Double Word Score

(Newser) - If your New Year’s resolution is never to use the words “change,” “bailout,” and “Phelpsian” again, you’ll get some help on or about April 29, when the English language will acquire its millionth word—or so says a Texas-based group that tracks such things. But, as Ruth Walker notes in the Christian Science Monitor , deciding what constitutes a word can be controversial. More »

(Newser) - As a tumultuous year winds down, the Guardian asks the question on everybody’s mind: who are 2008’s biggest douchebags? A selection: Nicolas Sarkozy : “Good God, man, will you put her away just for a second?” Sarah Palin's advisors : "What you need to do, Sarah, to communicate your folksy down-home attributes, is wink a lot. The world will love it." More »

(Newser) - The creators of Scrabulous are determined: Just 2 days after Hasbro forced Facebook to ditch their wildly popular online Scrabble impersonator, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla have introduced Wordscraper, Silicon Alley Insider reports. The new game looks less like Scrabble than Scrabulous and offers a few rule changes, but it may yet provoke another takedown order. More »

(Newser) - Facebook took down the wildly popular ‘Scrabulous’ this morning, PC Magazine reports, following a legal attack against the game's creators by the rights holders of Scrabble. The site finally folded to pressure after receiving a takedown notice from Hasbro, as well as Mattel, which owns international rights to the original Scrabble. More »

(Newser) - The makers of Scrabble say Scrabulous must go. Hasbro today sued the creators of the online knockoff, which is wildly popular on Facebook, and warned the social networking site to dtich the game, ABC News reports. No word yet on whether that will happen. Hasbro recently released its own online version of Scrabble, also available on Facebook, in conjunction with Electronic Arts. More »

(Newser) - Despite the country’s 40% literacy rate, Senegal considers Scrabble as important as the national soccer team, and this week hosts the Francophone Scrabble World Championships. Senegalese dominated last year’s event, the BBC reports, and hope to repeat on home turf. “Nowhere else in the world can you find such excitement and dedication to the game,” an admiring French champion says. More »

(Newser) - Facebook users anticipating a goodbye to the site’s popular unofficial Scrabble game may finally see it happen when an official one comes out later this month. Hasbro and Electronic Arts are preparing the alternative to Scrabulous, which Hasbro says infringes on its copyrights. “We are keeping our legal options open,” a Hasbro rep told TechCrunch regarding its on-again, off-again battle against the hugely popular rogue version. More »

(Newser) - Facebook widgets have been wildly popular, but they haven’t always been wildly profitable. “The fascinating thing about widgets is it turns out that distribution isn't really the challenge,” says the CEO of VideoEgg, the developer behind Scrabulous and Flixster. "The question is how do you monetize that attention?” VideoEgg and companies like it think they have the answer, BusinessWeek reports: advertising. More »

(Newser) - Scrabble knock-off Scrabulous is a hit online, but sellers of the original board game have cried piracy and may take their claim to court, the New York Times reports. Tens of thousands of Scrabulous players have threatened to boycott Hasbro and Mattel if they shut down the Facebook-friendly game, which was invented by two brothers in Calcutta—and has given Scrabble an unexpected popularity surge. More »

(Newser) - Following the lead of rival Facebook, social networking giant MySpace will launch the MySpace Developer Platform next week, giving programmers deeper access to its site--possibly including the ability to tap into MySpace user data, AP reports. MySpace already informally allows programmers to develop widgets for it, and hopes the new platform will help developers make more money through the site. More »

(Newser) - Scrabulous—the wildly popular Facebook app based (without permission) on Scrabble—may have to fold up its board tonight. Hasbro and Mattel, which jointly own the rights to the board game, have set the deadline for the online game to either shut itself down or sell itself to Electronic Arts, which owns the online rights. More »

(Newser) - Hasbro, maker of the classic board game Scrabble, is moving to shut down Scrabulous, a widely popular—and virtually identical—online knockoff. It's currently the ninth most popular application on all of Facebook, with 2.3 million users. Scrabulous’ developers estimate their app brings in about $25,000 a month, about which Hasbro is none too pleased. More »

(Newser) - The hottest application on Facebook these days is Scrabulous, based on the Hasbro boardgame. Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, a young brother duo from Calcutta, developed an online version of Scrabble in 2005. They put it on Facebook in June in the hopes of targeting 0.01% of the website's citizenry, but now it's got over half a million daily users. More »