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Inside Facebook

Ad.ly Removed From Facebook for Monetizing the News Feed Through Paid Page Update Endorsements

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:07 PM PDT

Earlier this month, a company called Ad.ly that was previously paying celebrities to endorse brands through their Facebook Page updates complied with Facebook’s request to stop operating on the social network. At the time it was unclear what policy Ad.ly had specifically broken, but we’ve now learned from Facebook that the company was violating Section 3.1 of the site’s terms of service which dictates “You will not send or otherwise post unauthorized commercial communications (such as spam) on Facebook.”

Ad.ly’s business model, which continues to operate on Twitter, was in direct violation of the term. This case of policy enforcement demonstrates that in order to preserve the user experience, Facebook will not allow for the direct monetization of its communication channels — both closing the door on several potential Facebook Platform business models and helping to preserve the quality of overall communication for users.

The aim of section 3.1 of the TOS is to keep Facebook’s social channels such as the news feed, wall, and messages free of content that degrades the user experience. Facebook has previously disallowed apps that allow users to earn money for charities by posting news feed stories, and worked with Amazon to change a promotion that was incentivizing wall posts with free gift cards. It also changed its policy in 2008 to prevent games from rewarding users for inviting their friends.

Without these policies and enforcement, channels typically filled with updates about friends and branded messages users had opted in to could become polluted with what are essentially advertisements that users hadn’t consented to receive. The dissatisfaction this problem causes could lead to a drop in overall trust and engagement with companies on the platform, harming its long-term potential to make money for third-parties and the site itself. For this reason, Facebook also keeps its own ads unobtrusive and restricted to the sidebar, and aggressively defends the integrity of its social channels.

Ad.ly had also committed a minor policy violation when it created a fake user profile that celebrities could add as an admin to their Pages to allow for publishing of the endorsements. Some speculated this was the reason Ad.ly was asked to cease its practice, but a Facebook spokesperson told us that “monetizing posts on Pages or profiles is against our terms.” Its violation of this term was the real reason Ad.ly had to leave Facebook.

Some might be confused why a brand’s Page can publish promotional materials and product links to the feed, but can’t accept money to promote another brand. The distinction is that when users Like a Page, they authorize it to send them its own content as permitted by Section 3.1 of the TOS, but do not authorize it to publish the content of others.

Facebook tries to present its policies clearly, with its challenge in cases like this being that it can’t conceivably craft a rule for every possibly use of the platform — yet it needs to be as close to perfect as possible to maintain its relationships with developers. In this particular instance, it needed to take action regardless of what it had previously said in order to protect what it considers to be a key value of its business: communication that’s valuable to users.

New Jobs This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Youtopia, Arkadium, NaturalMotion & More

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 12:30 PM PDT

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week's highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Youtopia, Arkadium, NaturalMotion, Breaktime Studios, lolgames, and wooga.


Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Facebook Asks Users How Often They Want to Discover New Games

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 11:22 AM PDT

Facebook is testing a new version of the Discover New Games sidebar module introduced last month. Along with showing friends who play a certain game, this version asks users if they want to hear about games more or less often.

How much game content to serve to non-gamers and how to determine who is a gamer have been two long standing questions for Facebook. Now the site looks to be asking users directly, rather than deduce the answer from their behavior. At a press event in September 2010, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the issue presented by the rift between gamers and non-gamers. “One of the biggest drivers of negative experiences has been games. There’s all these people who want to play games, and all these people who don't want to play, who view it as spam. Two hundred million people or more are playing games on the site. When you poll users, one of the top 5 things they like is games, and one of the top 5 things they don't like is games.”

Up until then stories generated by the in-game actions of friends had clogged the news feeds of people who didn’t play games. Facebook then altered the feed such that users would only see App Discovery stories about friends installing games, and stories from friends about in-game actions of games they’ve already installed. This significantly reduced the virality of many games to the dismay of developers.

Some developers complained that there was no way to acquire new users without paying for advertisements, so Facebook introduced the Discover New Games module. However, those who’ve never or only occasionally installed a game might find the module useless.

This tested interface asks “How often would you like to see ‘Discover New Games’?” with buttons to respond “More Often” or “Less Often”. This allows users to inform Facebook of their preference so it can show them different modules such as “Friends’ Photo Albums” or “Unread Messages“.

The data could also be used to refine a user’s news feed to show more game stories. Additionally, Facebook could use this interface to determine if a user is interested in other feature-specific modules, such as “Friends’ Popular Places“.

By getting users to explicitly state how interested they are in discovering new games, Facebook can improve the user experience for gamers and non-gamers alike. Facebook has a large stable of sidebar modules that alternate in a shared space. Developers should be excited that this tested module design could lead those who are interested to see the Discover New Games module more frequently, helping their games to grow.

Facebook Page Admins Can Access Page Notifications Without Switch to “Use Facebook as Page”

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 09:10 AM PDT

Facebook Page admins can now see a View Notifications link in the right sidebar when viewing their own Pages from their profiles, as well as when the’ve switched to “Use Facebook as Page”. Previously, Page notifications could only be accessed from the top navigation bar’s Notifications channel when an admin browsed Facebook as their Page.

By being able to view Page notifications from the personal profile, admins will be more likely to check the alerts and respond to fan activity such as wall posts and uploaded photos.

“Use Facebook as Page” was introduced as part of the February 2011 Page redesign. It allows Page admins to to view Facebook Notifications about activity on their Page, and opt in to email notifications as well. This is especially helpful for admins of smaller Pages who are interested in knowing about every new piece of content added to their Page for conversational or moderation purposes, but that don’t receive so much activity that the Notifications list is too long to use effectively.

Facebook may have noticed that few admins were checking these notification, possibly due to the friction of switching to assume their Page’s identity. The addition of the View Notifications link that shows a counter for new activity may have been designed to increase engagement with the tool.

Fans who receive replies from admins have a better user experience, are likely to become more loyal, and therefore are more likely to share a Page with their friends. In this way, easier access to Page Notifications helps make Facebook more interactive and helps Pages grow, which in turn gives Facebook’s advertisers more connections to target, earning Facebook money.

Horoscopes, Connect, Video, Zoosk, Formspring and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by DAU

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:24 AM PDT

Turkish horoscope and video apps, as well as several Connect and quiz apps, birthdays, bands and Formspring made up our list of the top 20 growing Facebook applications by daily active users this week. The apps grew from between to 88,300 to 1.1 million DAU. The list is compiled using AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook, and covers those that gained the most users in the past seven days.

Top Gainers This Week

Name DAU Gain Gain,%
1. Daily Horoscope 2,251,032 +1,118,641 +99%
2. The Fortune Teller 1,222,663 +1,111,459 +999%
3. Gardens of Time 762,495 +737,882 +2,998%
4. Today’s Video 326,041 +251,666 +338%
5. Zombie Lane 541,842 +241,264 +80%
6. Windows Live Messenger 15,252,327 +223,800 +1%
7. Yahoo! 7,163,455 +213,726 +3%
8. Komedi Kral 257,319 +204,477 +387%
9. Günlük Burç Yorumları 245,475 +184,966 +306%
10. Quiz Taco! 502,239 +180,858 +56%
11. Bubble Saga 357,346 +176,693 +98%
12. Diamond Dash 901,329 +165,721 +23%
13. Birthday Calendar 173,418 +129,069 +291%
14. BandPage by RootMusic 971,066 +122,404 +14%
15. Gourmet Ranch 433,174 +121,227 +39%
16. izletTV 142,848 +120,939 +552%
17. picplz 128,792 +103,403 +407%
18. Zoosk 648,533 +95,662 +17%
19. Mahjong Trails 362,702 +89,266 +33%
20. Formspring 1,032,703 +88,313 +9%

Turkish horoscope apps topped the list. Daily Horoscope, which is in English but grew primarily in Turkey, saw 1.1 million new DAU this week and the Turkish version, Günlük Burç Yorumları, grew by about 185,000 DAU. The apps work pretty much the same way; after allowing permissions the user is taken to their daily horoscope, where they can comment or invite any of their friends with the same zodiac who are displayed. Comments create feed stories and the apps posts daily horoscopes to a user's Wall.

Turkish video apps also made an appearance on the list. Today's Video added 251,700 DAU, Komedi Kral added 204,500 DAU and izletTV about 121,000 DAU. The apps all allow users to watch, Like and share videos on Facebook.

Connect apps were also on our list. Windows Live Messenger grew across countries and languages in France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Italy and Canada, by 223,800 DAU in total. Yahoo's Connect app grew by 213,700 DAU, mostly in the uS. Finally, the mobile photo sharing app picplz's Connect app grew by 103,400 DAU. BandPage by RootMusic saw 122,400 DAU mostly in the US and continues to grow. The Connect app creates a custom tab with a band's tour schedule, music, photos, Twitter and more. Formspring, another Connect app, grew by 88,300 DAU mostly in the US; we previously wrote in depth about the app, which has multiple viral opportunities. When a user answers a question, the answer may be posted to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

The rest of the list was a mixed bag.

Quiz Taco grew by 180,900 DAU. The app has strong viral potential, as it is a 25-question quiz with raunchy questions about your Facebook friends, promising you information about what friends answered about you towards the end. Every time you answer a question a feed story is created.

American Greetings' Birthday Calendar app grew by 129,100 DAU. The app added users primarily in the US, Indonesia and the Philippines. Basically, the app prominently displays your friends with current birthdays and offers you several ways to send them a birthday card or virtual good. The app's display is a calendar with your friends' profile photos and sends you alerts to remember their birthdays.

Dating app Zoosk with 95,700 DAU, mostly US growth. Stay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday.

torsdag den 21. april 2011 at 07.20