LinkedIn launches Tango game after launching Queens puzzle in May | Wilnesh News

Every morning, Emily Ritter spends 15 minutes in bed checking Instagram, Messages, Slack and Strava apps and playing games The New York Times Connections and Strand games on her phone. Recently, LinkedIn has joined the mix.

Ritter, a marketing executive at San Francisco startup Front, discovered a logic puzzle called Queens about two months ago during a promotion on LinkedIn, known as a place for professionals to connect and recruit people looking for talent. And famous.

“It’s just a fun brainteaser,” Ritter said. “It’s a relaxing but fun way to do it.”

LinkedIn, among others Microsoft Acquired for $27 billion in 2016 and launching its first three games in May, Queens has become the hottest of the three.

On Tuesday, the company launched its fourth game, which will delve into logic puzzles and is titled ” tango. In the game, the user is presented with a grid and several squares filled with the sun or moon. Players can fill each remaining square with a sun or moon according to some rules.

While LinkedIn consistently ranks among the top 100 U.S. iOS apps, it ranks lower than other social apps like TikTok, Reddit, Snapshot and X and Yuan According to industry researchers, services such as Facebook and Instagram sensor tower.

Games represent a form of content that, if done well, can keep people coming back. Microsoft knows this market very well. The company launched the first Xbox game console in 2001 and now has annual revenue of $22 billion from its gaming business after acquiring Activision Blizzard a year ago.

However, gaming wasn’t part of LinkedIn for the first seven years after the acquisition, which was Microsoft’s largest-ever acquisition before the Activision acquisition. Daniel Roth, editor in chief of LinkedIn, said the games are meant to be played a little bit every day, perhaps at the beginning of the day or as a brief interlude between projects. Hopefully they will spark conversations with colleagues and industry peers.

“You start with the game score and then move on to other areas,” Rose said.

This is a familiar model. this new york times Eight games are available and in 2022 the viral word game Wordle was purchased, causing a stir in the market. After the acquisition, the newspaper publisher added tens of millions of new users and subscribers.

A spokesperson said LinkedIn makes money from recruiting services and advertising and does not plan to charge people to play. In the fiscal year ended June 30, LinkedIn generated $16 billion in revenue, accounting for about 7% of Microsoft’s total revenue.

Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella told analysts on the company’s July earnings call that the unit’s “membership growth continues to accelerate and engagement is at an all-time high.” 1 billion mark.

LinkedIn has been busy this year. It has built artificial intelligence capabilities to help job seekers and students taking online courses. The company has been introducing a TikTok-like video tab in the LinkedIn mobile app.

LinkedIn posted The 8th Annual Meeting List of the 50 best companies to work for in the United States

Lakshman Somasundaram, director of product management for gaming at LinkedIn, said fun is an important part of the best workplaces, whether through banter, casual sports or happy hours.

“It’s not just meetings and documents,” he said. “It’s important to us that LinkedIn reflects what it feels like to be the best place to work in the world.”

A spokesman said that in September, LinkedIn surveyed about 900 members and 83% said it was their favorite game offered by the site.

Queens requires players to place a crown emoji in each row and column of a grid, a format that’s “kind of like Sudoku,” said game architect Thomas Snyder. Snyder, a former scientist at Freenome and Adaptive Biotechnologies, won the 2018 World Puzzle Championship.

Joe Weinman, ex. AT&T A New Jersey executive has been solving problems in Queens for 46 consecutive days. He said in a LinkedIn message that his winning streak was 90 games, but one day he forgot about the game.

Now Weinman and other addicts have a place to gather. In July, Somasundaram began posting daily videos revealing solutions to Queens puzzles online dedicated page For the competition. The videos received hundreds of comments.

Somasundaram said he plans to make a film about tango.

Ritter had seen some Queens videos. She said she has learned how to solve puzzles relatively quickly.

“I think I just figured out some tricks,” Ritter wrote in a LinkedIn message, adding that she might enjoy new challenging games.

When LinkedIn decided to launch a new logic game, employees came up with some principles and brought them to Snyder. Paolo Pasco, the LinkedIn games editor who creates crossword puzzles for The New York Times, said he sent back samples and LinkedIn team members suggested additions.

In Tango, the goal is to have the same number of suns and moons in each row and column of the grid. No more than two of the same type can be adjacent vertically or horizontally. An equal sign between two squares means that both must be the same, while an X between them means that the signs are opposite.

It’s a simple concept, but the puzzles get harder over time, just like the New York Times crossword puzzle.

LinkedIn promotes its games on its homepage and in the app’s My Network tab. But 40% of players enter the game through links, which may be shared in conversations or posts. Once you’ve completed the game, LinkedIn makes it easy to copy your scores and links so you can send messages to contacts or publish posts.

Through links and daily videos, people will come back looking for more. According to Sensor Tower, LinkedIn’s App Store rankings tend to drop on weekends, suggesting less usage when people aren’t working.

“Pro players play regularly, even on weekends,” the spokesman said.

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