Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook’s Sponsored Stories Turns News Feed Posts Into Home Page Ads
- Facebook Campaigns: Microsoft Hong Kong, Transportation and Topps
- An In-Depth Look at the Social Gaming Industry’s Performance and Prospects on Facebook
- Facebook Launches Page Citing Statistics and New Incentives for Adopting Credits
- Facebook Sets July, 1, 2011 Deadline to Make Credits Sole Canvas Game Payment Option
- Badoo, RootMusic, LivingSocial Top Among Applications That Grew the Most This Past Week
- Facebook’s North American Ad Rates Rose in December 2010, Traffic Stayed Flat
| Facebook’s Sponsored Stories Turns News Feed Posts Into Home Page Ads Posted: 24 Jan 2011 11:59 PM PST Today, Facebook launches a new ad unit called “Sponsored Stories” that turns Page updates, as well as Places checkins, Likes, and application activity by users into advertisements. Sponsored Stories will allow advertisers to augment viral buzz by giving greater distribution and visibility to posts that endorse their organization or business.
Sponsored Stories will initially be available through Facebook’s managed brand advertising services for display on the home page and profile, and in the coming weeks it will become part of the self-serve performance advertising tool for display across the site. Launch partners for the ad unit include Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, and Anheuser-Busch, as well as social good organizations (RED) and UNICEF. Facebook has been testing the ad unit for a few months and says it has resulted in brand lift and increased engagement, ad recall, and likeliness to be recommended to friends for the organizations that tried it.
When a user checks in to claimed Place, Likes a Page, or shares content to the news feed from an application that has paid for Sponsored Stories, that activity may appear as an advertisement to their friends. The ad is shown in special right sidebar module, and displays the user’s name and photo, any additional context or friends they’ve tagged, a picture of and link to the advertised Facebook Page or app, and the Likes and comments from the original post. Similar to social context ads and Ads for Applications that Facebook launched this year, Sponsored Stories increases the relevance of advertisements to users by displaying a recommendation from one of their friends. Seeing that a friend has checked in at Starbucks is a much more compelling reason to visit than a standard advertisement telling a user to go get a coffee. Jim Squires of Facebook Product Marketing says “all privacy settings are honored”, so the ads will only be visible to those who can see the original post they draw from. This means users will only see Sponsored Stories by their friends who haven’t restricted them from viewing their shared content. Advertisers can overlay any of Facebook’s standard demographic targeting parameters to further refine who sees a Sponsored Story. Facebook plans to educate users about how Sponsored Stories respects their privacy through a blog post and explanation in the Help Center. However, there won’t be any link to this information within the ad unit. Some users may not want their content turned into ads, and since there’s no way to opt-out or turn off Sponsored Stories, some protest should be expected.
Page post Sponsored Stories are more straightforward. Pages can buy greater distribution for their latest news feed update, ensuring an audience for a particularly important link or announcement. Users who Like the Page will see the post in Sponsored Stories without having to Like it or take any other action. Sponsored Stories co-opt a user’s actions, voice, and identity to create ads that resonate with their friends. While Twitter has diluted its content stream with promoted tweets in order to make money, Facebook may have found a significant new revenue stream without selling out the beloved news feed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Campaigns: Microsoft Hong Kong, Transportation and Topps Posted: 24 Jan 2011 09:00 PM PST A few of the campaigns we looked at this as part of our weekly campaigns post required video uploads as a condition of entry — that resulted in not so stellar results. Elsewhere, Microsoft in Hong Kong is running an interesting campaign to promote the newest version of Internet Explorer in the city. A few of the campaigns are listed here, the rest are part of Inside Facebook’s Marketing Bible. Microsoft Hong Kong's Switch to IE9 Daily GiveawayGoal: Engagement; Page Growth; Network Exposure; Product Use Core Mechanic: A game allowing users to turn a Chinese candy box every 15 minutes to win prizes such as an Xbox 360 4GB Console, a Microsoft Arc Keyboard and Mouse. Method: A Facebook game allowing users to play every 15 minutes, thus promoting constant engagement. The Chinese candy box is easy to turn and shows participants if they win fairly simply. The idea is to get users engaged with Microsoft and get them to using the new version of Internet Explorer, IE9. Impact: It’s somewhat hard to tell what the exact impact of the campaign is because it’s in Chinese, however, PageData shows the Page has about 17,500 Likes.
I Told Congress About Transportation Goal: Engagement, Network Exposure Core Mechanic: Discussion board comments and YouTube integration. Method: Through the Page of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) the U.S. Congress is hoping to gather information about highway and transportation systems. The interface was designed by Digital Hill. Impact: Thus far the Page has received 46 posts on the "I Told Congress About Transportation" thread but none of the YouTube videos appear to be fan-generated.
The Valentine's Day Diamond DigGoal: Engagement; Network Exposure; Sales Growth; Page Growth Core Mechanic: Video contest on the Topps Facebook Page and vote to win a $10,000 engagement ring on the landing page on its own tab. Method: Users may submit a video from Jan. 18 through Feb. 3 to explain why they should win a $10,000 engagement ring from Topps, makers of sports trading cards. The Votigo-powered sweepstakes culminates on Valentine's Day when Topps will give those selected a chance to dig for the ring in a 30-foot diamond ball pit and the person who finds the ring may propose to their loved one at Grand Central Station in New York City. Impact: Not very successful thus far, there's only one entry, perhaps due to how cumbersome the entry and contest rules are. To see the rest of campaigns, check the Cases section of Inside Facebook's The Facebook Marketing Bible. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| An In-Depth Look at the Social Gaming Industry’s Performance and Prospects on Facebook Posted: 24 Jan 2011 02:30 PM PST Facebook, and social gaming, appears to be a vastly different place for game developers today versus just a year ago. While social gaming visibly grew at astounding rates through 2009 and into early 2010, producing massive successes like Zynga, growth seemed to suddenly stop in the spring of 2010 as Facebook began limiting the viral channels that made big gains possible. Since then, Facebook itself has repeatedly changed the rules that app developers play by, and has increasingly forced usage of Credits, a virtual currency that skims 30 percent of in-game sales when used, leading some developers to conclude that Facebook is now too difficult to work on. Growing a game on Facebook is certainly more difficult today than it was in 2009. However, the view that succeeding is too difficult, and that growth has ended on Facebook, is belied by the experience of savvy developers, and hard data about Facebook apps from our AppData tracking service. Our own view of the Facebook market considers each facet of the market separately. Here's what we’ll cover below, in brief:
Large DevelopersBefore we can look at the performance of games across all Facebook developers, we should split out data for what were considered the "top 5" developers on Facebook in early 2010: Zynga, Playfish (now part of Electronic Arts), CrowdStar, Playdom (now part of Disney) and RockYou. This is because views that Facebook's heyday has already ended are largely based on the performance of this handful of companies. The trouble for these developers began last March, when Facebook made the first of several viral channel changes that would end their fast-paced growth:
The above table is not an entirely straightforward measurement of how any of the five developers listed is doing, since MAU / DAU measurements alone don't directly predict revenue; CrowdStar and RockYou also lost significant amounts of traffic from non-game quiz and gifting apps. Even so, only Zynga is arguably doing about as well as it was in early 2010, and only with the massive success of its brand-new game CityVille. Its four competitors lost 30 percent or more of their DAU, which is the best publicly-visible predictor for success. If Zynga, with over $500 million in venture capital, can't continue growing on Facebook, what chance do smaller players have? This question has clearly resonated with the wider community; many Facebook developers are now shifting their attention to smartphone games, and investors have by and large ended their investment in pure-play web-based social gaming. In our view, however, the market still offers healthy opportunities. Expectations were distorted by the outsized success, over just a year or two, of Zynga and its peers. Before the social gaming boom, it typically took several years to build successful companies; now that the “boom” is over, this reality has resumed. The fact that more players of Zynga’s size have not popped up in less than a year of Facebook's matured social gaming market is neither remarkable or distressing. This view proceeds from real market data, which we dive into in the following two sections. > Continue reading on Inside Social Games. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Launches Page Citing Statistics and New Incentives for Adopting Credits Posted: 24 Jan 2011 01:48 PM PST Facebook has launched a new Credits page on its developers site aimed at convincing game and application companies to implement Facebook Credits as a payment option. Facebook announced earlier today that Credits will become the exclusive payment method for all canvas games and apps starting July 1st, 2011. The page explains that Credits help developers because they increase revenue and reduce costs, and that Facebook's incentives for implementation will help grow business.
To incentivize implementation as the exclusive payment option before this mandatory switch, Facebook is offering developers “early access to product features and premium promotion on Facebook, including featured placement on the Games Dashboard, premium targeting for ads, and access to new co-promotion opportunities” as well as “advice and support from Facebook’s games and credits teams.”
The Credits Page’s arguments for increased revenue through implementation include “higher conversion rates, increased average revenue per user…and access to millions of users with stored credentials.” This last point is the true strength of Credits. Facebook’s currency facilitates impulse buying though three-click purchases, while players might reconsider and decline their purchase by the time they’ve input all their credit card details. The Page explains that Credits help developers reduce costs by removing the need to set up local payment options across the world, allowing users to pay through a variety of gift cards, and passing the threat of fraud to Facebook. As Facebook grows internationally, the global accessibility of Credits lets developer monetize sudden popularity in more obscure countries.
Any developers who already meet the criteria should apply immediately. The incentives include featured placement on the games dashboard that receives a over 30 million impression a month, as well as “new placements and premium ad targeting.” Some of the premium targeting options Facebook might make available include targeting users who have a current balance of Credits, or who reach a minimum engagement level with apps games. The option to beta test new products is also a valuable incentive, because it gives developers a head start in formulating best practices of how to use the products. The Page concludes with links to executive summaries of the success three gaming companies have had with implementing Facebook Credits. Arkadium notes that it only took two weeks to make Credits the sole payment option. Digital Chocolate cites a 60% drop in consumer contact rates and reports of billing issues as well as a four times increase in conversion rates since implementing Credits. PopCap, makers of Bejeweled Blitz, notes that Credits helped reduce method development time and increase revenues. Nowhere on the Credits page is Facebook’s revenue 30% cut explained. Still, unless this cut equates to a significant loss, developers may as well switch early and take advantage of the incentives rather than wait for the July deadline. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Sets July, 1, 2011 Deadline to Make Credits Sole Canvas Game Payment Option Posted: 24 Jan 2011 11:04 AM PST
It had originally slated all developers to have completely made the switch by the end of 2010. While that has mostly happened, there are still many games not using Credits. So the company is announcing today that all developers who have games on canvas pages will need to move to only use Credits by July 1st of this year. New games will be required to use Credits as the virtual currency when they first set up their canvas pages; older games will also be required to switch to exclusively use Credits, too. For users, that means no more paying for currencies directly with credit cards or other methods that don’t somehow use Credits. For developers, it means more costs and benefits to plan for. Credits, along with whatever benefits it brings, also comes with a 30% revenue cut that developers have up to this point not had to pay. Although many have already adopted Credits in whole or in part, the potential cost of exclusive implementation continues to be an issue for the ecosystem. Facebook’s mandatory push could, beyond the risks to developers’ businesses, also help increase the prevalence and ease-of use of Credits to the point that the currency makes relatively more money for developers even with the fee — or that, at least is, Facebook’s plan. New Credits Promotions, More StatsAs part of the news, Facebook is also releasing some big updates to its promotional plans for Credits, and stats on adoption. Perhaps the biggest piece of news is that Facebook is going to be strongly encouraging developers to use Credits is the premium in-game currency, beyond requiring Credits to be the only virtual currency payment option. According to Deb Liu, a lead platform marketing manager at Facebook, the company could offer additional benefits for developers who do this, including free advertising on the Games dashboard, in other Facebook ad inventory, and in other special features. She tells us to expect more news on that front soon. Note that we’ll be asking her for more details tomorrow, as she’s on a monetization panel at our Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco. Liu tells us that Facebook doesn’t plan to make premium-currency implementation mandatory, however. The company is, as before, only requiring that developers use Credits as the payment method for one or more currencies that developers have within games. In case you’re not familiar with social game virtual currency models, many popular titles are currently designed around dual currency systems. These currencies are branded around the particular game, and allow developers to tweak the virtual economy by doing things like give away more of one kind of currency for in-game actions, and increase the monetary cost of the premium currency at the some time to encourage people to buy (and pay more). However, Facebook did tell us that it may make “some exceptions” to this new policy of requiring Credits to be the only available payment option, with those exceptions possibly including prepaid game cards that have already been launched by a few large developers, as well as specialized regional payment options which Facebook has not yet integrated into Credits. Facebook’s rationale for promoting in-game usage of Credits is that doing so will increase the overall visibility of the currency to users, thereby enticing more and more of them to spend their money on it directly. Otherwise, the additional step of buying Credits then buying another currency can create confusion and decrease conversion. While Facebook has been criticized by developers for forcing Credits on them, the company should also be recognized for the drawn-out implementation process it is going through to make sure that the product works for the ecosystem. Liu explains that the next five months are intended for lots of fine-tuning of payment options (it plans to add a lot more), payment flows, the new features, and other parts of the expansion. Beyond whatever Facebook plans for promoting in-game implementations, it also has a bit more to share about adoption — Credits is now used by 350 applications from 150 developers representing around 70% of Facebook virtual goods transaction volume, according to the company. We’ve separately heard some developers privately praise Credits as a better way to monetize than other payment options, and we’ve also continued to hear other developers claim that Credits could destroy their livelihoods. We’ll be discussing all this at Inside Social Apps tomorrow. Although the announcement appears to be directed at all social games, we’re also double-checking with Facebook to confirm that the rules do not apply to non-gaming apps that have virtual currency, such as gifting titles. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Badoo, RootMusic, LivingSocial Top Among Applications That Grew the Most This Past Week Posted: 24 Jan 2011 10:27 AM PST
While social games often top our weekly list of the the Facebook applications that gained the most new monthly active users in the past seven days, we’re seeing a broader range today, including dating site Badoo, music Page management company Rootmusic, and deals site LivingSocial. First, the latest numbers from our AppData weekly gainers leaderboard: Top Gainers This Week
Badoo, a years-old dating/social networking site, recently added a variety of Facebook integrations — and it also ported user profiles from its site into Facebook, apparently increasing the number of potential date matches that Facebook users are seeing. The result, as you can see, is growth of more than 3.23 million new users in the past week. It now has 22.6 million MAU total, making it the seventh-largest app on the Facebook platform according to our AppData leaderboard on the matter. RootMusic’s BandPage app, which we’ve been covering extensively in recent months, has continued to boom as more and more musicians look to create and fine-tune their Pages for users. It came in second after Badoo, gaining more than 1 million users in the past week to reach nearly 15 million MAU total — it wasn’t so long ago that the company was excited to announce the 10 million mark, so evidently things are continuing to go well. Check out our earlier reviews for more details. LivingSocial ran a massive deals campaign with its new investor Amazon last week, letting users buy an Amazon gift card worth $20 for half off. Aside from promoting its partner and saving users money, the result was also apparently nearly a quarter million new users to its relatively small Facebook app. Among the other non-games on the list today, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Facebook Connect integrations continue to grow well. The former has grown steadily in recent months but the latter is only now appearing to boom. We’ll take a look at Ravenwood Fair, 德州撲克(中文版) (Texas Hold ‘Em, but in Chinese and by Boyaa, not Zynga) and other social games over on our sister site Inside Social Games. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook’s North American Ad Rates Rose in December 2010, Traffic Stayed Flat Posted: 24 Jan 2011 08:21 AM PST
No service to date has managed to dislodge Facebook’s dominance in North America since the site overtook MySpace in early 2009; our most recent data corroborates the site’s strength in the region. Ad Rates Strong in December Despite slower traffic growth in both the United States and Canada throughout the last month of 2010 (with audience counts for the latter market shrinking slightly), Facebook nonetheless maintained a regional total of over 145 million users by January 1, 2011. With audience numbers this massive in two of the strongest economies in the world, Facebook continued to see high advertising rates in the region, with US cost-per-click rates hitting an upper bound of $1.76 and Canadian rates trailing at $1.34.
While ad rates tend to fluctuate somewhat by week and even by day, they can serve as a useful indicator of the robustness of the advertising market in Facebook’s mature regions. The US market saw ad rates peak in late November, just before the holiday rush, followed by a dip and a rebound in the latter half of December. Relatedly, the peaks seen in the last month and a half of the year could be due to greater advertiser demand during the holiday season. So far, January has been a slower month for Facebook’s ad market; next month’s update will show if and how rates even out as we progress through 2011′s first quarter. Traffic Saw Little Growth, but Remained High With around half of the American and Canadian populations now on Facebook, it’s still too early to tell if the site is nearing its saturation points in these markets, or if there is still room to capture the half that is still unclaimed. However, Facebook traffic in North America has hovered around 140 million for a few months now; as this market matures, the site may begin to see diminishing returns on its efforts to bring uninitiated users to the site. In the year ahead, Facebook’s work in these markets will involve not only capturing new users, but also delivering experiences that keep today’s users coming back for more. Detailed data on ad rates by demographic for over 190 country markets around the world is available with a membership to Inside Facebook Gold, our data service that also includes the monthly Global Monitor Report. Learn more at Inside Facebook Gold. |
The top of the Credits page displays a scoreboard of stats regarding how widely Credits have been implemented. It currently states that “More than 350 games and apps use credits. 22 of the top 25 games use credits. More than 150 developers use credits”, and Facebook will likely update these numbers as adoption grows. The scoreboard is designed to exert peer pressure on developers, implying that they don’t want to be the last to start using Credits.
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