Inside Facebook

TripAdvisor, Bubble Safari, SongPop, SimCity Social, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
Facebook now allows pages to make ‘unpublished’ posts to test creative options
Face.com shuts down API and Klik mobile app following Facebook acquisition
Facebook and CNN team up for U.S. presidential election initiatives
App Center launches for English-speaking countries; translations now accepted
This week’s headlines from across Inside Network

TripAdvisor, Bubble Safari, SongPop, SimCity Social, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 07:45 PM PDT

TripAdvisor again takes the No. 1 spot on our list of top growing Facebook apps by monthly active users this week.

Titles on our list gained the most MAU of any apps on the platform, growing from between 540,000 and 2.1 million MAU, based on our AppData tracking service.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain %
1.	TripAdvisor™	35,300,000	+2,100,000	+ 6%
2.	Bubble Safari	30,000,000	+1,900,000	+ 7%
3.	SongPop	7,200,000	+1,800,000	+ 33%
4.	SimCity Social	1,900,000	+1,330,000	+ 233%
5.	Terra	13,400,000	+1,100,000	+ 9%
6.	Static HTML: iframe tabs	22,400,000	+1,100,000	+ 5%
7.	Pedido de Amigos	5,000,000	+1,100,000	+ 28%
8.	Instagram	22,200,000	+1,000,000	+ 5%
9.	Dragon City	3,500,000	+800,000	+ 30%
10.	Static HTML… [Fourth Tab]	3,700,000	+800,000	+ 28%
11.	Glassdoor	4,500,000	+800,000	+ 22%
12.	Zoosk	10,300,000	+800,000	+ 8%
13.	Static HTML… [Third Tab]	4,800,000	+700,000	+ 17%
14.	Static HTML… [Second Tab]	8,100,000	+700,000	+ 9%
15.	TA Hare/Carrot™	760,000	+680,000	+ 850%
16.	Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM	1,400,000	+660,000	+ 89%
17.	Static HTML… [Eighth Tab]	1,100,000	+610,000	+ 124%
18.	Static HTML… [Fifth Tab]	1,900,000	+600,000	+ 46%
19.	Samsung Mobile	18,200,000	+600,000	+ 3%
20.	My Photos+	1,100,000	+540,000	+ 96%

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Facebook now allows pages to make ‘unpublished’ posts to test creative options

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 01:19 PM PDT

Facebook recently added an option for pages to make "unpublished" posts through the Pages API. Unpublished posts do not appear on a page's Timeline or in fans' News Feeds, but they can be promoted with ads.

Facebook ad and page management platforms can integrate this feature to help page owners test different creative options. Previously, page owners using the self-serve ad tool or Ads API could not run page-post ads without creating a post that would also show up in fans' feeds. Now, for instance, a business can target non-fans with an ad that includes an intro video that might not be relevant to users who have already Liked the page.

The feature might also be useful for testing copy for potential posts. For example, a page can create a few unpublished posts and then turn them into ad units. Based on the response, page owners can decide which variation to ultimately publish to all fans or put more ad dollars against. Pages could also use this as a way to reach different segments of their audience with different messages, whether its promoting different posts for men and women or promoting certain content based on specific interests.

Premium advertisers — those working directly with Facebook to run ads on the homepage — have had the option to make page-post ads without publishing them to their page since February if not earlier. Including the unpublished posts feature in the API will give third-party ad providers and page management companies the opportunity to better serve brands and other page owners that are looking for ways to optimize their social media efforts.

Hat tip to David Turner, of PageLever, for pointing out this addition to the Pages API.

Face.com shuts down API and Klik mobile app following Facebook acquisition

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 11:51 AM PDT

Three weeks after being acquired by Facebook, Face.com announced it will shut down its facial recognition APIs and it has already removed its mobile app Klik from the App Store.

The Israeli company built facial recognition software for web and mobile applications, which could identify and tag people in a photo or help users discover photos of themselves they didn't know were online. When it announced the acquisition, Face.com said it would continue to support the developer community that uses its APIs. Now the company says it will need to shut down its existing products and services to focus on new efforts at Facebook. The Next Web reports that the APIs will be closed down over the next 30 days, though some developers may be able to request an extension to find an alternative solution.

Face.com's Klik app, which is no longer available, used face recognition to let users tag their friends in real time. It also allowed users to apply and adjust photo filters based on faces found in an image. These features are likely to be integrated into Facebook's new standalone camera app.

Face.com founder and CEO Gil Hirsch previously suggested in a blog post that his team would be focused on mobile when it joins the social network company.

"We love building products, and like our friends at Facebook, we think that mobile is a critical part of people's lives as they both create and consume content, and share content with their social graph," Hirsch wrote. "By working with Facebook directly, and joining their team, we'll have more opportunities to build amazing products that will be employed by consumers – that's all we've ever wanted to do."

Facebook and CNN team up for U.S. presidential election initiatives

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 10:49 AM PDT

Facebook has partnered with CNN to offer apps and insights related to the 2012 U.S. presidential election, the social network announced today.

Facebook and CNN will launch an "I'm Voting" application for users to commit to vote and endorse particular candidates and issues. The Open Graph-enabled app will display users' pledges to vote in Ticker, Timeline and News Feed, as well as in an interactive map. Facebook says the app, which will be available in English and Spanish, will serve as a "second screen" for CNN's election coverage. CNN personalities will use the app to ask Facebook users questions throughout the election cycle and report on the results.

Facebook will also provide CNN with metrics about the discussion of each presidential and vice presidential candidate on the social network. The companies will survey voting-age users around the time of the national conventions, presidential debates, election day and any other significant dates. This is likely similar to the partnership Facebook had with Politico during the Republican primaries. Facebook also previously worked with NBC News to implement research polls leading up to the primaries.

Facebook has been active in promoting participation in U.S. national elections since 2008. On election day, Facebook has let users search for their polling place and publish an "I voted" status. In April 2011, the company held a live townhall with President Barack Obama at its Palo Alto headquarters. Most recently, the social network co-sponsored the GOP presidential debate before the New Hampshire Republican primary with NBC's "Meet The Press" and partnered with R/GA to produce a political polling app, 2012 Matters: What Matters Most. Through the app, users could indicate which issues were most important to them and have their answers appear on the Nasdaq digital billboard in Times Square.

Readers can follow how the candidates’ Facebook fan bases are growing and how many people are talking about their pages by using our Inside Facebook Election Tracker and PageData service.

App Center launches for English-speaking countries; translations now accepted

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 09:31 AM PDT

Facebook today announced that App Center has been rolled out to all users in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

In coming weeks, App Center — a personalized site for users to discover mobile, canvas and web apps connected with Facebook — will be available to users in Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey. Developers are asked to submit translated app detail pages for these countries by using the "localize" tab within their app dashboard. The company says submissions that are turned in before Friday will be prioritized for review.

Facebook says App Center has already driven millions of app installs since it launched to users in the U.S. last month. The social network emphasizes that App Center is a place for "high-quality" apps. The dashboard is personalized for each user, sorting apps by category and user ratings, as well as by what a user's friends have added. If a user has blocked an app in the past, it will not appear in App Center. In some cases, the dashboard will also hide an app if a user has already connected with it.

From an app's detail page, users can see an app's star rating, top in-app purchases, screenshots and what permissions the app needs, among other information. If users discover a mobile app from the desktop App Center, they can choose "send to phone," which will send a push notification that includes a link to Apple's App Store or Google Play.

In order for an app to appear in App Center, developers must follow a set of submission guidelines and wait for review from Facebook. The company says uses a variety of signals — including user feedback and engagement within apps — to determine whether or not an app will be listed in App Center. Details about how to submit an app to be listed are available here.