Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- After Critiquing Facebook, Google Researcher Paul Adams Joins It
- What Might Zuckerberg’s Visit to Baidu Mean, If Anything?
- Facebook for iPhone 3.3.3 Updates Notifications Interface, Freezes More Often
- From Germany to Russia: A Model for Facebook’s Worldwide Growth
- Facebook Expanding E-Commerce Services to Match New Growth
- CityVille Approaches FarmVille on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU
- Facebook Creates Introduction Page to Explain Instant Personalization to Users
| After Critiquing Facebook, Google Researcher Paul Adams Joins It Posted: 20 Dec 2010 04:59 PM PST
Earlier today, he tweeted, “After ~4 years in the awesome Google UX team it’s time for a change + I’m excited to be joining Facebook in the New Year.” The move is a blow for Google as it undertakes a radical effort to counter Facebook’s growing influence across the web. In addition to a big social project led by Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz, the team the company acquired from Slide is also beginning to work on its own creation. Adams published a widely read report on the social network’s weaknesses five months ago, arguing that it didn’t do enough to help people manage the distinct social groups in their lives. He found that people typically have between four and six friend groups and only between two and six "close" friends, he said. College friends don't necessarily mix with work friends, who don't necessarily mix with a person's family. "People have multiple facets of identity," Adams wrote."There is not one profile that fits for all the people in their life. People appear differently to different audiences. They act one way with their family, they act another way in work, and they act another way with their best friends." After Adams’ work became public, Facebook later went on “Lockdown” over the summer and used that time to finish the Groups product, which had already been in the works. On the day Groups launched, Soleio Cuervo, a designer there, tweeted in response to Adams’ report, “Google researcher said we had a problem: http://sole.io/fbg Not anymore: http://facebook.com/groups This was how I spent Summer 2010.” And now, they won’t be rivals anymore. The Real Life Social Network v2 View more documents from Paul Adams. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What Might Zuckerberg’s Visit to Baidu Mean, If Anything? Posted: 20 Dec 2010 03:25 PM PST
So when photos leaked of him visiting Baidu offices, the first thing one might think is that Facebook is readying a push into China. Any sort of entrance would mean some form of compromise with the Chinese government, as we’ve noted in past years, likely involving giving the government access to Facebook in order to censor whatever it considers undesirable user-generated content. While that move is sure to make Facebook another target for human rights organizations, the motive would be what Google’s was before it withdrew. Despite censorship, the line of thought goes, the existence of a service that helps people share and discover information would promote freedom of thought. "On the philosophical question of openness, my view is that every country is pretty different. We'd want to be pretty culturally sensitive," he said in October. "I don't want Facebook to be an American company. I don't want it to be a company that spreads American values across the world." It’s also possible that Zuckerberg was just visiting Baidu to say hi to chief executive Rob Li, who he has met before. Certainly, some of the new speculation — like the idea of Baidu buying Facebook — is nothing but hilarious. But here’s something else. Take a look at Facebook’s integration in one of the other markets that it has been trying hard to crack: Russia. This fall, it announced that leading Russian search engine Yandex would be integrating status updates from Pages in its search results, and offering a Facebook widget in its core interface. If Facebook were to launch in China, perhaps it would try to cut a similar deal with Baidu? That move could help the site gain traction in the country, despite the numerous established local competitors. [Image via Shanghaiist.] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook for iPhone 3.3.3 Updates Notifications Interface, Freezes More Often Posted: 20 Dec 2010 12:32 PM PST The recently released version 3.3.3 of the Facebook for iPhone mobile app has been released. It includes an updated notifications interface, the restored ability to post as Page you admin, and various performance, reliability, and memory improvements. However, this release freezes more than previous updates, frustrating users by requiring them to restart their iPhone or re-download the app.
Facebook for iPhone 3.3.1 introduced significant new functionalities, including Groups, Deals, and advanced Places features, while 3.3.2 added quick links to a user’s account and privacy settings as well as the ability to add photos to a specific album. The Facebook for iPhone app has always been the most advanced to way interact with Facebook from a mobile device, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was looking to make the Android app just as powerful. Two December updates to the Facebook for Android app, which introduced Places, Groups, Chat, and push notifications have left the app for Google’s mobile OS only a small step behind the iPhone. Users who download the update will notice a new look to notifications. Each notification includes a photo of the friend who generated the notification, and users can click anywhere on a notification’s pane to be brought to that activity. Facebook has removed the separate links which allowed users to navigate directly to the profile of a friend who generated the notification.
The ability to publish as a Page a user is an admin of has been restored after being eliminated in a previous update. This functionality is important because it let admins make timely updates from their iPhone to the feeds of those who Like their Page, such as about the team a Page represents winning a sporting match, or about the weather at an outdoor venue. Oddly different than on the web version of Facebook, though, admins must have Liked their own Page in order to publish to it. The iPhone app has been updated to hide the wall post composer from walls a user isn’t allowed to post to, such as that of a friend who’s privacy settings prevent anyone from posting to their wall. Photo uploading to Groups has also been fixed. Places has received various back-end improvements which should speed up the location service for some users. Other performance improvements include enhanced reliability in Messages and Chat, better memory usage, and the fix of numerous crashes.
There are still some issues with the latest version of Facebook for iPhone even while using the latest software and hardware, evident from more negative reviews in the App Store than usual. If users click the “Account” button then immediately click another icon, the screen will dim and freeze, forcing them to turn their phone off and on or re-download the app from the App Store in order to resume normal usage.
When users click through notifications for Likes or comments on one of their photos, they won’t see that feedback until they drag the post down to refresh. This leads users to think the notifications were a mistake. Photos should automatically reload when accessed via notifications to alleviate this problem. Facebook’s policy of pushing updates often can occasionally lead to problems in its mobile apps, especially for users who haven’t installed the latest software updates for their device. By adding a prompt to install these OS updates on the app’s download page, some issues which hurt confuse users and degrade their perception of Facebook could be prevented. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| From Germany to Russia: A Model for Facebook’s Worldwide Growth Posted: 20 Dec 2010 11:14 AM PST
The expansion began in the west, spreading through the United Kingdom to France, Italy, even the Czech Republic. Many of these markets had their own social networks which, like MySpace in the United States, seemed viable up until months before being passed by Facebook. After becoming the largest network by market share in any given country, Facebook tends to marginalize its competitors — intentionally or not, its model favors dominance over coexistence. As Facebook became the top network in country after country in Europe, it began to look as if it might do the same worldwide. However, that has not yet happened. A small but extremely significant group of countries could present challenges that Facebook won’t be able to overcome. Defining those challenges presents a moving target for forecasters. Germany appeared to be a holdout for over a year, but is today becoming a strong market for Facebook, and the resistance against Facebook has moved further eastward. In October, CEO Mark Zuckerberg named Russia one of four tough countries to penetrate in the coming year (the others were China, Japan and South Korea). But although partially located in Europe, Russia may present unique cultural and geographic barriers, even as eastern European countries like Poland appear to be joining the exodus to Facebook. RussiaUnlike either Germany or Poland, Russia is still holding out against Facebook. Despite high growth in percentage terms, Russia is still a tiny market for Facebook, with only 1.5 percent penetration by the social network.
Facebook’s two million users look insignificant against Alexa estimates of the size of Russia’s two biggest social networks, Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. While Alexa can sometimes be very wrong, its numbers offer the best guideline, in this case, as both networks significantly exaggerate their respective sizes. Russia is a mix of the German and Polish pros and cons for Facebook: it has its set of competitive social networks, that may help Facebook break in, but a less metropolitan populace than Germany. But it also has its own unique characteristics. Here are a few that could affect Facebook’s Russian growth:
Taking these concerns in order, national pride and geographic isolation alone are not enough to block Facebook’s growth. Like privacy concerns in the United States or, for that matter, Germany, cultural factors are enough to slow, but not stop, the intrusion of an outside social network. Pirated material is a more serious competitive advantage for Russia’s social networks. As Americans should well remember — the days of easily-accessible pirated material being in the very recent past — free access to media and entertainment will draw legions of users. Vkontakte, at least, is well known as a haven for such material. There is some hope for Facebook here. Russian networks including both Vkontakte and Mail.ru have come under increased international scrutiny and pressure from copyright holders recently, a fact that could threaten their plans to list on public stock exchanges. Alexey Kostarev, a general producer at Russian game social game publisher i-Jet Media, told us in an interview that he expects rampant copyright violations on Russian social networks to mostly disappear in 2011. That may leave forewarning and the innovation of Russian entrepreneurs as the only permanent barrier to Facebook. We can’t predict whether these companies will make the right moves in 2011 to hold their market, but both Odnoklassniki and Mail.ru have a significant ally: DST, the savvy international investment firm that owns both. DST is also one of the biggest shareholders in Facebook, which would seem to justify the firm letting events run their natural course. However, DST will only gain slightly if Facebook wins in Russia. As majority owner of Odnoklassniki, DST would benefit far more if that company were to take the Russian market. Thus, we find it likely that DST will bring its expertise — and, as a shareholder, insight into Facebook’s operating principles — to bear in helping Odnoklassniki do what western European social networks could not. DST’s own view is unclear. CEO Yuri Milner has opined that US internet companies may soon dominate globally “to an extent never seen before”, a statement that acknowledges Facebook’s successes elsewhere. However, DST only took full ownership of Odnoklassniki in August of 2010 — the same month that it exited Poland’s Nasza Klasa. With its experience across a range of social networks, DST is worth watching as both a friend and potentially foe of Facebook. In the end analysis, no one of these factors is enough to draw a clear picture of whether Facebook can succeed in Russia, so we’ll have to wait until 2011 to see whether Facebook’s growth in the country continues at its current pace. This article is an excerpt from the full December 2010 Monthly Growth Report, available only through Inside Facebook Gold. Inside Facebook Gold also includes analyst-focused data downloads covering Facebook’s traffic and demographic growth around the world. Learn more at Inside Facebook Gold. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Expanding E-Commerce Services to Match New Growth Posted: 20 Dec 2010 10:34 AM PST When Facebook launched its developer platform in 2007, many expected e-commerce applications to take off — the idea was that people would want to find and share products with each other on Facebook, and complete purchases. Instead, simple sharing applications and social games were the hits. By the end of that year, industry insiders were looking towards 2008… but you have to fast-forward to this year to hear about significant results from developers. For example, e-commerce app provider Payvment recently told us that it was adding “more than 250 retailers and roughly 10,000-20,000 products” on Facebook every day, and recently passed the 40,000 retailer mark. The company, which offers a networked set of apps for Pages, recently closed a $6 million round of funding to help it expand. Facebook itself has been giving e-commerce new attention. In a just-published interview with BusinessWeek, business development director David Fisch says that Facebook set up a commerce partnerships group in November, that is “meeting with retailers to help Facebook develop software that lets users solicit advice and product reviews from Facebook friends in real time, even while they’re shopping on other sites.” Fisch also says that it is working on analytics tools that will let retailers learn more about which users are drawn to which products. It’s not yet clear how Facebook might work with or compete against third parties offering apps and other services to retailers on Facebook. Besides Payvment, other third-party developers working with retailers on Facebook include Alvenda, ShopTab, Fluid, Yardsellr and BigCommerce. One final note: while we’ve been tracking Facebook’s efforts to expand its Credits virtual currency, Fisch reiterates the company’s long-held stance that it has “no plans to use let consumers use Credits to buy physical products.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| CityVille Approaches FarmVille on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU Posted: 20 Dec 2010 08:56 AM PST
There are a number of factors contributing to CityVille’s growth, including strong cross-promotion, international users and moving third-party app notifications back to the top menu bar earlier in the month. We’ve covered these as the game progressed, with our latest post on the subject this morning at Inside Social Games. Here’s the full list: Top Gainers This Week
Regular readers will note that the gains are a bit higher than normal across the board. Some of that is a surge in use of wall posting and gifting apps around Christmas, but the other half is likely the same third-party notification change that’s helping CityVille. My Year In Status is making hay with the holiday, even more so than last year, when it topped seven million MAU. That makes sense, of course, Facebook being twice the size it was at that point. It’s followed by Popcap’s newest game, Zuma Blitz, which is a pretty significant growth story in itself. Causes has been up and down in recent months; this week it has an impressive gain of 3.4 million MAU. Dating app Badoo, meanwhile, is doing quite well, and has a quite respectable stickiness to go with its MAU growth, showing about 13 percent of its total user count coming back as daily active users. The top 10 is mostly completed by various @Apps titles, including @Hearts, @Hugs and @Smiles. In the last week, @Apps has gained over three million MAU, leaving it ready to break through 30 million total. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Creates Introduction Page to Explain Instant Personalization to Users Posted: 20 Dec 2010 08:08 AM PST To educate users and address concerns, Facebook has recently created an introduction page and video for the Instant Personalization program. Some users have come to believe that Instant Personalization shares their private data with third-party websites without their consent, whereas only publicly available basic information and data set to be visible to everyone are shared. Improving understanding of the program is crucial to its long term success.
The launch of Instant Personalization at this April’s f8 was met with criticism of its opt-out default and how it shares data without permission. These concerns were compounded when a minor security breach in Yelp’s Instant Personalization integration incited fears about privacy implications. Facebook halted the roll-out of the program for five months until a second wave of partnerships, including Scribd, Flixster’s Rotten Tomatoes, Microsoft’s Bing, and most recently Clicker began in late September. Somewhere along the way, users may have gotten the impression that Facebook was sharing their private data. At the Bing Instant Personalization launch, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that “there's a lot of misconceptions about this. People have this notion that you go to a site and Facebook sends all your information to that site. That's not true." Facebook is now confronting these misconceptions head on. If a user attempts to change their Instant Personalization privacy settings with their Applications and Websites setting, a roadblock pop-up of an informational video appears. It conveys Instant Personalization’s purpose and how users will know if their experience on a website is being personalized. Users must watch or close the video before being able to manipulate their settings.
Text above the video reads, “Just as your News Feed on Facebook is uniquely for you, instant personalization enables select partners, such as Pandora and Rotten Tomatoes, to create social experiences tailored for you.” By equating the program with the news feed, another feature which users initially protested but grew to love, Facebook aims to reassure users that while Instant Personalization might be a little unsettling at first, it will enhance their experience. If users click to “Learn More”, they’re brought to the new introduction page with the headline “The web is better with friends”. Along with the video, users can also see a list of the current partner sites, a walkthrough of privacy settings, and a link to the Help Center which also displays a prominent red section linking to the video. An explanation of how the program works states “partners adhere to Facebook’s guidelines and may only use your public information to serve you a personalized experience.”
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Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is not shy about his interest in China, despite the site being blocked in the country. Beyond studying Mandarin, and visiting during the holidays this year, he’s 
For only the second time in Facebook’s history, a game is threatening to break past 50 million players. Zynga’s new title 
Expanding the program to more sites won’t help users if they disable it during this early stage. These efforts should increase the likelihood that users who seek to turn off Instant Personalization are first clear on how it actually works.| You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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