Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook users are sharing 1B stories from Open Graph apps per day; Zuckerberg discusses options for future monetization
- Zuckerberg tight-lipped about lack of progress on Instagram deal
- Zuckerberg says building a phone ‘wouldn’t really make much sense for us to do’
- Despite meeting expectations, Facebook shares slide 11% in after-hours trading
- Breakdown of Facebook user growth by quarter and geography
- Facebook reports $1.184B in Q2 revenue, but a GAAP loss of $743 million on $1.3 billion in IPO-based charges
- Facebook looking for an executive briefing center manager to help woo advertisers
- Facebook brings Recommendations Bar plugin out of beta, but it no longer shares what users read
- The Ville, Viddy, Voxer, Nook, HootSuite, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
| Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:14 PM PDT
Open Graph apps are those that share users’ actions, such as reading, watching, listening and other custom activities to Timeline, Ticker and News Feed. These were first introduced in September 2011, but only began to be widely developed and used as of January 2012, when the social network began approving third-party integrations. Open Graph is an important aspect of Facebook’s growing platform, which Zuckerberg repeatedly referred to as being core to the social network’s strategy. The CEO also said that Facebook’s vision for the platform is “bigger than most people perceive.” He urged investors not to think about the platform as being solely about games on Facebook.com, even though that is the vast majority of the company’s $192-million payments business. Zuckerberg believes his platform will actually extend beyond the web itself. He talked about the future possibility of buying a new car, logging in with Facebook, and having the car populate with your favorite music, your friends’ addresses, restaurants you like and stores your friends have been to. Although Open Graph does not directly generate revenue for Facebook, except in the case of game developers who integrate the platform and also sell virtual goods, Zuckerberg discussed how in the future, the company will likely take a percentage revenue that is generated by applications that build on Open Graph. With games, Facebook take a 30 percent fee, which Zuckerberg suggested was because Facebook was such a core part of what drives value to the game companies. With media apps and commerce integrations, which are “more nuanced” social experiences, he said Facebook will probably take a lower fee. The company has not offered any time frame for these moves, but it is testing a new subscription billing option, which could be used by applications like Spotify and others, generating revenue for Facebook in the process. In the meantime, though, Zuckerberg says the company is focused on building tools and products that allow companies to build social products. He also noted that many of the top developers also become some of the social network’s biggest advertisers as they look to extend their reach to new users. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zuckerberg tight-lipped about lack of progress on Instagram deal Posted: 26 Jul 2012 04:08 PM PDT
Although the transaction was originally pegged to close during Q2, Facebook later changed its estimates to sometime in 2012. It’s likely that a Federal Trade Commission investigation of the deal — a standard procedure for acquisitions over $66 million — has slowed down the proceedings. The majority of deals reviewed by the FTC go through after the first, preliminary review, but until the deal is approved, the companies have to operate independently. According to the S-1 Facebook filed in advance of its initial public offering, the company has agreed to pay Instagram a $200 million termination fee if the acquisition doesn’t close. What we found interesting about Zuckerberg’s comments on the deal were the lack of positive forward-looking statements. He did not say anything about working with the company in the future, or allude to any possible integration. He also declined to provide any additional information about when the deal is expected to close, simply saying that Facebook would issue an update. The entire deal was reportedly made over a weekend, mostly between Zuckerberg and Instagram founder Kevin Systrom alone. Surprisingly, Facebook launched its own photo filtering and sharing iOS app called Camera just over a month later. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zuckerberg says building a phone ‘wouldn’t really make much sense for us to do’ Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:16 PM PDT
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Facebook was working with HTC to build a smartphone for release next year, citing “people with knowledge of the matter.” The article suggested Facebook is developing a modified operating system for the device. The social network responded with the following statement: "Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We're working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world." Zuckerberg echoed this on the earnings call today, saying the goal is to “be as deeply integrated as possible” in mobile experiences and noting how the company worked with Apple to become part of the upcoming iOS 6. He said Facebook is working to increase depth of experience on mobile devices and build an ecosystem that other apps can build on top of. Many have speculated over the years whether Facebook is working on its own device, possibly offering its own mobile operating system as a modified version of Android. Based on Zuckerberg’s comments today, it’s unclear how things will turn out, but it’s worth noting that HTC and Facebook collaborated last year on the HTC "ChaCha," an Android-based phone with a dedicated Facebook button to share music, photos and messages. The company could continue this strategy and partner with a number manufacturers and mobile providers rather than limiting Facebook to its own device and system. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Despite meeting expectations, Facebook shares slide 11% in after-hours trading Posted: 26 Jul 2012 02:15 PM PDT Facebook announced its first earnings results as a publicly traded company today, but despite reporting numbers right in line with analysts’ predictions, shares have fallen by more than 11 percent in after-hours trading to $23.84. Facebook’s shares also took a hit before today’s announcement, dropping 8.5 percent to $26.84 before the markets closed.
Facebook’s Q2 revenues were $1.184 billion. Excluding a $1.3 billion charge in stock-based compensation, Facebook’s non-GAAP income was $515 million, good enough for a net income of $295 million, with earnings per share of $0.12. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Breakdown of Facebook user growth by quarter and geography Posted: 26 Jul 2012 01:46 PM PDT Facebook announced new growth achievements today: 955 million monthly active users as of June 30, and an average of 552 million daily active users in June. Mobile MAUs were 543 million as of June 30, an increase of 67 percent year-over-year. Here are graphs from Facebook’s Q2 earnings release today.
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| Posted: 26 Jul 2012 01:20 PM PDT Facebook has released its second quarter earnings results, reporting revenues of $1.184 billion, up 32 percent from $895 million during the same period last year. The company’s non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) income was $515 million, good enough for a net income of $295 million, and earnings per share (EPS) of $0.12. However, the company’s GAAP numbers were significantly worse, owing to the massive $1.3 billion stock-based compensation charge related to its IPO. Taking that into account, Facebook reported a loss of $743 million for the quarter, and a $157 million hit to net income. Using GAAP accounting measures, EPS was a loss of $0.08.
It is also interesting to note Facebook’s Non-GAPP operating margin was 43 percent — down 10 percent year-over-year — something Facebook alluded to in the press release that accompanied today’s numbers, quoting founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as saying the company was very ”focused on investing in our priorities of mobile, platform and social ads.” The company has significantly expanded its team around the world and put new efforts into marketing and sales. Below is a look at Facebook’s expenses as a percentage of revenue, which shows where Facebook has begun investing.
As for revenue, Facebook took in $992 million from advertising and $192 million from payments and other fees. Advertising was 84 percent of total revenue and a 28 percent increase from the same quarter last year. The company also announced it had 955 million monthly active users as of June 30, and an average of 552 million daily active users in June. Mobile MAUs were 543 million as of June 30, an increase of 67 percent year-over-year. Additional reporting by Kathleen De Vere.
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| Facebook looking for an executive briefing center manager to help woo advertisers Posted: 26 Jul 2012 12:44 PM PDT
Large companies often have executive briefing centers to help clients get to know its business and product offerings. These programs are meant to give executives face-to-face experience with people in the company and a chance discuss opportunities for working together in the near future. The Facebook candidate is being asked to “develop a scalable process for managing multiple events simultaneously, while minimizing the impact on other teams” and ”create a plan for scaling the program around the world.” As Facebook’s main business is in advertising, the company says it is looking for someone with a “passion for the advertising industry.” Facebook added 18 other positions to its careers page, including a number of jobs in its recently announced London engineering team. Posts added this week on Facebook's Careers Page:
Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook brings Recommendations Bar plugin out of beta, but it no longer shares what users read Posted: 26 Jul 2012 11:21 AM PDT
When a person reaches the end of an article or after a certain amount of time has elapsed, a small pop-up appears at the bottom of a webpage, suggesting other articles to read — including those that friends have Liked or shared. The module also prompts readers to Like or recommend the article they’re on. The plugin, which was released in beta in September 2011, previously integrated the social reading and sharing capabilities of Open Graph, so users could post what they’ve read to Timeline. But it seems sometime last month, Facebook changed directions and now the plugin doesn’t work as a social reader, though it still includes a Like button for users to actively recommend articles to their friends. A spokesperson says, ”We tested it with social reading functionality but ultimately chose to focus the bar on Likes and Recommends, which is more suited for a broader set of apps and sites.” The company has received criticism for its “frictionless sharing” apps, which post what users read, watch or listen to. But we wondered whether the previous iteration of Recommendations Bar would help publishers convert their sites to Timeline apps and create a more unified experience across the web so users wouldn’t be confused about how their reading activity would be shared. Now that the company has backed away from offering its own social reader plugin, the user experience will continue to be fragmented across different sites. Third-party companies like ShareThis, however, are hoping fill the void with their own Open Graph sharing widgets. Facebook’s Recommendations Bar is already being used on sites such as Mashable, Wetpaint and The Mirror. Facebook has offered similar functionality with the Recommendations Box, but that module sits off to the side of an article and because it remains static, isn’t always as noticeable as the new plugin. The social network says early tests show three times higher clickthrough on the stories it recommends through Recommendations Bar than through the Recommendations Box. Information about how to add the social plugin to your site is available here. Newly launched Recommendations Bar
Previous version of Recommendations Bar, including social reading options
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| The Ville, Viddy, Voxer, Nook, HootSuite, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU Posted: 26 Jul 2012 09:30 AM PDT
Zynga’s The Ville vaulted from the emerging app charts to the top spot on our list of Facebook apps gaining the most daily active users this week. The life sim game had a 2,167 percent gain in DAU, as Zynga appears to be ramping up marketing efforts for the title. The titles below grew between 100,000 and 6.5 million DAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering growth for apps on Facebook. Top Gainers This Week
Mobile video sharing app Viddy gained more than 2.7 million DAU after releasing an iOS update on Monday. No. 3 Voxer is also still benefitting from a recent mobile update. Some of the apps that gained the highest percentage of DAU include No. 6 NOOK by Barnes & Noble, No. 7 HootSuite, No. 10 Birthday Calendar and No. 12 Super Texas Holdem Poker. 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 CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today that more than 1 billion stories are being shared from Open Graph apps per day.
It’s been over three months since Facebook announced it would buy mobile photo sharing application and social network Instagram for a combination of cash and shares worth up to 
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on today’s investor call that building a phone “wouldn’t really make much sense for us to do,” addressing rumors that the company was working on its own mobile device.
Facebook has added 
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