While most Facebook users have never been affected by security issues like phishing attacks or the Koobface worm, those that do fall victim can sometimes have a hard time getting their account back in working order quickly. Historically, Facebook has notified users whose accounts have been compromised via email with instructions for restoring their account.

Now, Facebook is launching a new process within Facebook that includes a more efficient way of checking security, verifying your account, and changing your password. Users whose accounts have been compromised will now see the following wizard the next time they log in:

Talking about the changes, Jake Brill, project manager for Facebook’s site integrity team, says,

It can be an embarrassing experience to log in to Facebook to find that unauthorized messages have been sent from your account and then face questions from friends who have received spam from you.

We’ve spent the last few months improving the way to guide people through the process of regaining access to their account after it’s been compromised and used to send spam. Currently, we send emails explaining what happened and provide links to remedy the situation. Now we’re moving towards a new model that also involves clear and simple steps taken within Facebook itself. In doing so, we can ensure that the person logging in is the true owner of the account, thereby preventing hackers from using it to send spam in the future.

Facebook said it will be updating the process in the future to address the “different threats people may face.”

As Facebook grows beyond 250 million users and many new users are figuring out how to use the service, it’s likely that security threats will continue to pop up from time to time over the coming months. However, Facebook has dedicated a team for a long time to aggressively fighting these security issues through a variety of technical measures – and Facebook is pursuing phishers in court as well. The new, more streamlined account recovery process will hopefully make dealing with accounts that have been compromised easier for both users and Facebook alike.

Yesterday at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2009 conference, Henri Moissinac of Facebook Mobile, Shervin Pishevar from SGN, Mark Pincus from Zynga, David Marcus of Zong discussed the future of social media and mobile content in a panel discussion moderated by VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon. Here are our interesting notes from the session.

Eric: David and Henri, you both came to the Bay Area from Europe to work on mobile. What brings you here?

David: I started the mother company behind Zong nine years ago in Europe. Working with operators and carriers in the U.S. and Europe is always difficult. You have to be extremely convincing. We’re working with over 100 carriers. The reason for moving here is that we needed to take the company global, and there’s no better place to do that than in the Silicon Valley. It’s a one-way ticket and has been an amazing experience so far. There was a delay between mobile innovation coming out in Europe compared to Asia, and the same delay is happening in the U.S. If you look back even six to seven years ago, people on Verizon and AT&T couldn’t even send text messages to one another.

Henri: When I started working on mobile in the Bay Area, I thought about going back to Europe where mobile innovation was more developed. But as mobile became more software oriented, Silicon Valley became the center of gravity for mobile development and is a place that’s well respected around the world.

Eric: Henri, what’s going on between Facebook and mobile operators?

Henri: The next frontier for operators is data. They have always turned to Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc. to try to understand what’s going on. What we do for our 150 or so operators is customize as much as possible for them (e.g., trimming, providing them with APIs, etc.).

Eric: Can you share numbers on the effect of Facebook Connect on mobile apps?

Mark: Across the board, about 50 percent of our users on iPhone have authenticated Facebook connect, and we’ve seen higher engagement and retention with Connect users, but it’s also hard to say. There may be a selection bias going on because people who use Connect are naturally more passionate, hardcore users in the first place, so it’s hard to determine what the leading indicator is.

Shervin: It’s going to take more education on what users can do with Connect. Over time, these numbers will get better and better. We should also think about how to develop APIs that go beyond Facebook Connect to, for example, identify who is an iPhone user. This will lead to more cross-company work interactions.

Henri: It’s still the early days for Connect. Over 15,000 sites using the feature. We released the mobile version three months ago. Playfish is a good example of a company that has been very eager to implement Connect.

Mark: Yeah, we launched Live Poker by hacking the Web version before Facebook Mobile came out.

Audience: What is the consumer propensity and appetite for subscription versus free to play models?

Shervin: On the iPhone, users can install apps for free or pay for them. The holy grail will be who is going to create World of Warcraft on iPhone and Android. On our jet app, Fast, 65 percent of users return every day. That’s better than the industry rate, but the key is having users return and actually buy jets, land, fuel, and resources. A year from now, games on mobile platforms will be using social techniques to make millions in revenue. To experiment, we launched subscription on (fluff)Friends. For $10 to $15 dollars, you can get a certain amount of points. We saw that those people who had subscriptions spent more on subscriptions the month after. User behavior is changing and hybridizing. Those companies that succeed will iterate really fast have have the analytics to track and change.

Eric: What other opportunities exist besides what the iPhone brings?

Mark: From our perspective, we fish where the fish are running. When they’re not running, we don’t fish. With platforms that are too early in their infancy and don’t have clear viral and communication channels, it’s hard to justify putting in the next marginal development effort.

Henri: There are countries where iPhone isn’t popular, so there’s the need to replicate apps on other platforms – not just by copying and pasting, but by creating unique experiences for specific devices. For example, how can we design a Palm Pre Facebook app that automatically populates your friends’ contact information? This would make one’s phone quickly operational.

Shervin: Henri, can I make a suggestion? Create a Games tab in the Facebook iPhone app. The iPhone needs a game center.

Audience: How can Apple make its platform more profitable for developers?

Shervin: AppleCare is about the customer experience. Apple is afraid of developers who create free apps that don’t do much. Currently you have to pay for apps to unlock microtransactions. This isn’t ideal, but that doesn’t mean this won’t evolve over time. Metrics in terms of payments and sales are really healthy. If you’re an app in the #1 spot, you see 30,000 to 40,000 units a day. If you’re one of the apps that charge nine dollars, that’s about half a million dollars right there. This is the world we’re going into. In the next three years, expect to see a billion dollars in games sales via the iPhone.

Mark: I don’t think we have complaints, but we have recommendations. The glass is 10 percent full. Apple has been vastly successful, with developers making $600 million dollars this year; however, when Apple focuses and sees the bigger opportunity, which I’m sure it already does, it will be a $6 billion dollar a year business. We will see acceleration in things like enabling any users to buy things, which should increase revenues by a factor of ten.

Audience: Do you hope for a centralized network like PlayStation or Xbox where games can be distributed and gamers can be distributed through this network?

Shervin: The ideal candidate for providing such a network would be Apple. If Apple could provide an identity that goes along with different apps so developers can tie into universal IDs. Right now, users use a million different IDs to login to a million different apps. There needs to be an “Apple Connect,” and it won’t be a small startup that’s going to step in. It’s got to come from Apple or Facebook.

Audience: Do you see a day coming when Apple will make the iTunes store available over the Web rather than through an app that could revolutionize mobile? This way a Web developer can use Apple as a billing mechanism.

Shervin: The power in that idea is that it’s seamless. Facebook Connect and Facebook’s payment solution are also powerful.

David: Any one-click payment system works because they enable faster transactions on the Web.

Shervin: I’m shocked PayPal has been so slow to jump on this opportunity and basically ceded it to players like Zong.

David: PayPal has to balance fraud and conversion. They’ve had a hard time managing fraud.

Audience: What will give the iPhone model longevity? Ringtones were a billion dollar market that just crashed. Are iPhone-based business models just a phase?

Mark: The iPhone reflects a much bigger change in web business model and experience. Three trends are colliding: 1) The beginning of an app economy where consumers will expect that the way they’re going to discover, find, and share new services on the Internet will be via apps; 2) Once users instantiate an app, they’re really instantiating a potential long-term relationship with service and will keep a small number of those services that are worthwhile; 3) The new revenue model of users paying for things directly will fund massive experimentation and development.

Shervin: What iPod did with music, iPhone is doing with mobile. It’s totally disruptive. It’s more about the architecture, doesn’t matter. This way of designing experiences and processes is training users and to fundamentally shift the way that people transact, experience, and consume things.

David: Things that don’t have long-term value to consumers will ultimately disappear. I’m surprised they took that long to decline. iPhone is fantastic platform for game developers for diff apps and verticals that will bring value to consumers.

Eric: How are mobile apps making money on the mobile platform in a year or two? Are offers working?

Mark: Offers don’t work easily on the mobile platform. It’s a pain to be on your mobile phone, go to a Web browser, and complete an offer. There needs to be a new kind of company that wants to make offers that are tailored for mobile phones because Web-based offers have been tested and thrown out the window. When you think about social games, they’re a pleasant distraction, but more breadcrumbs need to be left to remind users to return or bring their friends in.

Shervin: I disagree. What if social games created experiences in the same way that Pixar is creating beautiful movies. When you’re watching a Pixar movie, you’re totally focused and inspired. There’s a potential to tap into greater innovation and inspiration and stretch people imagination about what’s possible. People are looking to be entertained, and social gaming as the potential to do it. It’s not just breadcrumbs, it’s a whole croissant.

Eric: Let’s talk about revenue model.

David: All in all, what we’re seeing on the mobile platform, Facebook, and gaming sites is that the gaming industry is moving toward free to play models that are monetized by in-game transactions and virtual goods and currency. This holds true for mobile platforms. What makes it all possible is frictionless payments. The issue with the current iTunes app store is that you can have in-game transactions, but users have to pay first, which defeats the purpose of free to play.

Henri: At Facebook, we’re talking to the mobile industry. A lot of people in the industry are still thinking in the old way when you have to think completely differently. The new generation that’s coming to mobile is young. Generation coming to mobile that’s not old. This is not a fad – the cake is just starting.

Audience: What’s the future of the mobile landscape three years from now?

Mark: As the platform gets more open and adopts single standards that enable platforms to compete, competition will accelerate the seamless distribution of apps in faster, lower friction ways. In three years, that will all be there. Games in the Western world should be well north of $5 billion in revenue. Users will own devices that are socially connected and enabled.

David: We’re going to see amazing apps, enhanced reality apps. The combination of location, broadband, camera, and social viral distribution will bring amazing apps.

Henri: People who use mobile apps and play games do so because their friends play with them and decide to share.

Shervin: Someone needs to figure out how to write something once and run it everywhere – build an app that can run on multiple devices. I’m looking forward to the ability to have complete cross-platform experiences. One day, a user will be able to play with an app on the bus, go home and have it transfer to the TV. Synchronicity is coming, and it’s going to be a pretty interesting experience.

Note: The panel was transcribed as accurately as possible, but may not be word for word.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, has voiced concerns over Facebook’s compliance with Canadian privacy laws after a recent investigation by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, noting several areas that need to be addressed to ensure users’ information is safe. Facebook says several of the issues have already been resolved, and additional updates coming soon will “address any remaining concerns.”

Many of Stoddart’s issues are centered around the complexity of Facebook’s privacy settings, which Facebook recently announced would be updated soon. The Canadian government is also asking for more transparency in Facebook’s privacy policies, so that users have a better idea in what’s involved in sharing information.

Canada sees the biggest privacy issues around how Facebook handles deleted accounts. When users deactivate accounts, their information is still saved on the site’s servers. The government would like Facebook to better instruct users on how to completely delete their accounts, and then purge all account information after a predetermined time period.

Application security was also a concern. The Canadian government noted that Facebook doesn’t really know exactly how much profile information developers are using when users sign up for their apps, and there are questions over exactly how those developers are using that information and where it ultimately ends up.

The privacy of non-users was also addressed, with the Commissioner saying better protection is needed for photos and people invited to join the site. Regarding deceased users, Stoddart asked for a way for people to consent to having their pages memorialized so that friends and family can leave messages after their passing.

Clarity seems to be the main focal point to the government’s concerns. Ultimately, Facebook has shown that it is very responsive to public privacy concerns, but the issues raised by Stoddart’s statement today are not simply cut and dry. We’ll of course keep you updated as Facebook makes any updates to its privacy policies and plans.

As Facebook becomes the most popular social network worldwide, MySpace, once deemed as its main competitor, must now undergo a rigorous effort to reinvent itself and hit a more focused audience. That seemed to be the thought of News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch, who, during a meeting of technology and media executives this week in Sun Valley, Idaho, said he thinks MySpace needs to be refocused “as an entertainment portal.”

It’s hard to imagine the media mogul is satisfied with his purchase of the social site. In recent months, it’s clear News Corp has hit a critical inflection point as it concerns MySpace’s future. Since it bought the site for $580 million exactly four years ago (July 2005), key metrics have recently held flat or fallen, as Facebook has continued to garner more user interest and media attention.

This week, we were reminded of the gravity of MySpace’s decline. According to Comscore numbers, MySpace seems to be falling in key areas.

1. In May, Facebook caught up to MySpace’s unique visitor count. In June, it surpassed MySpace greatly; Facebook claimed 77 million unique visitors, while MySpace had around 70 million.
2. Page views, one of the important metrics where MySpace still outpaces Facebook, dropped by 10 percent in June from the previous month, to 32 billion. Facebook now sits at 21 billion, increasing 12 percent in May.
3. And worse, people are leaving. MySpace lost almost four million unique visitors in June, a huge jump from the 700,000 unique visitors it lost in May.

Internally, it’s also been a tough time for MySpace. In June, News Corp cut 30 percent of MySpace’s staff, and MySpace’s longtime founder and CEO Chris Delwolfe exited amidst a larger executive shakeup spearheaded by new CEO (and former Facebook CRO) Owen Van Natta and News Corp Digital Media CEO Jonathan Miller.

But MySpace can still carve out a good spot for itself as a social site where people connect around common interests, namely music and other arts. Nevertheless, MySpace’s traditional point of differentiation over Facebook – it allows for extreme user freedom and customization – has also been a burden to growth beyond a certain point.

First, in terms of identity. While the vast majority of personal accounts on Facebook are authentic and geared toward personal communication, many MySpace accounts are more oriented around marketing or promotion of some kind. This changes the way people can use the site significantly.

Second, in terms of design. MySpace users are given much leeway in how they design their pages, and they are often loud in their design as a result. Some users enjoy that freedom. Facebook, on the other hand, has gone down a more Apple-like, simplistic design. While it allows for customization via application boxes and tabs, ultimately, you can’t alter the design of a Facebook profile or home page as drastically. Because MySpace sports an open-canvas design, a typical band page (for example) has music, video and other pieces of rich content flowing all over the place; it’s not restrained to a tab like that of a Facebook Public Profile. The backgrounds are not just blue and white; they’re dark, light, and everything in between.

This is not necessarily good for efficient communication, however, and that could explain MySpace’s decline. Many don’t want to take that much time to maintain such rich profiles and home pages, and they prefer the more sleek design of Facebook and other social networks to manage their personal data and streams because it requires less time. Consequently, MySpace will become less of a site to connect with friends and more a site to follow groups (namely music).

Conclusion

For MySpace to survive, it must move more with Facebook rather than against it. Eventually, it should abandon the notion that people want to build robust profiles on MySpace and connect with their closest friends there. Instead, they should harness more niche communities that form around music, film, literature and the arts in general. This will mean a modest profile presence for users (perhaps even letting users easily link to their Facebook profile and others), and focusing the activity stream on events and discussions around shared interests. Such a model should continue to be a good fit for many types of advertisers, especially those promoting national and local events.

Which Facebook Pages in the Airlines/Ships/Trains category are best leveraging their Page to help travellers get where they need to go? As summer beckons travelers to different parts of the world, it’s a good time for airlines, cruise lines, and even trains to keep their customers in the loop.

According to PageData, there are a total of 1.3 million fans in this category of Facebook Pages with the average fans per page being just under 2,500. Let’s take a look at the leaders:

	Name	Fans
1.	Southwest Airlines	70,579
2.	London Underground	68,077
3.	Royal Caribbean International	53,247
4.	AirAsia	33,918
5.	Virgin America	29,756
6.	Delhi / दिल्ली	19,447
7.	Carnival Cruise Lines	18,123
8.	Virgin Atlantic	18,116
9.	Aamchi Mumbai / मुंबई / Bombay	17,945
10.	American Airlines	13,778
11.	BREST	13,159
12.	Air Canada	9,066
13.	Iceland Express	9,010
14.	Qantas	8,992
15.	Amtrak	6,892
16.	Bangalore / Bengaluru	6,527
17.	Pune / पुणे / Poona	5,938
18.	Chennai / சென்னை / Madras	5,734
19.	Princess Cruises	5,627
20.	Swiss International Air Lines	5,509

Leading in the category is Southwest Airlines, which has over 70,000 fans. As you can see from the chart below, Southwest is accumulating new fans per day in ebbs and flows, but most of the spikes can be correlated with activity on the Wall. For example, around July 10, Southwest posted a job opening on its Wall – a potential contributing factor to the obvious spike around that time.

The airline also uses its page to make announcements (e.g., which flights have wireless connectivity), promote special deals (e.g., fare sales), drive traffic back to Southwest.com, pose questions to its fans (“Who’s traveling outta town this weekend? Any good plans for celebrating the 4th of July?”) and so on.

Accompanying Southwest in the Top Five Facebook Pages in the Airlines/Ships/Trains category are London Underground (68,077 fans), Royal Caribbean International (53,247 fans), AirAsia (33,918 fans), and Virgin America (29,756). Virgin America’s page is full of clever content, such as this video on how passengers can be creative during their flights.

Popular brands American Airlines (#10), Amtrak (#15), and Princess Cruises (#19) make appearances in the Top 20, too. As the world’s best airline, cruise, and other transportation companies build larger fan communities in Facebook, we see a couple of opportunities. These brands will need to hold themselves accountable to the standards and expectations of customers, something that’s especially true in service-based industries like transportation. In addition, how will they make the travel experience – particularly the flight experience – more social?

Learn more about building your brand and growing your audience with our comprehensive guide to marketing on Facebook. The Facebook Marketing Bible is available at FacebookMarketingBible.com

While it’s too early to tell exactly what this means, Facebook engineer Blake Ross today posted a “test” tweet from a Twitter application called “Penguin FB” that resides on Facebook development servers. One interesting possibility: Facebook is working on a new, more native Twitter integration that would let users publish updates to Twitter automatically from Facebook.

If that is indeed the case, it would be an interesting move by Facebook. Allowing users to more easily link their Facebook updates with other services like Twitter could potentially make Facebook one of the largest Twitter applications. If only a few million Facebook users were to publish their status updates to Twitter, Facebook could become the largest source of tweets – an interesting inversion of the way Twitter is used as a Facebook application by many users today.

Of course, all of this is still speculation. When contacted, Facebook said it doesn’t have any comment on the “Penguin FB” project. (Update: Ross has since deleted the tweet.)

Nevertheless, the idea correlates with Facebook’s strategy in recent months to make status updates and streams more open and public. Will Facebook make it easy for users to automatically syndicate their public posts to any number of other services? It could very well make a lot of sense, and Twitter would be one of the best places to start.

Since the Platform launched in 2007, Facebook has taken a relatively hands-off approach to monetizing the application ecosystem. Facebook has never directly taxed developers, and has always allowed third parties to provide nearly all monetization and advertising services. Only recently has Facebook started testing its own in-house Platform payments system (May) and Platform ad network (back in February).

However, with the release of a new Facebook Ads feature called “Connection Targeting” yesterday, Facebook may be able to tap into more developer marketing dollars through its performance advertising system. The feature allows developers to target Facebook Ads to users of any of their applications while they’re on the site – effectively providing a new paid re-engagement or notification channel for developers.

Here are 4 scenarios where developers should consider trying Connection Targeting in Facebook Ads:

1. Application cross promotions: recruit all users of application A to try application B, too (specifically those application A users that are less likely to get natural invitations to application B)
2. Page cross promotions: recruit all users of application A to become a fan of application A as well, so that they can get updates in the stream in the future
3. Targeted notifications: send announcements or news to users in certain age/sex/location demographics designed to get them reengaged with the application
4. Special offers: reach some/all app users in a given time period for a special promotion

All in all, we expect to see more developer dollars flowing through Facebook Ads as a result of the new targeting capabilities.

Below: the Facebook Ads “connection targeting” interface

Rather than creating a separate advertising system for app developers, Facebook is funneling all advertising through its core performance platform. It will be interesting to see if Facebook further develops Facebook Ads to offer more customized solutions to developers going forward.

Facebook’s Justin Osofsky is encouraging developers interested in giving their feedback to Facebook on its Platform advertising efforts to do so using this survey.

At midnight, Harry Potter fans were waiting in long lines to catch the first showings of the long-awaited release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And today, as more waves of people make trips to the theater to watch J.K. Rowling’s sixth book on the big screen, others will be showing their loyalty in other ways – like sending Harry Potter themed virtual gifts to Facebook friends who share in their love of Harry Potter.

Millions of users today are seeing Harry Potter virtual gift engagement ads on the Facebook home page. They can also be found by visiting the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Facebook Page and clicking on the Gifts tab.

Users can send a Memory Vial, Cauldron, and/or Potions Book to their friends. All items are free and are available until “supply” is out. After sending a gift, you can choose to publish the story to the recipient’s wall. Here’s what the story looks like:

This is obviously not the first of branded virtual gifts on Facebook Pages. Virtual gifts are becoming an increasingly popular and common form of advertising inside Facebook – both on the Facebook home page and inside popular Facebook applications. In many cases, the timing of virtual gift campaigns – as is the case with the Harry Potter gifts and the opening day of the Half-Blood Prince – is critical.

Related Resources:

• The Facebook Marketing Bible
• Best and Worst Facebook Marketing 2009

Verizon introduced its Widget Bazaar for FiOS customers is select states today, and among the options is a Facebook widget, a first for a TV service.

With the widget, you’ll be able to update your status with what TV program you’re watching at the time, and see friends’ updates and profile pictures on one side of the screen. You’ll also be able to view photo albums. Browsing through pictures on a big screen TV is great for sharing with large groups, and will most likely appeal to older users who primarily use Facebook to keep up with family members and see the latest shots of the grandkids.

For now, the service only supports one profile per FiOS box, but this should be rectified soon. Verizon has stated that multiple profiles should be available within a matter of weeks.

The Verizon Widget Bazaar is only accessible to a limited number of developers, and Verizon is maintaining complete control over what’s coming down the pipe. Initial rollout is limited, but a number of other popular services, such as Twitter, are represented in this first batch.

Verizon is obviously taking aim at other cable and satellite providers, as well as trying to offer services similar to those available for the PS3 and Xbox. While these widgets won’t replace their full-featured counterparts on the internet, it will give people on the fence about which TV service provider to choose something to think about.

[images via Gizmodo]

As summer advances, the application leaderboards are showing healthy signs of growth. According to AppData, the top gainers this week in the one million to 10 million monthly active users (MAU) category are a combination of gaming, quiz, music, and events-related apps that are reporting impressive numbers. Let’s take a closer look.

		Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %	Developer
1.		FarmVille	9,971,080	+2,993,470	+42.9	Zynga
2.		Food Fling!	2,495,178	+1,301,267	+109.0	OffBeat Creations, Inc.
3.		Quizzer	2,971,217	+1,065,025	+55.9	idleStudios
4.		FARKLE	3,519,250	+866,144	+32.7	Viral, s.r.o.
5.		What Type Of Girl Are you?	1,542,841	+625,985	+68.3	Paige Crossman
6.		Hugged	3,388,948	+620,799	+22.4	Manakki
7.		Zoosk	6,259,113	+618,892	+11.0	Zoosk
8.		Restaurant City	6,681,857	+498,329	+8.1	Playfish
9.		YoVille	8,673,186	+465,236	+5.7	Zynga
10.		Music	9,096,112	+377,682	+4.3	iLike, inc
11.		Barn Buddy	3,977,136	+368,699	+10.2	TheBroth, Inc.
12.		UNO™ BETA	2,440,721	+276,230	+12.8	GameHouse
13.		Circle of Moms	1,751,386	+223,285	+14.6	Circle of Moms
14.		Waka-Waka	3,671,502	+219,351	+6.4	Metrogames
15.		Biotronic	3,946,133	+210,696	+5.6	Metrogames
16.		Facebook® for BlackBerry® smartphones	7,164,916	+202,850	+2.9	Research In Motion, Ltd.
17.		SocialCalendar	1,144,021	+159,391	+16.2	SocialCalendar.com
18.		Quiz Monster	1,291,517	+158,801	+14.0	Quiz Monster
19.		Tattoodle	1,662,681	+148,635	+9.8	Make The Web Better
20.		Hug Me	4,218,777	+125,078	+3.1	RockYou!

The top gainer this week is FarmVille, which saw a gain in nearly three million MAU, a 43 percent increase in monthly active users.

Developed by Zynga, the app allows users to grow their own farms by planting seeds and trees, purchasing animals, buildings, and decorations, and visiting your friends’ farms. Users earn coins along the way to unlock special items (like the pumpkin seeds!) and can buy more coins via credit card, PayPal, mobile phone, etc. While Zynga is currently on the sending and receiving end of IP-related lawsuits – and FarmVille itself can’t be called an original idea – it is showing tremendous success in terms of user acquisition and growth. Launched not even a month ago, the app currently stands at almost 10 million MAU.

And sharing the Top Five spot with FarmVille are Food Fling! (a virtual food fight app), Quizzer (a quiz creator and directory), FARKLE (the addicting dice game we covered earlier), and What Type of Girl Are you? The Top Five shows us that social gaming and quiz apps are in the lead, growing anywhere from 33 to 109 percent in the past week.

The Top 20 fastest growing apps this week also include Playfish’s Restaurant City (#8), competitor to FarmVille Barn Buddy (#11), Circle of Moms (#13), SocialCalendar (#17), and RockYou!’s Hug Me (#20).