience numbers (exclusive)

October 14, 2011 4:02 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Zynga may be losing some ground after spending years completely dominating the Facebook social gaming market.

Facebook today announced that it is changing the way it counts the number of active users who access an application on its site, a …

Justin.tv signs exclusive broadcast deal with giant e-sports league ESL

October 13, 2011 5:00 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Justin.tv announced today that it has secured an exclusive distribution deal with the electronic sports league, ESL, to broadcast electronic sports tournaments on Twitch.tv.

Any tournament run by ESL, including the upcoming Intel Extreme Masters tournaments, will be broadcast exclusively …

Khosla Ventures raises $1.05B fund, half of it for cleantech

October 13, 2011 3:01 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Storied venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and his firm, Khosla Ventures, have raised a $1.05 billion fund.

Khosla said he will invest half of the new fund into clean technology companies, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The …

Zynga will debut on NASDAQ as “ZNGA”

October 13, 2011 2:39 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Social gaming giant Zynga has decided to list its shares on the tech-heavy NASDAQ stock exchange, according to a recent filing with the securities and exchange commission.

The NYSE has dueled with the NASDAQ stock market to attract high-profile tech …

Google’s other revenue growth: ‘It really is the year-over-year impact of ITA’

October 13, 2011 2:08 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Part of Google’s revenue growth can be attributed to the company finally completing its acquisition of flight search data provider ITA.

“It really is the year-over-year impact of ITA,” Google’s Nikesh Arora, Google’s senior vice president and chief business officer, …

Google smashes Q3 expectations with $9.7B in revenue

October 13, 2011 1:08 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Search giant Google brought in $9.72 billion in the third quarter this year — or $7.5 billion minus traffic acquisition costs. That amount crushed consensus Wall Street analyst estimates of $7.23 billion, and is a 33 percent increase from the …

Social games maker Idle Games raises $10 million

October 13, 2011 9:29 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

[Update: it looks like $4.5 million of the funding on the document is part of Idle Games' last round, announced at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011. The second round of funding is worth $10 million]

Social gaming company Idle Games has raised …

Angry Birds maker Rovio on track for 2012 IPO

October 13, 2011 9:21 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Angry Birds maker Rovio is on track to file for an initial public offering that would value the company at more than $1 billion later next year, the company’s chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka said.

Vesterbacka told Bloomberg in an …

Zynga’s Shrek-inspired CastleVille is ‘building on the shoulders of giants’ (Q&A)

October 12, 2011 12:20 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Amid a host other game announcements, Zynga unveiled its newest “Ville” game, CastleVille, at the Zynga Unleashed event this week. CastleVille certainly seems more ambitious than other games — it has better graphics than Zynga’s other titles and the soundtrack …

BioWare slaps four-player multiplayer mode onto Mass Effect 3

October 12, 2011 10:54 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Game maker BioWare has added a four-player cooperative multiplayer mode to its Mass Effect 3 game, one of next year’s most anticipated titles, the company said today.

The new multiplayer mode drops you into a game with three other players. …

Box.net closes extension round worth $81M

October 11, 2011 6:02 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Cloud storage provider Box.net today announced it has closed an $81 million extension to its fourth round of funding, which includes new investors New Enterprise Associates and Bessemer Venture Partners.

The new round gives Box.net, which has evolved into a …

Zynga’s Project Z connects your Facebook friends on Zynga’s own social gaming site

October 11, 2011 11:38 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Social gaming giant Zynga is breaking away from Facebook and other social networking sites by building its own independent website with Project Z. The company gave press an early look at the service today, which will come out later this …

Zynga launches Mafia Wars 2 on Google+

October 11, 2011 11:12 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Social gaming giant Zynga today announced it is bringing its latest online social game, Mafia Wars 2, to Google’s online social network, Google+.

Mafia Wars 2 is a deeper and more graphically appealing version of Mafia Wars, which was one …

Zynga unveils Zynga Direct, its new way of distributing games

October 11, 2011 10:59 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Social gaming company Zynga today unveiled Zynga Direct, its new online distribution service. It will give Zynga a way to deliver its games to players on computers or mobile devices, without having to go through Facebook.

“It’s a platform for …

iPhone 4S pre-orders top 3M after one weekend, 25M on track this quarter

October 10, 2011 5:48 PM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

New estimates from Wall Street analysts suggest Apple registered more than 3 million pre-orders for its newest smartphone, the iPhone 4S, after selling the device for one weekend.

Apple announced this morning it registered pre-orders for more than 1 million …

Fans still holding vigil for Steve Jobs outside Apple Store (photo gallery)

October 7, 2011 9:40 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Editor's Pick

Apple fans are nowhere near done paying their respects to the man who arguably jump-started the smartphone revolution.

Dozens of fans are still gathering at the Apple retail store in New York City and across the country to pay their …

Rockstar’s Max Payne reboot delivers over-the-top action after 8-year hiatus (first look)

October 7, 2011 8:25 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

The run-and-gun Max Payne series hasn’t seen a new title in eight years but will finally return when Rockstar Games releases Max Payne 3 next year. It’s the company’s largest release slated for 2012 and follows the success of the …

Whether from respect or faith, Apple’s market value remains unaffected by Jobs’ death

October 6, 2011 7:41 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Trigger-happy investors have historically been prone to trading on Apple whenever news about its head honcho, Steve Jobs, arose. But in the wake of his death yesterday, shares of Apple have only risen 1.5 percent as of 7:30 a.m. today, …

iPhone 4S coming to Sprint, not an exclusive deal

October 4, 2011 11:47 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Apple announced today that it will launch its popular iPhone line on Sprint, the third-largest provider of wireless service in the U.S., at a press event in Cupertino, Calif.

A report by the Wall Street Journal on Monday indicated Sprint …

iPhone 4S gets a sequel of Epic Games’ Infinity Blade, but doesn’t do much else for gaming

October 4, 2011 11:03 AM Matthew Lynley
Matthew Lynley

Gears of War developer Epic Games today unveiled the second version of its hardcore mobile hack-and-slash game, Infinity Blade — designed specifically for Apple’s next iPhone (also unveiled today) and once again featuring suped-up graphics.

The original Infinity Blade broke …