Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Thanks to Our Sponsors
- Facebook Roundup: Stock, Microsoft, Google, Blackberry, SocialEyes, Places and More
- The Facebook Credits GetBalance API Helps Developers Dynamically Price Virtual Goods
- Videos, Photos, Foreign Language and More on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
| Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:00 PM PST Inside Facebook extends a big thank you to our sponsors for supporting the continued growth of Inside Facebook. Check them out below!
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Roundup: Stock, Microsoft, Google, Blackberry, SocialEyes, Places and More Posted: 04 Mar 2011 07:20 PM PST Facebook Co-Founder Set to Sell Shares – One of the co-founders of Facebook is looking to unload up to 10 million shares of Facebook common stock, which would be worth about $300 million dollars. No one knows which co-founder it is, but if it's not CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it could be Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz or Eduardo Saverin. General Atlantic Also Gets in on Facebook Stock — In a possibly related note, the private equity firm is buying a small portion of Facebook stock from former employees, in a deal that values the company at $65 billion. Microsoft, Facebook Quarrel Over Hiring – The hiring by Facebook of Microsoft's Global Ad Sales head Carolyn Everson has created tension between the two companies to the point that Microsoft may even seek legal action. Settings Bugs in Facebook for Blackberry App Fixed - RIM has addressed several bugs that were causing email notification and background polling settings to be reset when users logged in and out of the Facebook for Blackberry v1.9.0.20 mobile app. The updated Facebook for Blackberry v1.9.0.28, now available through BlackBerry App World, also fixes a bug that caused freezing when users tried to upload photos to Facebook.
Google Redesigns Profiles – Google's new user profiles resemble Facebook's user profiles. [Image Via TechCrunch] SocialEyes Uses Connect to Video Chat – SocialEyes, from RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser, is trying to make video chat social by using Facebook Connect, according to GigaOM. SocialEyes will be a Facebook app and its own stand alone site.
Check Into Places From Your Watch – InPulse is a watch app that allows users to check into Places from their watch. The app comunicates with your phone over Bluetooth, then an app on the phone gets your GPS location, asks Facebook for nearby locations, which are then displayed on your watch for you to select. Govt Contractor Creating Armies of Fake Facebook Profiles – The Daily Kos and others have reported that the defense contractors HBGary has a sophisticated plan to create an army of fake Facebook profiles to control public opinion, as well as compromise others' profiles. Facebook Engineering Enhances Backups – The Facebook Engineering team wrote a note about new enhancements to the way the company backs up data, specifically as it pertains to moving from mysqldump to XtraBackup.
Newsbook Aggregates Top Facebook Likes - Newsbook is a new web site from D.C. firm Engage that aggregates the most relevant and Liked articles from the most popular 27 news web sites in one place. Hatchlings Trades Listings for Installs - Hatchlings is an Easter egg hunt that also trades space on its Page directory for installs as a tab by Page administrators. Although the app is somewhat spammy, Hatchlings could be useful for small Pages looking for network exposure. Thus far more than 250 apps and Pages have added the tab and the app is also working to raise money for charity. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Facebook Credits GetBalance API Helps Developers Dynamically Price Virtual Goods Posted: 04 Mar 2011 12:22 PM PST Facebook has released the getBalance API call as an incentive to game developers who use Facebook Credits as their exclusive premium in-game currency. The call lets developers determine the Credits balance of any of their users. This allows them to identify high rollers with a large balance of Credits and dynamically price virtual goods to increase purchase probability or profit margin, improving monetization.
However, if developers change prices on users without disclosing the changes, they are risking significant backlash. Users might feel cheated, and stop playing the game, or other games by the developer — and they might also spread the word to others. A variety of fan sites and communities cover details like prices, and they’d be sure to notice price discrepancies and help spread the word. What the getBalance API doesStarting July 1st, all Facebook games must process payments exclusively through Facebook Credits, Facebook’s virtual currency. Developers can either use Credits as their payment method, allowing users to purchase a game’s proprietary premium in-game currency with Credits, or use Credits as their premium currency. Facebook wants developers to use Credits as their in-game currency (PDF) because it removes an extra step from the spending flow, as Credits as a payment method requires users to buy to credits to buy premium currency to buy virtual goods. Facebook is incentivizing developers to use of Credits as their premium currency by making several special API calls available to those that do, including Buy with Friends and Frictionless Payments. Buy with Friends lets users share a discount on a virtual good with friends, while Frictionless Payments lets developers instantly sell users up to $3 worth of virtual goods without interrupting game play with a purchase confirmation step.
Frictionless Payments requires developers to display a user’s balance to them after purchase. To do this, developers can call the getBalance API for any of their users:
But there are significant additional benefits to this API call, which quietly became available at the end of January. It allows developers it to determine if a user is a high roller who maintains a large balance of Credits, indicating that they actively purchase Credits and will likely have a high lifetime value. Developers can also tell if a user maintain no balance and may not be a paying customer, or that they maintain a small balance, indicating that they may only buy as many Credits as they need at a time and might not spend as freely.
Facebook Credits project manager Reshma Khilnani confirmed with us that developers could use this data to optimize their monetization strategy. They might seek to reward high rollers with special rewards in hopes of winning their loyalty and turning them into a whales, or high-return social gamers who spends from $25 up to tens of thousands of dollars. Developers might reduce the price of virtual goods when a high roller first starts playing in an effort to get them hooked, gradually increasing prices with time. Alternatively, developers of games with a low user lifespan could jack up prices to squeeze money out of them before they leave, though a slow-and-steady monetization strategy is usually more fruitful. For those with a small balance, developers could dynamically price their virtual goods so users could make purchases without having to stop and buy more Credits from Facebook. They could also price a virtual good that is crucial to advancement just above the user’s current balance, compelling them to buy more Credits, and then lower prices to get the now Credits-flush user to fritter away their balance. But as we said earlier, developers should remember that they may risk their reputations over their use of this feature. The getBalance API opens a whole new level of strategy to virtual goods pricing. Large developers with huge volumes of data will be able to deduce patterns and discover tricks to help them maximize user spend. The API could even create a market for Credits balance analytics services that bring these insights to smaller developers. Rarely in the physical world do retailers get the chance to look inside a potential customer’s wallet and price their wares accordingly. The getBalance API is a persuasive reason for developers to switch to Credits as their premium in-game currency, and an opportunity for them and Facebook to significantly improve monetization of games. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Videos, Photos, Foreign Language and More on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:44 AM PST
Top Gainers This Week
The Честита Баба Марта! app grew by more than 1.3 million users this week, the Russian app is related to the month of March. Luck Daily, an app that gives you your daily percentage of luck, grew by 348,300 MAU; the app posts your score to the stream. There were several Turkish video apps. Komik Videolar with 326,700 new MAU; the app offers a selection of videos users can share to the stream. Online Videolar grew by 253,500 MAU and Videoloji saw a rise of 175,300 MAU, both apps provide interesting videos from which users may select videos to share to their stream. Finally, Kameralı SOHBET is a Turkish video chap application that grew by 171,300 MAU this week.
Photo apps included Photo Sticker, which saw a rise of 193,100 MAU; the app allows users to upload photos or use Facebook photos, decorate them with designs or animations, then automatically posts a photo album to the stream. Profile Customizer is another profile banner app that saw a jump of 168,200 MAU this week. The app forces users to agree to tag themselves in the photo album generated to create the profile banner, which likely contributes to its growth. A few other non-game apps include My Friend Map, which saw 307,500 MAU this week; the app takes your Facebook network and applies it to a geographic map so you have a visual of your friendships. The app publishes a photo album to your stream with your network map. There was the German Ja oder Nein Quiz which saw 268,000 MAU this week; the quiz is one of those "what do your friends think about you?" apps. And Likelicious saw 179,300 MAU this week; the app allows users to both create and Like quotes and post them to your Wall. Of the games, some were in Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian. |
International Facebook applications made a big appearance on our list of emerging apps this week. All told there were apps in Bulgarian, Turkish, Chinese, Indonesian and German. The list of top 20 emerging apps was compiled based on 
| You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |