This week brings bad news indeed for one of Facebook’s most high profile third-party developed applications; the popular Scrabulous app. Designed by two Indian brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla in 2006, Scrabulous has now become Facebook’s ninth most popular application, with 2.3 million total users, 500,000 of whom play daily. Its addictive and simple version of the popular board game Scrabble offers users the chance to compete with friends and colleagues, and earns the brothers approximately $25,000 per month from advertising revenue.
However this success has not gone unnoticed by the toy-making giants Hasbro and Mattel, who both own rights to the Scrabble game format and now, rather predictably, are keen to capitalise on the financial potential of Scrabulous. A deal…