Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Adds Online Status Indicator to the Center of the Profile to Promote Chat
- Migrating to Facebook Credits Event Cites Adoption Stats, Hints at Payout Countries
- Ceglia Refiles Claim for Facebook Ownership, Raising More Questions for Zuckerberg (and Himself)
- Facebook Updates Comments Box Plugin With Comment Exporting and Larger News Feed Stories
- Blinq Media’s Ads API Tool to Handle Havas Digital’s Facebook Ad Dollars
- New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: AdParlor, Buddy Media, Context Optional, Involver, Kontagent, Vitrue and More
| Facebook Adds Online Status Indicator to the Center of the Profile to Promote Chat Posted: 13 Apr 2011 06:30 AM PDT When users view the profiles of their friends, they’ll now see an online status indicator next to that friend’s name. Similar to the Facebook Chat panel, a green dot means the user is actively online, a grey crescent moon means they’re online but idle, and an empty grey circle means they’re offline or have turned off Chat. Showing the online statuses of friends so prominently on profiles will remind users of the option to Chat, increasing usage of a feature that can boost time-on-site.
Facebook has experimented with where to display online status on the profile. At different times, it has has shown a link to initiate a Chat beneath the profile picture, and an online status indicator in the top right corner of the profile. Most recently prior to the current design, users would see a gray Chat button in to right of the profile.
Now the different online status indicator icons appear next to a friend’s name, or the name of the profile tab a user is currently viewing. When hovered over, icons reveal text labels denoting their meaning. Facebook’s Messages product formats direct communication between users as Chat if a recipient is online, and as a Message if the recipient is offline. The online status indicator no longer signals what medium the sender should use, as this is irrelevant, and instead it signals through which medium will communication be received. In this case, the indicator will help inform senders whether or not they should expect an immediate response.
However, this same information is implicitly conveyed if a user clicks to send a Message to an available friend and is directed to the Chat window, or tries to Chat an unavailable friend and is notified that their Chat will be delivered to the recipient’s Message inbox. Therefore, the prominent placement of the online status indicator is probably an attempt on Facebook’s part to increase the number of Chats and Messages sent. Now when a user clicks through to a friend’s profile from a photo or news feed update, they’ll immediately be shown whether they can instantly communicate with that friend. In this way, the green icon serves as an invitation to Chat. Facebook only launched Chat in 2008, years after Gmail, MSN, and AOL established themselves as instant message platforms. Until mid 2010, there were significant stability issues with Chat that left a negative public impression that the feature is still trying to recover from. The move of the online status indicator may be Facebook’s announcement that Chat is ready to become a more central part of the service’s experience, and that users shouldn’t forget about it. |
| Migrating to Facebook Credits Event Cites Adoption Stats, Hints at Payout Countries Posted: 12 Apr 2011 05:28 PM PDT Facebook held a live webinar called “Migrating to Facebook Credits for Developers” earlier today. In it, the virtual currency’s product marketing manager Deb Liu announced that Credits has been adopted by more than 550 games and apps from over 275 developers, and that Credits accounts for over 85% of the transactions on the Platform. Liu also mentioned that Facebook would soon “substantially increase the number of countries that can receive payouts via PayPal,” and noted that more incentives would soon be available to developers who use Credits as their premium in-game currency (although she didn’t provide further details). Facebook also published a step-by-step guide to adopting Credits today, including an engineering flow diagram illustrating how a Credits transaction is processed. These new stats, payout countries, incentives, and documentation should serve to draw more developers to Credits, especially ones based in South America or Asia, as Hong Kong is the only nation of those two continents where payouts are supported.
On July 1st, 2011, all Facebook games must use Credits as their exclusive payment method, and those who use Credits as their exclusive premium in-game currency will have access to incentives including Frictionless Payments, Buy With Friends, and the getBalance API. The new incentives Liu discussed would join this suite. Facebook cited that over 350 games and 150 developers were using Credits by January, but those numbers have now grown by 200 and 125 respectively. These stats provide social proof that developers are switching to and sticking with Credits, which should help onboard those developers still delaying the inevitable. Last month, Facebook announced support for several additional currencies and payment methods, including many in Asia. However, Facebook currently only allows payouts in North America, Europe, and Hong Kong, likely discouraging developers from Asia who can’t afford to set up a branch in one of nations that are supported. Liu said that additional payout countries, which could include Singapore and Taiwan since they have many app developers, will be added in late May or early June. The new documentation published today showed developers how to register an app for Credits, generate the pay dialog with the JavaScript SDK, build the callback.php, set the location of an app’s callback, and complete a transaction. The callback.php flow diagram should help developers understand how a request is passed from a user to them to Facebook and back.
Facebook seems to understand that problems with the July Credits transition could seriously harm its relationship with the developer community. The migration to 30% taxed currency is already a touchy subject, and as such, it’s doing everything it can to preempt issues through blog posts, forum responses, and even live question-and-answer periods. |
| Ceglia Refiles Claim for Facebook Ownership, Raising More Questions for Zuckerberg (and Himself) Posted: 12 Apr 2011 04:09 PM PDT In the latest twist to the latest lawsuit from someone claiming partial ownership of Facebook, Paul Ceglia has refiled his case from last year — and produced a new string of emails with company founder Mark Zuckerberg that Ceglia claims indicate that he owns up to 50% of Facebook. Ceglia has also convinced one of the largest law firms in the world, DLA Piper, to represent him. The emails themselves make the case look far more interesting. Until the news broke last night, the most notable recent movement was a judge siding with Facebook a few weeks ago, forcing the case to be heard in a district court instead of a local New York one as Ceglia had wanted. Given that in the US legal system, defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, the onus is on Ceglia to convince the courts of his case. And there are still some big questions remaining for him to answer, which we’ll get into below. For those who haven’t already been following the matter, see our coverage of Ceglia’s case last year, Business Insider’s breathless examination of the latest emails today, additional reporting on the matter from The New York Times, and more discussion on Techmeme — as well as Above The Law’s more skeptical take. ZDNet has a copy of the latest filing, for those who are interested. Does DLA Piper’s Involvement Lend New Credibility to Ceglia’s Case?DLA Piper is a large and relatively prestigious law firm and many observers today take its involvement, and its strong statement supporting Ceglia, to indicate that the case has substance. But we are less credulous about DLA Piper’s motives here — law firms represent clients in order to make money, not necessarily to champion the truth. Clearly, the firm is taking on some risk: if it turns out that Ceglia’s claims are completely false, the firm will look bad at picking and vetting clients. However, given that Facebook has acknowledged that at least some of the documents are real, there is all sorts of room to get an outcome that doesn’t result in complete failure. The most immediately achievable benefit is marketing. DLA Piper is now appearing in every story about the lawsuit around the world, and in most coverage it is being framed as the expert counsel who is standing up for a jilted entrepreneur against a company that many people have mixed feelings about. Anyone who doesn’t like Facebook, or who wants to go up against a company like Facebook, might now be more likely to turn to DLA Piper than before. The more obvious benefit is money. Facebook has already shown itself willing to settle with plaintiffs claiming founder ownership, in the case of the Winklevoss twins. While the twins were ultimately lost a variety of appeals (as of yesterday), they were able to land $65 million. That amount was a settlement that Facebook agreed to years ago, when it had much less money. Facebook has shown it is willing to pay to make problems go away. Even a small win on DLA’s part could mean either cash or stock in Facebook, depending on what the firm can get for Ceglia, and what its representation terms are with him. Meanwhile, demand for legal services has been dropping around the world due to the recession, and it’s possible the firm is more generally willing to take risky cases in order to make money than just a few years ago. And in case you want more evidence that law firms are interested in representing smaller, possibly suspect clients against bigger ones, just look back to how the world found out about the $65 million agreement between Facebook and the Winklevoss twins: The Winklevoss’ law firm (at the time) advertised the amount of the win as part of its promotional literature to new clients. If DLA Piper wins any significant amount of money, expect it to promote it as loudly as the terms of the case allow. Some Questions for CegliaThere are important unanswered questions around the emails themselves. DLA Piper is saying that Ceglia has a case, but so far we haven’t seen evidence proving that the newly-introduced emails are real, rather than after-the-fact fakes. We just see plain text, and the firm’s word that the emails are real. Beyond technical confirmations — such as whether there are records of the emails on Zuckerberg’s side — bigger questions also remain for the plaintiff. 1. Why did Ceglia wait so long to file the case, in the first place? Facebook has been growing quite publicly since it launched. It’s been making headlines since 2006 amid possibilities of high-priced acquisitions. Considering that he would have had the nasty email exchanges still fresh on his mind, Ceglia would have had every reason to take Zuckerberg to court at any point before 2010.
2. Why did Ceglia not produce the latest round of emails last year, in his original case? Given the scope of what Ceglia hopes to get, that he didn’t use these key pieces of evidence before is even more surprising than the fact that he waited so long to file. There are also some unexplained changes between the original case and the refiling. He started off asking for 84% of Facebook, based on a contract that he said at the time gave him an additional 1% of the company every day that the project was delayed past January 1, 2004. Now he’s only asking for 50%. The latest court documents from him say that he had waived the 1% increase in February of 2004. Why did he try to get 84% last year, when his own evidence supposedly contradicts this claim? The difference, after all, is 34% of Facebook, which amounts to billions of dollars.
3. Where is the evidence that Zuckerberg accepted the payment for “The Face Book”? Ceglia has to our knowledge only provided proof of payment for $1000, which may have been for work on a “Streetfax.com” site that the two had agreed Zuckerberg would work on. Only Ceglia’s latest batch of emails show Zuckerberg making explicit mention of taking the money Ceglia provided for “The Face Book” — meanwhile, the new suit doesn’t appear to include more proof of any payments sent and received.
4. Why would Zuckerberg agree to such an obviously bad contract? He had previously built a music recommendation service in high school that he could have sold for more than a million dollars — instead he didn’t, and went off to a very expensive college with numerous employment opportunities. For someone with entrepreneurial experience, who had had far more money offered to him, why would Zuckerberg give up so much of any project he was working on for so little money? Ceglia’s emails show Zuckerberg looking for very small amounts throughout the course of 2003, yet other accounts of Facebook’s early days show Zuckerberg having relatively good access to funding via cofounder Eduardo Saverin. Conclusion: Let’s Wait and SeeOn its face, the new emails make Ceglia’s case look far more credible than it had, as does DLA Piper’s involvement. Yet Ceglia is still very far from showing the world why he should be awarded up to 50% of Facebook, and his firm is a far from objective partner. While the ins and outs of the case are interesting, especially for investors, the users, developers, and marketers currently using Facebook should not make any changes to plan around the idea that Paul Ceglia could one day be co-owner of the company. |
| Facebook Updates Comments Box Plugin With Comment Exporting and Larger News Feed Stories Posted: 12 Apr 2011 02:21 PM PDT Facebook today released several updates to the newest version of its Comments Box social plugin for third party websites that will increase the referral traffic it drives, and give sites API control so they can export, analyze, and re-order comments. The plugin can now publish a full news feed story with an image when users post comments, and users can log in using their Hotmail account. These distribution, flexibility, and access updates significantly increase the plugin’s appeal, and should lead to more installs on top of the 50,000 websites that have already integrated it.
Facebook originally launched the Comments Box social plugin in February of 2009, but released the greatly enhanced current version on March 1st, 2011 that included comment ranking by relevancy, the option to login with a Yahoo! account, enhanced moderation tools and the option for users to syndicate their comments to their own Facebook walls. Login with an AOL account was soon added, and it was discovered that the plugin included live code for Twitter and Google logins despite those not being user-facing options. Despite early adoption by websites such as TechCrunch and our own, many publishers had reservations since they couldn’t export and archive comments, and users couldn’t login anonymously.
New FeaturesThe new updates should convince some more of these hold outs. The Graph API can now be used to search and export comments. Facebook says this will allow websites to “highlight the most interesting comments, perform analysis on the comment stream, reward top commenters, search through existing comments, and use comments to improve SEO on their site.” The exporting feature is crucial for sites who want to reserve the right to switch away from Facebook’s plugin without losing comments made within it. When users opt in to Facebook syndication of their comments, the resulting news feed story will include an image and description of the site. This means the story will appear much larger and more compelling in the feed, driving more referral traffic to sites hosting the plugin. This traffic boost is lucrative enough to outweigh other concerns or the effort to migrate to the Comments Box. Other updates include the addition of Hotmail as a login provider, which will open up commenting through the plugin to more of those without a Facebook account. A new dark color scheme will make the plugin fit better aesthetically with darker sites. Permalinks, accessed through a comment’s timestamp, will let users share their comments through email or other social media sites like Twitter, and also make moderation simpler.
There are still some deficiencies, but these are in-part tied to the nature of an authenticated identity comment plugin. For instance, moderators can not edit user comments, which can be useful for when someone makes a good point but that is peppered with objectionable language. However, the ability to edit someone’s comments, which are sync’d to their profile, coud raise security and authenticity issues. Sites using the original version of the plugin can easily update by adding ‘migrated=1′ to their site’s <fb:comments> tag. All old versions will be forcibly migrated on April 29th, re-ordering existing comments using the new relevancy ranking. Sites using custom CSS may need to make some tweaks as since that customization option is no longer supported. Gaining TractionEven before these updates, the Comments Box plugin appears to gaining traction. Facebook tells us that amongst the 50,000 properties that have integrated the plugin are music sites Vevo and Grooveshark, video distributors Funny Or Die and Metacafe, image hosts Photobucket and Imageshack, games by WildTangent and Y3, reviews site Hotels.com, and news sites the San Jose Mercury News and the LA Times. By moving to facilitate data portability and manipulation, Facebook has lowered the risk of experimenting with the plugin, allowing websites to see for themselves whether the plugin increases the volume and civility of their comments and drives referral traffic as Facebook claims. |
| Blinq Media’s Ads API Tool to Handle Havas Digital’s Facebook Ad Dollars Posted: 12 Apr 2011 12:51 PM PDT
Blinq Media Iterates QuicklyBlinq Media was founded in 2008 by Dave Williams, who previously founded search marketing firm 360i. Blinq’s 25-employee team includes many former employees of Page management company Vitrue and others with experience developing on Facebook’s rapid-release timetable. Blinq’s other agency clients include giants WPP and Publicis.
Along with its own API key that helps Havas Digital strengthen its relationship with Facebook, the agency will have its own data store. This ensures its data isn’t commingled with that of other Blinq clients, and that it can perform its own optimizations. Havas Digital Needs Speed and EfficiencyHavas Digital tested other tools from less agile search-focused ad services with Facebook tacked on, and pure technology companies that don’t use their own tools, but settled on Blinq. Because of the agency’s scale, it needed a tool that allowed its account managers it to efficiently jump between ad creation, bid management and reporting so they can spend more time being strategic and optimizing. Previously, the agency used TBG Digital’s Ads API tool ONE Media Manager. The agency’s Global Director of Product Development Rob Griffin told us its Facebook spend “is already in the millions and I only see that exponentially growing 3x, 5x, 10x, 20x.” This projected growth makes it important to have Blinq’s transparent billing system, where Havas Digital can see exactly how much Facebook makes and Blinq makes. Griffin concluded “Blinq has best tech of those tested, showed massive performance lifts and efficiency gains, offering big benefits for our clients and our agency, so they’re our preferred partner.” |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2011 08:27 AM PDT There were hires all around this week, from business development to interns, on our new weekly post covering hires among non-gaming companies on the Facebook platform. In particular Buddy Media hired a Director of Business Development and General Manager of Lifestyle brands. Nanigans hired a Vice President of Client Partnerships, TBD Digital hired a Managing Director of France and two VPs of Business Development and Vitrue hired a General Counsel, as well as a Director of Business Development. If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email mail (at) insidefacebook (dot) com, and we'll get it into next week's post. Also, please note that information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn. Looking for new opportunities? Check out the Inside Network Job Board, which shows the latest openings at leading companies in the industry. Here's this week's list of hires:
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Facebook Ads API tool provider 
Havas Digital chose Blinq Media’s Ruby-on-Rails solution because of its streamlined workflow, its ability to quickly adapt to new features released by Facebook, and its transparent billing practices. Blinq is also able to offer Havas Digital its own API key. Havas Digital can leverage information on its spend volume from the key to gain preferred access to support from the social network, and to court new clients.
Williams told us that since his team built the Blinq Ad Manager | You are subscribed to email updates from Inside Facebook To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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