| Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 Is Just Weeks Away – January 25th in San Francisco Posted: 29 Dec 2010 07:24 PM PST  January 25th | San Francisco 
| Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011, our second conference on the future of monetization on social platforms, is coming to San Francisco on January 25th. The agenda for the day is now live online. At Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011, executives and experts from Facebook, Google, leading social networks, mobile platforms, social game and app developers, media companies, virtual goods and payment services, and investors will be discussing the future of social platforms and virtual goods monetization in social games and apps. Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 is just over three weeks away. We’re expecting a full house for January’s event; to make sure your spot is reserved, please register now. A limited set of general admission tickets are currently available for $339, but this price will be good through Friday December 31st only, so we encourage you to register now. Who’s Speaking? We're honored to present the following confirmed speakers at Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011:  | Bret Taylor
CTO, Facebook |  | Eric Chu
Group Manager, Android Platform, Google |  | Kristian Segarstrale
Co-founder and CEO, Playfish (now part of EA) |  | Vish Makhijani
SVP Business Operations, Zynga |  | Kevin Chou
Co-founder and CEO, Kabam |  | Peter Relan
Executive Chairman, CrowdStar |  | Rick Thompson
Co-Founder, Playdom (now part of Disney), and Investor |  | Jason Oberfest
VP Social Apps, ngmoco:) (now part of DeNA) |  | Rex Ng
Co-Founder and CEO, 6waves |  | Deborah Liu
Commerce Product Marketing, Facebook |  | Sean Ryan
EVP and GM Games, News Corp |  | Bill Gossman
CEO, hi5 |  | Anil Dharni
Co-founder, Funzio; Founder, Storm8 |  | Paul Bettner
GM, Zynga with Friends |  | Jens Begemann
Co-founder and CEO, Wooga |  | Eric Goldberg
Managing Director, Crossover Technologies |  | Carey Kolaja
Senior Director, Digital Goods Operations, PayPal |  | Raph Koster
VP Creative Design, Playdom (now part of Disney) |  | Atul Bagga
VP Equity Research, Games, ThinkEquity |  | Manu Rekhi
GM Games and Platform, MySpace |  | Matthaeus Krzykowski
Founder, Xyologic |  | Asokan Thiyagarajan
Dir. Platforms & Tech. Strategy, Samsung |  | Justin Smith
Founder, Inside Network |  | Eric Eldon
Editor, Inside Network |
Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 – January 25th in San Francisco Social applications first emerged in 2007, and are today maturing into a global media ecosystem. With the launch of the Facebook Platform, followed by platforms from MySpace and other social networks, developers worldwide could leverage the social graph to create new kinds of social experiences never before possible. Now, three and a half years later, what started out as sheep throwing and vampire biting has quickly become a profitable billion-dollar industry, punctuated by numerous major acquisitions by the world’s leading media companies and developers. But now, new challenges are emerging, affecting big players and new entrants alike. Inside Social Apps will investigate the latest trends and challenges for social applications, and look at what’s to come for developers throughout the space – including the growth of virtual goods and social applications on mobile devices. What are the biggest uncertainties and opportunities facing the future of social games and applications in 2011, and who is leading the way? Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 takes place January 25th, 2011 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, and brings together the world's leading entrepreneurs to weigh in on the future of social app and game monetization. Inside Social Apps will be a one-day summit led by Inside Network’s Eric Eldon and Justin Smith, and will take in-depth investigative approach to the day’s discussions. At Inside Social Apps, Inside Network will work alongside founders and executives of the top social networking, social gaming, mobile social gaming, payments, and virtual goods infrastructure companies to analyze the most important issues affecting the industry. Inside Social Apps is geared towards developers on Facebook, iPhone, Android, and emerging online social platforms. Inside Social Apps will be a content-rich day of critical discussion, followed by an evening and nighttime of casual networking. Register Now
Inside Social Apps InFocus 2011 is just over three weeks away. We’re expecting a full house for January’s event; to make sure your spot is reserved, please register now. A limited set of general admission tickets are currently available for $339, but this price will be good through Friday December 31st only, so we encourage you to register now. From all of us at Inside Network, we hope to see you on January 25th in San Francisco at Inside Social Apps!  |
| Facebook Mobile Apps for Windows Phone 7 and Palm WebOS Gain Places Posted: 29 Dec 2010 12:47 PM PST Places functionality is included in the most recent updates to Microsoft and Palm’s official Facebook mobile apps, allowing more Facebook users to begin sharing their location. Facebook for Windows Phone 7 Version 1.1 also includes photo tagging, and Palm’s Facebook for HP webOS Version 1.5 builds on Version 1.4 which included the ability to open multiple instances, or cards,of the app. These updates put the Windows and HP webOS apps on par with the Blackberry app, but behind the Android app which has Groups, Chat and push notifications, and the iPhone app which also has advanced Places options and Deals. With Places now available to users of all the major Facebook mobile platforms, check-ins should become more common in the feed, reinforcing the notion that sharing one’s location is a natural part of social networking. 
Facebook launched Places in August, though initially it was only available on Facebook for iPhone and touch.facebook.com. It wasn’t until November that Android and Blackberry users gained access. Facebook has said it is seeking to close the functionality gap between the iPhone and previously lagging Android apps, both of which are developed in-house. Meanwhile, the Blackberry, Windows and Palm apps which are developed by their respective platform owners are left trying to catch up, making the handsets that run them less attractive to avid Facebook users. Facebook for Windows Microsoft’s Facebook for Windows Phone 7 Version 1.1 also includes performance improvements, a better graphical interface, and the ability to run while the phone’s screen is locked. The addition of Places makes the app more powerful that the Windows Phone 7′s native People and Me hubs from which users can update their status, view recent posts by friends, and change their profile picture. Before this update, there was little reason to use the specific Facebook for Windows app over the hubs. 
Users can also now tag friends in photos — something currently unavailable in the Android app. Still, the app lacks push notifications, Chat, and Groups. Facebook for webOS 
Palm’s Facebook for webOS Version 1.5 adds Places to emoticons and the ability to post status updates from the native Just Type universal search interface which were added in Version 1.4. Regarding the lack of Chat in the Facebook app, Justin Reid, one of the mobile app’s developers and the outspoken community manager for its Facebook Page, says that “Facebook Chat will be supported by the Messaging app in a forthcoming update to HP webOS 2.0. No need to keep chiming in about that – we’re already on the case.” This software update is due by the end of the year, though it seems awkward that users will have to leave the Facebook app in order to Chat with their Facebook friends. One noticeable advantage of Microsoft’s app over Palm’s is that if users choose to pull info about their Facebook friends into their Windows Phone address book, they can do so for only the friends for which they already have other contact info. This keeps the address book tidy. The webOS version of this data sync pulls the info of all of your friends, cluttering the address book with distant acquaintances. Users of these two platforms should be excited about the addition of Places. The other deficiencies are more private, and the missing features can be used from the Facebook web interface. But now when friends talk about the more social, public, mobile-only Places feature, Palm and Windows users won’t have to feel left out or disappointed in their app anymore.  |
| Mobile Apps Add Users on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU Posted: 29 Dec 2010 08:01 AM PST  Several mobile apps have added significant numbers of users on this week’s AppData list of fastest-growing apps by daily active users, perhaps signaling that new smartphones and tablets were a popular Christmas gift this year. There are four total starting with HTC Sense:
| Name | DAU | Gain | Gain,% | | 1. |  Yahoo! | 4,663,256 | +2,489,067 | +114% | | 2. |  Prosperous New Year To All My Friends  | 1,454,836 | +678,660 | +87% | | 3. |  Windows Live Messenger | 11,371,674 | +283,842 | +3% | | 4. |  CityVille | 13,897,851 | +223,175 | +2% | | 5. |  HTC Sense | 3,667,569 | +206,437 | +6% | | 6. |  FarmVille 中文版 | 222,649 | +184,595 | +485% | | 7. |  Tavla | 235,140 | +177,567 | +308% | | 8. |  Tarjetitas | 400,365 | +158,337 | +65% | | 9. | Friendly for iPad | 417,061 | +150,247 | +56% | | 10. |  Samsung Mobile | 1,454,466 | +140,801 | +11% | | 11. | My Top Friends (new) | 150,777 | +122,206 | +428% | | 12. |  Ovi by Nokia | 504,085 | +118,847 | +31% | | 13. |  ♥ LoVe To YoU ♥ | 221,999 | +115,365 | +108% | | 14. | Nokia | 1,020,219 | +77,927 | +8% | | 15. |  My Top Followers | 120,073 | +74,295 | +162% | | 16. | iPhoto Uploader | 207,689 | +58,098 | +39% | | 17. |  ☻ ♥ My BesT WisheS to YoU ♥☻ | 117,369 | +49,371 | +73% | | 18. |  Christmas – Natale – Navidad – Noel | 211,266 | +45,826 | +28% | | 19. |  Feliz Año Nuevo ♥ Especialmente para ti | 123,732 | +44,187 | +56% | | 20. |  xo Hearts xo | 89,175 | +44,175 | +98% | You’d see more mobile apps on the list, but there are a handful, like Facebook for iPhone and Facebook for Blackberry, that we’ve removed from our leaderboards to prevent them from obscuring apps that live on the platform. Those two respectively added about 1.5 million and 400,000 new DAU. HTC Sense, Samsung Mobile, Ovi by Nokia and Nokia are all smaller mobile apps that are gaining, while Friendly for iPad is an alternative iPad social networking app. Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger are two Connect apps that we’ve seen many times before, so we’ll pass over them. And Prosperous New Year To All My Friends is one of the short-lived season’s greetings apps that will probably be gone in a week. CityVille has been the big story for a few weeks, but you’ll note that it’s only number four this week. Although the app is still making huge gains of monthly active users, its DAU is dropping as the stickiness, or percentage of monthly users who come back daily, falls to normal levels. 
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| Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: Kontagent, Peanut Labs, & More Posted: 29 Dec 2010 04:20 AM PST The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem. Here are this week's highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Kontagent, Peanut Labs, Storm8, and Luna Digita. 
Luna Digita, Inc. Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.  |
GalleyCat: Mockingjay & Other Kindle Books Can Now Be Loaned 
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