Eat. Sleep. Farmville. The Facebook Phenomenon Breaks Into the Promotional Products Arena.

We all know that the social utility website Facebook has grown to become a worldwide online phenomenon, having just reached over 100 million active users in the US, meaning that nearly 1/3 of the American population are now logging on each month. Beyond this social media platform itself, it has helped to spawn the development of many other social phenomena – including the biggest social gaming stage ever, FarmVille.

For those who are not one of its 72 million something active users, and those who have not been reading friends status updates such as, “Judy just milked their goat and got some sweet, tasty goat’s milk in FarmVille!” here’s a little 411 on the game: FarmVille, launched in June 2009, is a game developed by Zynga, which, founded in July 2007 out of San Francisco, California, is now the largest developer of social games on the web. The FarmVille application essentially allows its users to grow and tend to a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and livestock. The game is based around its market where items ranging from seeds, trees, and animals to buildings, cars and more land can be purchased for one’s own farm, or gifted to a neighbor’s farm. These purchases are made with “coins” that a user generally earns by selling crops, however, players can spend real money on virtual goods to help them advance to higher levels within the game, thereby benefiting Zynga, whose annual revenue is likely to surpass $100 million this year.

As if FarmVille has not already practically taken over the virtual world, it is now extending its reach into the real-world through the use of promotional products. Players can now share their addiction beyond the Internet with FarmVille promotional products such as “I’d rather be farming,” magnets or the “Eat. Sleep. Farmville,” trucker hat, which are all available online at www.cafepress.com.