gravatar

Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook

Facebook Apologizes For Disabling Apps, Launches New Feedback Metrics, Granular Enforcement, Disabled Mode

Posted: 07 Jul 2011 04:09 PM PDT

Facebook today apologized for suddenly disabling certain apps last month, saying that it “over-weighted certain types of user feedback, causing us to erroneously disable some apps”.

It has also taken several steps to help avoid issues like this in the future. New feedback metrics and a benchmark for how much negative feedback is unacceptable have been added to Application Insights. A new granular enforcement system has been instituted such that only the an app’s social channels that are drawing negative feedback will be blocked. Finally, rather than temporarily deleting apps, those subject to suspension are put in Disabled Mode so developers can still “test the app, edit settings, and view Insights.”

These changes should increase developer confidence in the Platform and allow them to test new communication and viral features without risking that their entire app might be deleted.

During the last week of June, Facebook changed how negative feedback for apps was weighted in its automatic app spam-prevention enforcement system. For instance, an app’s wall posts being marked as spam were more likely to trigger enforcement. This caused some apps to suddenly be deleted, infuriating developers.

Facebook allowed affected developers to appeal the enforcement, and began reinstating some of the disabled apps, though others such as Game of Truth are still disabled. Being disabled, even for only a short time, negatively impacts monetization as well as user growth and retention. Some developers said they had been treated unfairly, and that there was no way of telling how much negative feedback was too much. Others wanted the ability to modify and test their apps instead of being locked out while they were suspended.

A statement from Facebook today noted that “we realize that any downtime has a significant impact on both our developers and users. Many of our developers have chosen to build their businesses on top of Facebook, and we take that responsibility very seriously.” In an effort to make its enforcement system more predictable and rebuild trust with developers, it has now answered many of the requests of the affected developers with policy changes and data that should be available to all developers soon.

New Feedback Metrics in Application Insights

Developers will now see a News Feed tab in their Application Insights that displays positive and negative feedback. A spam reports per story published graph includes a benchmark in the form of green and red zones that indicates whether an app is receiving enough negative feedback to warrant enforcement. In the screenshot Facebook provides, it appears that 0.0023 spam reports per story is the threshold, though this could be different for different apps.

The new metrics will let developer test viral mechanisms and accurately assess whether they are causing too many spam reports. This transparency should increase developer trust in the Platform. However, it might degrade the use experience by encouraging developers to be as spammy as possible while still remaining under the threshold.

Granular Enforcement

Previously, too much negative feedback to usage of a single social channel would cause an entire app to be disabled. This could have caused unforseen consequences of a new viral mechanism or a negative response to a tertiary social channel to bring down an entire app. It also made it less clear what a developer needed to change to return to good standing with Facebook.

Now Facebook will use a granular enforcement system whereby only the social channel causing the negative feedback will be disabled. Facebook explains that “for example, if an app is generating a lot of negative feedback via chat messages, we will take action only on that app’s ability to publish to chat but otherwise leave the app intact.” This will make it much more obvious what mechanism must be modified for an app to be reinstated.

Developers can also appeal granular enforcement rather than the suspension of their entire app. Apps drawing negative feedback across channels are still subject to disablement.

Disabled Mode

Before today, if an app was disabled, it was effectively deleted, becoming completely unavailable to both a user and its developer. This prevented developers from checking Insights logs, testing their apps, and making changes to their settings or the app itself. Combined with enforcement emails that don’t always include enough detail for developers to learn what they were doing wrong, this prevented devs quickly fixing their apps and appealing the enforcement.

Now disabled apps are placed in Disabled Mode, which makes them unavailable to users, but developers can still access them.

Incidents like what happened at the end of June can send ripples through the development community, leading some to consider switching to making apps for other platforms such as iOS or Android. With Facebook looking to compete with these mobile operating systems in the near future, it needs both top app makers and the long tail of developers behind it.

It’s somewhat surprising that Facebook made the mistake of letting its auto-enforcement system get too aggressive considering its turbulent history with developers. Even more so because it’s been focusing on improving developer relations over the past months with its “Operation: Developer Love”. The Facebook developer community might not be quick to forget, but these changes might make it more willing to forgive.

MyPad Launches Twitter Integration to Differentiate From Facebook’s Forthcoming iPad App

Posted: 07 Jul 2011 12:19 PM PDT

MyPad, arguably the most popular unofficial Facebook iPad app, will push the first phase of a Twitter integration this week. MyPad developer Loytr’s co-founder Cole Ratias also tells us the integration of a games section into the app has been a success, with roughly 30% of the app’s daily active users entering the gaming area and total ad impressions in the app doubling.

When the Twitter integration deepens, it will give MyPad and Loytr’s games partners more viral reach. This is because users are prompted to share when they open games via MyPad. Both the Twitter integration and the games portal could help MyPad differentiate itself in preparation of the launch of Facebook’s official iPad app.

Since Facebook chose not to release an official iPad app, several tablet-optimized native app Facebook clients popped up. These include Oecoway’s Friendly, currently the largest with 600,000 DAU but losing users, and MyPad2, currently second with 548,000 DAU but growing such that it should overtake Friendly by the end of the month. However, Loytr also has roughly 150,000 to 200,000 more users for MyPad1, which was built on touch.facebook.com opposed to the modern version that is built on the Graph API, meaning its total user count already surpasses Friendly.

These developers were able to make a comfortable living offering core Facebook functionality and some minor additional features such as color customization in ad-supported and premium versions of their apps.

However, it was recently reported that Facebook will launch an official iPad app. If the unofficial apps don’t differentiate themselves, they could see great volumes of their users slip away to Facebook’s app. New functionality, particularly the ability to play games, could also boost revenue through deals to distribute games from certain developers or increase ad impressions.

Facebook as a Mobile Games Portal

Loytr released a games integration with TinyCo and CrowdMob at the end of June such that shortcuts to the Apple App Store can be found in the MyPad navigation menu, allowing users to download games by these developers. Loytr gets a cut of the lifetime revenue generated by any users that click these bookmarks, including app and in-app purchases.

If a user has already downloaded a game and clicks the MyPad bookmark for it, the game launches via Fast App switching. Whenever users open a game through MyPad, they’re prompted to share the news of their usage with their Facebook friends, providing a virality bump to both Loytr and its game partners.

Apple prohibits iOS apps from offering their own proprietary app store, but referral links to Apple’s official App Store are permissible.

Now, Ratias tells us 20% of MyPad’s daily active users access the games bookmarks three to ten times a day. The engagement from the games bookmarks has helped push MyPad to double the number of ad impressions it shows per day since mid-April. This means MyPad is now showing about six to eight million ad impressions from Mobclix, Millennial and iAd per day.

These figures indicate the users want their Facebook tablet experience to include a portal to gaming. Third-party Facebook iPad app developers who take this approach can earn money and protect themselves from the official app’s launch. However, the data also bodes well for an official Facebook iPad app that includes its own games portal, possibly through a Facebook HTML5 mobile site.

Ratias says its developer partners are “pretty happy. They’ve seen good lift from the distribution and reengagement from users coming back to our platform to launch their apps. Currently the list of games is highly curated, but Ratias tells us Loytr is looking for more game developer partners. He says some more game sorting options would be required if it eventually offered dozens or even hundreds of games.

Loytr strategy of offering iOS games is certainly a better approach than Oecoway’s plan, which its founder told us is to essentially do nothing different to prepare for the official Facebook iPad app’s release. If the official app includes a games portal, even one that distributes Facebook and not iOS games, third-party app developers may need more differentiation points. Which brings us to Twitter.

Retweet Facebook Updates

MyPad will slowly begin to integrate Twitter into its Facebook client. To start, a version of the app currently awaiting Apple’s approval will allow users to retweet Facebook updates by them and their friends. When users are viewing a news feed or wall story, they can on it to bring up feedback options including Like, comment, and now retweet. Status updates and URL-shortened links to photos and videos can all be retweeted.

Soon, MyPad will allow users to view their own Twitter stream, as well as Twitter profiles, mentions, and direct messages. Ratias tells us the company is also looking into other social network integrations, which we assume could mean LinkedIn, or eventually even Google+.

Ratias tells us the next release of MyPad will prompt users to tweet when they open games through the app, and that this added distribution channel was a core reason the company chose to integrate Twitter.

Building straight forward third-party iPad Facebook clients may not be a safe business for long. But building a combined Facebook and Twitter client with a portal to curated set of great games could be a sustainable business regardless of Facebook’s official offering.

Jobvite Source Lets Recruiters Post Trackable Job Links to Facebook Accounts of Employees

Posted: 07 Jul 2011 10:20 AM PDT

Jobvite Source is a social recruiting platform that helps recruiters reach high quality job candidates cheaply by allowing them to distribute trackable job posting links to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Employees of a company can give Facebook permissions to Jobvite Source, and a recruiter can then post links on their behalf. Jobvite Source also offers Page tab app that can allow companies list job openings.

Other companies such as BranchOut and Monster are building full fledged professional network apps within Facebook. Jobvite doesn’t believe companies need a middle man to reach Facebook users, though, and that news feed stories posted by friends return the best candidates.

Jobvite has grown from 20 customers in December 2007 to over 500 customers today from across verticals, including Zynga, Logitech, Groupon, Zappos, Oxfam, and GE. The company has raised a total of $30.2 million, including a $15 million third round in May 2011 in hopes of capturing more of what it see as a $34 billion total addressable market for its products.

Though only 1% of all applicants to Jobvite jobs are hired, 10% of those hired come from referrals, indicating that recruiting strategies focused on securing referrals can be cheaper and more efficient. That’s why Jobvite’s product focuses on job posting link distribution to get inbound job applications from people who’ve been referred, rather than enterprise recruiter search like LinkedIn provides and BranchOut will launch August 1st.

Jobvite Publisher

To use Jobvite Source, a company first gets all of its employees set up with accounts through Jobvite’s price-per-seat model. These employee then give the app permission to post to their various social media accounts, and recruiters create job opening listings.

Recruiters can then filter their entire employee base to those in locations or departments relevant to a listing they want to post. For instance, if a recruiter wants to distribute a Jobvite for a San Francisco marketing job, they might filter the employee base down to those who live near San Francisco or that have jobs related to marketing.

The recruiter can then write copy to be included with the link when it’s published by the selected employees, such as “I think you might be interested in this job”. Since the listings will be posted by employees to their friends, the recruiter can use a first person voice to make the referral of the job sound more organic. Different copy can be included for different distribution methods such as email or Facebook, so a longer description can be included when a Jobvite is posted to Facebook, while a shorter description might be used for Twitter.

The employees then either receive the Jobvites and can edit and post them to their various network feeds, or they can have configured the Jobvite Source app to automatically post the updates for them. The recruiter doesn’t actually gain access to an employee’s account. By granting the app extended permissions, though, an employee employee is effectively allowing the recruiter to post updates to their friends without giving up their privacy.

Employees can also visit a Jobvite and select other networks to publish it to, such as Myspace, Ping, and various blogging platforms. If they select to post to Facebook, a multi-friend selector combined with location, job, and job title filters allows them to share a wall post of the Jobvite with the friends it will be most relevant to.

The publisher’s biggest strengths are how it allows recruiters to leverage the networks of their own employees, and how those employees can choose to play a more active or passive role. This means if employees are engaged or want to earn referral bonuses they can write more custom descriptions of Jobvites sent to their networks, but they can also tune out and let recruiters post from their account instead of being nagged to do it themselves. The system could have better rich media publishing capabilities so photos could be included in Jobvite postings to make them more compelling.

Jobvite Page Tab Application

Jobvite clients can also use a Facebook Page tab application called Work With Us to solicit applications from their fan base. The app shows users a list of job openings at the company that can be filtered by department and location. Useres can also search within the listings, sign up for alerts about openings, or visit the company’s career site.

The app functions similarly to ones offered by BranchOut and Work4 Labs. However, jobs are not automatically arranged by relevance and users can’t see relevant friends to share a listing with as with Work4 Labs’ Smart Sort and Smart Share-enabled app. Still, the basic functionality makes the app useful for companies who want to employ people who may also be interested enough in their brand to visit their Page.

Overall, the Jobvite publisher and Work With Us app provide a solid solution to pulling in job inquiries from social networks. Jobvite Source augments these products with a comprehensive analytics dashboard and applicant CRM system. Another product suite, Jobvite Hire helps recruiters handle the interview process.

Jobvite CEO Dan Finnigan tells us that he sees job seeking becoming more public, with job referrals shifting from a being a behind-the-scenes, secretive activity to being something people are comfortable doing more visibly on their social networks. Other recruiting companies are trying to build a user base to whom listing can be distributed within a special Facebook professional networking app. Finnigan says there’s no need to rebuild this audience because they’re already available and spending a ton of time looking at the news feed and their Twitter stream, and those are the channels Jobvite can help clients reach.

Facebook Hires and Departures: Interns, Recruiting, Software Engineering and More

Posted: 07 Jul 2011 09:07 AM PDT

Facebook hired more interns this week, in addition to software engineerings, recruiting staff, platform ops, client partners, developers, data center staff and marketing professionals, according to listings removed from the company’s Careers Page and hires noted on its LinkedIn feed.

New hires per LinkedIn and Other Sources:

  • Matthew Cin, Securities Associate Intern – previously worked as a teacher's assistant at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.
  • Judy Wang, Client Partner and APAC Landing Team Lead - formerly a Business Analyst at A.T. Kearney.
  • Daniel Spijker, Client Partner, Marketing Solutions - previously worked as a Digital Marketing Manager at Sukar.com.
  • Kendra Cook, Recruiting Coordinator – recently did similar work at Google.
  • Filip Cristian Buruiana, Software Engineer Intern – formerly a teaching assistant at the Politehnica University of Bucharest.
  • Elliott Slaughter, Software Engineer Intern - formerly did similar work at Google.
  • Tsung-Hsien Lee, Software Engineer Intern – previously a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Computer Science.
  • Francis Korzak, Software Engineer - previously worked in Sv+ solutions at TOTVS.
  • Alex Şuhan, Software Engineer – formerly a teaching assistant at the Politehnica University of Bucharest.
  • Camille Yan, Business Analyst Intern – previously worked in private wealth management at Merrill Lynch.
  • Andy Fang, Software Engineering Intern.
  • Divyanka Kapoor, Analyst, Platform Operations – formerly an intern at the Mathematical Sciences Foundation.
  • Bhaavan Merchant, Verifed Facebook Developer – previously an intern at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:

  • Manager, Data Center Operations (VA)
  • Recruiting Coordinator – Contract
  • Manager, Applications
  • Oracle Applications DBA
  • Partner Engineer (Mobile) – Dublin
  • Director, Accounting 1106003 (Menlo Park, CA)
  • Client Partner (Hamburg)
  • Client Partner (Milan)
  • Account Manager (Hamburg)
  • Marketing Communications Program Manager
  • Marketing Communications Copywriter

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook Careers Postings: Engineering, Management, Recruiting and More

Posted: 07 Jul 2011 08:19 AM PDT

Facebook added a few managerial positions this week to its Careers Page, including one to manage Developer Support Engineering and IT Software Engineering. On the LinkedIn feed, Facebook added a slew of account management positions, software engineering and other technical positions.

Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:

  • Manager, Developer Support Engineering
  • Head of IT Software Engineering
  • Diversity Technical Sourcer – FTE
  • Recruiting Manager, Austin, Texas
  • Technical Recruiter-FTE
  • Manager, Technology Communications
  • Customer Marketing Manager (Dublin)

Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

fredag den 8. juli 2011 at 07.39