Domain registrations point to new Zynga social network

On Friday, we filed a report on the swirling rumors that developer Zynga was planning to leave Facebook and start its own social network, Zynga Live. Today, we've unearthed evidence of recent domain registrations that lend some support to those rumors.

Registrations for ZyngaLive.com, ZyngaLive.net, ZyngaLive.org, ZyngaLive.info and ZyngaLive.us have popped up on DNS databases. All five domains were first registered on Feb. 5 by MarkMonitor Inc., the same organization that initially set up the main zynga.com domain back in 2007. As if that weren't enough evidence that Zynga is behind these web sites, the ZyngaLive.us registration actually lists administrative, billing and technical contacts at San Francisco's Zynga Game Network Inc.

Of course, these registrations don't absolutely confirm Zynga has plans to launch their own social network at these addresses, or that the company will be moving away from Facebook. Perhaps Zynga Live is a completely different project. Perhaps the company is just hedging its bets by taking some possible Zynga-related domains for itself. Perhaps this is all a misunderstanding and some guy named Zyng wants to tell the internet he's Alive.

Still, we're more inclined to believe the simplest explanation that points to some interesting moves from Zynga coming in the near future.

By the by, if you want to register ZyngaLive.biz, it's still available.