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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook

Facebook roundup: share price up, Firefox gets social, Radian6 staff cut and more

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 06:00 PM PDT

Facebook stock sees post-earnings surge – Following the company’s third quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Facebook experienced its largest single-day leap in stock price since the company went public in May of this year. Shares went as high as $24 on Wednesday after the company reported better Q3 numbers than expected. The stock closed at $21.94 this week, up 14 percent for the week. Shares had been mostly below $20 since Oct. 10. The stock is expected to continue to fluctuate, especially with major lock-ups ending next month and putting more than 1.2 billion in employee restricted stock units on the market.

COO Sheryl Sandberg, VP of Marketing David Fischer, VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer, CFO David Ebersman, Chief Accounting Officer David Spillane and General Counsel Ted Ullyot all had RSUs vest this week, however, Facebook will withhold about 45 percent of those shares and pay the tax on them, preventing executives from having to pay the taxes themselves while helping to protect the stock price.

Facebook, Mozilla team up to make Firefox more social - Mozilla released Facebook Messenger for Firefox this week as part of the beta version of its new Social API. The company worked with Facebook to create a Firefox sidebar that allows users to share content and check Facebook notifications without leaving the site they’re on. The Social API enables other social networking services to integrate with the browser and create more social experiences for users.

Salesforce reportedly laying off Radian6 staff - Cloud account management giant Salesforce is cutting staff from its social media listening service Radian6, according to TechVibes. A Salesforce rep confirmed that the company was undergoing some restructuring following both Radian6′s May 2011 acquisition and the acquisition of Buddy Media this past June.

Eventbrite study shows Facebook generates the most revenue for planners - Facebook drives more event ticket sales than other social networks, according to a new study by virtual ticket sender Eventbrite. Eventbrite found that each event posted on Facebook on average gives the organizer an additional $4.15 in revenue. By comparison, Twitter links generate an average $1.85 additional revenue per event, and LinkedIn generates only $0.92 per event.

Facebook recommends upcoming concerts in News Feed

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 05:17 PM PDT

Some Facebook users are seeing a new "Upcoming Concerts" story in their feeds. The feature seems to suggest nearby music events based on a user's interests, listening activity and friend connections.

It is unclear whether Facebook is testing other recommended event stories or if this is limited to music for now. Either way, this is another example of how Facebook can leverage data beyond the social graph, and help people discover things based on their interests and location. As users Like more pages, add location to their posts and use new Open Graph applications, Facebook can provide interesting and relevant recommendations for a number of categories.

Nearly a year ago Facebook began testing "Suggested Events," a list of recommendations based on pages users Like, places they've been and actions they've taken in Open Graph apps. When the company redesigned the events product this summer, suggested events began appearing directly on users' calendars rather than on a separate page accessed through a sub-navigation menu. Even still, users don't typically visit their events page every day so they might not discover these options. As long as the recommendations are relevant, users may welcome seeing suggested events in News Feed.

Besides the new upcoming concerts feature in the feed, Facebook has other music discovery features. The music dashboard launched last year at f8 lets users know what songs and artists are popular among their friends. Recently, it also began highlighting music that is similar to other artists users have listened to.

Thanks to Tom Waddington for the tip and the screenshot of Upcoming Concerts.

JetSet Secrets, MeuChip, Cinemagram, Jurassic Park Builder and more on this week’s emerging Facebook apps

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 02:34 PM PDT

Electronic Arts’ JetSet Secrets led our list of emerging Facebook applications by monthly active users this week with 214 percent gain. 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 between 60,000 and 360,000 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain %
1.  JetSet Secrets 990,000 +360,000   + 57%
2.  Ulang Tahun 540,000 +180,000   + 50%
3.  Angry Space Birds 470,000 +160,000   + 52%
4.  Vector 950,000 +140,000   + 17%
5.  MeuChip 230,000 +130,000   + 130%
6.  Bubble Bunny 890,000 +130,000   + 17%
7.  Best Friends 250,000 +100,000   + 67%
8.  Cinemagram 360,000 +100,000   + 38%
9.  Texas HoldEm Poker Deluxe 790,000 +90,000   + 13%
10.  High 5 Casino 318,775 +81,001   + 34%
11.  Talkatone 240,000 +80,000   + 50%
12.  Jurassic Park Builder 350,000 +80,000   + 30%
13.  Social Video 440,000 +80,000   + 22%
14.  Bubble Country 720,000 +80,000   + 13%
15.  Polls 230,000 +70,000   + 44%
16.  عيد الميلاد – رزنامتي 330,000 +70,000   + 27%
17.  FunSara 770,000 +70,000   + 10%
18.  Miscrits: Volcano Island 960,000 +70,000   + 8%
19.  Chill 170,000 +60,000   + 55%
20.  My Top Fans 340,000 +60,000   + 21%

 

No. 2 Ulang Tahun is a birthday calendar app. No. 3 Angry Space Birds and No. 4 Vector are canvas games. No. 5 MeuChip is a contact organizer.

No. 8 Cinemagram is a mobile app for creating animated photos. No. 11 Talkatone is another mobile app. It lets users make calls and send texts over WiFi or 3G for free.

No. 12 Jurassic Park Builder is an iPhone and iPad game where users build and manage their own Jurassic Park.

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.

Facebook users reached with paid media have higher shopping and buying participation than Internet average

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 01:16 PM PDT

Facebook reports that fans reached through paid media have greater shopping and buying habits compared to average Internet users, according to a joint study with Internet analytics company comScore.

The study covers three different brand pages: Samsung mobile, an unnamed major retailer and an unnamed major financial services brand. The focus of each case was to understand the benefits of using paid reach rather than simply depending on organic reach. The study found that the buying power index of visitors reached by the paid media of major retailer and Samsung pages was notably higher than average. The study concludes that audience acquired through paid media are often more likely to be engaged with the brand and its category. For marketers, this is significant information that Facebook ads can reach the right audience and lead to proper returns, even for larger brand pages.

For the major retailer, those exposed to paid media are 66 percent more likely to buy something from their website and 45 percent more likely to purchase something from their retail store. See the buyer reach penetration chart that illustrates this below.

For Samsung, users exposed to paid media were 24 percent more likely to shop online than the average Internet user.  They were also 68 percent more likely than the average user to visit technology news sites, 50 percent more likely to visit telecommunications sites and 62 percent more likely to visit consumer electronics sites, meaning Samsung was able to reach a more relevant audience with its content than if it had relied on organic distribution alone. Below is a look at the buying power index of the audience Samsung reached with Facebook ads.

For the major financial service brand, the paid media audience was 31 percent more likely to be cardholder of the brand’s, and 18 percent of the paid media group had made online purchases with their branded card.

Facebook provides a white paper with more details about the study.

Facebook adds more quality controls for app notifications, gives developers better tracking tools

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 12:28 PM PDT

Facebook today announced new quality control measures for canvas app notifications, seeking to maintain the effectiveness of the channel for developers without upsetting users.

Starting Nov. 9, developers will no longer be able to send notifications to users who have not visited an app in the last 28 days. Facebook says engagement drops sharply after this period and increases the risk of an app being flagged as spam. Developers will have to use notifications to promote re-engagement sooner after users access the app rather than relying on it as a way to bring back inactive users.

Also beginning on Nov. 9, developers who send a high volume of notifications will need to maintain a minimum 17 percent click-to-impression ratio. Apps that fall below this ratio may have access to notifications blocked temporarily. As we wrote about Thursday, Facebook says high quality developers are seeing notification clickthrough rates between 25 and 40 percent. Kixeye, for example, has seen 30 percent CTR on notifications it sends War Commander users when their base is attacked. The social network recommends testing new notifications with a small set of an app's user base to remain below 50,000 sends per week and avoid the additional quality requirements.

Along with the restrictions announced today, Facebook is introducing a new feature to help developers track the performance of notifications. Developers can divide their notifications into groups and measure results separately.

Notifications are one of the channels that Facebook had restricted for social game developers in early 2010 because it generated too much spam. The company relaunched the notifications API in beta for canvas apps in August, this time with more safeguards to prevent developers from abusing the channel. Today's changes are a continuation of that.

Facebook removes Collections feature after test, prepares for full launch

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 11:02 AM PDT

Facebook hasn't given up on Collections — the test feature that looked similar to Pinterest and allowed users to "want" or "collect" products that pages posted — but it temporarily removed all posts and activity related to it.

TechCrunch noticed that Collections were no longer visible on pages or users' Timelines and confirmed with Facebook that the initial test period for the product is over, but the feature hasn't been killed. The social network is looking to improve the product and create a mobile component, so it decided to shut down the existing version in the meantime.

"Product development on Collections has not stopped," Facebook told TechCrunch. "Instead we have completed our initial test of Collections and are now analyzing the data to inform product development. For many of the product tests we do, we periodically pause the test to assess how to best progress with the product's rollout."

With Collections, Facebook worked with Michael Kors, Pottery Barn, Wayfair, Victoria's Secret, Neiman Marcus, Smith Optics and Fab.com to test several variations of the feature. Collections posts featured large images that users could hover over and take an action. For some users that action was "Want," though others saw "Collect" or "Like." Clicking one of these buttons would save items to a section of users' Timelines, either called "Products" or "Wishlist" depending which cohort users were in. Facebook also tested whether these lists should be visible to friends only or friends of friends.

When users browsed a collection, there were links directing users to buy the items from the retailer's website. Collection posts also include native Facebook features such as Like, share, and comment. The social network is likely looking at all of these signals to understand engagement and purchase behavior.

This year Facebook has begun taking a vertical-by-vertical approach to developing products for marketers. Collections is an example of something seemingly developed with retailers and e-commerce sites specifically in mind.

While Collections is still being developed, retailers can work with third parties to offer similar functionality with Open Graph and News Feed apps. ShopIgniter, for instance, gives companies the option to create customizable interactive posts, including product collections, video showcases and limited-time storefronts with exclusive offers. See an example below.

lørdag den 27. oktober 2012 at 07.33