gravatar

Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook

Facebook Promotes Mobile Network Operator Partners on the Login Screen

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 11:30 AM PDT

Facebook’s login screen usually accompanies the email and password entry fields with a graphic depicting the social graph or a call to use Facebook’s mobile services. Recently, though, some users in the UK have seen Facebook using this highly visible space to promote third-party mobile network operator partners who are offering free data access to the Facebook for Every Phone mobile feature phone app.

In one example, it announced a “Special Offer from Three UK” and linked to the carrier’s Facebook Page. Placement on the login screen could make partnerships with Facebook more lucrative to third-parties. The site could one day run traditional Facebook ads on the login screen, but that’s unlikely since they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of demographic targeting since viewers would be logged out.

To our knowledge, Facebook has not done login screen promotions before. However, the page gets huge volumes of traffic but only requires half the space for login and signup options, making it a logical spot to show promotions.

The placement for Three UK and possibly other mobile carriers may have come as part of broader partnerships surrounding Facebook for Every Phone. The feature phone app provides users with deep access to Facebook functionality, similar to the site’s official smartphone apps. Facebook struck deals with 17 carriers around the world to give users 90 days of free data access through the app so they try it without paying. In return these carriers can try to upsell users on data services, and apparently be featured on the login screen.

These partnerships are similar to those Facebook has with over 180 mobile operators to provide free access to lightweight mobile site 0.facebook.com. They are likely designed to propel Facebook’s user growth strategy, as access to more features is thought to increase engagement with the service, leading users to invest time and invite friends.

The Three UK promotion, shown to those UK, should increase awareness of the free data offer and lead more people using feature phones on the network to try Facebook for Every Phone. The app officially launched three weeks ago and has since seen massive growth, shooting up from 769,000 to 2.49 million daily active users, according to AppData.

Facebook could dangle to prospect of login screen placement to win over stubborn potential partners in the future. Note that since the promotions points within Facebook, there not much risk of the placement cannibalizing logins.

Don’t expect Facebook to include a sidebar of ads on the home screen, though. These would be limited to IP address geotargeting, making them less relevant than those shown on the site once users are logged in and can be targeted by any of their profile information.

[Thanks to TBG Digital for the tip]

Platform Update: Social Plugin Performance, App and Website Insights, Notifications, Requests

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 09:58 AM PDT

Facebook announced several important changes this week that impact developers of apps and social plugin-integrated websites. The latest Platform update described how developers can track app feed stories using ref parameters, and listed many new metrics that have been added to the Insights table for apps and websites. A special Developers Blog post explained how social plugins can be optimized to reduce webpage load times and Insights errors.

On October 22nd, developers will gain the ability to request permission to read and manage user notifications. Developers can now alo exclude certain User IDs from seeing dialogs or limit the number of Requests they can send, and apps can be deauthorized or have their permissions revoked via the Graph API.

New Ref Parameter and Insights Metrics

Developers can now add a ref parameter to feed dialogs, allowing them to track the performance of different dialogs in Insights. Ref parameters can added using the JavaScript SDK, PHP, or the Graph API. A “story types” drop-down will then appear in news feed section, allowing developers to see all story types or just those with a certain ref parameter. This will improve A/B testing of feed dialogs, helping developers determine what dialog design causes causes users to publish the most feed stories.

Facebook has also added the following new metrics to Insights:

Websites

  • domain_feed_clicks - The number of clicks sent to your site from stories in News Feed, Page Walls, or Profile Walls
  • domain_feed_views – The number of times people viewed stories that link to your site in News Feed, Page Walls, or Profile Walls
  • domain_stories - The number of times people posted a link to your site through an action on a social plugin or through a status message or Wall post
  • domain_widget_like_views - The number of times people viewed Like buttons on your site
  • domain_widget_likes - The number of times people clicked the Like button on your site
  • domain_widget_like_feed_views - The number of times people viewed stories generated from Like button clicks on your site
  • domain_widget_like_feed_clicks - The number of clicks sent to your site from stories in News Feed, Page Walls, or Profile Walls

Apps

  • application_api_errors_rate - Average number of errors per API request from your app
  • application_api_time_average - Average time for API requests from your app, in milliseconds
  • application_canvas_time_average - Average HTTP response time on your Canvas page, in milliseconds
  • application_canvas_errors - HTTP request errors on your Canvas page
  • application_canvas_errors_rate - Average number of errors per canvas request of your app
The new website metrics will help admins assess the performance of their Like buttons and the stories they generate. This will help them optimize placement and design of the social plugin on their site, as well as determine the most compelling content to have Like stories display. The new app metrics will help developers assess the quality of their code and determine if new features are increasing error rates or slowing down response time.

Improving Social Plugin Performance

Facebook now offers custom channelUrl and asynchronous loading that decrease load times. The improvements are most pronounced when loading plugins  with Internet Explorer, “where the load time of a test website with 5 XFBML plugins improves from 1.10 seconds to 0.43 seconds.” The custom channelUrl prevents Facebook from having to load a second copy of a webpage in a hidden iframe, which slows loading and can causes inflation of referral traffic numbers in Insights to appear inflated.

Asynchronous loading also increases plugin rendering speed, which can improve search engine optimization. See the Developers Blog post for specifics on how to integrate these updates.

Manage_notifications

Facebook said that this week it would add the ability for developers to “access a user's notifications via the Graph API using the notifications connection on the me identifier.” On October 22nd, apps will be required to retrieve the manage_notifications permission in order to read or manipulate a user’s notifications. Developers can enable the migration for this change in the Advanced tab of the Developer app settings.

The ability to read or manage permissions could be used to surface existing notifications within an app or game, or to prevent an app from sending redundant notifications. This function could also improve support for third-party Facebook clients such as RockMelt.

Dialogs, Requests, and Graph API Deauthorization

Developers now have the option to exclude specific User IDs from seeing certain dialogs. This could be used to serve demographic-specific dialogs. For example, if a developer finds that females respond better to a dialog asking them to post to the walls of friends, and males respond better to a dialog requesting that they make a virtual good purchase, the developer could serve each gender a different dialog.

Caps on Requests can also be placed on specific User IDs. If a developer determines that a user is sending too many Requests, causing the app to receive negative feedback that could lead to suspension, that user could only be allowed to send a low maximum number of Requests per day.

Developers can also now revoke permissions and deauthorize apps via the Graph API, which should be useful for those testing their permissions systems. A test user could go through the permission process, a code change could be made, the test user could be deauthorized, and the permissions step could be tested again.

Facebook Hires and Departures: Zuckerberg, Deals, Data Centers, Sales, Interns and More

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 09:23 AM PDT

Facebook has hired some data center personnel, as well as a good number of sales and Deals-related employees according to the company’s Careers Page and LinkedIn feed.

But most prominently, Randi Zuckerberg is leaving Facebook after six years at her brother’s company, where she focused on various video marketing efforts, like launching the Facebook Live video channel. She’ll be doing more work in this area, as she explains in her resignation letter obtained by All Things D: “My goal is to launch my own innovative programming and work with media companies to develop their programming in new, and more social ways”

In other company personnel changes, three data center positions were no longer listed on the Careers Page this week while a handful of Austin, Texas-based sales positions, including a writer and editor for Deals, were removed. LinkedIn shows that Facebook has continued to hire more interns, as well as some user ops and account management positions.

New hires per LinkedIn and Other Sources:

  • Michael King, User Operations Analyst – formerly the Recruitment Director at DreamCatchers, Inc.
  • Travis Eagles-Soukup, User Operations Analyst – formerly a Network Account Specialist at Lijit Networks.
  • Ștefan Istrate, Software Engineer Intern -  previously worked as an intern for Ubisoft.
  • Robi Moghadam, Account Manager – previously worked as an International Account Manager at E Entertainment.
  • Sara Garcia, Business Development Spain – formerly worked as a Personal Advisor for ING Nationale Nederlanden.
  • Susan Buckner, Online Operations Intern – was previously a Summer Associate at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati.
  • Wojciech Tyczyński, Software Engineer Intern.
  • Nick Young, IT Client Platform Engineer – previously an IT intern at EMC.
  • Erkang You, Software Engineering Intern – previously a student at India University at Bloomington.
  • Alain Mayni, Inside Sales Associate – formerly a Communication Manager at leo Burnett.
  • Maggie Farrar, Direct Sales Account Manager – formerly a Listener Support worker at Pandora.

Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:

  • Data Center Capacity Planning Manager
  • Data Center Lease & Site Selection Analyst
  • Data Center Site Selection Manager
  • Editor, Local Deals (Austin) – Contractor
  • Writer, Local Deals (Austin) – Contractor
  • Leads Analyst, Sales Operations – Local Sales (Austin)
  • Leads Analyst, Sales Operations – Local Sales (Palo Alto)
  • Local Sales Associate (Austin)
  • Local Sales Associate (Palo Alto)
  • Local Sales Operations Manager (Palo Alto)
  • Manager, Merchant Services (Austin)
  • Manager, Corporate Development
  • Manager, Local Sales (Austin)
  • University Recruiting Lead
  • Internet Threat Researcher
  • Malware Research
  • Trust and Safety Manager
  • Hardware Validation Engineer
  • Manager, Accounting Operations
  • DSO Account Manager, India (Singapore)
  • Client Partner – Auto (Los Angeles)
  • Client Partner (Palo Alto)
  • Relationship Manager, Agency Relations (Chicago)
  • Analyst, Payment Operations – Turkish (Dublin)
  • Analyst, Platform Operations – French & Spanish (Dublin)
  • Account Manager, Online Sales Operations (Sao Paulo)
  • Manager, Merchant Services (Austin)
  • Optimization Specialist, Online Sales Operations (Austin)
  • Optimization Specialist, Online Sales Operations (Palo Alto)
  • Team Lead, Online Sales Operations (Austin)
  • BIOS/Firmware Engineer

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

Facebook Careers Postings: Data Centers, Security, Measurement, Engineering and More

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 08:27 AM PDT

Facebook seems to be searching for a number of data center employees and security personnel this week, according to the posts from the company’s Careers Page this week, as well as some to its LinkedIn feed. A handful of data center positions were listed on the Careers Page, as well as several security jobs, whereas on LinkedIn the company posted jobs in engineering and measurement.

Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:

  • Data Center Capacity Planning Manager
  • Data Center Lease & Site Selection Analyst
  • Data Center Site Selection Manager
  • Data Operations Analyst
  • Data Center Network Technician (VA)
  • eCrime Analyst (Dublin)
  • Security Engineer
  • Security Program Manager
  • Employee Relations Specialist (Contract)
  • Recruiting Coordinator – Contract (Dublin)
  • Technology Manager, Finance
  • CERT Analyst (Incident Response)
  • CERT Engineer (Forensics)
  • Technical Program Manager
  • System Validation Engineer
  • 2012 User Interface Engineer (Intern)
  • Business Operations Associate (London)
  • International General Ledger Accountant (Dublin)
  • Technology Manager, Finance – IT
  • Analyst, Platform Operations – French (Dublin)
  • Manager, User Operations– Latin America Team (Palo Alto)
  • Measurement Solutions Analyst – Contract (London)
  • Platform Product Marketing Manager, Games
  • Developer Support Engineer

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 5. august 2011 at 07.16