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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook


Facebook careers: strategic partnerships, media solutions, finance, SMB sales, more

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 02:45 PM PDT

Facebook added nearly 30 new positions to its careers page this week, including a number of openings on the international media solutions and partnership teams.

The company is also looking for a few new finance employees: a finance manager, a manager of global accounts payable and an compensation analyst.

New listings added to Facebook’s careers page:

  • Finance Manager – Sales (Menlo Park)
  • Manager, Global Accounts Payable (Menlo Park)
  • Business Analyst, Compensation (Menlo Park)
  • Compensation and Benefits Manager, Asia Pacific (Singapore)
  • People Services Organization, Content Manager (Menlo Park)
  • Recruiting Coordinator (Menlo Park)
  • Regional Logistics Coordinator (Forest City)
  • Hardware Engineer (Austin)
  • Risk Operations Analyst, Credits Fraud (Austin)
  • Associate, Developer Operations (Menlo Park)
  • Analyst, User Operations – Brazilian Portuguese (Dublin) (Dublin)
  • Team Lead, User Operations (Austin)
  • Manager, Mobile Partnerships (Menlo Park)
  • Strategic Partner Development, Platform (Menlo Park)
  • Strategic Partner Manager, Gaming (London) (London)
  • Client Partner Gaming (Singapore) (Singapore)
  • Associate, Media Solutions (Hyderabad)
  • Media Solutions, German (Dublin)
  • Media Solutions French (Dublin)
  • Media Solutions, UK & Ireland (Dublin)
  • Analyst, Operational & Customer Insights, SMB Team (Austin)
  • Account Manager (MENA) (Dubai)
  • Sales Manager Australia & New Zealand (Singapore) (Singapore)
  • Small & Medium Business (SMB) Account Manager Japan (Tokyo) (Tokyo)
  • Small & Medium Business (SMB) Partnerships Manager, Japan (Tokyo) (Tokyo)
  • SMB Regional Manager APAC (Singapore) (Singapore)
  • Client Partner, Travel (Austin)
  • Business Operations Associate (Menlo Park)
  • Quantitative Analyst, Monetization (Menlo Park)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook hires: lead privacy counsel, executive briefing center manager, merchant operations analyst, more

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 02:28 PM PDT

Facebook removed 21 job listings from its careers page this week, likely after making hires in the areas of business operations, data analysis, software engineering, sales and others.

The company appears to have filled a position for lead privacy counsel, as well as a data steward. Facebook has removed a listing for an executive briefing center manager first added three months ago. The company also seems to have hired a merchant operations analyst to work on the new Facebook Gifts product.

Prior listings removed from Facebook’s careers page:

  • Lead Privacy Counsel (Menlo Park)
  • Executive Briefing Center Manager (Menlo Park)
  • 3D Graphics / Visualization Engineer (Seattle)
  • Hardware Test Engineer Intern/Co-op (Menlo Park)
  • Compensation & Forecast, Program Manager (Menlo Park)
  • Business Operations Manager, LATAM (São Paulo)
  • Data Steward (Menlo Park)
  • Software Engineer, Supply Chain and Logistics (Menlo Park)
  • Academic Relations Specialist (Menlo Park)
  • Controls Engineer (Prineville)
  • Hardware Test Engineer Intern/Co-op (Menlo Park)
  • Data Analyst, Payments (Menlo Park)
  • Data Analyst, Developer Operations (Menlo Park)
  • Merchant Operations Analyst (Menlo Park)
  • Media Solutions (Austin)
  • Lead, Small and Medium Business Growth (Tokyo)
  • Small and Medium Business Specialist (Singapore – Tokyo)
  • SMB Regional Manager APAC (Singapore)
  • Client Partner, Dutch (Dublin)
  • Client Partner, Korea (Singapore) (Seoul – Singapore)
  • Quantitative Modeling and Forecasting Analyst, Business Operations (Menlo Park)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook reveals some viral channels for games have recovered

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 01:54 PM PDT

Facebook provided insight on just how much regrowth the games ecosystem has seen in the last year during a whiteboard session on social games today at its headquarters.

First, Facebook’s Sean Ryan said that games are seeing 30 to 40 percent clickthrough rate on notifications. He did not state how low CTR fell for games on Notifications before the relaunch at the end of August, but recall that this was one of the channels Facebook temporarily restricted for social game developers because there had been too much spam.

Second, Alex Shultz from Facebook’s user growth team explained how his team joined Ryan’s 10 months ago to begin updating games’ approach to accessing and retaining users. Since the two have joined forces, we have seen newer games from developers other than those in the top 10 see success.

Finally, by encouraging developers to explore new genres on Facebook in the last 12 months, the category distribution has shifted from sims games and the occasional casual game to an explosion of casual and casino games. Note that more than half of games on Facebook are still simulation — and the strategy category hasn’t changed much despite Kixeye’s much-publicized success with the genre.

Looking ahead, Facebook still has hurdles to jump in user acquisition costs and discoverability — and it has to jump them on mobile, too, as that’s where most game developers are headed. App Center has some promise; the social network said earlier this month that 220 million people have visited App Center. Users who discover apps there are 40 percent more likely to return to the app the next day compared to the old Apps and Games dashboard. Perhaps more promising is Facebook’s mobile ad product, which could drive more mobile game installs for Facebook-enabled games.

Earlier this week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the games ecosystem as a whole was growing, though not as much as he would like. Payments revenue from social game giant Zynga dropped 20 percent for Facebook compared to Q3 2011, but revenues from other game developers increased 40 percent over the last year.

The original version of this story can be read in full on our sister site, Inside Social Games.

SchoolFeed, Instagram, Angry Birds Friends, Amazon and more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 01:11 PM PDT

Classmates network schoolFeed gained the most daily active users this week on our list of top growing Facebook apps by DAU with 36 percent gain.

The titles below grew between about 100,000 and nearly 2 million DAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name DAU Gain Gain %
1.  schoolFeed 7,600,000 +2,000,000   + 36%
2.  Instagram 13,300,000 +500,000   + 4%
3.  FarmVille 2 9,100,000 +400,000   + 5%
4.  Muzy.com 840,000 +380,000   + 83%
5.  Dragon City 3,100,000 +200,000   + 7%
6.  Social Empires 1,100,000 +180,000   + 20%
7.  Anita predictions 250,000 +140,000   + 127%
8.  60 Photos 540,000 +120,000   + 29%
9.  Lost Bubble 1,400,000 +100,000   + 8%
10.  Bubble Blitz 1,200,000 +100,000   + 9%
11.  HTC Sense 4,800,000 +100,000   + 2%
12.  Angry Birds Friends 1,800,000 +100,000   + 6%
13.  Twoo 190,000 +100,000   + 111%
14.  Words With Friends 6,100,000 +100,000   + 2%
15.  Facebook 330,000 +100,000   + 43%
16.  برجك مع مـاغـي فـرح 3,000,000 +100,000   + 3%
17.  Klout 1,500,000 +100,000   + 7%
18.  9GAG 1,900,000 +100,000   + 6%
19.  Günlük Falınız 1,900,000 +100,000   + 6%
20.  Amazon 260,000 +100,000   + 63%
21.  Bing 4,000,000 +100,000   + 3%

 

No. 15 Facebook is not an app by Facebook itself, but an app by Fonetwish that provides access to the social network from any mobile phone without a data connection. It is a USSD-based interactive service that allows users to update their status for free, but charges Rs. 1/ day for unlimited usage.

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 CTR, CPC and CPM trends are ‘win-win-win,’ Spruce Media says

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 12:58 PM PDT

Trends in Facebook clickthrough rates, costs per click and costs per impression indicate a “win-win-win” situation for Facebook, advertisers and users, Facebook ad company Spruce Media says.

One of Facebook’s Strategic Preferred Marketing Developers, Spruce released a report this week detailing CTR, CPC and CPM benchmarks and trends over the past year. Clickthrough rates are up 57.2 percent since Q3 2011, suggesting that users are finding ads to be more relevant and interesting. CPCs have decreased 18.2 percent, which allows advertisers to improve their margins while getting more volume from each ad viewed. And CPMs have increased 27.5 percent, meaning Facebook is making more money per impression.

Spruce explains that low CPCs attract more spend from advertisers, but because CTR has improved at a higher rate, impressions are worth more to advertisers and Facebook ultimately earns revenue more efficiently. Facebook reported $1.262 billion in revenue for Q3 2012 — a 32 percent increase from the $954 million reported in Q3 2011.

Spruce Media analyzed 86 billion impressions between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012. The impressions come from 459 clients over 113 countries. The report looks at performance by placement, ad type, region and vertical. We’ve extracted some highlights for readers to benchmark their own ad performance after the jump, but the full report and analysis is available here.

Facebook Exchange: what it is and who to work with to get started

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 11:01 AM PDT

The Facebook Exchange allows approved third-party platforms to place retargeting ads on Facebook after users visit external websites marked with cookies.

When a user visits a site that has hired one of Facebook's partner platforms (DSPs), a cookie will be placed on that user's browser when the person reaches a stage that implies purchase intent. If a user does not complete a transaction, the DSP will be able to bid on retargeting ads that appear in the right-hand column of Facebook when the user returns to the social network. See examples below, which happen to be retargeted ads about ad retargeting.

Retargeting data cannot yet be combined with Facebook's demographic and psychographic targeting options — nor can it be used for social ads like Sponsored Stories or page post ads in News Feed — but FBX shows promise as the start of remarketing and intent-based advertising on the social network. Early partners are reporting lower costs per acquisition than on other exchanges and all have expressed continued interest in FBX.

FBX came out of beta in September, but for now, advertisers have to work with a third party to run these type of ads. They are not available from Facebook’s self-serve or Power Editor tools. However, there are more than a dozen companies that offer software or managed services for FBX campaigns. We’ve provided a rundown of 15 of them after the jump. AppNexus and Brandscreen are other providers, but they did not reply to our requests for information.

AdRoll

Self-serve software or managed services? Both.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? No minimum spend after full roll out.

Estimated time to get started (from sale/signup to training to implementation, etc)? Once the advertiser places a single SmartPixel and provides creative assets, AdRoll gets FBX campaigns up and running in less than a day.

Distinguishing features? (1) LiquidAds, AdRoll’s dynamic ad product on Facebook Exchange, has delivered a 102 percent average CTR increase over static FBX ads for customers. LiquidAds on FBX enables advertisers to retarget web visitors with ads featuring exact products they were recently browsing. (2) Proprietary site crawler (“RollCrawl”) automatically pulls product images, descriptions and prices from an advertiser’s site. (3) Granular segment targeting, including the ability to segment based on time cohorts, incrementality testing and more. (4) High return on campaigns by combining FBX with multiple other inventory sources.

Services Besides FBX? Multi-platform retargeting across 60+ ad exchanges and networks. AdRoll is the largest retargeting platform with over 5,000 active advertisers in the U.S. and around the world.

Employees: 110

Office locations: San Francisco, but expanding domestically and internationally soon.

Criteo

Self-serve software or managed services? Managed services.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? Bidded cost-per-click model with clicks beginning at 15 cents.

Estimated time to get started? 4-6 weeks.

Distinguishing features? (1) Full service solution where cost is entirely within the cost-per-click that you bid. (2) Criteo handles product feed integration with an advertiser’s IT team (3) Criteo creative design team will design ads. (4) Account management team will work with advertisers to manage and optimize campaigns. (5) Cost-per-click model. (6) Product recommendation engine shows products people have not previously browsed. (7) Operate in 32 countries across the world.

Services besides FBX? Works with more than 3,000 advertisers globally to deliver relevant, personalized messaging to people browsing on more than 5,000 publisher partner sites across the world.

Number of employees? 700.

Office locations: 15 countries including New York, Paris, London, Munich, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney.

DataXu

Self-serve software or managed services? Both.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $20,000-$25,000

Estimated time to get started? Could be as quick as 48 hours for managed services.

Distinguishing features? (1) DataXu's Active Analytics™ – patented, automated, data-driven decisioning engine, which senses and reacts in real time to changing consumer behavior across all digital, social, and traditional touch points. It examines the unique combination of message, user attributes, context, and response, to continuously learn and determine what works best and improve ROI automatically.

Services besides FBX? All digital channels, including display, mobile, video, IPTV, email and social.

Number of employees? 220

Office locations: Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Milan, Madrid, Paris, Sao Paulo, Cologne, Germany.

Kenshoo

Self-serve software or managed services? Managed services.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $10,000 a month total social media spend.

Estimated time to get started? TBD based on integration specifications but can be as quickly as 48 hours.

Distinguishing features? (1) Intuitive graphical ads manager to easily bulk manage ads and targets. (2) Unique time saving tools to quickly create permutations, auto-segment and name/save templates. (3) Custom Facebook bidding algorithms. (4) Comprehensive attribution across media channels (search and social) and across owned, paid, and earned social media initiatives.

Services besides FBX? All Facebook Marketplace Ads as well as measurement, reporting and attribution for all paid, owned and earned media across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Kenshoo also offers SEM campaign management through Kenshoo Enterprise and Kenshoo Local for Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, etc.

Number of employees: 300+

Office locations: 16 international locations with hub offices in: Chicago, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, Tel Aviv, San Francisco and Sydney.

MediaMath

Self-serve software or managed services?  Both.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $25,000.

Estimated time to get started? 1-2 business days.

Distinguishing features? (1) Manage ad campaigns on Facebook and other exchanges from a single platform. (2) TerminalOne platform gives marketers an easy workflow that seamlessly integrated all the components of a Facebook campaign: audience selection, targeting, creative generation and upload, campaign setup and management and back-end reporting. (3) Largest scale of any demand side-platform (DSP), so MediaMath is able to absorb the massive scale necessary for delivering effective campaigns on the FBX.

Services besides FBX? TerminalOne buying platform to tap into real-time advertising opportunities across display, video, mobile and social channels, including the Google AdExchange, Yahoo! Right Media and Microsoft Ad Exchange, among others. In addition to the technology, MediaMath offers training to help media buyers understand the benefits and advantages of real-time ad buying and data practices.

Number of employees? 176

Office locations: New York, Boston, Chicago, London, San Francisco and three others.

Nanigans

Self-serve software or managed services? Both.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $30,000 monthly Facebook ad spend minimum (not limited to FBX buys).

Estimated time to get started? Depends on (1) if the advertiser is a current or new Nanigans customer and (2) the advertiser’s technical release cycle.

Distinguishing features? (1) Combine Ads API buys with FBX. (2) Control frequency of users reached across both as well as the appropriate amount to bid on each. (3) Expertise in best practices and tools unique to Facebook in areas such as creative, bidding, optimization and the lifetime value of customers acquired.

Services besides FBX? All Facebook Ads API buys (Sponsored Stories, page post ads, search sponsored results, mobile ads, etc.), lifetime value assessment and identification of target audiences that drive the greatest return on Facebook desktop and mobile ad spend.

Number of employees: 70

Office locations: Boston, New York and San Francisco.

Optimal

Self-serve software or managed services? Both.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $10,000 spend a month across all ad types.

Estimated time to get started? After Facebook whitelists an advertiser’s account (up to 24 hours), FBX campaigns can be up and running in 5 minutes.

Distinguishing features? (1) One-price, one-contract, one-platform self-service access to create both FBX retargeting ad campaigns as well as other types of Facebook ads. (2) Full transparency over targeting, creative and results. (3) Creative library with advertisers’ images or  images pulled in via Getty Images API integration. (4) Dynamic retargeting available even through self-serve tool.

Services besides FBX? Facebook Ads API, including Sponsored Stories, page post ads, Sponsored Results, News Feed and mobile ads, Custom Audiences and more. Audience analytics and social intelligence through Keyword Expander, Keyword Explorer, Optimal Index and Audience Matrix.

Number of employees: 30+

Office locations: San Francisco, New York and Palo Alto.

Perfect Audience

Self-serve software or managed services?  Fully self-service.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? Free for two weeks, then $25/week minimum budget.

Estimated time to get started? 7 minutes.

Distinguishing features? (1) Fastest, easiest, most affordable Facebook retargeting platform. (2) Designed for brands and agencies that run their tools themselves. (3) Two-week free trial with no fees or setup costs. (4) Seven-minute setup. (5) Visual dashboard with stats updated hourly. (6) Multi-site support. (7) Detailed attribution reporting. (8) Single tracking tag for all conversions and segments. (9) Javascript API for creating lists and tracking conversions. (10) 24-hour email support.

Services besides FBX? Self-service, low cost web retargeting across DoubleClick, Microsoft, Open X, Rubicon Project, and 100k+ sites across the web.

Number of employees: 5

Office locations: Mountain View and Chicago.

Rocket Fuel

Self-serve software or managed services? Managed services.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $20,000 per campaign.

Estimated time to get started? Three days to start campaign after IO is received.

Distinguishing features: (1) Blended analytics framework - suite of data mining models & targeting algorithms, real-time dynamic segmentation and propensity scoring, constrained & stochastic optimization. (2) High performance direct response – multivariate creative, blended analytics, & automated progressive optimization. (3) Real-time brand optimization – optimize campaigns for lift in attitudinal intent or audience composition. (4) Institutionalized Knowledge – Insights Vault to turn campaigns into continuous insight generators and capture past results for future campaigns. (5) Extensive data – over 25 data partners with access to tens of thousands of user segments spanning across in-market intent, past purchases, search intent, psychographics, demographics, offline purchases, lifestyles, lookalikes, interests, social data, custom database matching, bizographics, technographics, granular geo-attributes from country to zip code, weather, etc.

Services besides FBX? Ad optimization for display, mobile, video and social campaigns.

Number of employees: 251

Office locations: Redwood City (headquarters), New York, Atlanta, Chicago, London, Hamburg, LA, Boston, Raleigh Durham, San Francisco, Detroit, Dallas, Washington DC, Amsterdam.

TellApart

Self-serve software or managed services? Software with dedicated client services managers.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? None. Revenue share is agreed upon during the sales process. Retailers only pay when a shopper clicks a TellApart served ad and buys.

Estimated time to get started? Time to get started is very rapid as usually much of the required information is gathered during the sales process.

Distinguishing features? (1) Understanding of shoppers. TellApart collects and analyzes nearly 300 relevant signals for each shopper to create a Customer Quality Score (CQScores) for each user. Customer Quality Scores identify each shopper’s propensity to purchase, predict what they want to buy and then enable retailers to deliver targeted marketing based on this insight in real-time. (2) Unique no risk business model with clients only paying when a user clicks and buys. (3) Transactional Retargeting, Dynamic Offers and Audience Targeting. (4) Complete transparency into the performance of marketing initiatives. (4) Dedicated client services manager who helps to make sure that programs run as effectively as possible on an ongoing basis.

Services besides FBX? Transactional Retargeting, Dynamic Offers and Audience Targeting for Google's DoubleClick and Admeld, Yahoo!'s Right Media, AppNexus and PubMatic.

Number of employees: 30

Office locations: Burlingame, Calif.

TheTradeDesk

Self-serve software, managed services or both? Both, but self-serve platform is most popular.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? None.

Estimated time to get started? As quickly as one day for a client that is ready to go.

Distinguishing features? (1) Total platform for media buyers (2) Ad server, RTB bidding tools, data management platform and attribution (3) “The best RTB training in the space.”

Services besides FBX? Demand side platform (DSP) accessing display, video and mobile.

Number of employees: 45

Office locations: New York City; Ventura, Calif.; Boulder; Colorado; Germany; London.

Triggit

Self-serve software, managed services or both? Both

Minimum spend or cost to get started? $10,000 minimum spend for advertisers that typically see about 500,000 unique visitors a month on their site.

Estimated time to get started? About one business week.

Distinguishing features? (1) Server side cookie technology, which stores data on which user saw which ad when, on the server and not in the browser. (2) Facebook-specific algorithm to offer standard retargeting features like frequency capping, impression attribution tracking and dynamic creatives. (3) Free A/B control testing to determine true incremental viewthrough ROI on FBX. (4) Flexible pricing plans: month-to-month agreements and a 24 hour out-clause that you can exercise at any time. (5) Dynamic creative for an entire product catalog. (6) Global reach: currently serving businesses across four continents specifically for FBX.

Services besides FBX? Real-time bidding on nine other major exchanges including Google, Pubmatic, Admeld, and Rubicon across several platforms (i.e. mobile and video).

Number of employees? 30

Office locations: San Francisco and Palo Alto (Also opening a NYC office in Q4).

Turn

Minimum spend or cost to get started? None.

Estimated time to get started? Based on the Facebook creative approval process, Turn advises advertisers to plan on a 48-hour window for approval. Once creative is approved by Facebook, customers are able to push their campaign live through the Turn Campaign Suite immediately.

Distinguishing features? (1) 99-percent callout rate for ad exchanges. (2) Campaign Suite, which evaluates tens of thousands of Facebook impressions every second and responds with requests for those impressions. (3) Powerful learning algorithms combine with massive quantities of data, allowing advertisers to adjust targeting tactics, manage experiments and optimize bids for the highest-possible ROI in every channel. (4) Detailed reports on views, clicks, and conversions.

Services besides FBX? Campaign management of Marketplace Ads (Standard, Event Ad, Like Ad, Application/Page) and Sponsored Stories (Like Ads, Check-in, Page Post, Application Actions). Custom reporting for all demographic, psychographic and behavioral data, including the ability to create data visualizations using Turn Audience Suite. Cloud applications and Internet-scale architecture work together to provide a complete picture of customers, execute cross-channel campaigns, and connect with a worldwide ecosystem of more than 100 partners.

Number of employees? 200

Office locations: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Xaxis

Self-serve software or managed services? Managed service.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? Evaluated on a case by case basis.

Estimated time to get started? Typically 24 hours.

Distinguishing features? (1) Globally unified product. (2) Proprietary market-leading data management platform (DMP) and buying engine. (3) Control that allows advertisers to leverage audience buying in any type of media environment (exchange, site-direct, premium, etc.) through the use of proprietary and clients' customer data. (4) Standards approach to audience planning (The Affinity Tiers), allowing Xaxis to plan and measure activity with powerful granularity.

Services besides FBX? Xaxis is world's largest audience buying company, leveraging data and technology to offer advertisers a single, comprehensive resource from which to reach and engage with global audiences across the universe of digital media – display, video, mobile, social and radio.

Number of employees? 170

Office locations: Offices in 18 countries across North America, Europe and Asia.

X+1

Self-serve software or managed services? Self-service, managed service or blended co-managed service.

Minimum spend or cost to get started? About $25,000 per month.

Estimated time to get started? Live about one week from sign-up, though campaigns typically take two to four weeks to get to 'steady state' which includes ramping up spend, building remarketing pools, and feeding data to optimization models. Client implementations may extend longer if they include more complex requirements around data, creative, or partner integration.

Distinguishing features? (1) Enterprise Data Management Platform with multi-channel execution capabilities powered by a patented real-time decision engine, Web Services APIs and advanced analytics. The DMP allows advertisers to use the same platform, data and audience definitions to buy media and optimize in-bound landing page and web site decisions. (2) Predictive Optimization Engine (POETM) is the optimization brain behind [x+1]'s Digital Marketing Hub. The patented decision engine, POETM learns how messages affect customer behavior at key points in the purchase process and leverages that knowledge to drive conversion. POE media allows for optimized targeting at scale, a performance layer that sits between large-scale but lower performing 'run of network', and small- scale and higher performing remarketing.

Services besides FBX? Digital Marketing Hub provides a data management platform (DMP) and the Origin Site personalization tool. The Origin Analytics toolset provides advertisers with audience and media insights for their campaigns.

Number of employees? 115

Office locations: New York; South Norwalk, Conn.; Chicago.

 


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AllFacebook: Is Facebook Helping Presidential Campaigns Get Out The Vote?

Daily AllFacebook Feed - Thursday, October 25, 2012

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Your Facebook friend didn't really call you a "piece of shit." It's actually malware. Sophos' Naked Security blog reported on the latest attempt to bail Facebook users into clicking on links that take them not to the social network, but, in this case, to a website disguised as a Facebook page, which hosts malicious iFrame script Mal/Iframe-W, which subjects users to the risk of infection via the Blackhole exploit kit. Naked Security points... read more>>

Facebook's Instagram Deal Worth $715M; $87M Spent On Other 2012 Acquisitions

Facebook's $1 billion deal to acquire Instagram was actually a $715 million deal to acquire Instagram, as the social network's slumping stock price lowered the value of the major component of the deal for the photo-sharing application, Facebook revealed in its 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The original terms of the deal called for Facebook to pay $300 million in cash, and the remainder in vested class-B common stock,... read more>>

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Salesforce.com Sheds Radian6, Other Employees Following Buddy Media Net Losses

The acquisitions of Radian6 in 2010 and Buddy Media in June are starting to catch up with Salesforce.com, as TechCrunch reported that the company amended its 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to show $20 million in net losses for Buddy Media during the first six months of 2012, which reportedly led to the layoffs of fewer than 100 people from Radian6 and other areas of its Salesforce Marketing... read more>>

Is Facebook An Ecommerce Facilitator Or Competitor?

While many companies may have felt that Facebook became a competitor with its launch of ecommerce ventures such as Collections and Gifts, others see this as a great start for a flourishing future for Facebook commerce. Rob Wight, CEO of myList, feels that Facebook developing this technology can help companies by providing an established platform. MyList, like Collections, has a Pinterest-like feel. It allows users to search for tangible things they like,... read more>>

Facebook Testing Five-Star Ratings For Places

Facebook wants its users to find five-star accommodations and other places, as the social network is apparently testing the use of the five-star ratings system, which allows users to rate applications, for places. Ryan Plant alerted sister blog Inside Facebook about the test, in which some users are seeing a module in their sidebars titled "rate these places," with the option of assigning one star through five stars to places where they... read more>>

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Inside Facebook

Inside Facebook


Facebook spent $715M on Instagram, $87M on other acquisitions this year

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 04:06 PM PDT

Facebook spent $87 million so far this year on business acquisitions not including its Instagram purchase, the company revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today.

Facebook spent $521 million on Instagram — $300 million of which was in cash, the rest in vested shares of Class B common stock. Facebook additionally issued 11 million unvested shares to employee stockholders of Instagram, with a value of about $194 million to be recognized as they vest over three years. This makes the total price of the mobile photo sharing app $715 million, shy of the $1 billion original price, which decreased with Facebook’s stock value.

Facebook reported $87 million in other business acquisitions from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30. Apart from Instagram, this year Facebook has bought Tagtile, Glancee, Karma, Face.com and Threadsy.

Tagtile was a mobile-based customer loyalty management startup that offered payments hardware and software for merchants. Glancee was an ambient mobile location app that alerts users when people with similar interests are nearby. Karma was a mobile gifting and commerce service, which was turned into Facebook Gifts. Face.com was a facial recognition technology company. Threadsy offered a Klout-like service called Swaylo to connect brands and influencers, and help users understand their own influence on Facebook.

Facebook also made a number of acqu-hires this year, picking up employees from Momentus Media, Lightbox, Bolt Peters, Pieceable Software, Spool, Acrylic and Carsabi.

The company only spent $24 million on acquisitions at the end of Q2, indicating that the most recent acquisitions to close added up to $63 million. Facebook did not include details about the price of each deal or when they closed.

Romney, Obama and others in this week’s top PTAT gainers for political pages

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 03:15 PM PDT

Mitt Romney is this week’s top gaining political page when it comes to the People Talking About This metric. With the upcoming presidential election, Romney and the Republican Party’s campaign team has displayed their social media prowess with an agressive social marketing effort. With 728,938 in weekly PTAT growth, Romney’s numbers easily dwarf those of President Obama with only 278,789 new engagements.

The top 10 political pages saw PTAT growth between 34,293 and 728,938 engagements. We compile this list with our PageData tool, which tracks page growth across Facebook.

# Name People Talking About Daily Growth Weekly Growth 
1    Mitt Romney 3,283,749 0 +728,938
2    Barack Obama 2,884,682 -49,735 +278,789
3    I HATE JULIA GILLARD 229,819 +28,081 +229,376
4    Veterans for Obama 153,504 +122,329 +126,476
5    ดร. ธีระชน มโนมัยพิบูลย์ 306,599 +19,358 +78,008
6    Eres mas Falso que las Pr… 81,589 +10,714 +77,357
7    African Americans for Obama 131,928 0 +67,144
8    Greg Abbott 55,328 0 +53,991
9    I Hate Nawaz Shareef (The… 84,084 -1,451 +39,039
10    Latinos for Obama 76,167 +1,334 +34,293

 

In last few weeks, Romney’s campaign has looked to social media as a solid way to amass supporters. We have actually covered how they are using it to their advantage especially in comparison with the incumbent president. Much of Romney’s posts receive well over 100,000 Likes, yet page Likes have not grown nearly as rapidly. As you can tell by the graph below, the page has drawn solid engagement through the week, which are usually the result of Promoted Posts and Page Post Ads. We’ve also seen the page running Sponsored Stories and Sponsored Results.

Although President Obama is behind in PTAT for his central page, three other pages in the top 10 are related to his campaign. Something that also should be noted is that First Lady Michelle Obama actually has gained more PTAT than both presidential candidates, but is under the category Public Figures rather than politicians. It’s worth noting that all of the First Lady’s recent page posts are dedicated to her husband’s reelection campaign.

As for the president’s central page, it boasts over 31 million Likes, which makes it a much larger audience to Romney’s 10 million. The PTAT of the page has actually decreased the last few days so it will be interesting to see how they look to improve this with the election less than two weeks away.

Visit PageData to see more about the top talked about pages among politicians, public figures as well as other categories.

Facebook tests star ratings for places

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 01:34 PM PDT

Facebook appears to be testing star ratings for places, similar to the system it uses for apps.

Some users are seeing a “rate these places” module in the sidebar with the option to give one to five stars to places they’ve been to or Liked. This feature could help Facebook better organize places in search or a new recommendation engine, as it has done with App Center.

Facebook takes a unique approach to ratings to avoid manipulation. App ratings use random sampling rather than appearing on a static page that anyone can visit. This way, it is much more difficult to game the system and ratings are more reflective of how people feel about an app. Facebook seems to have done the same with places, but we’re waiting to hear back for confirmation.

The social network has a little-known location search feature that could rival Yelp or Google for business searches if the company decided to put resources toward developing it. Star ratings could be the start to an overhaul of the product, which would benefit from a mobile component.

Last month, a Bloomberg Businessweek article hinted that Facebook had a new review feature in the works:

During a meeting in a conference room near his desk, [VP of Engineering Mike] Schroepfer leads a group of engineers in a half-hour debate over the design of a restaurant review feature. Should it have a five-star rating option, a Like button, or both? Should there be animation? Does it feel natural? At the end of the meeting, Schroepfer and one other guy remain at odds over the Like vs. Stars question.

From what we’ve seen, pages still have Like buttons and the modules have stars, but it’s possible Facebook is testing different variations.

On place pages themselves, users can already leave “recommendations” in a module on the timeline. Facebook also tested a “favorite places” module in the sidebar last year. These units would show users two places they had checked into and ask “which place do you like better?” Users could click a "see your favorites" link in the module to see a ranked list of all the places they voted for, but this hasn’t been available for a year or so.

Thanks to Ryan Plant for the tip and the screenshot.

Facebook rolls out messages update with new layout, photo sharing, emoticons, keyboard shortcuts and more

Posted: 24 Oct 2012 10:06 AM PDT

Facebook continues to roll out its redesigned messages product it announced in August, including a two-paned layout, improved photo uploads and keyboard shortcuts among other changes. We’ve had a number of readers let us know that they’re now seeing the update.

The desktop design is now more like traditional email, which is interesting because Facebook has made a number of changes to its mobile Messenger to make that product feel more lightweight like text messaging or chat. Because Facebook has a unified inbox system, all messages to and from mobile devices, the desktop web, email, chat and text appear in the same thread. We’ve wondered if this would cause any disconnect in the type of communications between people on different devices — more formal messages from someone on desktop being viewed in the mobile chat bubble format, and vice versa. That said, it makes sense to give users the best experience for whichever form factor they’re accessing messages from.

Even though the two-paned layout and keyboard shortcuts are reminiscent of email, Facebook added a few elements from mobile and chat, including read receipts and emoticons. Previously, users could only see if another user read their message if they were on a mobile device. Emoticons would appear if users knew how to make them with a keyboard, but now the message composer includes a menu of smileyfaces and icons, just as is available from the traditional chat window.

Facebook also improved the photo sharing process, allowing users to quickly upload multiple photos from their computer or select images from their Facebook albums. With the old design, users had to manually upload each photo file and did not have an option to find photos they had already shared on Facebook. The new process is more streamlined, similar to the mobile flow.

Another change is the option to send messages to users you are not friends with. Previously, from the new message dialog, users could type a friends name or an email address. Now, the typeahead in the “to” field populates with friends and “other people you know,” including friends of friends.

Facebook also calls out the option to search messages. Users can search by a sender's name or keyword at any point. In the previous layout, users could only search for names and keywords from the main inbox. When they opened a message, they could then search within that conversation.

Facebook did not offer a timeline for when all users would have the new messages, and there is no way to opt in to early access since the product is still being tested. Some readers experienced bugs such as not being able to send photos from the new uploader and not being able to immediately send a second message after sending one.

More information about the new messages is available from Help Center.

Top image from Facebook. All others from Ryan Plant. Thanks also to Khai Nguyen and Interactive Swim for the tips.


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