• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 1, 2010

Venturing into the physical world, Facebook will begin selling gift cards at Target stores to be used toward buying virtual goods for social games hosted on the social network. Facebook Credits, the company's online currency, will be available Sept. 5 and offered in increments of $15, $25 and $50. Social games such as Zynga's Farmville and Mafia Wars have become hugely popular on Facebook, generating revenue through the sale of virtual goods and services for in-game play.

Larger entertainment companies are also catching on to the lucrative potential of social games. The Walt Disney Co acquired game startup Playdom for $563 million in late July and News Corp.'s IGN Entertainment recently launched a social gaming network called MyIGN million. Google is also said to be planning its own push into the social games space.