Last week, DeNA, Japan's most successful mobile Internet company, announced that it plans to launch a global social gaming network for smartphones. DeNA, which recently opened a US affiliate in San Mateo, California, plans to initiate this service in April, 2011. At the same time, the company announced it will enter a partnership to integrate the platform onto Samsung's Android smartphones.

The service will be called Mobage and will be similar to DeNA's Japan-only service Mobage-town. If it's anything like the success of Mobage-town, smartphone users have much to look forward to. The 20.5 million registered users of Mobage-town can exchange messages, chat in communities, share music, read pocket novels and blog, among other social activities. However, the self-described "killer feature" - and the key selling point of the site - is the huge selection of free games available to players. In Mobage-town, a player becomes an avatar who lives in a virtual room. Both the avatar and the room can be enhanced with clothes, decorations, etc. But, in order to do that, players must acquire "Moba Gold," virtual currency established by DeNA by clicking on ads, signing up for affiliate services and inviting new members. This business strategy has been monumentally successful, earning $46 million in sales in the first quarter of this year alone and racking up 15 billion page views...in the month of June! And, keep in mind: this service is available only in Japan!

DeNA has already initiated a private beta for its Open Mobage Smartphone SDK with more than 50 partners, including Hudson, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, RockYou and PlayFirst. Serving as Mobage's technology layer, allowing developers to deploy games across devices (for instance, Android, iOS and the web) is DeNA's recently-acquired subsidiary, Ngmoco. Neil Young, Ngmoco's CEO, said this collaboration "will accelerate the social gaming network's global market growth, and that it will continue to expand the service with more global relationships throughout the coming year."

But, it's not just sites like Mobage that are expanding the social gaming network. With more than 200 million people playing social games every month - and those numbers growing every day - there are plenty of plans afoot by other companies to grow this industry and, hopefully, cash in on the craze. Everyone knows about the popularity of Facebook's social games, such as Mafia Wars, Happy Aquarium and the granddaddy of them all, FarmVille. Now, Google is rumored to be working on getting its own games site up and running while Disney recently plunked down $563 million to buy social game developer Playdom. And with sites like Foursquare managing to get people away from their computers while still engaging in social networking, the future couldn't be brighter for this industry.

Why the rush to get into social gaming? Companies like DeNA have discovered ways to monetize the platform, which has not had an easy time figuring out how to tap into an income stream. As you no doubt know if you play any of the games on Facebook, if you buy add-ons, you can get through levels faster; the increment levels are small - 50 cents, one dollar - so it doesn't even feel like you're spending money and yet, what are you paying money for? Nothing more than a virtual object on a screen! But, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, "analysts predict more than $853 million in such transactions this year." That's a lot of actual coin being spent on virtual items!

And now, celebrities are jumping onto the social gaming bandwagon. On the heels of DeNA's announcement last week that it plans to launch Mobage-town in early 2011, Endemol USA released information about a partnership with EngageDigital and 6 Waves that will bring Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant to social gaming. The game, which Bryant will help create, will not only be for the Facebook platform but for other social networks and gaming sites as well. As Endemol proclaims, this effort is "the first social title centered around a 'global' celebrity." In addition, social game developer Zynga announced last week that it is entering a partnership with music mogul Dr. Dre. Social gamers who play Zynga's Mafia Wars will now be able to view the music video for Kush (featuring rappers Snoop Dogg and Akon), a single from Dr. Dre's upcoming CD Detox. (Watch the music video here.) In addition, gamers can collect limited edition Dr. Dre virtual items and "experience music content from the new Hustlin' wit Dr. Dre portion of the game." Players also will be able to view an "exclusive video message" from Dr. Dre and become eligible to win signed Beats By Dr. Dre headphones and a signed copy of the upcoming CD.

Clearly, social gaming is turning a corner into a major, mainstream content provider featuring entertainment, access to exclusive content, messaging with friends and, oh yes, games! With its ability to monetize, attract celebrities and partner with other major companies, it looks like whatever growing pains social gaming might have been experiencing are now a thing of the past.