Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Deals Begins Testing Tomorrow, to Include Credits, Syndication Partners
- Facebook Picks Up Much of Dogpatch Labs Startup Recrec’s Team
- Facebook Releases Updates to Groups, New “Send” Button Social Plugin for Private Sharing From Off-Site
- Featured Facebook Campaigns: PetSmart, Virgin America, Warner Music, New Zealand, Film and Banking
- Zoosk, Cupid, Horoscopes, Photos, Video and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU
| Facebook Deals Begins Testing Tomorrow, to Include Credits, Syndication Partners Posted: 25 Apr 2011 07:08 PM PDT About a month ago, Facebook inserted a special story into the news feed and homepage ads asking users to sign up for a Deals service. The company instructed people to subscribe to get information about the service as it rolls out in five cities: San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta. Tomorrow, according to The New York Times, this test of Facebook’s competitor to Groupon, LivingSocial and other providers is going live. We’ve covered Deals (not to be confused with Facebook’s mobile check-in based deals) in detail already, which you can read here. The new report includes a few more interesting pieces of information. Facebook is planning to include Credits as a payment option along with credit cards, so if users who have stocked up on lots of Credits for virtual goods in games happen to see a Deal show up in their news feed, they’ll be able to buy it.
Companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial already take a very substantial portion of the revenue split with business that their deals bring in, with market leader Groupon grabbing 50% and second-place Living Social taking a competitive 40%. Facebook keeps 30% of the revenue from Credits purchases, and presumably it will retain the same amount from Deals sales. If that’s the case, perhaps it’s keeping the same 30% from transactions that it brokers via user credit cards. Either way, 30% is competitive in the deals world, even though the percentage has been a serious new cost for platform developers. [Update: We're hearing that while Credits is a payment method, Facebook will not necessarily do a 30/70 split on revenue through Credits-based purchases of Deals as it has with developers.] Another interesting point in the report is that Facebook is not only tasking its own sales teams with bringing in deals, but it’s syndicating deals from a number of partners, listed below. The syndication efforts should play an especially important role during the product’s early days, providing deals when Facebook itself might not have as many flowing through to users. Gilt City | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Picks Up Much of Dogpatch Labs Startup Recrec’s Team Posted: 25 Apr 2011 01:00 PM PDT
Two of the cofounders are going to work under Jocelyn Goldfein on the product engineering team. Recrec was working on an interesting technology that automatically converted images into HTML and CSS. The company’s founders also have some experience on the Facebook platform, as one of them developed an application called Easter Eggs that reached 300,000 users in March 2008.
This was a talent hiring, rather than a a traditional acquisition. A similar situation happened with a social recruiting company called Pursuit earlier this year. That company shut down while two of the three founders joined Facebook. Facebook’s move comes at a time when the company is aggressively pushing HTML5 in its developer community. Chief technology officer Bret Taylor said earlier this year that mobile would be the primary focus of the platform this year and that long-term, the company favors HTML5 above building native applications. Taylor said the company had been building seven different versions of Facebook to work on the mobile web and in native apps. Facebook recently streamlined the way its serves the newsfeed for mobile devices, making them the same in the iPhone app and on http://m.facebook.com. It also redesigned http://m.facebook.com to automatically detect and adapt to whatever device a user visits the site with. Not only would HTML5 be simpler to manage in the long-term, it would also make it easier for Facebook to earn revenue through its developer ecosystem. At present, it would be difficult for Facebook to successfully bring Credits to smartphones since Apple controls in-app payments on its platform and Google’s terms of service for Android Market pushes developers to use the company’s Checkout product. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 25 Apr 2011 12:00 PM PDT Facebook has just released several new updates for its Groups product, including photo album sharing and Questions publishing, in-Group search, and admin approval for new members. Facebook says that over 50 million Groups have been created since the product’s launch in October 2010. Some admins of old Facebook group — the new deprecated predecessor to Pages — will now also have the option to upgrade to the relatively new version of Groups, porting existing members and content. Facebook has also launched the new “Send” button social plugin that allows users to share third-party websites to Groups, specific friends, or email addresses. The improvements will increase trust in the privacy of Groups, allow more content types to be shared, answer the requests of old group admins, and give third-party sites and brands a way capitalize on Facebook’s focus on sharing with relevant subsets of friends.
Facebook launched Groups to offer an alternative to sharing with all of one’s friends. Facebook determined that users would share more often if often if given an easy and reliable way to restrict the distribution of content that was more sensitive or only relevant to a few people such as planning an event with friends, splitting bills with roommates, sharing ideas with co-workers or discussing intimate family matters. The tag cloud below shows some of the words most commonly found in the names of Groups started by college students.
New Groups FeaturesOne issue with Group membership, though, was that any existing member could add a new member or approve an admission application. This meant any member could expose sensitive information to those who weren’t meant to see it. Now admins of Closed and Secret Groups can require all new member additions to be approved by an admin, increasing trust in the product’s privacy. Project Manager Peter Deng tell us that “early adopters have been savvy about learning [the utility of Groups], but we need to educate to make this use case more prominent.” Now, those who’ve never been in a Group before will be shown a tour outlining features and controls.
To help users query the preferences of their Groups, they can now publish Facebook Questions to a Group’s feed. For instance, a jogging Group could ask what the best time to meet up that week would be. New photo albums may also be uploaded to Groups, while previously only single photos could be uploaded. Users can import existing Facebook photo albums, too. A new Group search feature will help users quickly find specific pieces of content within a Group feed. The Groups product launched in October is much different than the old groups product, which served more as forums for an interest similar to community Pages. Some users started old groups to solve use cases now addressed by the new Groups product, but there was previously no way to upgrade. Over the next few weeks, Deng tells us that admins of some active old groups that are sharing privately and don’t have too many members will see the option to upgrade, bringing all their members and content into the new interface. The Send ButtonFacebook Platform Product Manager Austin Haugen tells us that “Since we first launched Like button, it’s been a great tool for broadcasting, but it never nailed the use case to share something relevant to certain people.” Facebook’s new Send button social plugin for third-party websites solves this in a way that’s complementary to the Like button. Starting today, users will see the Send button on over 50 websites, including The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Orbitz, 1-800 Flowers, People.com, Gilt Groupe, and Last.fm. When clicked, the button opens a Facebook post publisher pre-populated with the currently view content. Users can choose to publish to the feed of one of their Groups, to specific friends through Facebook Messages, or to email addresses.
The Send button create a big opportunity for web publishers of niche content users might not want to share with all their friends, or services that benefit from group planning such as travel or gifting. For instance, a user could share a Wall Street Journal article about corporate tax reform to a Group of Econ major classmates, Message a friend who works in corporate law, or email it to their financial advisor. Families could use the Send button to plan a 1-800 Flowers gift for Mother’s day by posting it to their family Group and emailing it to relatives who aren’t on Facebook. Developers can add a standalone Send button to websites, or create a combined Like/Send button to show the two side-by-side by modifying the Send attribute in their Like button code or through the Like button configurator. As the definition of a Facebook friend grows to more often include family members, professional colleagues, and others outside of one’s peers, Facebook needs to continue improving it microsharing options as it has today to ensure users are posting as much as possible. By giving websites an in-road to these smaller networks through the Send button, Facebook is unlocking the power of personal recommendations that don’t need to reach hundreds of people to help business. Check back later today for an excerpt of our new Facebook Marketing Bible entry “How Websites Can Use the Facebook Send Button”. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Featured Facebook Campaigns: PetSmart, Virgin America, Warner Music, New Zealand, Film and Banking Posted: 25 Apr 2011 09:22 AM PDT Photo and video contests were popular on our roundup of featured Facebook campaigns this week. Virgin America, PetSmart and Tourism New Zealand each used a variation on that theme. Meanwhile, film director Peter Jackson used his official Facebook Page to promote a film not due out until next year, Warner Music is set to create a virtual world for one of its featured artists and a Tblisi, Georgia-based bank is using Facebook to engage its customers when they're out of the store. We've excerpted two of the 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.
Virgin America's Flight for Chicago Goal: Page Growth, Engagement, Network Exposure, Charity, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase Core Mechanic: A photo and video contest that users can enter to both win free airfare and donate money to cancer research. Method: The One Trick Pony-designed promotion is Like-gated and allows users to participate either by voting or uploading photos and videos in line with the Flight for Chicago Challenge. As part of Virgin America's upcoming new daily flights to Chicago O'Hare International Airport from Los Angeles and San Francisco, the airline is trying to get customers involved in the "fight" to bring more affordable airfare to the Chicago area. Users may share media that promote "rising above the ordinary" or showing they are not "featherweight flyers" to receive a two-for-one offer on the chicago flights, but Virgin America will also donate $5 per entry to Stand Up To Cancer, a cancer research organization. The winner will fly on one of the inaugural flights between Chicago and the new destinations and there are 10 additional winners. The promotion lasts until May 11. Impact: There are about 100 entries so far, not bad since the promotion just opened up last week. The Virgin America Page has about 92,000 Likes so far. This particular promotion is a great combination of entering to win a prize, but also being able to make a charity donation, and is an example other campaigns could emulate.
PetSmart's Just Doggin’ Around Photo Contest and SweepstakesGoal: Engagement, Network Exposure, Page Growth, Product Purchase, Brand Loyalty Core Mechanic: The Just Doggin’ Around Photo Contest and Sweepstakes allows users to submit photos of their dogs, use their networks to get friends to vote for their photo, and have a chance to win prizes. Method: The contest is Like-gated, so users first must Like the PetSmart Page, then submit photos of their dogs caught "doggin' around", with a brief description to enter the contest. Entrants may win a daily drawing, one of 9 runner-up prizes or the grand prize. The runner-up prizes include gift cards, pet apparel or a dog makeover, the grand prize is a four day, three night trip to Miami, Florida where your dog can stay at a per spa, plus a cash prize and more merchandise. Daily winners win $50 gift cards to PetSmart. Perhaps one of the best things about this campaign is that the branding is wound through and through the contest. Not only with the prizes, the Like-gating of the promotion, but also the promotion directs users back to PetSmart services, such as providing grooming tips for your dogs (PetSmart provides this service. When a user participates in the promotion a feed story with a thumbnail is published to the stream. Impact: The Votigo-powered promotion ran from March 28 through April 24, the Page's total Likes recently numbered 245,6500 and entries total about 10,100. Multiply that 10,100 by the network exposure every time someone voted or uploaded a photo and PetSmart likely received a lot of exposure for their money on this particular promotion. 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zoosk, Cupid, Horoscopes, Photos, Video and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU Posted: 25 Apr 2011 08:06 AM PDT
Horoscopes, Q&A quizzes, virtual gifts, photos, Connect, iPad Facebook apps and Page administrator apps were on our list, which grew from between 399,400 and 2.1 million MAU. Our 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
Sanal Video with 1 million MAU and Komedi Kral with 401,500 MAU each allow viewers to see a list of videos, view, Like and share them. Dating apps Zoosk with 897,600 MAU and Cupid with 597,800 MAU made the list, too. Zoosk grew mostly in the United States, while Cupid grew there, as well as India and the United Kingdom. Cupid's virality is due in part to a Q&A component asking a user about their friends, posting a story to their Wall upon your answer.
Daily Horoscope made the list with 585,000 MAU; the app grew mostly in Turkey and allows users to receive daily horoscopes on their Wall and share the app with friends who have their same astrological sign. Friend Buzz's 554,500 MAU is due likely to the viral attribute of the Q&A app, posting a feed story with each answer.
Send Gift with 482,900 MAU first shows users a pop-up window asking them to allow the app to post gifts to their profile with some regularity, but generally allows users to post virtual gifts to friends' Walls. 60 Photos also involves a user's friends, with 480,200 MAU the app pulls photos from friends' Facebook albums, asks you to click "nice" or "pass" and posts a story to your friend's Wall with each answer.
The friend.ly Connect app grew by 443,900 MAU. The MyPad for iPad Facebook app for iPad grew by 428,200 MAU. Finally, the Page admin apps grew substantially, too. iframe + Static FBML + Welcome Tab = iwipa grew by 630,700 and Welcome Tab for Pages by 399,400 MAU. Each app basically allows Page admins to consolidate social media content onto a tab for their Page. Check in later this week for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday. |
In another not-quite-a-talent-acquisition, most of the founding team of Dogpatch Labs-incubated startup Recrec is going to Facebook.
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