Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Game Discovery Feed Stories Now Show Other Friends Who Play
- Facebook Tests New Page Admin Interface with Sidebar Navigation Links
- Large Business Pubs Writing More About Facebook Privacy Lately – Will That Affect Its Product Roadmap?
- Facebook Lets Group Members Opt Out of Group Chat
- SmileyCentral Brightens Up This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU
| Facebook Game Discovery Feed Stories Now Show Other Friends Who Play Posted: 25 Oct 2010 06:52 PM PDT Game "discovery" stories published to the news feed when a friend starts playing a Facebook game now show the profile pictures of other friends who also play the game. Users were also recently given the option to remove, mute, or blacklist an application upon deleting a story that app posted to their wall.
Facebook began altering how games appear in the news feed following an event at Facebook headquarters last month where Mark Zuckerberg said that "one of the biggest drivers of negative experiences has been games". Along with new requests, bookmarking, and social action incentive systems, Facebook is trying to help developers move away from the "ring of fire" where developers have to buy ads or aggressively promote games to new users, even as older ones leave. Facebook's VP of Partnerships and Platform Marketing Dan Rose said Facebook doesn't want feed posts to non-gamers to be about specific things which happened in the game. "The post about the game has no context, but the fact that they're playing does. The discovery stories are going to be an important part of the user acquisition channel." However, in-app Likes still produce feed stories about specific in-game content such as virtual goods. When a friend installs a game and crosses a small engagement threshold, users will see a story in their news feed stating "[Friend] started playing [Game]". Rich discovery stories show the game's profile picture and description. Below this information and above the action link, users now see text stating "[Another Friend] and [#] other friends also play", along with mini-thumbnail profile pictures of those friends. Adding the facepile creates game discovery stories which alert users to both a new action by one friend, and the sustained engagement of others. This creates a compelling indirect social recommendation which encourages users to try the game. Note that these stories only appear in the feeds of friends, and not on the wall of the user who installed the game. Remove, Mute, or Blacklist Apps When Removing Their PostsIf a user sees a post from a game or application on their wall which they don't want others to see, they can click the "Remove" button which appears when the story is hovered over. This pops up a remove confirmation message which now includes new options such as "Remove [Application] from my list of applications", "Don't allow [Application] to publish without asking me", or "Blacklist [Application] and add it to my blacklist".
These options helps users mute the spammy application instead of merely fighting the spam itself. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Tests New Page Admin Interface with Sidebar Navigation Links Posted: 25 Oct 2010 02:21 PM PDT Facebook is testing a cleaner new administrative interface for Pages which organizes options into left hand sidebar navigation links. It allows administrators to edit Basic Information such as Company Overview from the admin interface, use a typeahead instead of a multi-friend selector for managing admin permissions, and lets Pages with few Likes change their names.
Facebook launched a new Page Insights interface at f8 this year, but this test is the first major admin interface redesign in a long time. Those to whom the new admin interface has been rolled out can access it by clicking "Edit Page" on a Page they admin, or via the Ads and Pages home page navigation link. Instead of a long list of settings and applications options, user see navigation links in the Page editor's left sidebar allowing them to Manage Permissions, edit Basic Information, select Applications, conduct Marketing and more.
Previously, admins had to go their Page and click "Change Picture" or select the Info tab and click "Edit Information" to change the Page's profile picture, website and other category specific details. Now these fields can be edited through the Basic Information and Profile Picture links. The "About This Page" field cannot be edited from the admin interface, though.
Admins of some Pages will also see the option to alter the Page's name, which Facebook previously did not allow. It’s unclear what determines which Pages can have their names changed, but the name field does appear for Pages with few Likes. The option would allow businesses or brands which have changed their name in real life, want to refocus their Page, or who made a spelling or grammar mistake when first creating their Page can change the Page's name without having to delete it and start a new one. However, the option could create the potential for abuse, as those who Like a Page aren't notified of name changes, potentially causing them to unknowingly display a Page in their profile with a different name than the one they Liked. The Marketing navigation link collects options to advertise a Page, create an embeddable badge, or send an update which were scattered around the right sidebar of the old Page admin interface. While there is no longer a big green "Promote Your Page" button, the text link to advertise is more prominently placed in the center of the screen when viewing Marketing options. With the Manage Admins link, Facebook has replaced the pop-up multi-friend selector for appointing new admins with a typeahead that accepts names and email addresses. The Applications link includes an "Applications You Might Like" section from which users can instantly add or edit new Page tab applications without first visiting the app. The increased prominence and efficiency of this section more effectively encourages installation of new tab apps than the "More Applications" section at the very bottom of the old admin interface.
Links for Mobile, Insights, and Page Help simply creates separate pages for the same options available in the old interface. Facebook has removed the "News for Page Admins" feed which displayed recent notes published by the Facebook Pages official Page.
This new admin interface looks similar to the Group editor, and signals a shift in Facebook design which favors categorized sidebar navigation links pointing to a limited set of options over a single long list of diverse options. Meanwhile, even if only available for small Page, the ability to change a names is a significant functionality addition that could aid many frustrated admins. However, it could be used to dupe users into Liking objectionable content. Update: We’ve learned that the threshold at which a Page can’t have its name changed is 100 Likes. Pages with less than 100 Likes who have an admin with access to the new Page admin interface will see the option to change the Page’s name in the Basic Information panel. [Thanks to Dan Birdwhistell for the tip] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 25 Oct 2010 12:45 PM PDT Although Facebook’s developer and advertiser platforms have been live for several years, large US business publications have been investigating potential Facebook privacy concerns much more prominently in the last few weeks. Whether you think recent articles by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times symbolize how investigative journalism can best serve society, or are just another example of sensational headlines based on limited information, the fact remains that these articles are getting published on the front page of influential business newspapers, and US Congressmen are noticing and publicly writing to Facebook the day after, for the second time this year. Back in May, a few weeks after Facebook launched its “Instant Personalization” program at f8, Chuck Schumer held a press conference to call Facebook "The Wild West of the Internet,” and followed up by writing a letter along with three other US Senators to Mark Zuckerberg requesting that Facebook make Instant Personalization opt-in. What were the consequences? We haven’t since heard anything further from Senator Schumer or Facebook regarding his request. Instead, Facebook has continued rolling out its Instant Personalization program to more partners — a few weeks ago with Flixster’s Rotten Tomatoes, and most recently with its biggest partner yet, Microsoft. About 21 weeks after US Senators were making Facebook product design requests from the steps of the Capitol building, Microsoft’s Bing search engine – a very popular service used by tens of millions of Americans (in every Congressional district) each month – is now a premier Instant Personalization partner. So, given how the last round of press and Congressional interest played out, how different is the current round of privacy concerns from those back in May? It’s important to note that the technical details of the concerns are different. After the launch of Instant Personalization, many in the press expressed concern that it represented a serious privacy violation because of the “opt-out” nature of the way Facebook shares users’ “public” Facebook data with partner sites, and suggested that the user experience should be purely “opt-in” instead. With the latest articles, the WSJ expressed concern over data being passed by some application developers to aggressive third party ad networks, and the NYT expressed concern over tactics that some marketers might use to gather personal data by micro-targeting Facebook Ads. These stories are generally focused on Facebook’s potential inability to completely police all of the many developers and advertisers on its platform on an ongoing basis — not necessarily the launch of any new product, like in May. One way in which this round of concerns is similar to those from May is that they do not appear to be widely expressed by users. In years past, Facebook users have expressed concerns over Facebook product changes, and the privacy violations they caused, very loudly. For example, in one case, in the days and weeks following the launch of the News Feed in 2006, hundreds of thousands of people used the News Feed to protest it — before stopping the protest because of how useful the News Feed turned out to be. In another example, in the days and weeks following the launch of Beacon, many Facebook users protested the way it worked, and after a protracted period of press concerns and user protests Facebook shut Beacon down. In both the May concerns and October concerns this year, we haven’t seen those kinds of user protests, and all the data we have seen shows that Facebook’s US audience continues to grow. If many Facebook users were to stop using it due to privacy holes or other violations, that would obviously be a potentially catastrophic problem for Facebook’s future — but they’re not. So what does the recent bump in privacy-concern-related press coverage and Congressional interest actually mean for Facebook? For now, in the absence of significant user behavior changes, these issues mainly reflect the increasing complexity of Facebook’s corporate communications efforts. With over 140 million monthly US users, an application platform that is generating nearly a billion dollars in gross revenues for developers, and an advertising platform that is continuing to gain momentum across the board, the landscape of the Facebook ecosystem is much more broad and complex than it was when the News Feed launched – and the number of businesses, politicians, and others with interests in how things go for Facebook is only continuing to increase. Thus, as far as media coverage goes, Facebook should only expect that more articles like the most recent ones will be coming over time. In terms of government relations, last May we asked, Will Facebook Become This Year's Political Football? (And What Would That Mean for Its Product Roadmap?) So far, given Microsoft’s rollout of Instant Personalization a couple weeks ago, it appears that the Senators’ concerns haven’t resulted in big product roadmap changes at Facebook. Facebook will likely take steps to address the potential problems raised (like their proposal last week to encrypt user IDs), but until stories about potential privacy issues are followed by significant consumer fear, dissatisfaction, or behavior changes, we don’t expect the latest concerns to result in major product roadmap adjustments either. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Lets Group Members Opt Out of Group Chat Posted: 25 Oct 2010 11:51 AM PDT Facebook users can now opt out of receiving Group Chat messages on a Group-by-Group basis. Also, the interface for selecting whose actions within a Group send a user notifications has been changed from a radio button to a drop-down menu. The launch of the ability to decline Group Chat was announced in the form of answers by Facebook Groups team members Andrew Bosworth and Feross Aboukhadijeh to a Quora question. The option is accessible through the “Edit Settings” button on Group’s page.
Facebook launched Groups in early October, and made its first round of updates to the feature a few days later, changing the name of the “Edit Notifications” button to “Edit Settings”, added a Group’s email address to it’s page header, and allowed users to opt out of a home page navigation bookmark for that Group. Group Chat allows any Group member to send all the other members of the Group who are online a Chat message simultaneously. However, in especially large Groups or ones where members are less considerate of others, Group Chat messages can come in frequently and be distracting. Bosworth asked “If people don’t want to chat with a group, why are they a part of that group? Do they find it valuable or should the(sic) re-evaluate? Surely, at any given time we might not be inclined to chat but if you never want to chat I think that says something.” However, in response to feedback, the team added the feature, allowing users to only interact with a Group when on that Group’s page.
When users click the “Edit Settings” button in the top right of a Group page, they’ll see a checkbox for “send me group chat messages” which can be unchecked to opt out of Chat with that Group. As before, users can temporarily decline Group Chat messages while on Facebook by signing out of Chat in the lower right hand corner of their screen. As Facebook watches how Groups are used and abused, it discovers the need for options like this which reduce noise and keep inconsiderate member from pushing others to leave or mute the Group’s notifications. VP of Product Chris Cox and CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that Facebook hopes to use social design, where “the interactions of one person with the product affect and organize the interactions of the people around them” to “socially regulate” Groups. However, if users aren’t proactively setting norms and discouraging or removing Group members who send irrelevant Group Chat messages, Facebook will need to step in with a product solution like this. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SmileyCentral Brightens Up This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU Posted: 25 Oct 2010 08:34 AM PDT
Of the two leaders, SmileyCentral is newer and more interesting. The app, which is actually a plugin, converts emoticons on Facebook into smiley-faces. This confuses some users, as their friends won’t necessarily see the same effect. However, there’s also the easier option of just choosing a single face to post to your profile or a friend’s wall, which is likely helping to spread the app. Windows Live Messenger appears quite often, but it’s worth noting that the chat app added 14 percent in just a single week. That’s good for Facebook, as it indicates that existing Live Messenger users are installing the Facebook extension in ever-greater numbers. Are YOU Interested? has also picked up a large number of would-be internet daters; it’s now almost twice as large as the next-biggest dating app on Facebook, Zoosk. The last app we’ll note here is Instant Jam – Play with Your Music. As we pointed out this morning on Inside Social Games, Instant Jam, which is a lot like Guitar Hero, has brought in a flood of new users. However, the future is not assured for Facebook music games yet — Instant Jam is hanging onto only a small fraction of its new players. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |