Today I had the privilege to see Mark Pincus deliver the keynote at arguably the first social game conference. Many things in his keynote caught my ear but three in particular.

• It’s going to be an app world
• Made multiple comparisons to television
• Need to curate the audience

An app world

The meme going around in Silicon Valley is that the future of mobile is apps and since mobile is the future – it’s also the future of the Internet. Apple is certainly a big proponent where as Google is frightened about what that might mean for search. So far Zynga and the social game industry has just dabbled in the apps market, at least where the iPhone is concerned. So if Mark sees apps as the future that sure means a big change for Zynga, for everyone in the industry. Up to now there’s been a big divide between mobile and social game companies – different revenue streams, user base, and distribution.

Multiple comparisons to television

More than once Mark mentioned social games and television. Spoke of how he was on the hunt for a new show Sunday nights, a show he could really get into and how it should be the same for social games. On another topic he mentioned how Zynga needs to strike a balance between adding and taking away features or risk their games becoming to complicated. Comparing the balance to the TV series Lost and how it isn’t fun anymore, it lost something.

It’s natural to compare the emerging social game industry to Hollywood, but maybe Mark is thinking about it more than most. Which led me to notice something else during the conference – we were still a lot of gamers talking about games. That might seem odd to say, but is there potential for more beyond games? Listening to Mark I might hazard a guess that he’s thinking beyond games.

Need to curate the audience

Mark also mentioned his concern for when a user has a bad experience in a game. It’s the classic – one bad experience might turn people off. Combined with the desire to see people search for social games like he searches for a new show to get into on Sundays and it all reminded me how unproven the social gaming market is. Sure FarmVille has revolutionized the gaming world but it’s only been two years, hardly enough time to prove it’s long term viability. Games aren’t going anywhere but the reach FarmVille has might not be repeatable.

Xbox Live for the web

Mark sort of wrapped his keynote up in saying he wants to see social games evolve into Xbox live for the web. It would have persistent navigation, universal feeds, and user communication channels. I couldn’t agree more but would also like to see the medium experiment with other mechanics to create engagement – maybe something more akin to Hollywood such as drama.