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Inside Facebook

DLA Piper Stops Representing Paul Ceglia in Controversial Facebook Ownership Claim

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 05:24 PM PDT

Paul Ceglia’s claims to a serious ownership share in Facebook had looked intriguing when they first surfaced last summer — and even more so this year, when international law firm DLA Piper agreed to back him up after doing “weeks” of due diligence.

But following waves of attacks by Facebook on his evidence and character, the firm has today confirmed that it has stopped representing him. The case has yet to go to trial, but the development doesn’t look good for Ceglia.

The gist of the case is that Ceglia had hired Zuckerberg to do some software development work on a site called StreetFax in 2003, that intended to offer a database of street photos to insurers. While both parties agreed Zuckerberg had done some work, Ceglia said seven years later that Zuckerberg had also agreed to sell him a significant portion of Facebook — first he claimed 84% but then dropped his claim to 50%. (Links to our past coverage at the end of the article.)

He produced documentation that sort of seemed to back him up, although key details like proof of payment for Facebook, have not been produced. He added a new batch of emails this past April, trying to further prove his claim.

But Facebook retaliated, in June dumping a collection of evidence as well as expert analysis that questioned every aspect of Ceglia’s claim, including his personal past. He’d previously had a variety of run-ins with the law, mostly involving various types of scams.

While Ceglia says he’s found more lawyers, DLA Piper’s decision to drop him obviously suggests his claims are likely too weak for them to realize any benefit out of representing him. Pulling out now does call into question their decision to represent him in the first place, but it allows them to get out of a long and messy lawsuit in which they may have been portrayed in an even worse light.

Be sure to check out our past coverage of the case:

As Demand for Facebook Credits Increases, Microincentive Provider Ifeelgoods Positions Itself With $6.5 Million First Round

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 04:00 PM PDT

Ifeelgoods, a company that lets businesses offer Facebook Credits as rewards for purchases and signups, today announced the closing of a $6.5 million Series A funding round led by Idinvest. As Facebook Credits become the sole payment option on the Facebook Platform this Friday, and more types of digital goods including video and music are sold for Credits, the demand for the virtual currency will increase, and more companies will seek to incentivize sales and actions through ifeelgoods.

For these reasons, ifeelgoods has good potential. The company will use the funding to launch new services and court more domestic and international clients.

We’ve been following ifeelgoods since the company’s launch in September 2010. This was back when it started helping clients offer users Facebook Credits in exchange for email signups, Facebook Likes, and sales, even though social game developers had just begun to accept the virtual currency.

For example ifeelgoods allowed the Dallas Mavericks give away five Credits for following the team on Twitter, and the company let ShoeBuy.com customers earn 50 Credits for buying a pair of shoes.

However, with users still able to buy virtual goods directly from developers instead of using Credits, and nothing else to buy with them, demand for Facebook’s virtual currency was low. Still, ifeelgoods saw gamers perceiving the value of these Credits incentives higher than equal amounts of cash, similar to customers are enticed by free shipping. The company had a bright future if a wider audience was interested in earning Credits.

Microincentives Gaining Wider Appeal

Fast-forward nine months and Facebook Credits are about to be the only way to pay in Facebook games, meaning all of Facebook’s gamers (which could be as many as 290 million people) now have a use for Credits. Even though only a small percent of gamers are actively willing to pay money in social games, more might be willing to change their shopping habits or sign up for a newsletter for free Credits.

Meanwhile, developers are starting to offer video rentals and pay-per-view concerts for Credits. Facebook may also allow users to pay Credits for MP3 downloads or music streaming service subscriptions as part of its upcoming Music Dashboard. These developments could make Facebook Credits mainstream, massively expanding the range of customers ifeelgoods clients could attract by offering Credits incentives.

One client set in particular is Facebook Pages. The act of Liking a Page is perfect for incentivizing with Credits, as the action is fast and familiar, it generates a lot of value for brands, and users are just clicks away from spending their reward. Facebook ads for Like-gated Page tab apps offering Credits could become an highly cost and time efficient method of growing Pages.

Update: To be clear, it’s against Facebook’s policy for Pages to directly incentivize Likes. However, they can create a Like-gated Page tab app wherein users take another action that can be incentivized with Credits. Likes are currently often incentivized in this way, but with entry into a sweepstakes as the reward instead of Credits.

The new funding will help ifeelgoods capitalize on the increased client interest foreshadowed by these factors. The round was led by European venture capital firm Idinvest and joined by TugBoat Ventures which contributed to ifeelgoods’ $1.5 million seed round.

The company currently services 20 brands including Gap, Gamefly, 1-800-Flowers.com, and Shopping.com from verticals such as clothing and direct sales. It has helped ShopAtHome.com gain 1.3 million new Facebook fans and Shoebuy.com double the click through rate on its Facebook ads by offering Credits instead of cash discounts.

The microincentive model is still relatively unproven, so ifeelgoods will use the funding to build out a sales team to educated and sign clients in the US and abroad. Engineers will be hired to assist with scaling and expand the types of actions that can be incentivized.

Ifeelgoods is tied to the success of Credits, so with Facebook’s virtual currency poised more much greater adoption, Idinvest and TugBoat may have gotten in at just the right time.

How to Get Facebook Users to Like Your Page: The First Step to Engagement

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 02:06 PM PDT

Facebook Marketing Bible

Managed correctly, your Facebook Page can quickly become your company's second home on the web, both in how well it ranks on Google and the frequency with which it is visited by your customers and audience.

Because your customers are already on Facebook (spending on average  25-30 minutes each day on the site), they have a significantly higher chance of seeing your brand's messages within their News Feed than they do of frequently re-visiting your website or any other medium on their own initiative.

As fans engage with your Page by commenting on, Liking or sharing content, awareness of your brand is extended to that person's friends, helping you reach additional customers. Once users granted you permission to communicate to them by Liking your Page, you can continue to market to them ad infinitum, essentially for free.

In the following article, available in our Facebook Marketing Bible service, we go over how to reach users using the main two types of channels available for getting and re-engaging users through getting them to Like your Page:

  1. Paid – Likes are collected via an advertising campaign for the Page using Facebook Cost Per Click (CPC)
  2. Non-paid – Likes that occur through proactive means or naturally, which will refer to hereon in as organic

We also detail the following ten tips for getting non-Paid Likes:

  1. Get The Basics Right
  2. Secure Your Page’s Username
  3. Build A Customized Landing Page
  4. Incentivize the Like with Contests
  5. Install A Like Box On Your Website
  6. Leverage Your Database And Contacts
  7. Suggest Your Page To Existing Facebook Friends
  8. Promote Your Facebook Page Everywhere
  9. Don’t Ignore Your Biggest Fans
  10. Update, Listen And Engage

For example:

2. Secure Your Page's Username

When your Facebook Page reaches 25 Likes, Facebook allows you to customize your Page's username.

This is important for a number of reasons.

  • It reduces the size of the URL. The default URL for your Page on Facebook will be something like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Page-Name-Here/ followed by a 15-digit number. A customized URL can be any number of characters after the Facebook URL – for example, http://facebook.com/InsideFacebook is a customized URL. It's far more elegant and quite a lot shorter, which is ideal for sharing your Page in emails, on websites, business cards, flyers, TV and radio ads, and so on.
  • It looks professional and provides a measure of authenticity to the first-time visitor.
  • A customized URL that matches your brand name will help with search engine optimization (SEO), and increase the likelihood that your Facebook Page will be a top search engine result for a search of your brand name.

Your Page username needs some thought – ideally it will be your business name if available, or a close variation thereof if not. When you customize your username the change to the URL is made immediately and seamlessly throughout Facebook, with no loss of existing fans, comments and Likes.

This is another reason why the use of CPC to generate immediate Likes is important for the new Facebook Page as it will allow you to quickly secure your customized username.

Warning: Please note that once set, your Page's username cannot be changed or transferred. Be very mindful to avoid a typographical error.

The full article can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network's complete guide to marketing your brand using Facebook.

HP Preps Facebook App for Its Palm WebOS TouchPad Tablet With Flipboard-Style News Feed

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 10:44 AM PDT

HP will release its TouchPad tablet next week, and the Palm WebOS-running device will have its own quasi-official Facebook app, according to TechCrunch. Unlike the Facebook for iPhone and Android apps which Facebook develops internally, the app is being developed by HP’s team, and it will be the second device-maker produced Facebook app following the May release of RIM’s Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

The TouchPad app appears to include a Flipboard-style news feed view as well as support for Places and Events. The inclusion of the Facebook app amongst the small list of around 300 TouchPad apps that will be available at the device’s launch may be important HP. The company will need all the selling points it can get as it looks to compete with Apple’s iPad, which currently controls 70% of the tablet market and will soon feature an official Facebook app.

HP’s existing smartphone app Facebook for Palm webOS hasn’t been updated since December and is slowly losing users, dipping from 516,000 to 483,000 daily active users this month. This isn’t a good sign for the HPs devices or its mobile platform. The iPhone and Android apps continue to climb quickly, and even the BlackBerry smartphones and Windows phones Facebook apps are gaining users. If the TouchPad can achieve strong sales though, it could attract more developers to the ailing mobile webOS.

The leaked shots of the Facebook for TouchPad app show a multi-pane interface allowing users to quickly jump between apps without returning to the home screen. The app appears to include the ability to view Events and checkin via Facebook Places– two features lacking from RIM’s Facebook for Blackberry PlayBook. The Places functionality positions the TouchPad’s app as more of a mobile experience, while the PlayBook’s app seems more like a couch-dweller’s alternative to the website.

What may be most innovative about the TouchPad app is its tile view of the news feed. Similar to on the Flipboard iPad app and the now defunct-PostPost website, news feed stories are displayed in tiles of differing sizes and shapes to create a visually appealing mix of text, links, and photos. This approximates the feel of reading a social magazine, and may not cause the fatigue produced by a uniform stream of updates.

If HP can show off a Facebook TouchPad app with eye catching new interfaces and support for core features, it could help convince consumers that the tablet will have high quality apps, even if it has less than the 400,000 available on iTunes or the 300,000 in the Android Market.

Just Bieber, “Harry Potter,” CNN, American Express and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 09:41 AM PDT

Musicians, TV shows and movies made up the bulk of the Pages on our list of the top 20 growing by Likes this week. Facebook, YouTube, Cristiano Ronaldo and American Express also made the list, although it's interesting to note that most of the TV Pages were not associated with traditional broadcast networks. The Pages on our list grew from between 450,700 and 1.8 million Likes, we measure the growth of Pages with our PageData tool.

Top Gainers This Week

Name Likes Gain Gain,%
1. Justin Bieber 31,988,184 +1,803,199 +6%
2. How to Train Your Dragon 1,353,835 +1,126,759 +496%
3. Facebook 46,980,487 +692,171 +1%
4. Katy Perry 30,311,287 +682,518 +2%
5. Marvin Gaye 943,014 +655,998 +229%
6. YouTube 40,275,248 +635,789 +2%
7. Nessma 627,386 +627,386 +0.0%
8. Rihanna 39,067,440 +620,153 +2%
9. Shakira 35,394,144 +619,269 +2%
10. Eminem 41,876,931 +589,241 +1%
11. CNN 2,831,549 +563,428 +25%
12. American Express 1,627,304 +521,300 +47%
13. Lady Gaga 39,327,779 +514,141 +1%
14. Yetenek Sizsiniz Türkiye 498,317 +498,317 +0.0%
15. Lil Wayne 27,988,978 +489,421 +2%
16. AKON 26,601,911 +488,683 +2%
17. South Park 30,868,685 +487,823 +2%
18. Harry Potter 27,349,120 +475,857 +2%
19. The Simpsons 30,889,819 +472,186 +2%
20. Cristiano Ronaldo 29,815,223 +450,675 +2%

Justin Bieber's Page grew by 1.8 million Likes this week, as he promoted his media appearances, and frequently updated his Page with his activities. Katy Perry was next with 682,500 Likes; she's been promoting her new mobile app and her tour. Marvin Gaye's Page grew by 656,000 Likes; it was probably a Page consolidation as in the span of two days the Page more than tripled. Rihanna's Page grew by 620,200 Likes as she posted video and status updates, Shakira's Page grew by 619,300 Likes and she also updated with videos and activity updates.

There was Eminem's Page with 589,200 Likes; he's been promoting the release of his new music video. Lady Gaga's Page grew by 514,100 Likes and has been frequently updating her Page with information about her tour, media appearances, performances, promotion of gay marriage in New York and merchandise. Lil Wayne's Page grew by 489,400 Likes by updating his Page, as did AKON's Page.

There were television networks and TV shows on the list, too. Nessma, a Tunisian TV channel, grew by 627,400 Likes. CNN's page grew by 563,400 Likes this week; it's curious why either because the landing Page asks users to Like the Page, or because of a Page consolidation. Yetenek Sizsiniz Türkiye, a Turkish TV show, grew by 498,300 Likes. "South Park" grew by 487,800 Likes by promoting episodes and "The Simpsons" grew by 472,200 Likes by doing the same thing.

And finally, there are a few movies that made the list, including "How to Train Your Dragon" with 1.2 million Likes (a likely Page consolidation) and " Harry Potter" with 475,900 Likes as the Page continues to promote the July premiere of the final film. Facebook's Page grew by 692,200 Likes and YouTube's by 635,800 Likes. American Express' Page grew by 521,300 Likes; the company recently launched a Foursquare integration nationally. Lastly, Cristiano Ronaldo's Page grew by 450,700 Likes.

New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Work4Labs, Nanigans, Wildfire and Efficient Frontier

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 08:51 AM PDT

Companies continued hiring interns, as well as web designers and account management staff this week.

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:

Work4 Labs

  • Baptiste Jésu, Web Designer – formerly did similar work as a freelancer.

Nanigans

  • Adam Mustafa, Software Development Intern – formerly an intern at Microsoft.

Wildfire

  • Justine Thomas, Recruiting Intern – formerly a Activities Coordinator at Stanford University Education Program for Gifted Youth.

Efficient Frontier

  • Aliki Askitopoulou, Associate Account Manager – previously an Account Manager at DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc.
  • Ali Khan, Media Delivery Trafficker – formerly worked in technical support at Microsoft.
  • Leah Hunt, Senior Account Director – previously worked as a Senior Account Director at Catalyst Online/GroupM Search.

onsdag den 29. juni 2011 at 07.05