• July 8, 2008

Electronic Arts Inc. said Monday that it will soon release a Scrabble application, a Web program that Facebook members can plug into their profile pages. EA hopes to capitalize on the success of an unauthorized version called Scrabulous, which has nearly a half-million daily users.

EA is producing Scrabble under a year-old licensing deal with Hasbro Inc., which owns the game's North American rights. RealNetworks Inc. already has made a version available elsewhere under a deal with Mattel Inc., holder of the rights outside the United States and Canada.

One limitation is that EA's Facebook game will be available only to U.S. and Canadian users, as determined by the numeric Internet address of their computers. The split in rights means that Facebook users in the U.S. won't be able to play the authorized version with friends overseas.

--Tanya Irwin