Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Platform Updates: Platform Policy Checklist, App Request Notifications Lead to Apps, HTTPS for Page Tabs, Hack Europe
- Beetailer Lets Ecommerce Web Stores Easily Import Products to a Facebook Page Storefront
- Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events via the Touch Site, Soon the iPhone
- Featured Facebook Campaigns: L’Oréal, Buick, Electronic Arts, Florida’s Natural Orange Juice and State Farm
- Dating, Horoscopes, Video and Basketball on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU
| Posted: 21 Mar 2011 05:05 PM PDT Facebook’s latest updates to the Developers Blog announced a new policy checklist for app developers, that users are now directed straight to an app when they click through notifications from app requests, the need for developers to fill in their HTTPS URL for their iframe apps, several Facebook-hosted events for developers in Europe, and a few other FQL changes and functionality additions.
Platform Policies ChecklistDevelopers curious as to whether their apps violate any of Facebook’s terms of service or Platform policies can now refer to the Platform Policy Checklist. Available as a .PDF in several languages for review before an app’s launch, the list includes privacy, data, content, social channel, branding, and functionality guidelines in easy-to-understand terms. Some of the policies that are more frequently violated, such as rewarding users for inviting or sharing with friends, allowing users to publish more than one news feed story per day, or using data about users in ads are all clearly prohibited. The Checklist will help reduce support and developers forum inquiries by answering some frequently asked questions. The document also will make it difficult for developers to claim that they didn’t know that their app violated Facebook’s terms or exploited users, and will therefore make policy enforcement more straightforward.
One policy that has been hazy before –the prohibition of “concepts or features that undermine the Facebook product” — includes examples such as “don’t encourage users to tag anything other than real people” and ”don’t notify users of friend remove”. This could be referenced in the future as a reason for Facebook banning certain apps that don’t necessarily violate another specific policy. Developers should by happy to have this resource, as reviewing it during conceptual planning for an app could save them a lot of time and money that might be wasted creating an app that gets disabled soon after launch. App Request Notifications Lead to AppsLast month, Facebook introduced Requests 2.0, a system that allowed for user-generated and app-generated requests to be sent that trigger notifications for the recipient. Previously, these notifications led to the Games Dashboard or Applications Dashboard where users could manage their requests, but they weren’t leading to reengagement as they were designed. To increase the reengagement spurred by these requests, users are now brought directly to a canvas app when they click the notification generated by an app’s request.
The change makes requests a much more valuable viral channel to developers, and should boost MAU numbers since it pushes users to manage requests from within apps, not the dashboards. HTTPS URLs for Page Tab AppsIn January, Facebook launched the option for users to browse the site over HTTPS for increased security. It also added a Secure Canvas URL field that developers needed to fill out to allow their apps to be browsed through HTTPS, otherwise Facebook would show users a confirmation screen to inform them they’d have to browse over standard HTTP. In February, Facebook began allowing Pages to display iframe apps, but if users had HTTPS enabled, iframe Page tab apps would be blank when loaded and would not appear in a Page’s navigation menu. A bug report was filed on March 16th and it received a number of up-votes from developers.
On March 17th, Facebook introduced a new field in the developer app called “Secure Tab URL” to the Facebook Integration section of the Developer app. Developers must fill in this field, or users won’t be able to see or access their app in Page tab form. Supressing Auto-Generated Photo StoriesFacebook app developers can now suppress the auto-generated stories that appear on a user’s profile when they upload a photo through the app. This wayif a developer wants to publish a story about the photo, perhaps after a user has edited it through the app, there won’t be two similar stories stacked on a user’s wall. This will lead more users to click through the app’s version of the photo instead of being split between the two, exposing more users to a link back to the app. Developers simply add the Affiliations Year and Status to be DeprecatedFacebook users could previously list a year and status as part of a network affiliation. Since the network could be a school, which has its own year and status fields under education history, users could enter conflicting data into the two instances of the year and status fields. To resolve this, Facebook will strip the year and status fields from the affiliation column of the user FQL table on April 18th because affiliations ”was less up to date and had worse coverage” than the education fields. Facebook Developers Events in Europe
HACK Berlin on March 25th will include panels and a judged hackathon. Facebook Developer Garage Paris on March 29th will include a mixer and an introduction to Julien Codorniou, Facebook’s new Head of Platform Partnerships for France and Benelux. Startup Day London on March 31st will allow Facebook team members, VCs, and employees of socially-focused startups to get to know each other. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Beetailer Lets Ecommerce Web Stores Easily Import Products to a Facebook Page Storefront Posted: 21 Mar 2011 02:08 PM PDT Beetailer is a new service that allows ecommerce merchants to import their website’s store to a tab on their Facebook Page. Users can add items to a shopping cart, and are directed back to the merchant’s site for checkout. Backed by Y Combinator, Beetailer includes advanced functionality such as Like-gated discounts and promotions, scheduled wall posts about products, and analytics. Beetailer is currently only available on a freemium basis to merchants using ecommerce platforms by Shopify and Magento, but if it expands its potential client base by adding other APIs, manual product adding, catalog CSV uploading or store scraping, it could become a serious competitor to Facebook ecommerce frontrunner Payvment and outpace other solutions with less polished interfaces.
To use Beetailer, merchants add its application to whichever Pages they want to show their store on. They enter their web store’s URL and Beetailer imports all of their products. Admins can manage their store through a Shopify app or Magento extension, allowing them reorder and categorize their products into tabs and lists, offer different social sharing options, and allow users to submit comments which can be synced and displayed on a merchant’s website.
Beetailer also offers some Page management tools to assist with product marketing. Admins can draft and schedule updates to be sent to the news feeds of their fans highlighting different products. This scheduling permits admins to spend less time managing their Facebook storefront while still interacting with customers. Its promotions tools let clients offer gifts for Liking their Page or provide discounts such as “5% off for writing three comments” that are locked until a certain number of users complete the social action, encouraging users to invite their friends to shop.
An analytics tools lets merchants see stats on fans, page views, most visited products and categories, products most often added to carts, most searched terms, and most active users. The purchasing process is slick and intuitive. Users checkout back on a merchant’s web store, allowing them to employ the same payment options a security, though some users may prefer not to leave Facebook.
Plans range from free for an un-customized, monthly-updated 10 product storefront and 2 promotions a month, to $300 a month for a custom design, hourly-updated, 10,000 product store with unlimited promotions. Enterprise clients with even more products to display can also arrange special plans with Beetailer. This subscription model is similar to Facebook ecommerce services such as ShopTab, Ecwid, and BigCommerce, though these services concentrate on manual and CSV uploading for importing products, instead of exclusively powering product importing through APIs. Beetailer is targeting a huge market — ecommerce websites that don’t have Facebook stores. While Payvment makes product importing available through an API, this is the only way to get products into Beetailer. This might allow it to focus on offering the most streamlined Facebook ecommerce experience for veteran digital merchants, but it might also preclude it from gaining novice sellers or those looking to augment a brick and mortar store. By a running on a freemium model that requires a paid subscription for crucial services such as displaying more than ten products, Beetailer has a clear business model in place to contrast with Payvment which plans to charge merchants for improved discoverability sometime in the future. As it becomes apparent that they need to be selling on Facebook, more businesses will be looking to set up storefronts on their Pages. This means there could be plenty of room for subscription services such as Beetailer with immediate monetization models as well as strategies that sign up merchants first and deal with generating revenue later. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events via the Touch Site, Soon the iPhone Posted: 21 Mar 2011 11:26 AM PDT Facebook users can now check in to Facebook Events they’re currently attending through the touch.facebook.com site and soon through the Facebook for iPhone app. When users are in geographic proximity to the address of an Event during its run-time, they’ll see a “Check In” button that publishes a news feed story to their friends stating “[Name] is at [Event].” Users will no longer have to create a new Places page or add the name of an Event to a checkin’s description when they want to tell friends they’re at a specific party, concert, or other gathering.
By allowing Places checkins to Events, Facebook may be able to cross-promote the two features, inspiring users to RSVP and check in more often. It will also draw attention to Events that are in progress, and give Event promoters another way to gauge success. The ‘Attending’ RSVP count isn’t an accurate way to determine foot traffic, as many people say they’ll attend, or not, then do the opposite.
When Places launched in August, we discussed the potential for the feature to enhance Events, including creating a better Event discovery method through the checkin feed. Facebook tested a Happening Now section on the Facebook.com Events home page to improve visibility of Events in progress. Until now, though, users would typically just check in to the venue hosting the party, or add a custom Places page for an Event they wanted to check in to. Users don’t need to have been invited or have RSVP’d to check in to an Event, they just need to be within a certain proximity while the Event is going on. Friends can be tagged just as in normal Places checkins, and anyone checked in is automatically added to the Attending guest list of the Event.
On the mobile interface, checked in friends appear as stories on the info tab, while on the web version of Facebook those who are checked in appear in a new “[#] Friends Were Here” section. This allows users to easily determine which of their friends have arrived at an Event, which could be useful for timing one’s own arrival. Most smartphone users can now access Event check-in feature via the Facebook Touch site, though Facebook says the next iPhone release will include the functionality, and you can expect Android devices to soon follow suit.
Facebook has yet to offer any dedicated analytics for Events, which could help promoters track how many invites, RSVPs, wall posts, shares, and now checkins their Events have. Facebook did recently add Places checkins to Insights, so perhaps it will introduce some sort of Insights for Event admins. Checkins coud help Event pages become streams of real-time information, allowing visitors to assess the popularity, progress, and highlights of Events as they happen. If a friend checks in to a concert and adds a description saying there’s a huge line outside or that a special guest has just taken the stage, Event pages could structure data that was previously scattered across the news feed.\ [Thanks to Kevin Evanetski for the tip] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT Platform partnerships, photo tagging, virtual gifting and March Madness were among the methods used in the Facebook campaigns we've highlighted this week. Buddy Media and L'Oréal salons have partnered to promote hair care products on Facebook with Buddy Media's Platform. Then Electronic Arts partnered with Florida's Natural Orange Juice to offer in-game juices in two different games. Buick is taking advantage of NCAA March Madness to grow its Facebook presence and State Farm Insurance is looking to spread the word about its product through viral photo tagging. We've excerpted two campaigns below. You can see the full week's coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of dozens of other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.
Buddy Media and L'Oréal Salon PartnershipGoal: Network Exposure, Page Growth, Product Purchase Core Mechanic: Buddy Media is partnering with L'Oréal and its 4,200 salons in the U.S. by giving them access to the Buddy Media Platform to promote their businesses on Facebook. Method: L'Oréal is a Buddy Media client and the two partnered to give access to more than 4,200 salons in the U.S. access to their Facebook management platform. The launch happens this month for L'Oréal and Redken salons; later this year Matrix, Kerastase and Mizani brands will follow. Each brand and the associated salons will use the platform differently, depending on the marketing needs. Impact: L’Oreal can use Buddy Media Platform features like global and local Page controls to let each salon manage and customize their own Pages to specific areas.
EA, Florida's Natural Orange Juice and Playfish Social Games Team UpGoal: Product Purchase, Network Exposure Core Mechanic: Electronic Arts is set to feature Florida's Natural Orange Juice products in its Playfish Restaurant City and Pet Society games as giftable virtual items. Game: Players have the chance to use the juice products to enhance their social game interactions with friends on Facebook. Method: Florida's Natural Orange Juice products will appear in the Restaurant city and Pet Society games. In Restaurant City, the juice products will help distinguish a user's restaurant by "serving the best juice products in the world to its patrons," according to a press release. In Pet Society, users can give gifts to friends — which with the Florida's Natural Orange Juice partnership includes the company's juices. Players will also have the chance to visit Florida's Natural juice stands within the virtual world of Pet Society. Impact: The collaboration creates the opportunity for Florida's Natural Orange Juice products to appear to potentially millions of users. What's more, the companies noted in a press release that these two particular games were selected for their base of female players. How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dating, Horoscopes, Video and Basketball on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU Posted: 21 Mar 2011 08:04 AM PDT
Top Gainers This Week
Badoo topped the list this week, continuing its viral growth by with 7.2 million MAU. The app's growth has been phenomenal in the past few months, partly due to the Q&A feature users encounter of their friends, which sends a notification to friends every time they answer a question. Another dating app, Cupid, grew by 559,800 MAU this week, this app also asks users strange and raunchy questions of their friends, generating news feed stories in the process. Daily Horoscope came in second on the list with 3.8 million MAU this week; the app automatically generates daily Wall posts of your horoscope. Another Daily Horoscope app grew by 425,700 MAU and asks the user whether they want their horoscope delivered daily.
Three basketball-related apps were on the list almost definitely due to March Madness, the college basketball tournament. CBSSports.com Brackets is an app that grew by 447,500 MAU, Bracket Challenge by Citizen Sports grew by 330,700 and ESPN's Connect app grew by 313,200 MAU. The two former apps allow users to create their own tournament brackets on Facebook and share them, Like them, and generally participate in lots of activity to generate feed stories. For more details, see our story last week. Two video apps, VidyoTV Video with 786,300 new MAU and Videoloji with 442,200 MAU were also on the list. These two generate virality by posting stories to the stream by using the app, viewing videos and also giving options to share them to the stream. BandPage by RootMusic was on the list with 938,300 MAU.
Rock You's Birthday Cards saw 487,300 MAU; the app allows users to send potentially dozens of birthday cards at once by displaying the users' friends with birthdays on a given day. Finally, Intelligent Elite, an IQ app, saw 315,700 MAU this week. The app has an especially viral feature that forces the user to answer questions of about 20 friends (generating feed stories) before finishing up their "IQ test," which only displays results off the Facebook platform. |
Several 
Several dating, horoscopes, video and basketball-related applications were on the list of top 20 apps growing by monthly active users this week. Our list is compiled using 
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