Albeit in the UK, Facebook has finally let a real-money gambling app to be featured on its platform. “Developed by London-based online gambling operator Gamesys, the Bingo Friendzy app allows users aged 18 and over to play games for cash prizes,” BBC News reports. According to Facebook, only its UK members will have access to the app. Facebook normally takes a 30% cut of transactions on its network, but would not confirm if that was the case with this title. Meanwhile, Zynga said it is planning to debut real-money gambling versions of its games next year. 

So long, Fluent -- We hardly knew ye. Six months after releasing its well-regarded beta, the email service is shutting down due to what it attributes to problems with fundraising, runways and scaling. “Built by three Australian ex-Googlers, Fluent was hailed by some as a possible Gmail killer when it opened up its beta in February,” The Next Web writes. In a Monday, blog post, the company’s team apologized to the 70,000 users that had signed up for the service -- but had never been let in. “We tried very hard, but couldn’t pull it off,” the team explained. 

Having recently finalized its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Google is planning to sell off its set-top box unit, ZDNet reports, citing a memo from Light Reading Cable. ZDNet, however, doesn’t think that’s such a good idea. The report “is disconcerting (and unlikely) for a few reasons, most of which center around Google TV,” it writes. “Following the merger, some of the biggest points on the to-do list really centered around hardware -- especially for the living room … If hardware is actually on Google's mind, then the living room is where Motorola can help the most.” 

Wikipedia is closed for business -- or at least for the moment. One of the Web top information resources appears to be experiencing severe technical difficulties, with users around the world unable to access the site's main page and article pages, The Verge reports. Pointing a browser at "en.wikipedia.org" currently throws up a boilerplate error message advising users that the problem "should be fixed soon" and the site's status dashboard is littered with red and amber warnings. “A separate but unverified statement posted in the site's IRC channel gives more detail: "Wikipedia is currently down due to networking issues. No …

Facebook isn’t the only tech giant struggling to meet mobile users’ expectations. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Zynga is taking the mobile revolution head-on, but serious questions remains about how the game maker’s strategy with fare. “To turn around its flagging business, Zynga is betting big on mobile games and creating a network that connects mobile-game players,” WSJ reports. “But how to carry out that shift remains up for debate.” Zynga, for example, still hasn’t committed to a mobile monetization strategy, i.e., whether to charge users for games upfront, or give some (or all) away for free. 

Another day, another Yahoo exec is heading for the door following Marissa Mayer’s appointment as CEO. Jim Heckman, Yahoo’s SVP of strategy, is out, AllThingsD reports. “This one was very much expected, as Heckman was closely tied to former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.” Longtime Yahoo exec Levinsohn said he was leaving, last month, after being passed over for Yahoo’s top job by Mayer. Heckman joined Yahoo in mid-2011 after it acquired his 5to1 ad start-up. Since then, he has worked on various ad and media deals, including a plan to tie Yahoo’s ad-selling operations with rivals Google, AOL and Microsoft.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that embedding an infringing video does not violate copyright laws. “The court sided with the video bookmarking site myVidster, which had been sued by the gay porn production company Flava Works in 2010,” GigaOm reports. “Flava Works obtained a preliminary injunction against myVidster with a lower court ruling in 2011, but 7th Court judge Richard Posner threw out that decision Thursday.” That said, the video bookmarking site isn’t off the hook completely, GigaOm notes. “Posner found that a previously offered caching feature could still make the site liable.” 

Following Ross Levinsohn’s lead, other top-level executives are ready to put Yahoo in their past. Adam Bechtel, vice president of infrastructure at the company, is planning to take an unspecified job at Apple, AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher reports, citing sources. Also on the way out is Jonathan Katzman, a product guru who, as Swisher notes, was part of the social efforts across Yahoo. “It was only a matter of time before more execs headed out the door with the changeover to new leader and former Googler Marissa Mayer.”  

Twitter and Facebook are transforming the way movie executives market their biggest projects. “Hollywood is doing more than using Twitter and Facebook as mere promotional tools,” The Wall Street Journal writes. “After several years of experimenting, studios have thrown themselves deeply into a medium which is still barely understood. They are now developing elaborate social media campaigns early on, sometimes as soon as a film gets greenlit.” That said, it remains to be seen how Twitter, Facebook, and other social platforms can profit from these marketing initiatives. 

Professional social network Yammer this week rolled out what some are calling a very Facebook-like chat service. “The new feature sits on the bottom right side of the screen, allowing Yammer users to chat with others in their company network, in much the same way that Facebook users can reach pals on the social network,” The Next Web notes. Microsoft recently agreed to buy Yammer for $1.2 billion. TNW suggests it is only a matter of time before Skype (which Microsoft also bought) is integrated into the service.