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New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: SponsorPay, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, SocialDealer and more

Posted: 30 May 2012 03:30 PM PDT

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms. Here are this week's highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Abundance, SponsorPay, Socialdealer, Warner Bros, Spooky Cool Labs,  Wooga, TinyCo, King.com, PopCap Games, Jellyvision Games, Mixr Inc. and Activision.

Abundance

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Facebook expands mobile Sponsored Stories to include recent post and call to action

Posted: 30 May 2012 02:12 PM PDT

Facebook is testing a new "Page Like" Sponsored Story in the mobile News Feed that is more than three times larger than the previous version of the ad.

These units now include a page's recent post and a clear call to action to Like the page directly from the feed. Previously, mobile "Page Like" stories required users to visit the page before seeing any content or being able to Like the brand. The larger size and prominent call to action could make these ads more effective. However, since the mobile unit includes the advertiser's logo rather than a friend's picture, users might be more likely to recognize the story as being an ad or skip past it completely.

This redesign is similar to a new unit Facebook has been testing in the desktop feed recently. The social network continues to experiment with several ad formats to find what works best for advertisers without causing backlash among users. Since launching mobile Sponsored Stories at the end of February, Facebook has been restrained in the number of ads it shows there. We typically see only a few Sponsored Stories in the mobile feed each week. Facebook has also prevented third-party ad providers from selling mobile inventory, despite telling us it would soon make other premium units available through the Ads API.

The company has not made any official announcements about new Sponsored Stories formats for desktop or mobile.

New 'Page Like' Sponsored Story

Previous ‘Page Like’ Sponsored Story

21 Questions, Socialcam, Shufflr, Zynga, mobile, horoscopes, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU

Posted: 30 May 2012 01:18 PM PDT

Quiz applications and games made up the bulk of the apps on our list of those growing by daily active users this week. There were also a few horoscope apps, as well as apps to watch videos like Socialcam, a mobile app and the Facebook Microsoft integration.

The titles below grew between 180,000 and 4.5 million DAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name DAU Gain Gain,%
1.   21 questions 4,900,000 +4,520,000 + 1,189%
2.   Between You and Me 1,800,000 +1,630,000 + 959%
3.   Zynga Bingo 1,800,000 +1,600,000 + 800%
4.   Socialcam 6,100,000 +1,400,000 + 30%
5.   Truth Game 1,300,000 +1,200,000 + 1,200%
6.   Microsoft 12,600,000 +1,000,000 + 9%
7.   Truths About You 1,000,000 +900,000 + 900%
8.   My Friend Secrets 950,000 +880,000 + 1,257%
9.   Daily Horoscope 5,200,000 +700,000 + 16%
10.   Get Revealed 720,000 +680,000 + 929%
11.   Angry Birds Friends 2,600,000 +300,000 + 13%
12.   Bejeweled Blitz 3,200,000 +300,000 + 10%
13.   Candy Crush Saga 2,600,000 +300,000 + 13%
14.   Horóscopos del Amor 380,000 +290,000 + 322%
15.   Bubble Safari 840,000 +260,000 + 45%
16.   Shufflr 600,000 +260,000 + 76%
17.   Lost Bubble 830,000 +230,000 + 38%
18.   Tư vấn, bói vui 230,000 +221,000 + 2,456%
19.   Frases de Amor 260,000 +200,000 + 333%
20.   Facebook 230,000 +180,000 + 360%

21 questions topped our list, growing by more than 4.5 million DAU. This app allows users to answer tongue-in-cheek questions about their friends and publish the results to their feed. The app also alerts friends that they were the subject of the quiz. The other five quiz apps on our list mirror this structure in various ways: Between You and Me, Truth Game, Truths About You, My Friend Secrets and Get Revealed.

Games on the list were led by Zynga Bingo, which was the only game to gain more than 1 million DAU. Horoscope apps in a variety of languages were also popular. These apps usually post daily to users’ feeds after being installed.

Socialcam, the video watching app, continued to see strong growth, as did similar app Shufflr. There was also the Microsoft Facebook integration and an Indian mobile app, Facebook by Fonetwish that promises to allow users to use Facebook — even if they have no Internet on their phones.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday.

Facebook rolls out ‘promote’ button to more U.S. pages, provides details on how it works

Posted: 30 May 2012 12:40 PM PDT

Facebook is rolling out its new "promote" button for pages with more than 400 fans in the U.S., according to the Facebook Marketing page.

The social network began testing the feature last month to make it easier for pages to increase the reach of their posts without going through the ad dashboard. Although the promote button simplifies the process, some page owners will resent the idea of having to pay for distribution to fans they've already acquired. Facebook seems to be becoming more aggressive about monetizing pages, but the rise of Sponsored Stories and promoted posts also stems from the reality that there is an increasing number of stories competing for placement in News Feed. Pages, like users, are not able to reach all of their followers organically.

For page owners willing to pay to ensure that more fans see their messages, promoted posts have the benefit of displaying in fans' News Feeds rather than in ad units on the side of the page. Facebook also says friends of the people who interact with promoted posts will be more likely to see the story in their feeds. The cost per reached fan seems to vary by page, but Facebook would not comment on what factors may influence price. The minimum spend appears to be $5, which can reach between 20 and 2,200 fans, based on different screenshots we've seen of the feature. This is a lifetime budget, not a daily budget.

Posts can be promoted for up to three days from when the post was first created. Older posts are not eligible for this type of promotion in order to maintain relevance in users' feeds. Promoted posts, like standard posts, can be targeted by location and language.

User flow for creating a promoted post

After making a post, click the “promote” button. Set a budget.

Clicking “more options” brings up details about the duration of the campaign and how page owners will be billed. There isn’t a way to change the date and time of when promoted posts will run, but page owners can pause and restart the campaign manually. Page owners can change their billing method by clicking the gear icon in the bottom left corner of the dialog.

After clicking “save,” the promoted post will be reviewed by Facebook’s ad team before beginning to get paid distribution. In the meantime, the post will appear in other users’ feeds as it would normally. Once the campaign begins, page owners will see reach details on the bottom of the posts on their Timeline. Hovering over the metrics will provide further detail.

Clicking on the “promoted for $X” button will offer insights on how many Likes, comments, shares or other actions were taken after users saw a promoted post. Page owners will also have the option to stop the promotion from here.

Promoted posts will appear in fans’ News Feeds with the word “sponsored” at the bottom.

Image credit: Facebook Help Center

Want More Data and Analysis? Introducing Inside Network Research

Posted: 30 May 2012 12:00 PM PDT

We know you're always looking for more data and insights, and we know how quickly the social and mobile ecosystem can change. That's why we're thrilled to announce the launch of Inside Network Research. Inside Network Research is an extension of our current research offerings with new monthly reports based on quantitative analysis, in-house player surveys, and market research.

Our goal is to provide more timely insights at a higher frequency, allowing you to receive more data and analysis to make key decisions in this fast-paced industry. Our current research series, Inside Virtual Goods, will be integrated with Inside Network Research.

The first Inside Network Research report will be Trends in Facebook Audience and Ad Market. Find more information here.

If you're interested in subscribing to Inside Network Research or a particular report in the Inside Network Research series, contact Kieran Barr, our VP of Sales and Social Media Research, at kieran.barr (at) insidenetwork.com.

Facebook tests button within mobile News Feed to drive users to native Instagram app

Posted: 30 May 2012 09:22 AM PDT

Facebook is testing a small icon on Instagram photos within the mobile News Feed that takes users out of Facebook and into Instagram, we've found.

The new button — seen in the bottom right corner of a post — is not necessarily exclusive to Instagram, though we have not yet seen any other third-party app icons in the mobile feed. Facebook agreed to acquire the mobile photo sharing app in April, but the deal has not been completed. This test is likely part of a larger plan to drive discovery and installs for mobile apps that integrate Open Graph.

Facebook's mobile platform allows HTML5 and native iOS and Android apps to get distribution through News Feed, bookmarks and requests. These channels sent more than 160 million visitors from Facebook to mobile apps in April. Icons like the one we saw for Instagram could help catch users' eyes as they scroll through the mobile feed and lead to even more app use.

Tapping the Instagram icon from the iOS Facebook app feed takes users directly to the native Instagram app and loads a user's photostream. However, tapping the icon from the m.facebook.com feed on an iPhone opens a new browser window that displays the photo on Instagram's mobile site. The Instagram button does not currently seem to appear in mobile Timeline or the new Facebook Camera feed.

We have not tested the new Instagram icon on Android devices, or on an iPhone that doesn’t already have the Instagram app installed. However, users who have not already downloaded Instagram are likely taken to the service’s App Store listing, as is the case for other mobile app links on the platform.

Note that Facebook’s mobile redesign makes some photo posts too large to be seen entirely without scrolling, so the photo above has been stitched together from two iPhone screenshots.

Before Facebook began testing the new icon, Instagram photos would appear on Facebook with a link to view the photo on Instagram’s website. It seems the link does not appear when the mobile app button is present. However, when viewing the photo outside of News Feed, the link displays again. See right.

While it’s possible the Instagram icon is the first test case for a new discovery stream for third-party apps, the new icon could also end up as a promotional tool for Facebook-owned services like Instagram, Facebook Camera or the recently acquired Karma.

Before the Instagram acquisition, the social network worked with the photo sharing app to test extending app publishing permissions to include the new Open Graph actions publishing. This resulted in a unique roll out of the Instagram Open Graph integration, which did not require users to re-authorize the application.

torsdag den 31. maj 2012 at 07.37