Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Roundup: IPO, Political Ads, Well Being, Apple, Copious, and Iceland’s Constitution
- Facebook Readying Official iPad App: What It Means for Third-Party Facebook Clients
- Last Day to Register — Inside Facebook’s Josh Constine at the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp Next Week
- Friend Quizzes, Videos, BranchOut, Photos, Bumper Stickers and More on This Week’s Top 20 Emerging Facebook Apps by MAU
| Facebook Roundup: IPO, Political Ads, Well Being, Apple, Copious, and Iceland’s Constitution Posted: 17 Jun 2011 05:38 PM PDT New Rules Could Delay Facebook IPO – Congress may change laws regulating companies with shareholders, ultimately meaning that Facebook could delay its IPO if it wanted to. Fortune Magazine reported that the rules currently state that companies breaking 500 shareholders must go public, but the new rules would allow companies to remain private indefinitely. Facebook IPO Could Surpass $100B – Facebook may make an IPO in early 2012, according to a report from CNBC. What's more, they are saying the valuation could be more than $100 billion. Existing Rules Apply to Political Ads on Facebook - The FEC declined to rule on creating extra regulations for Facebook political ads, reported AllFacebook. This means that ads can be bought and run with the same disclosure that applies to other online ads instead of having to state who paid for an authorized the ads, which could take up much of their character limit. Facebook Users More Social in Real Life – A Pew Center for Internet & American Life Project study found that Facebook users tend to be more trusting, have more closer friends, are more civically engaged and get more social support from friends in real life.
iOS Integrated With Facebook Before Twitter - TechCrunch wrote an interesting piece this week noting that, before Apple's iOS deeply integrated with Twitter, it was pretty obvious the company had looked into doing the same thing with Facebook.
Iceland Crowdsources its Constitution – The Icelandic government has turned to Facebook, in part, to help draft a new Constitution. Members of the country’s constitutional council are posting drafts of clauses for the constitution, and fans are invited to leave their comments. The council is also streaming its meetings live.
Zuckerberg Talks to Kids – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to a graduating eighth grade class in Menlo Park, California. He told them that friendships are what make life meaningful, and gave the students some advice, “‘Everything that's worth doing is actually pretty hard and takes a lot of work.” | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Readying Official iPad App: What It Means for Third-Party Facebook Clients Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:41 PM PDT Facebook has developed a free official iPad app which may launch in the next few weeks, according to anonymous sources quoted by the New York Times. To date, Facebook has left iPad owners to use the Facebook for iPhone app or m.facebook.com, neither of which are optimized for the tablet device. To fill the gap, several third party developers released unofficial apps such as Friendly and MyPad that have sat high on the iOS charts and attained upwards of 500,000 daily active users and 2 million monthly active users. While many of these developers knew they were operating in a risky space, the impending release of an official Facebook for iPad app could significantly curtail traffic to their apps, forcing them to differentiate further or go in a different direction entirely.
Features and a Purposefully Delayed LaunchThose familiar with the matter say the official Facebook for iPad app has been under development for as long as a year and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been directly involved in the design process. The app supposedly includes overhauled versions of Chat and Groups along with other tablet optimizations, and will allow users to shoot and upload video — something missing from the Facebook for iPhone app. Joe Hewitt, who no longer works at Facebook but was the developer of the original Facebook for iPhone app, said that “At some point I came to the conclusion that Facebook on iPhone OS could not truly exceed the website until I could adapt it to a screen size closer to a laptop. It needed to support more than one column of information at a time.” The iPad version might be big enough to support a multi column view, allowing navigation between different areas of the app without returning to an in-app home screen. Chat on Facebook for iPad could also use a multi-pane interface to support simultaneous conversations similar to the Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet app interface shown below.
Techcrunch reports that Facebook may have deliberately delayed launching the app as leverage over Apple, potentially to attain a deeper integration in the new iOS5 mobile operating system. Facebook may not have wanted to give Apple’s device a selling point as the battle for mobile gamers heats up between Facebook’s supposedly planned HTML5 mobile site and iOS. By delaying its release until the HTML5 site was ready, it could push Facebook for iPad users to do their gaming there rather than download apps from Apple’s App Store. Still, the New York Times noted “Apple also plans to help Facebook promote the new application by featuring it prominently in the App Store, said a person familiar with the plans for the app.” Doom or More Attention for Third Party Apps?It’s reasonable to believe most Facebook-using iPad owners would prefer the consistent experience of an official Facebook for iPad app. A launch coinciding with App Store promotion could cause an immediate flocking of third-party app users to the free official app, with more migrating over time as they become aware of a Facebook for iPad’s existence. Currently, the third-party pack’s front runner in terms of usage is Oecoway’s Friendly for iPad, despite losing roughly 200,000 DAU to drop to just under 600,00o DAU, and slipping from 25th to 59th in the top free iPad apps in the last month. The premium Friendly Plus has been between spots 45 and 30 on the top paid iPad app charts. Note that an Facebook API about two months ago may have caused Friendly to stumble, dropping out of the top of the iOS charts, leading to further decline.
All of these third-party developers rely on upselling users from their free apps to more robust paid versions. This model could be undercut by the presence of a slick, full-featured free official app, wreaking havoc on the livelihood of these developers. We spoke with Oecoway co-founder Cyril Moutran this morning. He said Facebook app would probable see a lot of early usage, which would “make our position more difficult.” However, he believes Friendly might even gain users because the official app’s launch will draw the attention to the App Store from iPad owners who were using Facebook’s mobile site. “When they hear about the release, they’ll check the App Store, see there are other apps, and give them a try,” he told us. That’s an optimistic vision we don’t share. The company’s plan to continue working improving its style options, photo experience, and account switching capabilities doesn’t sound like enough differentiation to convince users to pay when an official free app is available. Loytr co-founder Cole Ratias said that his company is “excited to have [Facebook] join us in the App Store”, though we don’t quite buy that. “We have plans to evolve with our users as far as social, opposed to specifically Facebook.” This leads us to believe MyPad will be bringing in content from other social platforms, similar to how Flipboard or Pulse does. The company has also hinted at launching a gaming platform which could compete with Facebook’s HTML5 game portal. Differentiation is KeyWe see much more potential in Loytr’s approach of differentiating by building functionality that probably won’t be in the official Facebook for iPad app. Gaming and wider social integrations could mean that MyPad won’t be directly competing with Facebook’s app. Though these independent developers have established a head start, it appears the boom times are over for third-party iPad Facebook app development. We’ll be watching to see who can successfully innovate themselves out of this tight spot, and who will watch their users slip away to Facebook official latecomer. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 17 Jun 2011 09:15 AM PDT Inside Facebook lead writer Josh Constine will be leading a how-to session at the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp, an online conference featuring weekly keynotes from current leaders in social media and marketing. About the SessionExecuting a Facebook Marketing Campaign: Advertising + Content Updates
About the BootcampThe Social Media Marketing Bootcamp is an online conference and learning series for marketing professionals that includes:
The Social Media Marketing Bootcamp is on now, and registration will remain open for today only. Learn more about the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 17 Jun 2011 08:00 AM PDT
Friend quizzes were big on our list of the top 20 emerging Facebook applications by monthly active users this week. Turkish video apps were also popular, and then there was a random handful of other apps, including BranchOut, photo apps, virtual good apps and more. The apps on our list grew from between 140,100 and 448,300 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook. All in all, it was a pretty typical week for the emerging category, which we define as apps that grew between 100,000 and 1 million in the past week. Top Gainers This Week
The Turkish apps included Seçim Anketi, which asks users their political preferences, then publishes a feed story; the app grew 448,300 MAU this week. ViDiMons with 262,700 MAU, Video House with 223,900 MAU and Video Air with 175,700 MAU each either allow users to watch, comment or share Turkish videos. VideoAir has a persistent pop-up asking users to allow the app to post daily updates to their Wall. To the quizzes.
StreetReputation grew by 358,700 MAU and Chatterbox with 231,300 MAU ask users questions about their friends, publishing the answers to their Wall. Best Match with 143,500 MAU is similar, but asks users to select the "best match" for one friend from among three, publishing the answer to the first friend's Wall. Who likes you the most. is a friend app that analyzes your profile, providing the top 7 friends collage, that can then be published to the stream; the app grew by 140,100 MAU. Then there were other types of apps.
Bumper Sticker with 424,100 MAU publishes selected "bumper stickers" (photos) to your feed or the Wall of your friends. The curious Alrena Roushe – Profile app grew again this week, by 420,500 MAU, as part of the viral marketing campaign for "theHOUSE 2," a Flash game about a haunted house. The BranchOut app grew by 354,100 MAU, PhotoMania saw 189,700 MAU this week, the app allows users to alter photos with different effects then publish to the stream. Finally, Welcome grew by 177,000 MAU; it's an app that allows Page administrators to add a welcome tab to their Page. |
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Learn how to use Facebook ads, including the recently released Sponsored Stories ad unit, to drive Likes of your Facebook Page with Josh Constine, lead writer at Inside Facebook and the 
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