Inside Facebook

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Zynga’s IPO Means More Visible Feedback for Facebook’s Platform Product and Policy Teams Posted: 03 Jul 2011 09:00 AM PDT Since the Facebook Platform’s launch four years ago in May 2007, the company has made many changes to its Platform APIs and Platform policies that have had significant ramifications for all developers in the Facebook ecosystem. And when Zynga goes public, the temperature of broader market’s perception of ramifications of changes that happen after that point will become much more visible. For example, here are a few of the bigger changes to date: In 2009, Facebook suspended many applications for using ads provided by banned third party ad networks, sending ripple effects throughout the third party monetization ecosystem. In 2009 and 2010, Facebook made substantial changes to the way the news feed worked and removed application boxes from the profile page, two of many product updates that created significant changes for the ways some developers designed application interaction patterns for “viral” growth. This year, when Facebook announced Credits universal virtual currency would be mandatory and all other paid virtual currencies would be banned, this created major changes for developers’ payment flow designs and, not least, operating margins. In general, when Facebook has made these changes, it has received feedback from developers through a variety of channels, including direct feedback to Facebook’s (relatively small) team of developer relationship managers, group meetings with larger developers concerned about specific changes, and public channels like the developer forums and comments here. Less visibly, updates to Facebook’s broader Platform product and policy direction have clearly impacted the private financial markets as well. Funding has become harder to come by for many small developers over the last 18 months, though some larger and growing developers have still been raising money at healthy valuations. However, when Zynga’s IPO occurs, the market will become the most visible real-time feedback channel yet for Facebook’s Platform product and policy teams. Although a couple of smaller developers, like SNAP Interactive, are listed (in STVI‘s case on the OTCBB), Zynga will be the first large independent developer of social games on Facebook (and thus a company whose fortune depends to a relatively high degree on Facebook’s product and policy directions) to be listed in public equity markets. Thus, when that happens, the stakes will be higher for Facebook to detail how changes to its Platform features, monetization services, organic communication channels, and developer policies fit into its its vision for the long term success and growth of the Platform. If it doesn’t, the consequences will be increased volatility for not just developers and private investors, but now public investors as well.

This Week’s Headlines From Across Inside Network Posted: 03 Jul 2011 08:00 AM PDT Here are all the latest headlines from around Inside Network this past week. Inside Mobile Apps Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms, and virtual goods. Monday, June 27th, 2011 Monday Mobile Roundup: RIM, iPhone Rumors & More Android Market Adds App Rating Distributions Emerging Paid iOS Apps: Movie-Based Games, Tower Defense, & Stealth Appear This Week Looking to Break Into Hollywood, Rovio Adds Former Chairman of Marvel as an Advisor Mobile App Discovery Is a Developer Problem, Not a Consumer Problem Crowdstar’s Top Girl Passes 1 Million Downloads, Becomes Top-Grossing App Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 Android Now Seeing 500,000 Device Activations Per Day, 4.4% Week-Over-Week Growth Emerging Top-Grossing iOS Apps: Cars 2, TeamLava Updates, Cooking & More Sonic Rises Up The Grossing Charts with Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Tuesday Mobile Round-Up: Fiksu Steps In, 183B App Downloads in 2015 Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 South Korea’s Gamevil Launches $10 Million Fund to Find Game Developer Partners New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Atari, Voxer, Wild Needle, Seismic, SolutionSet and More As The Chinese Smartphone Gaming Market Blossoms, PapayaMobile Offers Localization Emerging Top Free Apps on iOS: Line Games, Lite Versions & Pranks Grow Zynga Signs Deal With AT&T for Custom Android Content Ionocraft Racing Shows Good Ideas, But Gameplay is a Bit Dull Thursday, June 30th, 2011 Boku’s SDK For One-Tap Mobile Payments on Android Comes Out of Beta New Hires in Mobile: Alphonso Labs, Big Fish Games, Foursquare & More Hold the Line in Trenches: Generals on iPad Thursday Mobile Roundup: Upcoming Games, Franchise Expansion, Patents & More Friday, July 1st, 2011 Zynga Paid $53.3 Million in Cash and Stock for Newtoy, IPO Filing Shows Zynga Shows Off Strong Financials but Questions Remain Around Impact of Credits, Off-Facebook Revenue Zynga Files S-1 Ahead of Initial Public Offering — Our Coverage Inside Social Games Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms. Sunday, June 26th, 2011 The Road to Facebook Credits: On the Home Stretch With New Payment Options Monday, June 27th, 2011 Zoo World 2 Climbing This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU A List of Current Options for Buying Facebook Credits Around the World Adknowledge Launches Social2Web Integrated Monetization Solution for Off-Facebook Social Games Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 CNBC Report: Zynga to File IPO as Soon as Tomorrow, Will Raise up to $2B FishHunt Explores Under-Developed Fishing Genre, Focuses on Expansion According to Player Feedback AltEgo Set to Sell Cross-Platform Avatar Solution to Social Game Devs Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 Gardens of Time Growing Again on This Week’s List of Fastests-Growing Facebook Games by DAU IP Aggregators Aim to Connect Brands and Developers New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Seismic, Atakama Labs, Spooky Cool Labs, Atari, Wild Needle and More Zynga Signs Deal With AT&T for Custom Android Content Thursday, June 30th, 2011 LOLapps Acquires Fliso Engine & Creator, Enters Licensing Business Virtual World Smeet Sees Fluctuations in Users as Summer Vacation Starts New Hires in Social Gaming: CrowdStar, Digital Chocolate, iWin, & More GSN Plans Mobile Expansion, Looks for Games to License on Facebook Portal App Google Plus Source Code Hints at Social Games Future for the Platform Friday, July 1st, 2011 inFamous Anarchy Tops This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games Zynga Files S-1, Plans to Go Public and Raise $1 Billion, Overcoming Credits Costs MindJolt’s Kamikaze Race Takes the Minimalist Approach to Graphics, Social Features and Monetization Pincus Sold $109 Million in Stock Back to Zynga in March 2011 Zynga Reveals Actual Uniques at 148 Million Unique Users The Top 25 Facebook Games for July 2011 Welcomes Empires & Allies Zynga Shows Off Strong Financials but Questions Remain Around Impact of Credits, Off-Facebook Revenue Social Gaming Roundup: Bungie Aerospace, FamilyVille, Funding, & More Inside Facebook Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers. Monday, June 27th, 2011 Quotes, Badoo, BranchOut, Photos, VEVO, Videos, Horoscopes and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU Featured Facebook Campaigns: Coca-Cola, Qatar Airways, Clearasil and Esurance Facebook Disables Numerous Apps That Have Negative User Feedback, May Need to Improve Enforcement Communications Without Proper Recruiter Search, Monster’s BeKnown Facebook Professional Networking App Lacks Value Platform Update: FQL Page_Admin Table Access, Uploading Videos, App Feedback Insights Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Work4Labs, Nanigans, Wildfire and Efficient Frontier Just Bieber, “Harry Potter,” CNN, American Express and More on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages HP Preps Facebook App for Its Palm WebOS TouchPad Tablet With Flipboard-Style News Feed How to Get Facebook Users to Like Your Page: The First Step to Engagement As Demand for Facebook Credits Increases, Microincentive Provider Ifeelgoods Positions Itself With $6.5 Million First Round DLA Piper Stops Representing Paul Ceglia in Controversial Facebook Ownership Claim Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 Horoscopes, Luck, Zoosk, Mobile, Pages and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by DAU RockMelt Raises $30 Million Following Facebook Partnership Facebook Launches Graph API Explorer for Testing and Revamps Developer App for Speed New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Acquinity Interactive, SolutionSet, Seismic Games, Atakama Labs and More Facebook Partners With American Express to Get Small Businesses Hooked on Buying Ads Facebook Adds Reverse Chronological Sorting to Comments Box Plugin, Now on 300,000 Sites Thursday, June 30th, 2011 Facebook Hires and Departures: Hong Kong, Recruiting, IP, Interns, Data Centers and More Facebook Careers Postings: Finance, Communications, Brazil, Singapore and More Facebook for iPhone 3.4.3 Can Display Menu in Landscape Mode to Its 45 Million Daily Users How Top Brands Conduct Ecommerce on Facebook: Best Practices Friday, July 1st, 2011 Dating, Photos, Chat and More on This Week’s Top 20 Emerging Facebook Apps by MAU Facebook Asks Users to Clean Up Its Location Database with Places Editor and Favorite Places Gamers Can Now Buy Facebook Credits in 32 More Currencies, Including the Chinese Yuan Zynga Shows Off Strong Financials but Questions Remain Around Impact of Credits, Off-Facebook Revenue Zynga Files to Go Public — Our Coverage Facebook Roundup: Credits, Deals, Hacker Hire, TV, Hulu, Lawsuits, and Thailand

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