According to multiple sources we’ve spoken with over the past few weeks, RockYou will be the third partner to work with Facebook on their growing Credits platform. The other two partners, TrialPay and Peanut Labs, have been working with Facebook to power their offers and surveys integration with Facebook Credits, respectively. With $119 million in funding, many have wondered whether or not RockYou would be able to build a fledgling business.

With ongoing business challenges, and a need to justify a massive valuation, it sounds as though this partnership with Facebook could potentially turn out to be a life-saving one if it turns out to be accurate. How RockYou will integrate with Facebook Credits is not yet clear, however according to the people we’ve spoken to, RockYou is expected to power some form of ad network for Facebook Credits.

While we’re still trying to find out the complete details, it sounds as though the service will promote in-application opportunities to generate Facebook credits. Despite the unclear integration with Credits, it’s pretty clear that Facebook is looking for more opportunities for users to earn Credits and to promote those opportunities.

Just today Techcrunch posted about Facebook’s expansion of offers integration outside of applications. While Facebook is expanding the opportunities to earn Credits, integration with developers has been limited to a closed set of partners, and it sounds as though it will stay that way for now.

How successful Facebook Credits will be is not yet known as it appears to be an ongoing source of tension with developers. Zynga, for example, is looking to drive users off of the Facebook Platform to their own standalone site, in order to decrease the company’s dependance on Facebook. Despite the push, it’s pretty common knowledge that user acquisition of the Facebook Platform is much more expensive.

As such, in-app Facebook Credits integration could become a pretty large business for Facebook. If the multiple sources we’ve spoken to over the past few weeks are accurate, RockYou will be the next partner to power another aspect of Facebook Credits.

RockYou, one of the largest Facebook application developers, has spent the past few months shifting its focus to social gaming. One of the company’s latest games, Zoo World, has more than tripled in the past month, growing from 3.1 million to over 9.9 million monthly active users. With the rapid growth, one would imagine that Zynga will quickly follow suit with ZooVille, however another company currently holds the trademark.

While Zynga could easily create a zoo application and call it something other than ZooVille, the name wouldn’t follow the pattern of the company’s latest games: PetVille, FishVille, and FarmVille. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office currently states that a company named “SocialApps, LLC” trademarked the term “ZOOVILLE” on November 16, 2009. We’ve never head of SocialApps, LLC though but it appears to be registered in California by Tom Hansen, someone else we’ve never heard of.

Regardless of the ZooVille mystery, Zoo World is currently growing rapidly, boosting RockYou into the second position of the top Facebook application developers. While game play is a little clunky when it comes to making purchases, Zoo World continues to add around 200,000 users a day. It would be great if all the activities could take place within the flash application rather than moving between pages, but I’m assuming RockYou is working on upgrading the application as it grows.

While Zynga may not currently be competing in the simulation zoo space, there are already numerous other developers taking a shot at competing with RockYou. Zoo Builder, My Zoo, The Zoo Game, and Zoo Sim are just a few of the applications looking to compete with Zoo World. We’ll have to wait a while to see if the zoos are able to catch up with the extremely popular Facebook farms, but for now it appears that RockYou has a firm grip on the Facebook zoo market.

Over the past 24 hours, two of the largest Facebook application developers, RockYou and Zynga, have announced relatively large funding rounds. RockYou raised a whopping $50 million and Zynga raised $15.18 million. What are these rounds going toward? RockYou is apparently turning their attention toward the booming social gaming space and expanding their advertising efforts, while Zynga is most likely stocking up on cash to help build out their ever expanding portfolio of popular games.

Despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the offers space, both companies have rapidly increasing revenue bases. Zynga has revenues of somewhere between $150 million and $240 million depending on what source you listen to, while RockYou revenues are rumored to be between $30 and $40 million. RockYou has raised an incredible $119 million to date which means the company will have to dramatically increase revenue over the next couple years if the investors are going to obtain a significant return on their investment.

Both companies have come under fire for the ads running in their network, however they both appear committed to cleaning things up. While this RockYou investment appears to be a significant doubling down by their existing investor, Softbank, it’s not a completely outlandish investment given that RockYou is one of the leading brands on the social web. We’ll have to wait to find out what RockYou will be using this funding toward but I’d expect at least a couple new applications out of this round of funding.

Dawn is using RockYou’s Pieces of Flair application to promote its Dawn Saves Wildlife campaign and the Everyday Wildlife Champions Facebook page. Users can spread word of the education and wildlife rescue initiative by sharing the Pieces of Flair — the app features some of the animals that Dawn dishwashing soap has helped clean after the wildlife has been caught in oil spills.

The campaign gives users a chance to learn more about the programs that are helping wildlife, as well as offering information on where people can visit the animals or start their own efforts to help the cause. Dawn is also currently running a promotion that donates $1 from the sale of special edition bottles of their dish soap to the Marine Mammal Center and the International Bird Rescue Research Center. The total potential donation is $500,000.

“Dawn has been focused on keeping the line between branding and cause clear. While Dawn is the driving factor behind the program’s success, it is ultimately the passion for wildlife conservation that drives the consumer,” said Susan Baba, external relations manager, Procter & Gamble. “Working with RockYou has helped Dawn raise awareness of this wildlife conservation effort and invite consumers to join the Everyday Wildlife Champions movement. In two months, 11,000 fans have joined the page and are actively discussing wildlife issues and events across the country. In addition, over $50,000 in donations has been activated online at www.dawnsaveswildlife.com.”

Dawn and RockYou launched the campaign in July, and more than 1.3 million Pieces of Flair were shared among Facebook users in the first three weeks.