????SongPop是最近風行一時的在線游戲，其發跡史進一步證明有兩個因素使得社交游戲具有獨特優勢，即脫胎于經典，容易上手。

????與此前的《你畫我猜》（Draw Something）以及《與朋友猜詞》（Words With Friends）一樣，SongPop依托于一個老的理念：它基本上就是Name That Tune——這檔電視游戲節目曾在50年代初期至80年代推出了各種版本。當然，《你畫我猜》的基礎是室內游戲《看圖說詞》（Pictionary），而《與朋友猜詞》本質上是拼詞游戲Scrabble，只不過平臺略有不同而已。這三款游戲都沒有復雜的規則，也沒有什么太大的難度——馬上就可以上手。SongPop的玩法是：音樂開始，玩家從四個選項中進行選擇，盡快猜出歌曲名或歌手名。

????這款游戲渾然天成，無論如何，它至少都會小有所成。而現在它又得到馬克?扎克伯格的力捧，扎克伯格于6月21日在自己的Facebook主頁上寫道：“SongPop太有趣了，我有一陣子沒玩過這么好玩的Facebook游戲了。”

????游戲網站Inside Social Games的首席撰稿人麥克?湯普森稱，在扎克伯格一番評頭論足后，SongPop的使用量“暴漲”。“我們很少看到游戲能這樣迅速躥紅。”

????SongPop的上升勢頭目前仍在延續。根據AppData的數據，該游戲在Facebook上已經擁有1,810萬月度活躍用戶，每日訪問量也已達420萬次。而在8月13日，這兩項數字還分別為1,460萬和340萬。SongPop在iOS和Android移動平臺上也同樣大受歡迎。

????面對SongPop的迅速竄紅，游戲的聯合創作者馬修?洛扎雷斯本人也大感意外。洛扎雷斯和兄弟羅曼一道創立了FreshPlanet公司，進而推出了SongPop。洛扎雷斯說：“根本沒想到SongPop會這么成功。我們之前也就只能做做白日夢而已。”

????洛扎雷斯稱，在扎克伯格發表言論的當天，“我們發現流量幾乎瞬間暴漲。起初我們認為是被黑客襲擊了，或是軟件出了問題。”幾乎同時，我們接到無數電話，郵箱也瞬間被個人簡歷塞滿。

????大約三分之二的SongPop用戶通過移動設備聯入Facebook進行游戲。洛扎雷斯稱，我們最開始的想法是開發一個融合了社交媒體和移動技術各自優勢的游戲。許多游戲都會偏向特定平臺，例如《憤怒的小鳥》（Angry Birds），其用戶幾乎完全來自移動平臺；而社交游戲公司Zynga的許多熱門游戲，如《虛擬農場》（Farmville），定位都局限于Facebook社交游戲。“我希望在不遠的將來，能有更多游戲能融合兩者所長。”確實，SongPop在“融合”上成功借鑒了《你畫我猜》和《與朋友猜詞》兩款游戲，這是它大獲成功的另一大關鍵。

????不過目前為止，SongPop仍處于虧本狀態。洛扎雷斯承認，在服務器等方面，“開銷非常非常高。數字大得讓人崩潰。”不過，洛扎雷斯認為在未來數月，SongPop的營收將有望實現平衡。

????營收將主要來自以下方面：廣告；游戲內購買（例如購買更多的歌曲和游戲）；為iTunes音樂購買所帶來的流量收入。洛扎雷斯并未透露公司從音樂銷售中獲取了多少收益，不過他表示“比例很低”。 洛扎雷斯也不愿透露SongPop的總營收。

????The rise of SongPop, the latest online game to make it into the "craze" category, is further evidence that two factors give special advantages to social-media games: a basis in the classics, and simplicity.

????Like Draw Something and Words With Friends before it, SongPop is based on an old idea: in this case, it's basically Name That Tune, a TV game show that ran in various incarnations from the early '50s to the mid-'80s. Draw Something, of course, is based on the parlor game Pictionary and Words With Friends is essentially Scrabble on a slightly different board. In all three cases, there are no complicated rules and there are no steep learning curves -- you just start playing. SongPop presents players with a set of four choices of song titles or artists: the music starts and players make their guesses as quickly as they can.

????The game is a natural, and it probably would have been at least a middling success no matter what. But it got an extra boost after Mark Zuckerburg wrote on his Facebook (FB) page on June 21: "SongPop is one of the most fun Facebook games I've played in a while."

????Usage "skyrocketed" after that post, says Mike Thompson, the lead writer for Inside Social Games. "We very rarely see a game take off like that."

????And the trend still seems to be up. As of Wednesday, SongPop had 18.1 million monthly active users on Facebook, and 4.2 million daily users, according to AppData. That's up from 14.6 million and 3.4 million, respectively, on August 13. The game is also popular on both iOS (AAPL) and Android (GOOG) mobile platforms.

????Nobody is as surprised by how quickly people have taken to the game as its co-creator Mathieu Nouzareth. He founded FreshPlanet, the company that owns SongPop, along with his brother Romain. "This is not the kind of success you can predict," he says. "You can hope for it and dream about it, maybe."

????On the day of Zuckerberg's post, "we saw the traffic jump within seconds," he says. "We thought maybe we were under attack or there was a bug." Almost as quickly, the phone lines were jammed and the resumes started flowing in.

????About two thirds of those playing via mobile devices log in through Facebook. The idea from the beginning, Nouzareth says, was to create a game that combines the strengths of social media and mobile technology. Many games are designed more for one platform than the other -- for instance, Angry Birds is a huge mobile game that users play by themselves, while many of Zynga's (ZNGA) most popular games, such as Farmville, are social and limited mainly to Facebook. "I expect that in the future, there will be a lot more games that combine the two," Nouzareth says. And indeed, that combination is another thing that SongPop shares with other big successes like Draw Something and Words With Friends.

????So far, the game isn't profitable. "Costs are very, very high," Nouzareth says, particularly server costs -- "it's insane how high they are." But he says the break-even point should be reached within the next few months.

????Revenue comes in the form of advertising, in-game purchases (for, among other things, access to more songs and more genres), and traffic the game sends to iTunes for music purchases. Nouzareth won't say how big a cut the company gets from music sales, but called it a "tiny percentage." He also declined to talk about total revenues.