Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Temporarily Disables Contact Info Sharing to Increase Clarity
- Facebook Pushes Users to List Their Current City, Which Helps Advertisers
- Experian Invests in Facebook Advertising by Acquiring Ads API Tool Provider Techlightenment
- Featured Facebook Campaigns: Redbox, Westfield Valley Fair, Equinox and MET-Rx
- The Rewards and Risks of Facebook Developer Access to User Phone Numbers and Addresses
- Badoo Makes Dating Sexy Again on This Week’s AppData List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU
| Facebook Temporarily Disables Contact Info Sharing to Increase Clarity Posted: 18 Jan 2011 04:00 AM PST Following intense backlash from the press, Facebook has temporarily disabled the newly added ability for users to share their mobile phone number and address with applications and third-party websites. We praised Facebook for boldly facilitating innovation but we also advised that users be more clearly warned when permitting access to such sensitive information — through a separate prompt in the interface, for example. Now Facebook is doing the right thing, saying it will reenable the feature in a few weeks once it can make “changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so.”
In the announcement posted to the Facebook Developers Blog, Douglas Purdy, Director of Developer Relations, cited some of the same potential uses for the new permissions as we did, namely accelerating e-commerce checkout and powering apps which provide real-time updates about deals. Users will greatly benefit from these functionalities, but they could also be made victims by apps that quietly request their contact data only to spam them or sell their personal information. Facebook didn’t provide details on how it will change the sharing process to reduce the risk of abuse. We suspect it will add a separate step to the permissions flow for especially sensitive data. Two others options would be to make these permissions more prominent by moving them to the top the list in the requests dialogue in colored or bolded text (mocked up below), or to add a roadblock such as a time delay or checkbox. It will take clever design to effectively slow down and inform users without so encumbering them that they might as well input the data by hand.
Facebook appears ready to challenge the notion that it is unresponsive and careless about the well being of its users. Instead of waiting a month to issue a response to well-founded criticism, as it did during its first PR crisis over Beacon in 2007, Facebook only took three days. It has done the same recently with rapid responses to feedback on API migrations that could break apps and home page changes that hurt user retention for social games. If it can solve the problem of educating users on when to share contact info and with who, a new generation of apps and integrations will flourish thanks to this data. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Pushes Users to List Their Current City, Which Helps Advertisers Posted: 17 Jan 2011 08:03 PM PST Facebook is using a new “Which city do you live in?” sidebar module to prompt users to list more personal information in their profile. The module suggests a city based on a user’s other data and connections, and allows them to add that city to their profile with a single click. Current city is one of the most valuable pieces of data to advertisers because permits location-specific ad targeting. Since Facebook sell access to this data in an anonymized form, pushing users to list their current city assists Facebook’s monetization efforts.
The current city ad targeting parameter is Facebook’s biggest money maker. It’s crucial to ads run extensively by restaurants, contractors, and group deals providers like Groupon that make up a significant portion the performance ad revenues that fund the company. The more data points and the higher the accuracy of this information, the more advertisers who will shift spend to Facebook in order to target these users and the more Facebook can charge them. Users who haven’t listed their curent city in their profile may see the right sidebar module while browsing areas of the site such as Events. The module suggests a possible city and shows a link and picture of its community Page, as well as either a friend who lives there or the number of people who Like that Page. The suggestions appear to be inferred from the cities of a user’s friends, and the location of their school, work place, and home town if they’ve provided that information. Users can click “I live here” to instantly add the suggested city to their profile without leaving the currently viewed page, or click “Choose another city” to go to the profile editor and select manually. If a user clicks the ‘x’ button, the module disappears.
The December profile redesign also goaded users to list additional personal information, but in a more natural way. Providing this information improves the Facebook experience for users because potential friends can find them more easily, and the ads they see will be more relevant. Still, the direct appeal is clearly in the interest of Facebook’s bottom line. Users may be less inclined to add information if they realize the motive behind the request, and Facebook might therefore want to be more subtle. [Thanks to Brittany Darwell for the tip.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Experian Invests in Facebook Advertising by Acquiring Ads API Tool Provider Techlightenment Posted: 17 Jan 2011 02:07 PM PST
The acquisition signals that major marketing companies may be ready to make investments in the future of social media advertising. The field requires special technologies that can be difficult to develop internally, so marketing companies may look to instead purchase existing tools. Hitwise indicated that Facebook was the most visited website of 2010, making it obvious that Experian will have to offer Facebook advertising services if it wants to stay competitive.
We’ve profiled nearly a dozen Ads API tools and Alchemy is one of the best ways to manage Facebook advertising spend, making Techlightenment a great choice for an acquisition. The tool is intuitive, which will make it easy to train Experian’s marketing services division that Techlightenment will be joining. As of June, Techlightenment had 30 employees and a $7 million in annual revenue. Experian reports that Techlightenment’s revenue has grown to $7.9 million for the year, and its gross assets at the end of 2010 totaled to $3.9 million. The majority stake was acquired from Techlightenment’s founders, including Ankur Shah, co-founder and co-CEO, who said that “combined with Experian's global scale and data expertise, we are perfectly positioned to take the benefits of our products and services to a wider audience." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Featured Facebook Campaigns: Redbox, Westfield Valley Fair, Equinox and MET-Rx Posted: 17 Jan 2011 11:00 AM PST In this week’s look at interesting new marketing campaigns on Facebook, Redbox used a Facebook application to draw in fans while Westfield Valley Fair used discounts and Places check-ins, Equinox gyms used photos and MET-Rx nutritional supplements went with video.
Redbox's Movie Awards Facebook AppGoal: Fan engagement; network exposure; Page growth; sales growth. Core Mechanic: Facebook application that allows a user to select their own winners for movie award shows, then publish their choices to the stream. Method: The Movie Awards Facebook App, located on the Award Show tab,allows users to make their own movie award picks, invite friends to play, and "compete" with movie critics to receive a "score" once the shows air. The app is sponsored by Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn and people who win through the app may be eligible for a free year of movie rentals, in addition to the app's badges that are awarded for different app actions. For example, locking in your selections garner you the "Golden Lock" badge, which then posts to your stream. The Movie Awards app runs from the Critics' Choice Movie Awards on January 14, through the Golden Globes on January 16, to the Oscars on February 27. Impact: According to our PageData tool, Redbox has added more than 13,000 Likes this week alone, leading up to the first actual awards show that forms part of the app.
Westfield Valley FairGoal: Drive actual sales at physical stores; network exposure. Core Mechanic: Rewarding fans with discount coupons when they use Places to check-in to the Westfield Valley Fair mall in Santa Clara, Calif. Method: Working with Fan Appz's Places integration, Westfield Valley Fair began to offer coupon discounts to patrons who checked into the mall. By checking in fans can unlock coupons to different stores located within the mall. Fan Appz's software allows users to change these offers regularly. Impact: We first reported this Places integration in September and since the mall's Facebook Page reports more than 4,000 check-ins; that's about 1,000 a month. To see the rest of campaigns, check the Cases section of Inside Facebook’s The Facebook Marketing Bible. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Rewards and Risks of Facebook Developer Access to User Phone Numbers and Addresses Posted: 17 Jan 2011 08:36 AM PST Facebook has begun allowing developers to ask users for their mobile phone number and home addresses in a move that will show the best and worst of the Facebook Platform. Most critics have immediately focused on how greedy developers will request the data in order to spam users, which is a valid concern. But the access will also enable the creation of apps that keep friends connected via SMS and facilitate ecommerce by pre-populating delivery details. Though the risks are high, Facebook should not impede innovation for fear of spammers, but instead push forward while minimizing negative outcomes by helping users make more informed decision.
Reduce Risk through ClarityThe biggest problem with access to contact information is that the permission requests for these highly sensitive data fields are not distinguished from requests for more benign data like a user’s Event RSVPs or privileges like publishing to their stream. Some apps ask for a stack of a half dozen permissions, so users have learned to blindly click “Allow” to speed through to the desired application rather than read them all, assuming they aren’t giving away anything too valuable, or can revoke access later. Facebook should slow users down and convey the dangers of permitting access to contact info more clearly by making this request a separate step with a bold warning, rather than a quiet, uniform addition to the list of permissions users are familiar with, as we suggested upon seeing the announcement. This would reduce the threat without forcing Facebook to adopt an unscalable system such as approving developers’ access to this part of the Graph API on a one-by-one basis. Meanwhile, the change could prompt unscrupulous developers to build apps that intentionally ask for a lot of permissions in order to mask that they are pulling the contact information from unsuspecting users. If they succeed, users will become inundated with spam, blame Facebook for this negative experience, and leading to a drop in quality and trust in the Platform.
It’s important to remember that Facebook has long prohibited developers from sharing any user data with third-parties. Users have been granting permission to some kinds of valuable data, including their current location and email address, without widespread problems. When there have been issues, such as when data broker Rapleaf and developers were caught buying and selling User IDs that did not even contain private data, Facebook has policed accordingly. Data privacy is an inherent problem with developer platforms, but the issues are balanced by the benefits generated by the fun and useful apps that live on them. One troubling fact is how Facebook announced this major change. Instead of in a dedicated post with mention of the potential risks, it was merely part of a weekly dispatch about bug fixes and migration deadline extensions — with no commentary on its impact. It was published on Friday evening of a three-day weekend, at 8:16pm PST, diffusing immediate feedback, and later the post’s timestamp was changed to 6:00pm. If people are going to trust that the site has their well-being in mind, Facebook needs to concentrate on mitigating risks for users, not minimizing backlash to itself. The Rewards of Mobile Phone and Address-Aware Apps There are many benefits to allowing developers to ask users for their contact information. Mobile phone number access could power apps that act as up-to-the-minute communication hubs between groups of friends, allowing members to be notified by SMS when friends are nearby, want to plan an event, or upload new content. Home address access could let ecommerce sites pre-populate delivery details during checkout, leveling the playing field so smaller merchants can compete with established giants like Amazon that have already forced users to type in their address manually. Other potential apps could allow you to share an electronic business card with others; get text message updates about group deals, news, or game activity; discover businesses that are close to home, or instantly sign up to receive physical catalogs or coupons via snail mail. While Facebook’s hasty development might challenge the beliefs of some, it doesn’t make sense to delay these useful additions in an attempt to protect users. Many technologies come with associated risks. Airplanes crash and medicines have side effects, but these advances as well as platforms like Facebook’s, are the future. The user base will need education so they understand how to recognize and assess risks for themselves, and this first incarnation of mobile phone number and home address extended permissions doesn’t provide it. However, Facebook is doing the right thing by giving users the choice of what to share, even if it is currently doing it in the wrong way. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Badoo Makes Dating Sexy Again on This Week’s AppData List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by MAU Posted: 17 Jan 2011 08:08 AM PST
Zynga once again gets top billing with CityVille, but the new game’s growth has slowed from over two million new MAU per day to around two hundred thousand. However, Zynga also makes the list with its Chinese-language localization, FarmVille 中文版. Interestingly there are two strong farming games on the list including Farmandia; we look at both a bit more closely this morning at Inside Social Games. Badoo is the real story, at least among non-game apps. The Hot-or-Not style dating app has taken the title as Facebook’s largest in the category, and the seventh-largest app overall by MAU. The interesting detail is that competitor SNAP Interactive, which has 14 million MAU with Are YOU Interested?, just raised $8.5 million in a venture funding. Watch for the single user acquisition wars to begin. Marketplace is the third app to grow significantly. The Facebook-sanctioned auction app is now at an all-time MAU high. The flipside of this is that its stickiness is at an all-time low, with just one percent of users returning as daily actives, so its MAU should fall in fairly short order.
Most of the remaining apps are returning. The one most worth pointing out is BandPage by RootMusic, which has picked up again; at this point, the app is Facebook’s clear leader for music pages. That’s a trend that should continue as the company adds features, something it just took on $2.3 million in new funding to do. |
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