TechCrunch reports search giant Google has made a major investment in online gaming company Zynga, maker of popular browser based games like Farmville. The site says the funding may be as much as $100-$200 million.
It's not immediately clear what Google's interest is in the site, but speculation is that Google would like a nice killer app for its rumored "Google Me" social network.
Farmville and other Zynga games have been very popular on Facebook. PC World wonders if Zynga will be a major offering for the expected Google Games site.
More than just driving traffic, Zynga games could be linked to Google's payment system called Checkout, TechCrunch speculates. "Zynga is supposedly PayPal’s biggest single customer, and Google is always looking for ways to make Google Checkout relevant."
