Inside Facebook

Page posts will have parity with those from users in upcoming News Feed redesign
Socialcam, quiz apps, Zynga Bingo, Instagram, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
Facebook may allow children under 13 on its social network: could it solve age verification on the Internet?
Inside Network Research Report: 27% of Facebook Audience In India Are Female; Ad Rates Only 1% Higher Than Males
Salesforce agrees to acquire Buddy Media for $745M
This week’s headlines from across Inside Network

Page posts will have parity with those from users in upcoming News Feed redesign

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 05:34 PM PDT

Posts from Facebook pages will gain more prominence than ever in a News Feed redesign that increases the size of images and text for all posts.

User photos will appear up to two times larger in the desktop News Feed, as TechCrunch reported earlier today. We’ve confirmed with Facebook that the change applies to Facebook pages as well, eliminating the disadvantage pages had from their images being displayed smaller than those from users’ friends.

The News Feed redesign will also make four photos from an album visible at once. Previously, only three photos were included in album stories. This follows the recent redesign of the mobile feed, which similarly favors large images over the ability to view multiple posts at once. Facebook is further positioning itself as a place for storytelling through visuals, following the rise of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. This is a move away from Twitter, which continues to be driven by text and is more efficient for following news in real time. The increased font and image size is also reminiscent of Google+.

The change, which can be seen in the image from TechCrunch below, will roll out to users over the next few days.

When Facebook increased the size of images in the desktop feed last year, it did so only for photos posted by users, not from pages. It seemed the company wanted prevent pages from putting ad-like images in the feed, but it put pages — even those that posted content fans would appreciate — at a disadvantage. See an example of how an album currently appears from a page to the right. With the redesign, pages will be able to occupy more than twice as much News Feed space as before.

As a result, pages that post photos could see a large bump in engagement. However, with the more prominent size, pages will have to make higher quality posts to avoid having users decide to hide or unlike their pages. Users could be more likely to mark a story as spam when it appears in the new size. Page owners should pay attention to the “virality” and “negative feedback” metrics in Facebook insights to track how their posts perform after the change.

The redesign also gives page owners further incentive to spend money on promoted posts, since users could be more likely to see and engage with these posts than they were when photos from pages were much smaller than other stories in their feed.

Socialcam, quiz apps, Zynga Bingo, Instagram, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 03:16 PM PDT

Video app Socialcam once again topped our list of the fastest growing Facebook applications by monthly active users this week.

Titles on our list gained the most MAU of any apps on the platform, growing from between 900,000 and 15.7 million MAU, based on our AppData tracking service.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Socialcam	69,900,000	+15,700,000	+ 29%
2.	21 questions	18,300,000	+7,900,000	+ 76%
3.	Zynga Bingo	7,800,000	+5,700,000	+ 271%
4.	Truth Game	5,800,000	+2,400,000	+ 71%
5.	Bubble Safari	4,000,000	+2,200,000	+ 122%
6.	Scribd	23,900,000	+1,900,000	+ 9%
7.	Candy Crush Saga	10,500,000	+1,600,000	+ 18%
8.	MyCalendar – Birthdays	32,800,000	+1,600,000	+ 5%
9.	Between You and Me	8,900,000	+1,400,000	+ 19%
10.	Lost Bubble	3,300,000	+1,300,000	+ 65%
11.	My Friend Secrets	3,800,000	+1,300,000	+ 52%
12.	Bubble Blitz	3,100,000	+1,200,000	+ 63%
13.	Truths About You	5,400,000	+1,200,000	+ 29%
14.	Birthday Calendar 2012 ★	3,300,000	+1,100,000	+ 50%
15.	Pyramid Solitaire Saga	4,300,000	+1,100,000	+ 34%
16.	DoAlbums	1,500,000	+1,080,000	+ 257%
17.	Photo Contest	5,600,000	+1,000,000	+ 22%
18.	Get Revealed	3,200,000	+900,000	+ 39%
19.	Instagram	18,000,000	+900,000	+ 5%
20.	Skype	16,000,000	+900,000	+ 6%

Socialcam continues to burn up the charts as it approaches 70 million MAU. Most of that number seems to come from new users adding the app, as we can tell from Socialcam’s high number of daily active users but relatively low DAU over MAU percentage. Unless Socialcam can find ways to regularly engage its existing users, we’re likely to soon see a sharp decline in MAU. Facebook has also recently implemented some changes that could reduce the frequency of Socialcam stories in users’ feeds.

Canvas-based quiz app 21 Questions took the No. 2 spot this week after seeing an overall decline in MAU since March. Other quiz apps – Truth Game, Between You and Me, My Friend Secrets, Truths About You and Get Revealed – followed nearly the exact same growth trends, indicating that over the past two weeks Facebook has made some change leading quiz apps to gain traction again.

Instagram saw a bump in MAU this week after a mostly slow May. The increase could be the result of a new feature we discovered last week that puts an Instagram icon in users’ mobile feeds to direct users to the native Instagram app.

Zynga Bingo led games on the platform, though five others made the top 20 this week.

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.

Facebook may allow children under 13 on its social network: could it solve age verification on the Internet?

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 01:01 PM PDT

There’s certain to be a lot of scrutiny and backlash over any implementation of Facebook accounts for children under 13, which the social network is reportedly exploring. But if the company can find an appropriate balance of features and parental controls, it may be able to serve users in new ways and help solve the Internet-wide issue of age verification.

Facebook currently requires users to be at least 13 years old, but some studies have found a significant number of children are on the site anyway. Users lying about their age goes against Facebook’s emphasis on “real identity,” but it also puts the company in a precarious position as far as how it handles children’s privacy and safety.

“Recent reports have highlighted just how difficult it is to enforce age restrictions on the Internet, especially when parents want their children to access online content and services,” Facebook said in statement to the Wall Street Journal. “We are in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policy makers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.”

Notice that Facebook did not refer to its own platform in that statement. The wording is designed to avoid implying that any particular features are in the works, but it also reinforces Facebook’s philosophy that everything it does has wider implications for the Web. If Facebook can get younger users to create legitimate accounts that are verified by their parents, other websites and applications could end up using Facebook login to verify a user’s age and tailor the experience appropriately. Currently, websites will ask users to self-report their age, but they do not do anything to verify whether that is the same age a person has used on other sites. Apps that connect with Facebook are more likely to be able to confirm whether a user is over 18 or 21, for example, but if much younger users are lying about their age to get onto the social network, then Facebook login won’t necessarily help. If Facebook becomes the standard for age-gating online content, then there is an incentive for parents to make sure their children have an account with their correct birthdate.

As for how lowering the age barrier would affect Facebook itself, we imagine that an under-13 version of the site would have significant restrictions on who could see a child’s profile and what features children can access. For example, currently Facebook prevents any minor from posting anything publicly — the widest privacy setting they can enable is friends of friends. Facebook also sets location sharing as off by default for users under 18. Wall Street Journal sources say Facebook is looking at ways to give parents control over the people and applications their children connect with on the site.

The social network will likely limit — or possibly forgo — advertising to users under 13. Facebook’s ad model emphasizes friend connections to encourage users to connect with pages or apps. The company recently settled a lawsuit that claimed its Sponsored Stories misappropriated users’ names and photos for advertising. Using children’s identities this way is likely to be even more sensitive. Most existing social networks for young people avoid advertising. Some charge membership subscription fees, but Facebook isn’t likely to go that route since it emphasizes that it is a free service. It could instead monetize through the use of Facebook Credits for games and other digital goods. Payments from Credits made up about 15 percent of Facebook’s more than $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011. Many parents already let their kids play games from their account, and some of the most popular sites for kids are virtual world games like Club Penguin, Webkinz and Moshi Monsters.

Walt Disney Co., which owns Club Penguin, has a strong position in kids’ social networking and has reportedly had discussions with Facebook about opening up the site to younger users. Disney recently acquired Togetherville, a site that used Facebook login to allow parents to manage their kids’ accounts and connect with other parents, but it shut the site down in March. Disney’s social networking efforts are primarily entertainment-based rather than utility-focused, as Facebook is. For example, elementary education might be an area that gets reshaped by Facebook. We’ve already seen Khan Academy and Grockit integrate Open Graph to share teens’ studying and test-prep activity. Facebook itself has introduced new university-only groups that help students connect, organize events and share documents. With time, we could see ways for younger students to benefit from online networking.

Facebook could also help parents chronicle their kids’ lives with Timeline. Some users have already begun to do this after having a new baby, but because of age restrictions, parents have to set a fake birth year. Facebook could build a better process for helping parents’ document important events in their kids’ lives and then enabling accounts to be transferred to children over time.

Inside Network Research Report: 27% of Facebook Audience In India Are Female; Ad Rates Only 1% Higher Than Males

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 12:00 PM PDT

Last week, we announced the launch of Inside Network Research, our new subscription service dedicated to providing monthly research reports. What follows is data excerpted from Trends in Facebook Audience and Ad Market, the first report in our new service.

An area of particular focus in this report is nuances in the value of a demographic segment, particularly in emerging markets such India where Facebook’s audience is experiencing 84% growth year-over-year to make it the platform’s third-largest audience in 2012. Despite the U.S. audience being more than three times the size of India, India's Facebook ad rates are 63% lower than the U.S.

The general Facebook advertising rule of thumb is that ad rates for females are higher than for males, especially in the western market. There is more demand for the female consumer, especially on the Facebook platform, which drives up rates. In most top markets, this holds true; female ad rates are 8% higher in the U.S. India, however, tells a different story: Its female audience makes up 27% of the country’s Facebook audience, yet female ad rates are only 1% higher than for males.

We also see differences in how India’s age demographics impact Facebook ad rates. In the U.S., ad rates for older age groups are higher due to the size of audience and demand of older age groups. In India, we do see an increase in ad rates for older age groups, but we find it to be inconsistent with the increase found in older age groups in the U.S. audience. This despite the fact that India skews younger, with 87% of the country's audience under 34 years old.

The above chart compares ad rate differences in the 13- to 17-year-old age group in each market.

The still early adoption of Facebook in India is likely a top factor in demographic ad rate shifts. We also expect to see a ceiling to what advertisers are willing to pay in the market. Volume will be a key factor with 84% year-over-year growth; India is definitely a market to keep an eye on in the coming months and years as Facebook reconciles ad value and demand for the region.

If you have any comments about this topic, we'd be interested in your thoughts. Feel free to email us at mail (at) insidenetwork.com

To read more of Trends in Facebook Audience & Ad Market, download an excerpt of the report here. If you're interested in obtaining a full copy, a particular report in the Inside Network Research series, or subscribing to Inside Network Research, contact Kieran Barr, our VP of Sales and Social Media Research, at kieran.barr (at) insidenetwork.com.

Salesforce agrees to acquire Buddy Media for $745M

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 09:42 AM PDT

Enterprise cloud computing company Salesforce announced today that it will acquire social media marketing platform Buddy Media for $745 million in cash and stock.

With its page management, app development, analytics and Facebook advertising tools, Buddy Media is a strong addition to Salesforce’s “Marketing Cloud,” which already includes social listening platform Radian6. The acquisition is the largest one Salesforce has ever made and significantly larger than past deals involving social marketing software. Last month, Oracle reportedly bought Vitrue for $300 million, and in January, Adobe bought Efficient Frontier for $400 million.

Today’s announcement puts further pressure on SAP, IBM and other CRM businesses to add more social media capabilities to their enterprise platforms. As AllThingsD reports, Salesforce estimates the acquisition will increase its revenues for the second half of its 2013 fiscal year by $20 million to $25 million. Social marketing platforms like Involver, Syncapse and Wildfire could be potential targets for another company.

Although a press release listed the deal at $698 million, a regulatory filing indicates that it is actually valued at $745 million. The price for Buddy Media was likely driven up by its own recent acquisition of Brighter Option, which gives them a foothold in the growing Facebook Ads API business. Facebook told us last month that it would begin to sell premium homepage ad inventory through third-party vendors and tools. It is also becoming clear that the cost of reaching fans through Facebook pages is going to increase quickly over the next few years. Buddy Media is in a strong position to help companies run Sponsored Stories or Promoted Posts, and take a percentage of their spend.

Buddy Media was founded by Mike and Kass Lazerow not long after Facebook opened its platform in 2007. The company has about 1,000 customers, including some of the world’s largest brands and agencies: Ford, Mattel, IPG, Omnicom and others. In addition to being part of the Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer program, Buddy Media is a Google Engagement Solutions partner and LinkedIn Certified Developer.

This week’s headlines from across Inside Network

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 10:16 AM PDT

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you between May 8 and June 2.