Some time ago I blogged about a very time consuming Facebook application with the name Bejeweled. Luckily I did the same like some years ago with the PC game Diablo 2. I deinstalled the application before it was too late!

Today I have to announce not just another fun Facebook application but our own application with the name Strip PokerStrategy.com allowing you to strip your friends. This is a simple heads-up strip poker application which we have just launched in Facebook.

Visit our application at http://apps.facebook.com/pokerstrategy/, build your avatar and start stripping your friends in real time. As well as the fun of seeing them strip, every victory you have will help you climb the ranks which gets you access to a range of goodies, be it special VIP avatars or wicked accessories!

But that is not all, a neat little feature enables all of our members to invite their Facebook friends using their TAF-referrer. You simply have to add your referrer code prior to inviting your friends and save it to the application. This will make every referral back to us count towards your Tell-A-Friend account with which you can earn up to $100 per referred friend. You will find this feature at the bottom of the application page page named “About PokerStrategy.com”.

We are hoping to make this a memorable facebook application and have already planned to launch a 2nd version, which will deliver some cool additions to this app. Go and check it out – because even if you are new to facebook, this application allows you to play against all other facebook members who use this application. They don’t even have to be your friends. What a great way to improve and expand your social network. ;) We hope you will like it and wish you lots of fun! Maybe you get lucky and get to strip one of our staff members!

• Go to our Strip PokerStrategy.com application

P.S.
Don´t forget to become a fan of our Facebook page. As soon as we have 500 fans we will announce a $500 freeroll for all our fans.

Up to 350,000 people in Russia lose their jobs these days. And no, it is not because of the financial crisis - it is because of a government decision to close down all casinos & other forms of live gambling in Russia. 350k jobs is quite a number in even a big country like Russia with its more than 142 million citizens.

Luckily for us, poker is not being hit - because poker is widely and even legally accepted as a sports. My theory: the Russian passion and mastership of chess could be quite a reason. So this might be a sad story for many of the nice people who worked in the industry and now lost their job in the midst of a severe recession - but it could mean an upswing for poker in Russia.

Already now, poker is a big thing in Russia - and Russia a big thing for PokerStrategy.com. The latter is proven by great players like Eleph, the second Russian Black Member and the first non-German Black Member to attend one of our big parties ever.

In a few days, the video covering the Black Member Party VII weekend a few weeks ago in Hamburg should be translated to English [and Russian, of course] - and a short interview with Eleph is included.

Let's hope that the people set free by the closure of the gambling industry in Russia will find new jobs soon - and that poker might go on to prosper in th

Thanks to Wikipedia for the picture

Ok, this is a really uncreative title for my blog post - but this will be a short blog entry anyways. Plus this way, it's in a history with 5,000,000 Visits per Month nearly 3 months ago.

Essentially, this quick growth to the next million mark was boosted by more new visitors who just had a look for 1-2 visits and never came back, so you should discount the growth a little. But still, this is a success, considered that the summer season ought to be not too good for the online poker / online gaming business overall.

I hope that we can keep up the pace to keep you interested in what we have to offer. Only if we manage to make you come back, we can say we do our job well. Luckily, there is still much room for improvement - also thanks to the great feedback we get from our community every single day.

Enjoy your summer and good luck at the tables! :)

For calling the spots event at our Black Member Parties the "Black Member Soccer Battle", we recieved a lot of criticism. People tell us that no one except Americans uses soccer, the rest uses "Football", "Fussball", "Futbol", "Foetball" etc.pp.

Well, okay, this time I'll call it football then. Happy? But still I think as a 'brand name', soccer was the better decision, as everyone knows what is meant and it sounds a little shorter / more sloganized. Next time it will be a different type of event, so the language conflict will rest for a few months.

Company Football

Once a week, a large chunk of our staff leaves the office 'early' [i.e. not deep in the night, working for you ;)] to go play some soccer. Currently, the playing field is in Spain - but maybe we will some day try the Gibraltar national stadium.

Meeting up at the border. 10 yards behind the camera, British territory begins.

Walking over. Manu, still sending some SMS?!

Even though in Spain, there's a great view on the Rock.

Responsible Gaming: Warm-up to reduce the amount of injuries.

Thanks god he warmed up. And shame on the cynical laughter!

A proud team picture.

Why smile? Someone will be hit!

Well okay, that consumer behaviour affects firms' revenues and profits and thus ultimately the stock performance - nothing new or spectacular. Still, it is interesting to contemplate what facts and informations investors base their decisions on in our industry.

For public companies, you of course have the quarterly results, showing precise numbers of revenues, profits, costs and also player activity. But it's not like you're selling or buying stocks only every three months, right?

If I would be asked to list some factors investors probably base their decisions upon, it would probably be the following:
• rumours and facts about legal issues - just like the recent $30m freeze by US authorities or the agreement between PartyGaming and the US DoJ
• rumours and facts about developments in the industry, such as: 'Will PartyGaming take over Everest?'
• traffic numbers

Traffic numbers are hard to assess, because you basically have to data mine all poker networks and make sure the coverage is 100% to have an image. Some sites such as PokerScout.com do that for cash games - but even if you do that perfectly, SNGs & Tournaments are missing.

Still, cash game traffic development gives a hint on market shares, promotions and trends. E.g. PartyPoker ballooned two times this year: the two 'Million Dollar Hand' promotions. Plus you can see the effects of the legal issues here: PokerStars dropped around 7% in the recent weeks because they reacted more slowly than Full Tilt Poker and Cake Poker and were late in offering alternative payment methods.

So in the long run, there is some connection between traffic numbers and stock markets for sure - and your multitabling disproportionally increases those traffic numbers. But then again: is it really more easy to forecast traffic numbers than general company performance?

I think not: only a well-performing company can sustainably help build the poker market and on that course increase their market share. And besides marketing, you need a great software product and customer support. I guess a comparison of software quality and market share would even be more revealing than trying to connect traffic development to stock performance.

So, dear operators: make sure you improve your software so we can multitable comfortably - and of course continue to invest in nice, thrifty fish marketing! ;)

 
Stock market development of some poker operators over the past six months [source: Yahoo].

888.L = 888.com Pacific Poker
PRTY.L = PartyGaming / PartyPoker
PTEC.L = Playtech / iPoker
GIGM = Gigamedia / Everest Poker
BWIN = bwin / Ongame
^GSPC = Standard & Poors Top500 [index of the 500 biggest public companies in the United States]