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Last Week to Pre-Order Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 05:00 PM PDT

If 2010 is remembered as the year that games on social networks became a billion dollar business, 2011 is quickly becoming the year that the industry is starting to mature. Facebook is mandating Credits effective July 1st, creating massive changes in the monetization ecosystem, last year’s hit games are fighting for their lives, and new developers and games are climbing the leaderboards. At the same time, larger players are consolidating smaller studios and teams, and large media companies and traditional game developers continue to plot their social gaming strategies.

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* Pre-order discount ends June 13, 2011. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on June 14, 2011.

That’s why we’re excited to announce today a new original study in our Inside Virtual Goods series by co-authors Justin Smith and Charles Hudson that is exclusively focused on spending and usage patterns in the social gaming market, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011. The second annual installment of this report, it will be released on Tuesday, June 14, but is available for discount pre-order now.

Most of the studies on player spending and usage patterns in social games over the last year have actually been conducted by industry vendors. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 is our exclusive independent look at the virtual goods spending and behavior patterns of social game players on Facebook — data you won’t find anywhere else.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 gives you an inside view of the market at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games.

We have surveyed nearly 2,000 players of social games on Facebook from around the world and across the demographic spectrum. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 is the most in-depth independent survey of player behavior and spending patterns in the social gaming market.

What We Cover

  1. Spending Habits and Payment Methods in Top Games – It’s easy to compare games based on audience numbers, but which games monetize better? What payment methods do players use most often in top games? How is the shift to Credits affecting player behavior? We investigate how spending patterns compare across top social games.
  2. Frequency of Play and Methods of Game Discovery - As Facebook has cut down on developer access to viral channels, designing an engaging and viral game is becoming both increasingly important and challenging. We investigate which games people play most frequently, and which methods of social game discovery are most effective for top games.
  3. Demographic Differences by Region, Age, and Gender – While the social gaming market is increasingly global, the audience is also becoming increasingly diverse by age and gender. How do different segments of the audience differ in terms of spending and usage patterns inside social games? We take an in depth look.
  4. Brand Recall for Social Games – How important are brands, and how well can users identify developers of top games? We investigate brand recall amongst social game players.

See the full table of contents below:

Table of Contents

I. Methodology and Respondents

1. Introduction
  • About Inside Virtual Goods
  • About the Authors
  • Survey Objectives
2. Research Methodology
  • Target Population
  • Respondent Acquisition Method
  • Survey Structure
  • Potential for Bias
3. Survey Respondents
  • Description of Total Respondent Population
  • Total Number of Respondents
  • Overall Breakdown

II. Overall Results

4. Favorite Game
  • Distribution of Favorite Game
  • Frequency of Play
  • Favorite Game Discovery
  • With Whom Do You Play?
  • Spending on Favorite Game
5. Payments
  • Consumer Perception of Facebook Credits
  • Frequency of Payment Methods
6. Play Patterns, Spending, and Brand Recall for Top Games
  • Frequency of Play in Top Games
  • Spending in Top Games
  • Aided Brand Recall for Top Games

7. Mobile Platform and Game Adoption by Social Game Players

III. Demographic Differences in Usage Patterns and Monetization

8. Age and Gender Differences
  • Who are the Social Gaming “Whales”?
  • Spend Across Games
  • Trends in Favorite Games by Age and Gender
  • Analyzing the Top Two Games
  • How Do Midcore Games Compare?

9. Regional Differences

  • Game Discovery and Spending
  • Favorite Game
  • Payment Types

Appendix

  • Survey Questions

More Data, More Actionable Insights

In 2009 and 2010, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2011 will be an even more important year as the industry continues to mature.

Social gaming, powered by virtual goods, is this year's industry to watch. If you're involved, or are considering jumping in, Inside Virtual Goods will be one of your most important tools.

One year of original data and exclusive in-depth reports delivered on a quarterly basis is $2,495 and contains:

  • A detailed overview of the current state of the industry
  • Specific estimates on market size by segment
  • Diagnosis of key opportunities and issues by segment

Get The Annual Membership

Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 $1,995 USD*


OR Buy Single Report: $995 $795 USD*

* Pre-order discount ends June 13, 2011. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on June 14, 2011.

Although the report will not be released until next Tuesday, June 14, we are offering a special pre-order discount for those who purchase now. A one year subscription is $1,995 until June 14, at which point the price will go to US $2,495. The one year subscription includes three quarterly updates on key developments in the space, including future editions of our annual reports, Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2010-2011 and Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011.

Or, you can download just this report. The pre-order price is $795 until June 14, at which point the price will go to US $995.

About the Authors

justin-smith-headshotJustin Smith

Founder, Inside Network

Justin Smith is the founder of Inside Network, the first service dedicated to providing news and market research to the Facebook platform and social gaming ecosystem. Justin leads Inside Network’s analyst services, manages Inside Network’s AppData service, and serves as co-editor of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games. Inside Network was acquired by WebMediaBrands (NASDAQ:WEBM) in May 2011.

Prior to Inside Network, he was Head of Product at Watercooler, now Kabam, a leading social game developer on the Facebook Platform. Prior to Watercooler, Justin was an early employee at Xfire, the largest social utility for gamers, which was sold to Viacom in 2006.

Justin holds a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow and a recipient of the Terman Award in Engineering.

charles-hudson-headshotCharles Hudson

Venture Partner, SoftTech VC, CEO and Co-Founder, Bionic Panda Games

Charles Hudson is a Venture Partner with SoftTech VC and the CEO and Co-Founder of Bionic Panda Games, a mobile games company based in San Francisco, CA.

Until February 2010, he was the VP of Business Development for Serious Business, a leading producer of social games. Zynga acquired Serious Business in February of 2010. Prior to Serious Business, Hudson worked at Gaia Interactive, Google, IronPort Systems, and In-Q-Tel. Hudson also founded Third Power LLC, a conference and events company that was acquired by WebMediaBrands. Charles holds an MBA and BA from Stanford University.

WordPress Challenges the Facebook Comments Box by Adding Facebook, Twitter Logins to its Comments Widget

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 04:09 PM PDT

WordPress just announced that it has added WordPress.com, Twitter and Facebook login options to its own comments widget. Users can also be logged into multiple different accounts at once, making it easy to use different identities to comment depending on where they want their comments syndicated.

The addition of Facebook login to the WordPress comments widget could decrease demand for Facebook’s own Comments Box social plugin, which only supports less popular logins such as Yahoo! and AOL, and lacks support for Twitter or WordPress.com.

Facebook launched the revamped version of the Comments Box plugin in March. Though some initial bugginess and missing features such as comment exporting may have slowed its adoption, 50,000 sites had integrated it by mid-April. Post-launch, it added comment exporting, analytics, and some second-tier login options, but despite launching with live code for Google and Twitter logins, the plugin still doesn’t support these premier identity providers as login options.

Some sites might want to offer a Facebook login option, but not exclude Twitter users or have to include a second comments widget. For these, the updated WordPress comment widget may be the best choice. If WordPress added a Google login option, it could tout its wide accessibility, the Facebook plugin’s biggest weakness, as a core selling point. If Facebook can’t work out its differences with Google and Twitter, it will need to add as many other top login providers as possible, including WordPress.com, in order to remain competitive.

To access our strategies for how businesses should respond to comments on their Facebook Pages and integrated sites, visit the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and brand management through Facebook.

No iOS 5 Integration, No Credits Deal — The Facebook-Apple Relationship Cools

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 02:56 PM PDT

Until the launch of Ping, the music social network feature in iTunes, last fall, Apple looked like it was getting close with Facebook. After yesterday, though, the two companies have never looked more distant. Facebook is not getting any special integration with Apple, and the two companies do not appear to be working together on Credits — contrary to a recent statement by a gaming executive from Ubisoft.

A relationship had at one point seemed natural. Facebook wanted to counter the threat of Google social products, while Apple was aiming to differentiate itself from the Android mobile operating system. Facebook for iPhone, the best-in-class mobile social networking app that has dominated the iTunes App Store for years, seemed to prove that millions of people wanted the two companies together.

Instead it has been Facebook’s microblogging rival, Twitter, that has gotten the special attention, as Apple reinforced yesterday at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. Twitter is being built directly into iOS 5, the new version of the mobile operating system coming this fall. Users will be able to tweet directly from in-house apps including Camera, Photos, Contacts, the Safari web browser, as well as (Google-derived) Maps and YouTube. Meanwhile, Twitter API access in iOS 5 will make it easier than ever for mobile app developers to integrate it as a single sign-on option.

The only time Apple speakers referenced Facebook yesterday was an off-hand mention of its iPhone app as one of a variety of apps that you could get notifications for in the new Notifications Center.

> Continue reading on Inside Mobile Apps.

Facebook Rolling Out Facial Recognition With Opt Out Privacy Setting That Could Irk Governments

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 12:53 PM PDT

In December Facebook launched a facial recognition feature for North American users that suggests friends to tag in photos. Facebook is now apparently executing a wider roll out of the feature with an opt out privacy setting that raises some privacy concerns.

The feature will likely increase the number of people tagged in photos, generating more compelling content and interconnections on the site. However, it could also draw government intervention from countries sensitive to privacy issues such as Germany which requested changes to Facebook’s Friend Finder, and Switzerland which is threatening to block Google Street View if it doesn’t obscure faces and license plates.

When those who’ve received the facial recognition feature upload photos, Facebook’s algorithms groups the photos by those with similar faces. It also suggests friends those faces may belong to by matching them with previously tagged photos of friends, and the suggested tags are automatically applied unless removed. This speeds and simplifies the tagging process by reducing the frequency with which users are forced to type out names.

Without facial recognition, photo tagging can be a chore, preventing users from finishing a task that produces notifications that bring friends back to the site as well as compelling news feed content. Considering well over 100 million photos are uploaded to Facebook a day, streamlining photo tagging presents an enormous opportunity for Facebook to increase engagement on the site and improve the user experience.

This may be why Facebook is pushing facial recognition, a concept with negative privacy stigmas, as an opt out feature called “Suggest photos of me to friends”. If the same functionality was opt in and was labeled “facial recognition photo tagging” or even included the words “facial recognition” anywhere in the 100-word description of the feature, few users might agree to enable it.

Facebook explained that the feature was opt out in its blog post announcing the feature, but that was six months ago. In the meantime, those outside the initial roll out could not preemptively opt out, and the recent extension of the roll out and the feature’s new inclusion in the privacy settings of hundreds of millions of users came silently. Most users can now visit Privacy Settings -> Customize settings -> “Suggest photos of me to friends” and then click edit settings to view information on the feature and toggle it between the default Enabled and the optional Disabled.

This quiet push combined with the inherent concerns around facial recognition of the world’s largest collection of photos might trigger complaints from some governments, particularly in Europe where there’s been closer scrutiny of Facebook’s privacy practices. The governments might request more transparency around the fact that the feature uses facial recognition, that it default to opt out, or a disabling of the feature for their residents in the most extreme case.

The feature’s ubiquity due to its opt out nature could benefit users looking to manage their reputation online, though. Users often omit tags of friends in scandalous or objectionable photos out of respect, but this can lead those depicted in the photos to never even know they exist. This prevents them from asking the owner of the photo to delete, leaving racy shots up for others to see.

Facial recognition being opt out is a prime example of Facebook’s internal philosophy of pushing privacy boundaries for the good of the user experience coming into conflict with more cautious, conservative beliefs. Soon the world might see suggested photo tags as a crucial part of Facebook, the same way the initially contested news feed is now. However, Facebook needs to accompany roll outs of opt out features with plenty policies of announcements and education if it wants to be seen as trustworthy.

Update 6/7/2011 1:15pm PST: A few minutes before this article was published, Facebook updated the December 2010 blog post about the launch of “Suggest photos” with note indicating the feature is now available in most countries. It posted a link to this update to the Facebook official Page.

Though not as prominent as a new blog post, this update shows Facebook is aware of the need for additional transparency around the expanded roll out of features with new privacy settings.

Core Strategies From Facebook and BrightEdge’s Facebook Page SEO Whitepaper

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 10:46 AM PDT

Facebook has co-authored a white paper on search engine optimization for Facebook Pages and Facebook integrated websites, together with enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge. According to a BrightEdge study, 70% of the top 200 brands in the Fortune 500 don’t have their Facebook Pages in the top 20 search engine results for their brand. By improving understanding of SEO for Facebook Pages through the white paper, Facebook can increase its own traffic while helping the brands it hosts, and BrightEdge can draw in more clients.

Here we’ll analyze and extrapolate on the best practices outlined in the white paper.

Securing a high search engine rank for their Facebook Pages is an easy way for brands to push down websites that don’t help their business, such as those of competitors or that criticize their brand. Facebook Pages naturally have a relatively credible standing among search engines, so with some strategy it can be easy to get them into the top results for a query of the brand’s name. According to the white paper, being a top result helps brands manage their reputation, increase their visibility, and drive engagement to their Facebook Page.

BrightEdge offers services to assist with SEO including automated recommendations, competitive analysis, and a metrics dashboard. However, there’s much that brands can do on their own to enhance SEO.

The “Facebook for Social SEO” whitepaper offers five core strategies for brands looking to improve the SEO of their Facebook Page:

  1. Set your vanity URL to exactly match your brand name – You can set your vanity URL through the “Username” section of the Basic Information tab in the Edit Page admin interface
  2. Link to your Facebook Page from your website – Link to the vanity URL of your Page with the anchor text “brand name] on Facebook” on your home page, or preferably as many webpages as possible through a footer or standard template
  3. Mention your brand name in updates published by your page – these updates are crawled and improve the Page’s rank
  4. Attain Likes – Links generated from the profiles of users who Like your Page are indexed by search engines. Draw more Likes by adding the Like Box social plugin to your website and running Page Like Sponsored Stories ads on Facebook
  5. Create sub-Pages for high value keywords – If your website has distinct sections or categories, consider creating additional Pages specifically for these sections, and linking to them from the website sections. For instance, Amazon has sub-Pages for its Amazon MP3 and Amazon Student stores, which it displays on the main Amazon Facebook Page using the Featured Likes option in the Edit Page admin interface

Additionally, the white paper explains that traditional websites can significantly improve their SEO by attaining Facebook Likes and Shares using Facebook’s social plugins.

Facebook is beginning to realize that the social ecosystem it has created is not so simple for businesses to maneuver. Educational efforts like this increase the confidence of businesses, leading them to focus and spend more on Facebook marketing and advertising. The measurable benefits of the building a Facebook presence are starting to emerge. Now brands just need more guidance on what steps to take to maximize returns from their social investment.

New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Buddy Media, Involver, Syncapse, Vitrue, Wildfire and More

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 09:00 AM PDT

Syncapse announced the hiring of Chief Financial Officer Mark Millar and Vice President of Product Development, Larry Philps this week. Other hires across the Facebook platform included several interns, and sales and engineering staff.

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:

AdParlor

  • Jason Tong, Account Manager – formerly the Order Management Intern at Harris Corporation.

Buddy Media

  • Kendell Burton, Design Intern.

BranchOut

  • Dennis Baughn, Senior Software Engineer – formerly Senior Web Developer at Kodak Gallery.

Efficient Frontier

  • Ken Porter, IT Systems Administrator – previously a Systems Administrator at Micro Focus.

Involver

  • Jamie Lipson, Marketing Intern.
  • Richard Rich, Sales Executive – formerly a Director of Marketing at Webtab, Inc.

Poolhouse

  • Joel Langlois, Software Developer – formerly a freelance web developer in the Toronto, Canada.

Spruce Media

  • Lang Tang, Facebook Media Buyer – previously Product Marketing Manager at Wildfire.

Syncapse

  • Rasheed Hussain, Account Coordinator Intern.
  • Mark Millar, Chief Financial Officer – formerly of Platform Computing, Inc.
  • Larry Philps, Vice President, Product Development – previously worked at Alias Systems.

Vitrue

  • Cam Hilsman, User Experience Designer – formerly a Web Designer at Meta Media, Inc.

Wildfire

  • Emily Saliba, Sales Associate – previously a Summer Research Assistant at Pomona College.

YouTube, Tom Cruise, Harry Potter, Katy Perry and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 08:00 AM PDT

Music Pages continued to dominate our list of growing Facebook Pages this week, taking up 11 of the 20 spots, but we also saw a few tech companies, celebrities like Tom Cruise and Cristiano Ronaldo, a TV show, film and global brands like Disney and Coca-Cola. The Pages on our list grew from between 783,800 and 1.6 million Likes, we measure the growth of Pages with our PageData tool.

Top Gainers This Week


Name		 Likes Gain Gain,%
1. YouTube 38,017,813 +1,682,582 +5%
2. Shakira 33,250,553 +1,540,830 +5%
3. Rihanna 36,888,518 +1,518,793 +4%
4. Eminem 39,816,162 +1,394,602 +4%
5. Facebook 44,590,498 +1,205,176 +3%
6. Lady Gaga 37,529,698 +1,198,801 +3%
7. Coca-Cola 29,914,476 +1,137,807 +4%
8. Katy Perry 27,727,815 +1,107,759 +4%
9. Beyoncé 23,405,962 +1,048,047 +5%
10. Tom Cruise 961,717 +961,717 +0.0%
11. AKON 24,938,667 +941,889 +4%
12. Cristiano Ronaldo 28,358,088 +921,846 +3%
13. South Park 29,331,914 +887,223 +3%
14. Avril Lavigne 21,452,543 +875,395 +4%
15. Harry Potter 25,837,534 +871,796 +3%
16. Johnny Knoxville 1,728,466 +860,434 +99%
17. Usher 20,429,983 +856,259 +4%
18. Lil Wayne 26,520,357 +824,668 +3%
19. Black Eyed Peas 20,136,546 +803,341 +4%
20. Disney 25,400,797 +783,749 +3%

Topping the list was YouTube, which added 1.6 million Likes to push past 38 million total. Facebook's Page grew by 1.2 million, growing to 44.5 million Likes. Then Coca-Cola's Page grew by 1.1 million to come in just under 30 million; the landing tab invites visitors to Like the Page and the company is promoting its iPad app. Disney's page grew by 787,800 Likes to top out at 25.4 million.

Celebrities made our list, too. Tom Cruise's Page added the entirety of its 961,700 Likes this week. The Page seems to be getting the hang of its content stream and has updated some on Cruise's past projects, as well as celebrities he may or may not be connected to. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo's Page grew by 921,800 Likes to expand to 28.3 million; he's been mostly just updating about his matches and training. Finally, Johnny Knoxville, a TV host, saw his Page jump from 860,400 Likes to reach 1.7 million, though it appears this was due to a Page consolidation, as the Page grew from 896,000 Likes to 1.7 million in two days with no prompting from the Page's stream.

"South Park" saw 887,200 new Likes to its Page, pushing the total to 29.3 million by updating about episodes and related projects. Then "Harry Potter" saw 871,800 Likes to grow to 25.8 million as the Page admins continue to promote the release of the final installment of the film series in July.

Shakira started off the musicians on our list with 1.5 million Likes added to her 33.2 million total; she's been posting music videos and performances from her tour. Rihanna added 1.5 million, too, to reach 36.8 million fans. She's been updating the Page with happenings from her tour, videos, media appearances and photos from her tour. Eminem's Page grew by 1.3 million to grow to 39.8 million. Lady Gaga's been promoting her new album and singles, growing the Page 1.1 million to 37.5 million total in the past week.

Katy Perry's tour promotion, events, status updates and videos pushed her Page 1.1 million to 27.7 million. More than 1 million Likes were added to Beyoncé's Page this week, totaling 23.4 million; she's been promoting her new album and singles. Akon saw 941,900 new Likes, growing his Page almost to 25 million, mostly by just posting status updates and tour updates.

Avril Lavigne's Page grew by 875,400 Likes to pass 21.4 million and she's been updating about her travels and interviews related to her new music. Usher's Page grew by 856,300 Likes to stand at 20.4 million this morning by updating about his tour. Then Lil Wayne's Page grew by 824,700 Likes, though all he did was share a few personal status updates. Finally, the Black Eyed Peas grew their Page by 803,300 likes to pass 20 million this week by announcing shows they're playing.

onsdag den 8. juni 2011 at 07.46