With over 3.6 million fans, Starbucks has just passed Coca-Cola to become the the most popular brand on Facebook. How? A good combination of a well-done Facebook Page, fun promotions for fans, and effective Facebook home page Engagement Ads. In fact, Starbucks gained nearly 200,000 Facebook fans this week alone.

As you can see below, Starbucks saw some significant spikes on July 18 and July 21, when the company was running its Free Pastry giveaway. Fans who printed out this invitation could redeem a free pastry with the purchase of any beverage. Consumers love coupons – and Starbucks is loving its increasing Facebook reach.

Starbucks does not fall into the category of run-of-the-mill social media marketing. Earlier this month, the company gave away free ice cream through its Facebook application. In May, Starbucks put up new advertising posters is six cities, asking people to spot them, take photos, and post them on Twitter. And on Election Day, Starbucks released its Starbucks Vote Commercial on YouTube announcing that coffee would be on them for everyone who voted.

Starbucks now leads all public profiles in the Retail category, according to PageData. Following Starbucks as this week’s top Facebook Page gainers in the Retail category is Levis, which saw a gain of 72,474 fans, representing a 178 percent weekly growth rate. Accompanying Starbucks and Levis in the Top 20 also include The Cheesecake Factory (#4), Anthropologie (#7), Whole Foods Market (#10), and Gymboree (#20).

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Starbucks Coffee Company	3,657,887	+190,561	+5.50
2.	Levis	113,260	+72,474	+177.69
3.	Newegg.com	45,052	+34,414	+323.50
4.	The Cheesecake Factory	88,643	+28,356	+47.04
5.	7-eleven	113,966	+4,740	+4.34
6.	The Blue Groove	15,216	+3,996	+35.61
7.	Anthropologie	21,557	+3,272	+17.89
8.	Target	467,875	+3,049	+0.66
9.	Staples	11,532	+2,649	+29.82
10.	Whole Foods Market	100,811	+2,304	+2.34
11.	Surfer Girl Bali	16,389	+2,138	+15.00
12.	GUESS? Inc.	85,844	+1,927	+2.30
13.	PacSun	87,006	+1,919	+2.26
14.	aerie by american eagle	141,384	+1,718	+1.23
15.	JCP Teen	9,888	+1,688	+20.59
16.	JCPenney	18,434	+1,638	+9.75
17.	lululemon athletica	54,256	+1,605	+3.05
18.	Sheetz	33,076	+1,567	+4.97
19.	Nordstrom, Inc.	12,956	+1,383	+11.95
20.	Gymboree	26,074	+1,243	+5.01

Facebook’s 250 million users upload 1 billion photos and 10 million videos to the site each month. Now, Facebook’s just made the uploading process even easier: starting today, all users can email their photos and videos to Facebook from any email client and they’ll be automatically posted to your profile.

Here’s how it works:

1. First, go to Facebook Mobile and get your personal upload email address. You won’t want to give this out, because it’s used for posting content just to your profile. Once you get this address, add it to your address book on whichever mail clients you use, especially your mobile phone.
2. To upload photos or videos to Facebook, just send them as email attachments to this address. Facebook will use the subject line of the email you sent as the caption for the photos and videos you upload (the same caption will be used for all of them if you send in more than one). You can of course edit these later by logging into Facebook.

Facebook says there’s no limit on their end to how many photos or videos you can send in at once – you’re only limited by your own email provider. All uploaded photos will go to the “Mobile Upload” photo album by default, and will follow the privacy settings the user has specified for it.

Overall, this is a good move by Facebook that should continue to grow the amount of content being uploaded and shared through Facebook. The feature has been popular in other online sharing services like Tumblr and TwitPic for quite a while, as well as some versions of Facebook’s mobile site. As a side note, iPhone 3GS users will soon be able to upload videos directly using the forthcoming Facebook for iPhone 3.0.

It seems like only yesterday that we wondered when mainstream game developers would start making the move to social. For a long time, Electronic Arts has been slowly lumbering forward into the social gaming world, but as the company experimented more and more with the space, we’ve begun to see more big names jump into the frey.

At E3, announcements from Microsoft and Nintendo unveiled the integration of Facebook Connect into Xbox Live and Nintendo DSI. Now, French publisher Ubisoft – producer of titles like Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six – has released its first Facebook game, TickTock…

>> Read more at Inside Social Games

Facebook Marketplace, the Facebook classifieds application that’s now built and managed by Oodle, is introducing new sharing features designed to make it easier to post classified listings to your profile. Facebook Marketplace currently attracts about 1.9 million monthly active users to find and share listings with friends.

When Oodle took over Marketplace in March, the company took a new approach to the app, making it much more focused on sharing than purely browsing items in your local area. The new “Shout” feature adds another way to share by publishing items you find to your Wall and the News Feed. Depending on the link you click – “Like it!” or “Check it out!” or “Should I buy this?” – the story will be pre-populated with a comment, which you can of course customize.

In general, classifieds has been one of the more challenging areas for social app developers to capitalize on over the last few years. It will be interesting to see whether Facebook Marketplace users will be giving out “Shouts” generously.

Much has been happening in the social gaming world as of late. Playdom brought Mobsters to the iPhone; Zynga filed several more lawsuits; and the Chinese government banned the sale of virtual currency for real money.

Which games are gaining steam? Here are this week’s top gaming applications in the 1-10 million monthly active users (MAU) category, according to AppData:

		Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %	Developer
1.		Restaurant City	7,370,692	+833,803	+12.8	Playfish
2.		Crazy Planets	1,045,134	+443,770	+73.8	Playfish
3.		YoVille	8,954,037	+349,687	+4.1	Zynga
4.		UNO™ BETA	2,586,370	+182,373	+7.6	GameHouse
5.		Vampire Wars	2,502,394	+158,319	+6.8	Zynga
6.		Waka-Waka	3,784,499	+137,852	+3.8	Metrogames
7.		Biotronic	4,050,780	+131,383	+3.4	Metrogames
8.		Tattoodle	1,779,673	+126,418	+7.7	Make The Web Better
9.		Who Has The Biggest Brain?	3,405,456	+97,562	+3.0	Playfish
10.		Bowling Buddies	2,496,877	+71,048	+2.9	Playfish
11.		Geo Challenge	3,929,138	+57,680	+1.5	Playfish
12.		Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!	1,440,369	+47,146	+3.4	Zynga
13.		Word Challenge	3,333,729	+43,557	+1.3	Playfish
14.		My Stuff	1,635,477	+36,387	+2.3	Gigya
15.		Rock Legends!	1,161,363	+33,236	+3.0	Serious Business
16.		Graffiti	2,173,610	+24,700	+1.2	Mark Kantor
17.		Hug Me	4,238,447	+24,647	+0.6	RockYou!
18.		Minigolf Party	1,319,971	+13,731	+1.1	Playfish
19.		Poker Palace	1,070,274	+5,725	+0.5	Playdom
20.		Sketch Me	2,245,504	+1,434	+0.1	Fendoo

In the #1 spot is verified app Restaurant City, developed by Playfish. In the app, you can start your own restaurant and bring your friends in as waiters and chefs. Like other virtual worlds, you can decorate your restaurant with your choice of furniture and decorations and visit your friends’ restaurants and, in this case, collaborate on your menus by trading ingredients. Restaurant City currently has over 7 million MAU, with a weekly gain of nearly 13 percent, and has been climbing steadily since its launch:

Following at #2 is Crazy Planets, another one of Playfish’s creations. In Playfish’s own words, “Alert! Alert! The robots are on a rampage across the universe! Gather your friends, ready your weapons, it’s up to you to save the universe. Collect crystals, research new weapons and create your own planet as you battle for glory!” Crazy Planets is another example of the growing popularity of social games where users create their own spaces (e.g., planets, restaurants, homes) and compete with, while enjoying the company of, neighboring friends. This week the app saw an increase in MAU of 443,770 – more than half of what Restaurant City saw – but then again, saw a percentage gain of almost 74 percent, a nice number for a weekly growth rate.

Joining Restaurant City and Crazy Planets in the Top Five include Zynga’s YoVille (#3), GameHouse’s UNO BETA (#4), and Zynga’s Vampire Wars (#5). It’s notable that in this batch, four out of five of the apps are developed by leading developers Playfish and Zynga. Both make an appearance – several more for Playfish – with other developers such as Metrogames, Serious Business, and RockYou! for apps Waka-Waka (#6), Rock Legends! (#15), and Hug Me (#17), respectively.

In what is one of the biggest moves in the virtual currency monetization space to date, Adknowledge this morning is announcing the acquisition of Super Rewards, one of the leading virtual currency monetization platforms for social apps and online games. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, and no major changes at Super Rewards as a result of the acquisition are planned. Adknowledge says it views its role in the acquisition as a parent company that will now be helping Super Rewards accelerate its growth.

“What contextual advertising was to the web, virtual currency is to the social web,” Scott Lynn, Founder and CEO of Adknowledge, tells us. “We’ve seen the explosion in virtual currency over the last year, and we think it’s a unique ad unit which really engages the consumer. Super Rewards has had tremendous financial growth, advertiser satisfaction metrics are very positive, and users love it as well because it gives them more control. Virtual currency will be a $600M market this year, and it’s how we believe social media will monetize long term.”

Super Rewards CEO Jason Bailey tells us that he felt the time was right for the sale given the company’s options for growth going forward.

“We really feel strongly that there’s going to be a lot of consolidation in the space,” Bailey says. “We’re growing at a phenomenal rate – we have offices in Vancouver, Burlingame, and New York, and are about to open an office in London – and we’re very profitable. When we were exploring how we wanted to grow our business, it became clear when we started talking to Adknowledge that it was a great fit. We work with 3,000 advertisers, they work with 50,000. Now, we’ll be able to grow our business at a speed and scale that we wouldn’t be able to do on our own.”

Adknowledge, which has 13 offices around the world and will do $250 million in revenues this year, has previously acquired social ad network operations from Cubics and Lookery. Lynn says the company does 700 million banner impressions per day on Facebook and MySpace apps, but it became increasingly clear recently that the money was in virtual currency.

Lynn says that a major synergy for the two companies will be expanding Super Rewards’ international sales reach. With so much of Facebook’s growth happening in Europe and around the world, Lynn says Adknowledge is “committed” to expanding into more markets. Although Super Rewards enables users to pay either via offers or direct payments, Lynn says Adknowledge is “most excited” by the offer products for now.

In addition, Bret Brewer, Adknowledge’s President, says the company is eyeing longer term applications of the model in new areas as well.

“We just see it working in more and more places, like the newspaper industry, offline games, and more categories as the world catches on to the opt-in model where the power shifts to the consumer,” Brewer says.

The virtual currency monetization space is hot, and we expect the Super Rewards acquisition will be the first of several over the next year as larger online advertising networks look to bolster their business in the social network application and online games space. It will be particularly interesting to see how consolidation in the virtual currency space may affect the payments market overall – the greatest synergies in the Adknowledge/Super Rewards acquisition are primarily around growth of the offer network.

Nevertheless, we believe this is a strong acquisition by Adknowledge, and a validation of the space in general. More and more game developers are thinking about integrating virtual currency monetization into their games and apps earlier in the process, and the pace of development in the space is not slowing down. It should be an interesting year ahead.

You know the ubiquitous buttons you see on your favorite sites that allow you to share content on multiple sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.? Well, according to AddToAny, which makes a product in the space, users are sharing their interesting finds on the Web on Facebook more than any other channel. And yes, that includes the beloved email.

While 24 percent of shares is going to Facebook, only 11 percent is being sent via email – a clear sign that when given the choice, people would rather post to a site like Facebook where their efforts can be seen by many more pairs of eyes and appreciated and affirmed by many more likes and comments.

Other highlights from the data:

• Yahoo’s Delicious + Yahoo Bookmarks + Yahoo Buzz + Yahoo Messenger: 14.4%
• Twitter: 10.8%
• MySpace: 5%
• Digg: 4.4%
• LinkedIn: 0.4%

This is the way information is spreading these days. It’s not about one-to-one exchanges, it’s about interacting with many connections around shared interests, and the data tells that story.

While Facebook has been translated by users into over five dozen languages, with many more in progress, until today Facebook Connect has only been available in English. Now, Connect developers will be able to internationalize their Facebook integrations as well.

All developers have to do is specify a Facebook locale in their code, and Facebook Connect will automatically appear in the appropriate language.

However, the new internationalization feature does not override this setting if users have chosen another language in their Facebook settings. Language is a property of the Connect implementation, not of the user.

Overall, it’s another step in Facebook’s internationalization plans that should increase adoption of Connect around the world. Today, Facebook says Connect has been implemented on “15,000 sites, devices, and applications” worldwide, including desktop applications like those from TweetDeck and Seesmic as well as many games and applications on the iPhone.

In what is surely the biggest Facebook Connect launch to date, a significant Facebook integration has just been rolled out as part of the new Yahoo home page which went live today. Now, Facebook users can see and publish to their Facebook stream – right from the Yahoo home page.

Here’s how it looks:

As you can see, Facebook users are now able to access their full News Feed, profile stream, friend list, and events and birthdays, just by hovering over the Facebook tab on the left side of the new Yahoo home page.

Interestingly, Yahoo is also pairing the Facebook integration with a Yahoo ad, sitting just to the right of the Facebook stream. Now, Yahoo is not only able to keep the user on its site longer, but it’s also monetizing that engagement through its own ad network.

Overall, the new integration looks great. Yahoo is looking for ways to keep users engaged on Yahoo.com more, and Facebook is looking to increase distribution of its communication infrastructure across the web.

However, each company is also sacrificing something as part of the partnership. For Yahoo, users are moving to Facebook to share information with friends instead of doing so through Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, or Yahoo Apps. For Facebook, Yahoo now has significant influence over the Facebook user experience.

Stream syndication deals are becoming more common for Facebook, and we expect that to continue. Earlier this year, it launched an integration with Windows Live, as part of a broader partnership with Microsoft. Integrating Facebook Connect throughout the web is a crucial part of Facebook’s overall strategy to become the most trusted identity and communication platform anywhere.

American Airlines is launching a campaign on Facebook to promote its new fare-finding application, which allows users to search for low fares. The app is currently in beta and nameless, which is why the campaign is a “name drive” that calls users to submit names for the app. Those who submit names will be entered to win 25,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

Here’s how it works:

1. First, install American Airlines’s Travel Bag app.

2. Experiment with the fare-finding feature: searching for a trip from San Francisco to Beijing returns the low fare result below: $3,804. When you click “View Details,” you’re taken to a pop out window where you can book a ticket at AA.com, or share the app with your friends.

3. Optionally, you can post a link on your Facebook profile.

4. Finally, submit your name here.

The airline industry has been talking to its customers on Facebook, and American Airlines’s new fare-finding app will be an interesting case study on how users share their flight booking information. Will consumers find it more convenient to book their travels without leaving Facebook? What’s the likelihood of them sharing low fares that they find via a Wall Post?

We’ve seen the popularity of travel apps like Cities I’ve Visited and Kidnap! Both of these apps have already built a user base of people who are interested in travel and, more importantly, interested in the social component of it. Another smart move may be to partner with already existing travel apps, finding ways of seamlessly integrating your airline’s brand in the context of a map (Cities I’ve Visited) or a game (Kidnap!)

Related Resources:

• The Facebook Marketing Bible
  
• The Facebook Marketing Bible: Agency & Brand Edition
  
• Best & Worst Facebook Marketing 2009