
Inside Facebook
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- Facebook Page Management Company Acquisitions Could Continue Through 2011
- Lolapps and Zynga Add TrialPay’s Credits Shortcut, Implement “Frictionless Credits”
- Gogo Inflight Internet Tempts Users to Pay by Offering Free Facebook Access
- ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on the 2011 Android Social Roadmap
- Top 25 Facebook Games for February 2011
- Facebook App Video Chat Rounds Adds Random Chat to its Suite of Games and Screen Sharing
Facebook Page Management Company Acquisitions Could Continue Through 2011 Posted: 01 Feb 2011 06:00 PM PST
Here we’ll discuss this trend and assess the acquisition landscape for Facebook Page management companies in 2011 with Johnny Hwin, founder of the Page tab app developer Damntheradio, which was acquired this month by email marketing firm FanBridge. Webs allows users to create websites full of widgets using templates and a WYSIWYG editor. However, as Facebook user profiles provide enough functionality for most people, and Pages with their tab applications cover more needy content producers, Webs may have found its business draining into social media. This made Pagemodo a good fit for acquisition, as the startup helps Facebook Page admins build custom tabs and apps through its own WYSIWYG editor. Both companies operate on the freemium model with paying customers gaining access to a white-labeled tool and premium templates. By integrating Pagemodo, Webs can expand its service to encompass Page tab creation. Webs could have chosen to build its own Facebook Page editor, but in the meantime, competitors such as Involver, Vitrue, and Fan Appz would have solidified and grown their share of the freemium Page tab apps market. Webs also may have lacked the experience on Facebook to quickly build a quality product. Other marketing and analytics companies have made similar choices to buy instead of build. Analytics and marketing services provider Webtrends acquired self-serve app builder Transpond in August, and enterprise social media publishing and measurement company Syncapse acquired immersive Page tab app developer Nudge in September. Most recently, entertainment and brand email marketer FanBridge acquired musician and brand tab app developer Damntheradio. The Next Phase for Facebook Pages: Engagement and MonetizationWe asked Damntheradio founder Johnny Hwin about why these companies are choosing to acquire, what this says about the timeline of the Page management industry, and what other areas of Facebook services could become acquisition hotbeds. Hwin sees 2011 as a year of consolidation in the industry. The low barrier to entry for developing on Facebook gave small, forward-thinking firms a chance to get ahead over the past few years. This has created ample acquisition targets. Meanwhile, “Facebook has become the fastest and easiest way to collect new fans, and as a result, more email addresses.” Since Facebook is the gateway to both the one-to-many channel of the news feed and the one-to-one channel of email, and “for marketing com to be truly effective, it needs to reach fans across all channels”, Facebook Page management acquisitions are a wise choice for marketers. Therefore, email, traditional web, and local business marketers as well as hosting services like Go Daddy may seek to add Facebook expertise and talent to their offering in 2011. The Page management timeline can be broken down into two phases. “Early on, it was all about getting more fans through advertising and “Like to unlock content” page tabs. Now we’re at the point where brands are already sitting on a ton of fans, and they’re asking now ‘what do I do with all these fans?’” Hwin and the rest of the industry are now focused on engaging and monetizing them. Their acquisitions now allow FanBridge, Webtrends, and Webs to offer engagement that strengthens the bond between clients and their fans, preparing the users for monetization. This poises Facebook ecommerce as an area for acquisition. Shoptab, Ecwid, Zibaba, and Moontoast are all small to mid-size ecommerce tab developers that could be targeted. Even larger companies like Payvment, Fluid, and Big Commerce could be snapped up by marketing giants looking to make a serious play to control shopping on Facebook and help their customers monetize their millions of fans. With acquisition potential rising, some of these companies might seek to appear more attractive by artificially boosting their numbers through advertising and aggressive client acquisition. The best thing they can do, though, is continue simplifying their self-serve tools, develop innovative tab apps that increase engagement, and look to prove themselves by representing high profile clients. |
Lolapps and Zynga Add TrialPay’s Credits Shortcut, Implement “Frictionless Credits” Posted: 01 Feb 2011 05:40 PM PST TrialPay is working with Lolapps and Zynga to make the option to earn Facebook Credits through offers more obvious. Lolapps has also implemented Facebook’s new “Frictionless Credits” payment system into its game Ravenwood Fair. Both of these new payment flows should help the developers better monetize their games by increasing conversion rates. TrialPay’s Facebook Credits Shortcut
To remedy this, Trialpay created a shortcut that developers can currently integrate outside of gameplay, such as in banner ads or tabs. When clicked, users are immediately shown either the complete offer wall or a single especially relevant or valuable offer, allowing them to earn Credits for buying web service subscriptions, signing up for free accounts, sending Valentine’s day flowers, and more. The shortcut opens offer-earned Credits to mainstream casual gamers who might not have been aware of the option. For details on how Zynga and Lolapps implemented the Credits shortcut, as well how Frictionless Credits has boosted Lolapps’ conversion rate, read the rest of this article on Inside Social Games. |
Gogo Inflight Internet Tempts Users to Pay by Offering Free Facebook Access Posted: 01 Feb 2011 05:28 PM PST
Gogo has partnered with Ford Motor Company to provide the free access on flights of AirTran Airways, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, US Airways and Virgin America. Once flights of participating airlines reach 10,000 feet and passengers can flip on their electronic devices, selecting Gogo as a wireless network allows users to browse Facebook on their laptops, smartphones and PDAs. Facebook is already Gogo's most visited web site, USA Today reported. The offer helps familiarize users with in-flight internet and tempts users to purchase full access to Gogo's services, which run from $4.95 to $12.95 per flight. Gogo’s efforts to use Facebook are somewhat similar to the way Facebook itself is trying to tempt mobile users into purchasing its services. Facebook Zero uses a somewhat similar promotion with developing world mobile phone operators. By allowing these operators to offer a free version of Facebook, in some cases for a limited time only, the company hopes to get users hooked on Facebook mobile and the internet, inspiring them to purchase data plans. Gogo is currently available on 1,100 commercial aircraft, which make about 3,800 flights a day, as well as 5,000 private planes, according to USA Today. Virgin reported that about one-third of its passengers use Gogo, and one analyst said 7% to 10% of all passengers on Wi Fi flights use the service. Gogo previously teamed up with Google to offer its services for free in December on Virgin, Delta and AirTran flights, USA today reported. Facebook is becoming an on-ramp for data services looking to lure users to their subscriptions. This benefits Facebook, as it likely doesn’t care who’s paying for the connection as long as users are visiting the site and viewing ads. |
ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on the 2011 Android Social Roadmap Posted: 01 Feb 2011 01:57 PM PST With a flood of devices, Android quickly emerged over the last year as a mobile platform to take seriously, alongside iOS. This year may be one when it becomes the top priority for many developers. What's on Android's roadmap that will help it become a robust environment for developers to create, distribute and monetize their work? Android brings Google closer to its future on mobile devices. But how will it iron out the kinks with payments, in-app purchases and discovery that are holding developers back? How does the company's big social effort fit into its mobile strategy? And how will it cope with the risks of openness as partners and rivals use and fragment the OS in unexpected ways? Eric Chu, Group Manager for Android Platform, joined Kim-Mai Cutler of Inside Mobile Apps to discuss Google's mobile vision and its biggest challenges in 2011. View the full panel below. ISA 2011: Fireside Chat with Google’s Eric Chu on Android’s 2011 Social Roadmap from Inside Network on Vimeo. To download an mp3 version of this talk, please email us at info (at) insidesocialapps (dot) com. Other videos currently available:
Photos of the event are viewable on our Facebook Page. |
Top 25 Facebook Games for February 2011 Posted: 01 Feb 2011 10:53 AM PST Though last month displayed growth for the top Facebook applications, February appears to be singing a different tune. This time around, 16 of the top 25 Facebook games have experienced loses. Of those, however, half still managed to keep the monthly active user decline under 1 million players. Despite the negatives, a number of newer games have shown significant growth. As one might expect, CityVille continues its tremendous incline (at least for the month, as it’s fallen in recent weeks) but the top 25 also shows a bit of staying power with its “girls-only” titles. Both It Girl and Mall World continue on their upward trends for the second month in a row, with the former gaining over 1.2 million users. This month also has two newcomers and a returning app to the list in the form of Boyaa’s 德州撲克(中文版) or Texas Hold’em (Chinese Version), LOLapps’ Ravenwood Fair, and wooga’s Bubble Island. > Continue reading on Inside Social Games. |
Facebook App Video Chat Rounds Adds Random Chat to its Suite of Games and Screen Sharing Posted: 01 Feb 2011 09:06 AM PST Facebook app Video Chat Rounds, an interactive playground built around video chat, today launches Random Rounds to allow some of its 300,000 monthly active users to chat with strangers. The app had sought to differentiate itself from the shallow interactions and unwanted nudity of random video chat sites like Chatroulette by letting users play games, share virtual gifts, and cooperatively browse Facebook or YouTube through the app. Now it will try to offer a similar service without succumbing to objectionable content or sacrificing privacy. Random Rounds allows users be connected with a random Video Chat Rounds user. To reduce the chances for abuse, only users with 100 Facebook friends or more can use Random Rounds, preventing people from using new fake accounts. A user’s full name is immediately available to their chat partner. Users are grouped by age — 13 to 17 and 18 and up — to prevent kids from inappropriately chatting with adults. If these safeguards don’t work, users can easily report objectionable behavior to Video Chat Rounds and Facebook using one of several links. This ensures predators or those trying to expose themselves will be banned from the app and possibly have their Facebook account terminated. Overall, Random Rounds does a surprisingly good job of keeping out the troublemakers, which led to the rapid decline of Chatroulette and its copy cats. Video Chat Rounds’ existing offering of features is what really makes it fun. Users get a unique rnds.me URL that acts as their video chat phone number. While video chatting with friends, users can take photo snapshots and post them to their wall and overlay virtual gift stamps or effects on the stream of themselves or their friend. In this way, it takes the most addictive parts of Apple’s Photobooth and other humorous still image editing software and applies it to video. Even more impressive is how users can play games together in real time, from chess to Truth or Dare to an arcade shooting gallery. Users can also collaboratively browse YouTube or Flickr, with both users able to click to play videos or display photos. This type of shared experience approximates sharing a single computer screen with a friend, and can be used as a lightweight screen sharing app . The ability to collaboratively browse Facebook is fun and innovative. One users grants Video Chat Rounds additional permissions, displaying a stripped down version of their profile to both users. They can then browse photos or friend profiles together, with both users controlling an active cursor simultaneously. The two can even work together to compose a status update, the only the profile’s owner can publish it. The procrastination and engagement potential in being able to browse a friend’s Facebook account remotely is enormous. Video Chat Rounds plans to monetize by selling virtual goods, such as additional games, stamps, and effects. Users can currently buy these with coins earned for inviting friends to the app, but they’ll eventually be able to purchase with Facebook Credits. Video Chat Rounds may also consider advertising and in-app sponsorships down the line. Currently, its concentrating on improving its Facebook search ranking, so users find it before larger competitors vChatter and Tinychat when looking for “video chat”. The 5-month old, 12-person, $2.5 million funded company is also working maintain the user experience to keep up growth. There are some privacy and content concerns with Video Chat Rounds, however. Nude photos sometimes appear in the photostream and users might not be aware that when they post a photo to their wall, it will be publicly available through the app. The Truth or Dare game asks questions like “What is the sexiest clothing you’ve ever worn?”, which might be inappropriate for younger users. In an effort to demonstrate the potential for brand sponsorships, the app used a Heineken bottle in Truth or Dare, which violates Facebook’s alcohol guidelines. Since we informed the team, they say they are working on replacing it with a non-alcoholic bottle. The Facebook collaborative browsing sidesteps privacy controls. Both users can view any content visible to the connected user, meaning one can share another user’s photos that are restricted to ‘friends only’ with someone who isn’t a friend. Video Chat Rounds’ Marketing Manager says they don’t view it as a privacy breach, but “as two people sitting in the same room”. Facebook might not approve of some of these privacy and security issues, putting the app in jeopardy. It’s biggest hurdle, though, will be overcoming the stigma that video chat is an unsavory realm frequented by sexual predators. Random Rounds is relatively safe, but merely offering a random chat service may cause users to write off the app. |
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