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- New Games Do Best on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
- Facebook Tests Showing New Profile Pictures on the Requests Page
- Facebook Implements “Account Protection” Security Status Bar
- Report: Boku to Join Zong as a Mobile Payments Option for Facebook Credits
- Ads API Profile: Efficient Frontier’s Portfolio Management Across Channels
- Facebook Tests Aggregated Mentions Feed Stories
- Last Week to Pre-Order Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011
- Top 20 Gaining Facebook Pages: Zynga, Disney, Music, Converse, Jackass and More
| New Games Do Best on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU Posted: 10 Nov 2010 07:50 AM PST
Here’s the full list:
FarmVille, of course, is also present near the top of the list, but its growth is really just a bounceback from a previous drop. That leaves the top spot to Simply Hospital and Hollywood City, which are respectively a new business management game and a reskin of the highly successful Millionaire City. We cover these titles in more depth over at Inside Social Games. Is Cool, like FarmVille, can be ignored this week. It takes a little digging, actually, to find the apps on this week’s list that are really growing, instead of just fluctuating. There are three that stand out, starting with Social Statistics, a fairly typical profile stats tool that shows top friends based on the frequency of their interactions with your profile. HTC Sense, at number 12, hasn’t shown up on our DAU list for a few weeks, but it has been growing the whole time. Like Messenger, Sense isn’t an app on Facebook; instead, it’s the mobile app for HTC smartphone users on either Android or Windows devices (mostly the former).
And just to round out the route for actual on-platform apps, Snaptu is also a mobile connection tool — in this case a more general smartphone tool that gives users access to favorite websites. Combined, Snaptu and Sense account for almost six million mobile users. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Tests Showing New Profile Pictures on the Requests Page Posted: 09 Nov 2010 07:01 PM PST Facebook is testing a “New Profiles Pictures” panel on the Requests page. Beneath a user’s pending requests, they’ll see rows of up to six friends, their new profile pictures, and when they updated the pictures. The test likely seeks to give users something to click after following a notification to the requests page and accepting or rejecting their requests.
Facebook has updated the Requests page several times in the past few months. It added friend suggestions of people connected to those whose requests you’ve accepted, as well as a “Delete all hidden requests” button for clearing friend requests users had previously differed using the new “Not Now” answer. The new feature may be designed to provide a natural segue into other Facebook content instead of allowing users to become bored and leave the site. After answering all pending requests, the Requests page can be the most whitespace a user ever sees on Facebook. With so much compelling content to provide, it seems natural for Facebook to fill this space. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Implements “Account Protection” Security Status Bar Posted: 09 Nov 2010 05:52 PM PST Facebook has implemented a new security feature called Account Protection which informs users of how secure there account is. The feature is displayed in a new sidebar module and as a status bar at the bottom of the “Update Your Security Information” page which debuted last month. Users with a “very low” protection status are prompted to verify additional email addresses to prevent identity spoofing, connect their mobile phone to Facebook as an additional account retrieval tool, and add a security question for account owner verification.
These three security information questions which are tabulated in the new status bar were added last month to help protect users from being locked out of their account by scammers, malicious friends, or by accident. Other recently implemented security features include one-time passwords, remote log out of active sessions, notifications and a log of new devices used to access a user’s account, and friend request spam prevention. An aggressive security feature which forces users to identify friends by their profile pictures to log-in resulted in many rightful owners being locked out of their accounts. Many of these users could have quickly regained access had they activated additional retrieval methods, which may have pushed Facebook to release this new Account Protection feature.
When followed, users are brought to the “Update Your Security Information” wizard, which has been broken down into a three-step flow. At the bottom of the wizard, users see an “Overall Protection” status bar, which fills as they complete the steps of the flow. Clicking the question mark next to the bar pops up a prompt showing actions left to be taken to “Strengthen Your Security” and “reach a ‘High’ Account Control level’”.
Facebook should be commended for using unambiguous security questions like “What street did you live on when you were 8?” opposed to vague questions like “What street did you grow up on?” which are commonly used by other web services. Some might worry about Facebook spamming users through their additional email addresses or mobile phone, but Facebook won’t contact users through these mediums unless explicitly requested.
Similar to Facebook Impact, Facebook chose to use terminology and visual cues similar those in social games to encourage user action. Getting users to activate additional retrieval methods prevents them from having the awful experience of being locked out of their account for months, and reduces the strain on Facebook technical support caused by these disgruntled users. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Report: Boku to Join Zong as a Mobile Payments Option for Facebook Credits Posted: 09 Nov 2010 04:28 PM PST Mobile payment provider Zong was the first alternative payment company to get its offering integrated into Facebook’s main Credits purchase interface. That was last August, and Facebook has since added a variety of other ways to by the virtual currency, including advertising offers provided by TrialPay, a more diverse set of credit card and banking options, its own pre-paid retail cards, and a big expansion in other ways that users can gain Credits through third parties. Now, more than a year later, Facebook is going to add Zong rival Boku to the Credits purchase options, according to a report from All Things D. It seems obvious that Facebook would add Boku, and many other payment options, at some point. So why now? The timing isn’t that odd, considering the overall expansion of Credits in recent months. Facebook is making the currency the only way that users can buy virtual goods on the platform. Boku and Zong have up until now been active on the platform, as payment options for developers selling their own virtual currencies in games. It’s likely that Facebook is able to strike favorable deal terms with the payment providers it is aggregating, given Facebook’s leverage through the Credits rollout. Boku, formed out of some earlier mobile payments companies, has established itself as the main competitor to Zong. Both companies let users pay for Credits and other virtual currencies using their mobile phone accounts, and both have worked hard to establish relationships with carriers around the world, even as more mainstream payment options continue to be the most popular with users, according to a recent survey we did for our Inside Facebook Gold analysis service. Those relationships are time-consuming to build, but they can be just as important as the mobile payments technology underpinning the startups’ systems. Carriers who are comfortable with one of these mobile payment companies will sometimes agree to reduce their otherwise-high transaction fees, for example. More intriguingly, a recent article from TechCrunch said that Apple and Google have both been talking to Boku about an acquisition or significant partnership. Perhaps the interest of those two rivals spurred Facebook to get Boku on the platform? Boku’s goal as an independent company is to become as widely accessible to users as possible, and up until this point it has watched Zong get promoted over it by Facebook, even as Facebook has made Credits the only way for users to buy virtual currency on the platform. Now that it appears to be on board, perhaps it will be more inspired to stay independent? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ads API Profile: Efficient Frontier’s Portfolio Management Across Channels Posted: 09 Nov 2010 02:08 PM PST
A mature marketing management platform, Efficient Frontier developed its ads API tool to use the same applied portfolio theory it had be using in its system for paid search and display ads clients. It tested the beta of its Facebook tool for a few months with several existing clients interested in getting more conversions from Facebook on the same budget, or the same volume of conversions for less.
The core of Efficient Frontier is a system which models the potential return for any ad, automatically bids in response to the potential, and then optimizes that bid against other channels where that money could be spent. Unlike other ads API tools which are rule based, the portfolio-centered system allows advertisers “to bid down when it's less important, and bid up above the threshold of your max bid when it gets you the best position, so it could give you more conversions for the same cost” says Justin Merickel, Efficient Frontier’s VP of Marketing and New Product Development. Company ProfileEfficient Frontier was founded by Anil Kamath in 2002. Before starting the company, Kamath worked as a vice president of a hedge fund, where he honed the skills and understanding used to develop Efficient Frontier’s risk-return portfolio model. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, and with offices in New York City; London, Paris, Hamburg. and Teynampet, India, Efficient Frontier now has 50 full-time engineers. The company’s latest funding round was a $6 million Series C led by Mitsui & Co., and joined by Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. Efficient Frontier handles $1.2 billion a year and sets 5 million bids a day across paid search, display, and Facebook ads. Its 250 clients include some agencies, but mostly consist of direct advertisers representing industries including performance marketing, financial services, travel, retail, and automotive. Salesforce.com, Discover Financial Services, Capital One, Crate and Barrel, Match.com, and Travelodge are some of its clients. There is no minimum spend necessary to use Efficient Frontier, though the company prefers enterprise-class marketers. Most of its clients spend $100,000 a month across channels. Efficient Frontier doesn’t publish a rate card, but the percentage of total spend they charge is tiered by total spend by the client. Efficient Frontier allows advertisers to integrate their search engine account data, ad exchange campaigns, web analytics, paid search, display ads, and now social media spend. By managing all marketing channels on the same platform using a unified portfolio system, the platform can fluidly allocate budget to where cost per acquisition is the lowest. Efficient Frontier for Facebook AdsThe new “Social” tab of Efficient Frontier currently allows advertisers to run Facebook ads, but the company says it is also looking to provide LinkedIn and Twitter ad management in the future. PortfoliosClients can create a different portfolio for each performance metric for which they want to optimize. Within a portfolio, campaign budgets are dynamically shifted to provide the highest return for the selected metric. For instance, clients would set up one portfolio for attaining exposure, measured by impressions or clicks, and another for conversions or acquisitions, measured by sales or CPA. Once a day, Efficient Frontier calculates what would happen if each ad’s bid was increased or decreased, and alters spend to optimize for the desired metric. On any given day, Efficient Frontier may spend more or less than what that day is paced for in the total budget. Over time, though, fluctuations in spend won’t exceed 10% over or under a campaign’s total budget. Merickel explains that Efficient Frontier’s strategy is “once clients have manually configured [the portfolio], let the machine do the math and make the right decisions.” Creating, Posting, and Editing Ad VariantsFrom the “Campaigns” sub-tab, clients can see attributes of the campaigns they are running, such as activity status, creatives currently running, impressions, and clicks. Campaigns can be edited, and performance charts can be viewed. Selecting to add a campaign gives clients standard ad creation options as well as a choice of which account they want to run the campaign under, language targeting, and the ability to upload creative images or choose from a library of their previously uploaded images. Multiple different age ranges or single years can be selected and added as variables. As clients input location and demographic targeting, the estimated reach of the campaign can be refreshed. Efficient Frontier automatically predefines proximity targeting radiuses for easy yet sophisticated location targeting. Suggestions of colleges, majors, and graduation years are provided for education targeting, but there is no typeahead or suggestions for selecting Likes to target. Each set of variables, such as age range or interests, is aut0-split into separate variables for each year or interest and multiplied by the rest of the targeting options to instantly create thousands of permutations of the ad. For example “Likes Hiking” and “Likes Camping” are both targeting variable which are seperately applied to all others, instead of a single variant which serves ads to people who have either interest. This allows for refined reporting and unique bids for every target.
All the permutations are placed in a bulk sheet which can be posted immediately, or scheduled to run at a later date. Bulk sheets can be uploaded and downloaded as .txt, .csv, or .zip files for desktop editing, even after they are posted. One unique feature of Efficient Frontier is landing page validation, which checks all of the destination URLs in the bulk sheet to ensure they are working properly and not returning an error page. ReportsCross channel reports on a variety of conversion metrics can be scheduled and sent from Efficient Frontier. Different visualizations of the data can be viewed within the platform, reducing the need to constantly export reports to Excel in order to deduce high level trends.
Options for reports include which channels should be included, and whether conversions are tracked by click or transaction date. Clients can choose conversion metrics usch as CPA, CPC, and cost, as well as custom metrics such as sales of a specific product. Since Efficient Frontier auto-splits every parameter into different variants, reports can be filtered by any targeting variable, providing extremely granular data despite all the variants being created at once.
Efficient Frontier also includes an Integrated Performance View which shows paid traffic alongside organic search, direct traffic, and mobile traffic. When integrated with reports simulating how money could spent on different channels, budget allocation insights reveal where the highest returns can be found. Optimization within a Budget for Multi-Channel MarketersMerickel believes that the Facebook Ads API “is not the most stable of APIs. They release daily. They’re in rapid development mode”, though he says its stable enough to build on. He wonders whether Facebook will charge a fee for use when it is publicly rolled out. One issue Efficient Frontier has had with the program is that the creative approval process is inconsistent. What copy is allowed or rejected differs, making it difficult to predict whether an ad is safe to submit. Merickel says he wishes Facebook would provide interest targeting suggestions, such as other Pages that many users who Like a currently targeted Page also Like. He also says some transparent way of offering frequency capping or impression tracking would help advertisers known when users are seeing the same ad and know when to rotate creative elements. In the future, Efficient Frontier seeks to add automatic look-alike targeting. This would take a successful interest, demographic, and location combinations and expand those campaigns to target other similar interests. For instance, if a campaign targeting those who Like a specific romantic comedy movie was successful, it would automatically try targeting other romantic comedies. Overall, Efficient Frontier is a good choice of an ads API provider for multi-channel advertisers on a tight budget who want the highest returns regardless of channel. The company’s powerful targeting auto-splitting, native data visualization, and automated portfolio bid management system help advertisers run effective campaigns without constant attention to the data. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Tests Aggregated Mentions Feed Stories Posted: 09 Nov 2010 11:11 AM PST Facebook is now showing an Aggregated Mentions news feed story when multiple Pages or friends you are connected to include the name of the same Page in an update. The new story type shows you people or entities who are trending in your network, such as a public figure who has done something newsworthy and is being discussed by multiple friends or Pages. What's especially new and important is that Facebook recognizes names written simple text, not only those @ tagged, implying that Facebook is machine-reading the updates.
Facebook used to have a publicly accessible feature called Lexicon which anonymously visualized conversation trends on walls using machine reading, and Aggregated Mention stories could be a new application of this technology. Aggregated news feed stories are also shown for Places check-ins, birthday wall posts, and shared links. They show how the same content can be shared or the same action can be taken by different friends and Pages, which gives users perspective. In the case of Aggregated Mentions, they show how different friends and Pages feel about a something represented by a Page, such as a controversial political figure. The story type doesn't appear to be rolled out to all users, though, as we couldn't recreate it. In the news feed, users see a story stating "[Friend 1 / Page 1] and [Friend 2 / Page 2] mentioned [Page 3]" with each name linked to it's corresponding Page or profile. Users then see the original update by each friend or Page with the threaded feedback folded up. Users can click the feedback icons to see who has Liked or commented on that story. It can be interesting to see how a different context or opinion will net a similar mention different amounts of Likes.
Facebook's ability to extract textual content out of updates holds a lot of potential. Users might one day see stories aggregated because they express the same sentiment, such as one update that includes the word "happy" and another with the word "happiness". The text of updates could be also be used to recommend Pages, such suggesting the Nikon or Canon Page to a user who frequently mentions "cameras" or "photography". If done completely algorithmically, users shouldn't worry about "Facebook reading your private updates", and instead allow this machine reading to help improve their experience. [Images via Forbes.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Week to Pre-Order Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011 Posted: 09 Nov 2010 09:00 AM PST
2010 will be remembered as the year that games on social networks became a billion dollar business and transformed the way millions more people socialized with friends online. With an up-to-$750 million acquisition of Playdom by Disney, Playfish’s integration across Electronic Arts, the continued growth of Zynga, the rise of CrowdStar and Kabam, and continued venture investments, social games are impacting businesses across the media landscape. Despite the challenges facing the market, it's become clear that there are still substantial opportunities for social game developers with virtual goods revenue models, but the market is still evolving rapidly.
Inside Network is proud to announce a new original research report by Justin Smith and Charles Hudson that is exclusively focused on the future of the social gaming market, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011. This is Inside Network's second annual edition of the Future of Social Gaming report. It will be released on November 16, but is available for discount pre-order now. How big is the market, and where will social gaming go in 2011? How will existing players fare as Facebook shifts the social gaming landscape through the rollout of Facebook Credits and continued changes to the platform? Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011 provides deeper insight into social game monetization, development, customer acquisition, and the key questions facing the space in 2011 than you'll find anywhere else. About the Report Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011 gives you an inside view of the future at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games. We have compiled months of original research from dozens of top executives and entrepreneurs from all parts of the social gaming ecosystem to produce eye-opening source data and analysis that is not available anywhere else. Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010 takes the closest look at the present state of social games and the future of this strong but still rapidly changing industry. What We Cover
What you get In addition to our deep dive into key aspects of the social gaming ecosystem, the report also offers extended coverage on:
See the full table of contents below: Table of Contents
More Data, More Actionable Insights In 2010, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2011 will be an even more important year. Social gaming, powered by virtual goods, is this year's industry to watch. If you're involved, or are considering jumping in, Inside Virtual Goods will be one of your most important tools. One year of original data and exclusive in-depth reports delivered on a quarterly basis is $2,495 and contains:
About the Authors Justin Smith Founder, Inside Network Justin Smith is the founder of Inside Network, the first company dedicated to providing news and market research to the Facebook platform and social gaming ecosystem. Justin leads Inside Network's Inside Virtual Goods and AppData research and data services, and serves as co-editor ofInside Facebook and Inside Social Games. Prior to Inside Network, he was formerly Head of Product at Watercooler, one of the leading application and game developers on the Facebook Platform. Prior to Watercooler, Justin was an early employee at Xfire, the largest social utility for gamers, which was sold to Viacom in 2006. Justin holds a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University.
Former VP Business Development, Serious Business Charles Hudson is the former VP of Business Development for Serious Business, a leading social games developer on the Facebook platform. Prior to Serious Business, he was formerly the Sr. Director for Business Development at Gaia Interactive, a leading online hangout for teens. Prior to Gaia, Charles worked in New Business Development at Google and focused on new partnership opportunities for early-stage products in the advertising, mobile, and e-commerce markets. Prior to joining Google, he was a Product Manager for IronPort Systems, a leading provider of anti-spam hardware appliances that was acquired by Cisco Systems for $830 million in 2007. Charles holds an MBA and BA from Stanford University. Get The Annual Membership Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues):
OR Buy Single Report:
* Pre-order discount ends November 15, 2010. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on November 16, 2010. Although the report will not be released until next Tuesday, November 16, we are offering a special pre-order discount for those who purchase now. A one year subscription is $1,995 until November 16, at which point the price will go to US $2,495. The one year subscription includes three quarterly updates on key developments in the space. Or, you can download just this report. The pre-order price is $795 until January 26, at which point the price will go to US $995. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 20 Gaining Facebook Pages: Zynga, Disney, Music, Converse, Jackass and More Posted: 09 Nov 2010 07:53 AM PST
Top Gainers This Week
Most of the big brands were at the top, starting with Zynga's Texas Hold'em Poker. The Page added 973,440 Likes to grow to a total of 26.9 million. The Page continues to run all variety of promotions to get users playing more. Disney came in at number 2 after adding 703,400 new Likes to its Page, which totals out at 10 million fans. Then the "Toy Story" Page came in at number 17 with 432,900 new Likes, pushing it past 8 million. This seems to be because the "Toy Story 3" movie was just released on DVD and Blu-Ray this week.
YouTube's Page was third with 698,700 new Likes and a total of 19.4 million. Facebook's Page was fourth with 652,000 new Likes, passing 25 million, after announcing a new Deals promotion and promoting voting in the U.S. elections. MTV's Page came in at number 6 after its awards show over the weekend in Europe; the Page added 592,800 new Likes to its 8.4 million cache. The Converse All Star Page was at number 9, adding 559,400 Likes to get to 8.7 million even as the Converse Page added 480,500 Likes to pass 7 million. It's not really clear exactly why these Pages are growing so quickly. Finally, Coca-Cola was at number 11 with 548,200 new Likes and a total of 16.5 million; the company is promoting its infamous Christmas-themed adds on Facebook.
Musicians were not as popular on our list this week as usual, there were only a handful. Rihanna was fifth, with 606,700 new Likes totaling 13.7 on the Page. She recently appeared in the MTV Music Video Awards in Europe and is running a fan promoting on her Page. Eminem came in tenth, adding 552,300 new Likes to his 19.1 million without updating his Page. Then Usher came in at number 12 with 486,000 new Likes to pass 7 million; he's promoting a tour that starts later this week on his Page. Rapper 50 Cent was 15 with 463,000 additions to the 5.7 total on his Page. Bob Marley's Page added 439,300 new Likes to come in just under 14 million and Akon's Page came in at number 18 with 431,900 new Likes to break 10.5 million by promoting his upcoming Australian tour. Movies and TV rounded out the list.
At number 7 was "The Simpsons," which added 583,200 Likes to pass 12.1 million; its much-anticipated Halloween episode aired over the weekend. Then at number 8 the "Harry Potter" franchise Page added 571,100 Likes to pass 6 million. Clips from the film are being released and the world premiere is set to stream live on Facebook. The "SpongeBob SquarePants" Page added 468,700 Likes to its 11.1 million total to come in at number 14. Then at 19 was Adam Sandler's Page, which for some reason since its last update at 2009, added 417,700 Likes to reach 10.2 million. Finally, the "Jackass" movie hit 4 million fans after adding 405,000 Likes after the recent release of its latest installment, which has been very popular at the box office. |
Users with a “very low” protection status may see an Account Protection sidebar module while browsing Places or other in-house apps. The module displays a user’s protection status and provides a link to “Increase protection”.
Facebook's performance advertising system is quickly becoming an essential part of any marketing mix. To allow companies to build more powerful tools for designing, targeting, and managing Facebook ads, the company gave a limited number of developers access to an 
Charles Hudson
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