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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook

Facebook makes another mobile acquisition: location app Glancee

Posted: 04 May 2012 08:09 PM PDT

Facebook today closed a deal to acquire Glancee, an ambient mobile location app that alerts users when people with similar interests are nearby, according to an announcement on Glancee’s website.

Co-founders of the San Francisco-based startup — Andrea Vaccari, Alberto Tretti and Gabriel Grise — will join Facebook, but other terms of the deal were not disclosed. Glancee has already been removed from the Apple App Store.

This is the social network’s third mobile acquisition since filing for an initial public offering. The company bought mobile photo sharing app Instagram and mobile loyalty startup Tagtile within a single week in April. These, along with the six mobile acquisitions made last year, signal that Facebook wants to bring top mobile talent and technology to its company.

Glancee’s iPhone app let users sign in with Facebook, and then it would show users other people who have things in common with them within a certain radius. The app had 20,000 monthly active and 3,000 daily active Facebook-connected users, according to our AppData tracking service. Its competitor, Highlight, has 80,000 MAU and 9,000 DAU.

Unlike Instagram, which is continuing as a standalone application under its own name, Glancee could evolve into a Facebook-branded app or become part of the mobile Messenger app, which already shares a person’s location. Messenger, as it happens, is the result of Facebook’s acquisition of group messaging app Beluga last year.

Facebook’s main iOS and Android app will send users a push notification when one of their friends checks into a place nearby, but this does not seem to happen when a user simply tags a location in a photo or status, so most users rarely get these alerts or even know the feature exists.

 

Facebook roundup: Messenger, Open Compute Project, IPO, Like button, FBI, Ordr.in. more

Posted: 04 May 2012 06:00 PM PDT

iOS and Android Messenger app gets update - Facebook’s standalone mobile Messenger app got an update today so users can now see whether their messages were received and more quickly see the location from which a message was sent. Image via Techcrunch

Facebook Messenger for iPad, video chat for iPhone in development - 9to5Mac says a source provided the site with access to an upcoming Facebook Messenger app for iPad and a version of the iPhone app with video chat features.

Facebook introduces Open Rack - Facebook introduced a new open source server design Wednesday called Open Rack. Part of the company’s “Open Compute Project,” Open Rack is meant to increase efficiency in Facebook’s data centers, the entire design of which is open sourced so others can model after it or improve upon it.

Facebook joins GNI with unique status – Facebook has joined the Global Network Initiative as an observer, Fast Company reports. The GNI is a consortium of institutions that monitor Internet firms on issues of free speech and human rights. As an “observer,” the company does not have to submit to auditing. It is the first company to have this special status.

Facebook’s first buy rating – Facebook saw its first buy rating from Wedbush Securities Inc. this week, with a target price of $44. That’s well above the $28 to $35 range Facebook set earlier this week.

Like button is not protected speech – A federal judge in Virginia ruled this week that Liking something on Facebook was not tantamount to speech protected under the First Amendment.

FBI lobbying for Facebook backdoor – Wired reports that the FBI has been lobbying Facebook, as well as other companies like Yahoo and Google, to give them backdoor government access to their platforms for wiretapping.

Googles Ordr.in launches Timeline integration – Google Ventures' Ordr.in became the first restaurant commerce app to integrate Facebook Open Graph. Users of the app can order from a restaurant and share their activity to Facebook timeline using the new actions "crave" and "eat."

U.K. bouncers identifying patrons via Facebook – Bouncers in some U.K. bars are asking patrons for their smartphones to compare IDs to Facebook profiles in order to guard against fake IDs.

Roadwire wins Facebook Small Business Boost contest - Roadwire, an automotive aftermarket manufacturer and distributor based in Austin, Texas, won the Facebook Small Business Boost contest that rewarded companies that added the most new fans in a given period. Roadwire added over 125,000 fans in less than three months, and earned $10,000 in Facebook advertising as a prize.

Walkthrough of how to use Facebook’s updated self-serve ad tool

Posted: 04 May 2012 03:37 PM PDT

Facebook has been testing a new self-serve ad tool that frames ad creation in easier-to-understand terms and simplifies the steps to starting a new campaign.

Now that we’ve had the opportunity to use the ad tool ourselves, we can see Facebook is making positive strides in creating a tool that small businesses and individuals can use effectively to create campaigns for their pages, apps and other content. However, we have some doubts about the new “objective” section. Targeting any objective besides clicks forces advertisers to pay on a cost per impression basis rather than bid on cost per click. It is unclear whether this an improvement, and we’ve heard mixed reviews from some advertisers who have tested the option.

What follows is a walkthrough of what it is like to create a campaign for a Facebook page using the new ad tool. Note that the tool is still in beta and some users might see different variations in design, phrasing or features.

Set up your ad or Sponsored Story

When users select “Create an ad” from their page’s Timeline or anywhere else on the site, the first thing they do is select the destination of the ad they want to run, whether its a page, an app or external URL. This is an improvement over the old design, which provided all of an advertiser’s options on a single page, which could be overwhelming for someone first considering making a campaign. However, as we’ve covered, some users with the new format cannot yet create ads for their Facebook events.

What do you want to promote?

After users select their ad destination, Facebook asks “What do you want to promote?” When the ad destination is a page, advertisers can select the page itself or a specific post from the page. This is much clearer than the option in the old tool, which made users choose between the ambiguously named “Sponsored Stories” and “Facebook Ads.”

When advertisers indicated that they want to promote their page, not just a specific post, they see another two options: “A new ad about [your page]” or “Stories about their friends liking [your page].” The former presents fields for creating a traditional Facebook ad with an image and body copy. These ads can lead to third-party tab applications, if desired.

When advertisers choose the latter option, they create Sponsored Stories, which will show the name of the page and a thumbnail of its profile photo, along with the name and photo of a friend who Likes the page. There is no additional customization available for this type of ad.

When advertisers decide they want to promote a specific page post, they get a drop-down menu of recent posts that can be used in ads. After selecting a post, advertisers can select whether they want to promote the post itself or promote stories about friends who Like the given post. Facebook could provide more explanation about the differences between these types of ads, for example, in terms of reach and placement. The second option, which Facebook sometimes calls Page-Post Like Sponsored Stories, have a smaller potential audience because Facebook won’t show the ad to users unless they have a friend who engaged with the post. However, these ads are eligible to run in News Feed, whereas a specific page post ad will never appear in News Feed for non-fans.

Choose your audience

The next step after choosing any of those four ad types is defining an audience. The demographic targeting is the same as it was in the old tool, but now advertisers can target precise interests and broad categories at the same time. Previously, advertisers could only choose one or the other. Now, for example, an advertiser can target the broad category of Hispanics and then refine that target to only those who are interested in Barack Obama.

Objective

Next up is the “Objective” section where advertisers select whether they want the ad shown to people who are most likely to click on their ads or take an action such as Liking a page. The old ad tool did not have a feature like this. When advertisers choose “click on my ad or sponsored story,” they will then be asked for a cost per click bid.

However, when advertisers choose “Like my page,” Facebook removes the CPC option and requires them to pay by impression. There is no bidding involved. Supposedly, Facebook will change who it shows an ad to based on the action, advertisers select, but it’s unclear how much of a difference this makes in an ad’s outcome. Although some less experienced advertisers might prefer not to have to deal with bidding for clicks, others will see this option as giving them less control and requiring more monitoring to optimize their ad performance.

After 6-month run, page tab application no longer tops Facebook apps by MAU

Posted: 04 May 2012 12:23 PM PDT

Static HTML: iFrame Tabs — a utility for page owners to customize their pages with landing tabs and applications — has fallen to No. 2 on the AppData chart for top applications by monthly active users after more than 6 months at No. 1.

The app lost its position on Thursday, leaving room for Yahoo Social Bar to take the lead. The two were tied on Wednesday with 42 million MAU, but Yahoo still doesn’t have quite as many users as Static HTML did on Tuesday.

Across the board, page tab applications like those from Thunderpenny, Woobox and a number of music-focused developers, are losing users more quickly than they ever gained them. Open Graph applications, like Yahoo Social Bar, are among the fastest growing and top overall applications by monthly active users. This is a trend we expect to continue over the course of the year until Facebook at some point eliminates page tabs completely.

The Thunderpenny-developed Static HTML app lost about half of its monthly active users since Facebook widely implemented Timeline for pages and removed the default landing tab option in March. The app overtook CityVille and The Sims Social for the No. 1 spot on Oct. 16, 2011, with 61 million MAU. It grew to a peak of 89.7 million MAU on Feb. 14, but has since dropped to 41.2 million MAU, according to our AppData tracking service.

At the same time, Yahoo's social reading integration has grown to 42.4 million MAU, largely because of the viral nature of Open Graph: stories automatically post to Timeline, Ticker and News Feed when users engage with the app. Because of the emphasis on News Feed discovery, Open Graph applications can regularly draw users back to their apps. Yahoo Social Bar also benefits from living off-Facebook. Yahoo can capitalize on the massive amounts of traffic it already has on its site.

In contrast, page tab applications are rarely discovered unless a page directs an ad campaign to the tab. These apps then struggle with re-engagement because users rarely return to fan pages after clicking Like. Another issue is that page tabs aren't available on mobile devices, whereas many Open Graph apps are. For example, Yahoo has a mobile web app version of its social news reader, which Facebook says was getting 1.4 million visits a day in February.

Although Static HTML and other page tab apps still have millions of users today, we can only foresee their numbers continuing to fall. As mobile usage increases, the potential audience for these apps shrinks. There is also the growing trend of pages running Sponsored Stories and page-post ads, which unlike traditional Facebook ads, cannot lead directly to a tab application. We can imagine Facebook completely eliminating its traditional ad format within the next year or two. It could also do away with third-party page tab applications completely in favor of the Timeline activity box display it uses for personal profiles. Either way, it's clear that Facebook believes in Open Graph as the future of its platform and developers will need to respond accordingly to maintain relevance moving forward.

Buggle, games, file sharing, Etsy, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU

Posted: 04 May 2012 09:28 AM PDT

Games dominated our list of emerging Facebook applications by monthly active users this week. Among the other applications were a document sharing service, Ustream’s livestreaming app, the Etsy integration and a French music site.

We define emerging applications as those that ended with between 100,000 and 1 million MAU in the past week. This week’s top apps grew from between 110,000 and 470,000 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1.   Buggle 910,000 +470,000 + 107%
2.   Docstoc.com 670,000 +390,000 + 139%
3.   Phrases 4 Fun 610,000 +300,000 + 97%
4.   Top Shot: The Game 480,000 +220,000 + 85%
5.   Armies of Magic 760,000 +210,000 + 38%
6.   Static HTML… [Ninth Tab] 920,000 +190,000 + 26%
7.   Angry Words (Apalabrados) 870,000 +160,000 + 23%
8.   Send Gift 160,000 +159,980 + 799,900%
9.   The Hunger Games Adventures 970,000 +140,000 + 17%
10.   Mystic Ice Blast 170,000 +130,000 + 325%
11.   Ustream 880,000 +130,000 + 17%
12.   Etsy 350,000 +120,000 + 52%
13.   Hidden Adventures 290,000 +120,000 + 81%
14.   JumpIt 2: Dockyard Run 290,000 +120,000 + 71%
15.   Mirrorball Slots 970,000 +120,000 + 14%
16.   Plumet 2 250,000 +120,000 + 92%
17.   Tetris Stars 350,000 +120,000 + 52%
18.   الأبراج اليومية 840,000 +120,000 + 17%
19.   我的傳奇 900,000 +120,000 + 18%
20.   Beezik 160,000 +110,000 + 220%

Buggle by Cookapps topped our list of games, significantly outpacing others includeding Top Shot: The Game, Armies of Magic, The Hunger Games Adventures and Tetris Stars.

As mentioned, the filesharing site Docstoc.com, livestream app Ustream, Etsy app and French music site Beezik were popular; these all integrated Facebook sharing.

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

lørdag den 5. maj 2012 at 07.12