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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook

Facebook estimates 4 percent of Q1 revenue came from ads on Zynga app pages, 11 percent from Zynga directly

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 04:04 PM PDT

Facebook estimates that about 4 percent of its first quarter revenue can be attributed to ads displayed on Zynga app pages, according to an updated regulatory filing. An additional 11 percent of Q1 revenue came from direct payments from Zynga.

Although Zynga accounted for 15 percent of Facebook’s $1.058 billion in revenue from Jan. 1 to March 31, that’s a lower percentage than the 19 percent it was responsible for in 2011. Investors are likely to see this as a positive development. Such reliance on a single company can be risky, particularly as Zynga expands its games to additional platforms beyond Facebook, including Google+, mobile and its own Zynga.com.

When the social network first filed for an initial public offering in February, it revealed that the social game company accounted for 12 percent of its 2011 revenue as a result of virtual goods payments and advertising, but it did not include revenue it generated indirectly from users visiting Zynga app pages that include third-party advertisements. Facebook says 7 percent of its total 2011 revenue was generated this way, compared to 4 percent in the first quarter of this year.

A greater proportion of Zynga-generated revenue now comes directly from the social games company rather than ads displayed on its app pages. This is likely related to Facebook making Credits mandatory for all social games in July 2011 and subsequently taking 30 percent of revenue from all sales of virtual goods. It is also possible that Zynga is spending more to acquire new users through advertising, although since the company does a lot to cross-promote its games to existing players, this might not be as much of a factor.

Either way, it’s likely Facebook will continue to reduce its dependence on Zynga as other developers build on its platform. More companies from a broader range of industries are developing applications on Facebook, leading to additional ad revenue for the social network. As these apps develop monetization strategies as social games did with virtual goods, Facebook can decide to take a similar cut of revenue in the future. For example, the company could take a proportion of subscription payments for Spotify, which currently requires users to have a Facebook account to sign up.

Facebook generates $1.21 per user on average worldwide in Q1

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 01:04 PM PDT

Facebook made an average $1.21 per user between Jan.1 and March 31 — a 6 percent increase from the first quarter of 2011– according to an updated filing with the Securities and Exchange commission.

The social network today reported revenues of $1.058 billion for the first quarter of the calendar year. That's a 45 percent increase from the first quarter last year, but 6 percent less than the previous quarter. It also revealed it had 901 million monthly active users and 526 million daily active users as of March 31 — a 33 percent increase in MAUs and 41 percent increase in DAUs year over year.

Facebook reported that average revenue per user increased across all geographies, but it is also beginning to better monetize outside the U.S. In this most recent quarter, 50 percent of the company's revenue was generated by users in the U.S. and Canada. That's down from 2 percent from 2011 and 8 percent from 2010. Facebook notes that revenue growth particularly picked up in Germany, Brazil, Australia and India.

Facebook attributes the slight decline in revenue this quarter over last to seasonal trends. Advertising spending is typically highest in Q4 as a result of the holidays and companies using up their remaining budgets. At the end of February, Facebook introduced a number of new premium advertising options, including logout page ads, Reach Generator and Sponsored Stories that appear in the mobile News Feed. The effects of those products on revenue likely won’t be seen until next quarter, if not the end of the year.

The social network also updated its daily engagement statistic to 3.2 billion Likes and comments per day. In Q4 2011, the social network was generating 2.7 billion Likes and comments per day. It noted that there were 488 million users engaged with Facebook mobile products in March 2012. This is up about 13 percent since three months ago.

Facebook is expected to make its initial public offering on the NASDAQ in mid-May.

Facebook expands arsenal with 650 patents from Microsoft, license to hundreds more

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 11:13 AM PDT

Facebook will purchase about 650 former-AOL patents from Microsoft for about $550 million, the company announced today.

Microsoft took over 925 U.S. patents and patent applications from AOL earlier this month, along with a license to about 300 additional patents that weren't for sale. Now Facebook will take ownership of a majority of those patents and retain a license for the remainder of the portfolio. These patents could aid Facebook in two infringement suits it is currently engaged in with Yahoo, and could protect the company from future intellectual property disputes.

Facebook did not provide details on which patents it acquired from Microsoft, but they are likely related to social networking, messaging, advertising, privacy and customization, which are the key areas Yahoo is targeting in its lawsuit against Facebook. The social network is also involved in a counter-suit against the portal company.

Building an arsenal of patents could also be useful in preventing litigation with other companies. In March, Facebook bought 750 software and networking patents from IBM for an undisclosed sum. Before that, the social network had only 56 patents and 503 applications in the U.S., according to a regulatory filing.

Yahoo's attacks raised issues in the tech community about how and when patents should be exercised. Many saw Yahoo's suit as a cheap shot against a pre-IPO Facebook, not unlike the one Yahoo brought against Google just before it went public. As such, Facebook's countersuit seemed positioned as a statement about the frivolity of patent litigation. And last week, Twitter promised it would only use patents defensively, unless the company acquires permission from the inventor to legally apply the patents otherwise.

Under the agreement announced today, Microsoft will retain ownership of about 275 AOL patents and applications, a license to the 300 patents AOL did not sell in its auction this month, and a license to the 650 patents and applications Facebook now owns. This is yet another extension of a long partnership between Facebook and Microsoft. The corporation was an early investor and advertising provider for the social network. The companies now offer integrated services through Bing, Skype, Office and other features.

Facebook updates Android app, adds new shortcuts to take over more of users’ homescreens

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 10:45 AM PDT

Facebook released an update for its Android app on Friday that includes additional messaging features and a shortcut to encourage users to take and post photos with Facebook.

After downloading Facebook for Android 1.9, users will have two new icons on their homescreen — Messenger and Camera — in addition to the icon for the main app. This seems to be a strategic move by Facebook to maintain relevance on Android. By owning the mobile operating system, Google can integrate its Google+ social networking features into users' phones in direct ways Facebook can't. For example, photos and videos from an Android phone are automatically uploaded to a user's private album on Google+.

Facebook, which thrives on photo sharing, has responded with a camera shortcut. With one tap, Android users will be able to pull up Facebook's camera feature to take a photo or video to share with friends on the site. After capturing a moment, users tag their friends and location, in addition to adding a caption and managing privacy settings.

The updated app also includes a shortcut to Facebook's messaging and chat features, again as a way to capture users who might otherwise turn to Google-owned apps for conversations. Facebook already offers a standalone app called Messenger, but now Android users will have an additional Messenger icon on their homescreen, also known as the app tray. The latest improvements to Facebook's native messages product make the standalone app redundant. Group messages, location-sharing, online status and having contacts sorted by frequency of interaction are all features once exclusive to Messenger that are now part of the general Facebook app. The social network might decide to discontinue development of the standalone Messenger for Android and focus on the main app.

Android users can download the Facebook app, which also includes a number of bug fixes and faster performance, from Google Play.

Images from Facebook.

Viddy, Dailymotion, Instagram, games, BranchOut, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 09:26 AM PDT

Mobile video app Viddy topped our list of the fastest growing Facebook applications by monthly active users this week. There were quite a few video-driven web integrations, too, as well as games, music and professional networking app BranchOut.

Titles on our list gained the most MAU of any apps on the platform, growing from between 400,000 and 4.1 million MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1.   Viddy 7,800,000 +4,100,000 + 111%
2.   Dailymotion 26,100,000 +3,900,000 + 18%
3.   Scribd 28,300,000 +2,200,000 + 8%
4.   Instagram 13,200,000 +1,400,000 + 12%
5.   Candy Crush Saga 2,000,000 +1,320,000 + 194%
6.   Bing 29,600,000 +1,200,000 + 4%
7.   Siz.net 3,800,000 +1,200,000 + 46%
8.   Pandora 16,800,000 +1,100,000 + 7%
9.   Metacafe 1,000,000 +850,000 + 567%
10.   Zynga Slingo 17,600,000 +800,000 + 5%
11.   Socialcam 1,400,000 +750,000 + 115%
12.   Flixster 4,500,000 +700,000 + 18%
13.   Younews.in 1,000,000 +630,000 + 170%
14.   Angry Birds 23,100,000 +600,000 + 3%
15.   Bubble Witch Saga 20,100,000 +500,000 + 3%
16.   schoolFeed 12,800,000 +500,000 + 4%
17.   BranchOut 13,400,000 +400,000 + 3%
18.   Hoop De Loop Saga 6,100,000 +400,000 + 7%
19.   Skype 11,100,000 +400,000 + 4%
20.   Texas HoldEm Poker 36,900,000 +400,000 + 1%

In yet another appearance on our list, Viddy grew by 4.1 million MAU this week. The app is best understood as “Instagram for video.” Users can add filters and effects to short video clips and share them with friends. Viddy integrates Open Graph to share additional activity, such as videos users watch and people they follow. Another mobile video app, Socialcam, gained 750,000 MAU this week.

Then there were a handful of video-driven websites that made the list; these sites tended to employ Open Graph’s heavy sharing techniques on their sites. Dailymotion grew the most by far with 3.9 million MAU. Other sites included the Turkish Siz.net, Metacafe and Younews.in.

Games on the list were led by King.com's Candy Crush Saga, which significantly outpaced other games this week. Other apps on the list included document sharing site Scribd, Facebook's latest acquisition Instagram, and the apps for Bing and Pandora.

Finally, professional networking app BranchOut is asking users to heavily recruit users from their different networks, which may have contributed to its growth this week. The app was also in the press after the company secured a new round of funding.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

tirsdag den 24. april 2012 at 07.13