While the Facebook Platform economy has been changing and, for the most part, maturing over the past couple of years, most of the early firms devoted to helping developers monetize their users have been based in the United Sttates. However, that’s changing this year. In the last few months, we’ve seen several European virtual currency monetization launch Facebook Platform initiatives.

For example, just in the last six months:

• SupersonicAds, an Israeli company focused on virtual currency monetization of European audiences, came out of stealth mode in April.
• SponsorPay, a Berlin-based firm focused on European virtual currency backed by Team Europe Ventures, came out of stealth mode in August.
• TokenAds, another Tel Aviv-based firm focused on the monetization of international audiences, lifted the curtains in September.
• GratisPay, also based in Germany, announced its focus on social games and funding from the venture arm of StudiVZ owner Holtzbrinck last week.

Now, we’re hearing from more European monetization and payment companies that are planning to increase their efforts to help developers monetize international audiences in countries like the UK, France, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the large US-based companies aren’t sitting on their laurels either. Players like Super Rewards, Offerpal, and more are expanding their international and localization efforts to battle it out across Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

All in all, we expect the battle to monetize Facebook’s 200+ million active users outside the US to intensify over the coming year, as more regional payment companies and ad networks seek to cash in on the boom in traffic and social games happening on the Facebook Platform. As more quality CPA advertisers and payment providers come online, monetization rates should improve.

While international virtual currency monetization is still maturing, this is a good trend overall for developers, who have historically not been able to monetize international audiences through traditional advertising very well. We’ll be tracking European payment providers over the coming months as Facebook’s international reach continues to expand.

Facebook grew from 44 million to 50 million in Asia last month, according to our Global Monitor report, gaining six million new users over August — and mostly in three countries. The Philippines grew by 1.38 million people to 5.78 million monthly active users. Taiwan grew by nearly as many people, seeing a massive surge of 1.37 million to reach 3.32 million. Indonesia, already the largest Facebook country in Asia, grew by 1.19 million to reach 9.71 million monthly actives.

We’ve also seen a surge in Facebook gaming applications that are available in widely-spoken languages in the region, especially Chinese. As in the rest of the world, virtual farming and aquarium-decorating games have quickly become popular. In fact, developers active in the region have told us that many users are playing Facebook because of the games, and many don’t even realize that the games are not hosted and owned by Facebook.

Simulation games like these have been popular in China and other parts of Asia for years, so perhaps the most surprising part is that users are moving on to Facebook to play.

Asia-built aquarium games include Happy Fishbowl, with 12.8 million monthly actives and My Fishbowl, with around 5 million — no wonder Zynga, the largest Facebook game developer, is planning a “FishVille.” Regionally-produced farm games includes “Happy Farm” with more than 3 million monthly actives. Other popular simulation style game apps include Animal Paradise and Sunshine Ranch.

Across other parts of Asia, Facebook saw relatively less growth, although in some countries that appears due to the site saturating the population. The second-largest Facebook country in the region is Australia, with 6.93 million monthly actives: It only grew by 258,000 in September, but that means 32.2% of the country is now on the site. Ahead of the island continent, Hong Kong and Singapore saw similar growth numbers and slightly higher penetration rates.

Facebook, which makes the raw data we analyze publicly available, groups Russia, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent in with the rest of the region. So, looking at the 20 largest countries in all of Asia, we see a number of other show up.

Not every government in this region allows Facebook — China, Iran and North Korea have blocked it, for example, so many countries either don’t show up or show falling numbers. Others, like some in Central Asia, don’t have large internet populations.

And some countries, we expect to see serious growth, at least based on regional and worldwide Facebook growth patterns, as well as anecdotal reports. Most obviously, India grew 222,000 to reach 4.27 million — 0.73% of the country’s 1.14 billion people. Indian users of Zynga’s farming game, FarmVille, for example, staged a successful protest in recent weeks to get the company to create an Indian flag to decorate virtual farms with. Other reports suggest Facebook is sucking up users from Google’s Orkut. Another country we expect to see grow is Malaysia, which gained 309,000 to reach 2.91 million last month. That’s 10.5% of the country’s 27.7 million users.

And one final note on Malaysia — and Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, the current home to Friendster. It seems that Facebook’s somewhat inadvertent gaming strategy could be what’s disrupting Friendster, a company that has only now decided to focus more heavily on games. Perhaps a Hi5-like refocus to gaming could give it a new boost?

Earlier this week, the Facebook Platform team released a new “Create Application API” that makes it easy for applications to programmatically generate API keys for “child” applications that users may want to generate on the fly. For example, fourth party service providers like Disqus could use the new feature to enable bloggers to generate a plugin with the Facebook Connect application settings already configured. Other services that might want to use the new API are white label application developers, like makers of templated quiz or virtual gifting applications, to more efficiently create new apps.

In addition, Facebook says it is also experimenting with giving users a new way to automatically hide all children of a parent application whenever they “Hide” any one child application in their News Feed. While Facebook hasn’t given very specific details on this test, a Facebook spokesperson did tell us:

The “hide” function [experiment] applies to a small percentage of new and existing applications. We’re experimenting with the feature so that users can hide some applications in aggregate, by hiding the parent application instead of just the template child application.

The “hiding” function can apply to apps created with the new API, or existing applications that weren’t created with the CreateApp API.

Facebook also says the experiments are only happening with applications “where there is a significant, demonstrated user demand for such a function.”

Ultimately, this means that Facebook could make it easier for users to block broad swaths of popular quiz, gift, or stats apps with one action, all in an effort to protect users’ views toward apps. We’ll let you know as we hear more about how these tests are going in the wild.

Yesterday, we announced the release of our new Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market, 2009 – 2010 research report, exclusively focused on the size and future of the virtual goods market in the United States. The big picture? We estimate the total 2009 US virtual goods opportunity at just over $1 billion.

Today, report co-author and partner Charles Hudson is appearing on CNBC‘s “Street Signs” around 2:50pm ET / 11:50am PT (in just a few minutes) to discuss the report and virtual goods. We’ll post video here as soon as it’s online!

Update: Here’s the video clip from earlier today.

With so many ways to build presence and engage on Facebook, many of you have been asking for a more hands-on accelerated introduction to cover the full Facebook marketing landscape. As a result, Inside Facebook is excited to be partnering with Facebook Era author Clara Shih to offer an intensive two-hour crash course on Thursday, October 22, kicking off a new Inside Facebook Marketing Workshop series. Final registration at $149 opens today at 8am PST/11am EST and ends next Wednesday or when the workshop is sold out.

The first Inside Facebook Marketing Workshop is an intensive and comprehensive two-hour Facebook marketing training session led by industry experts Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era, and Justin Smith, Founder and Editor of Inside Facebook and author of The Facebook Marketing Bible.

Justin and Clara will lead workshop participants through a crash course in Facebook marketing products and strategies – focused on Facebook Ads and Facebook Pages – equipping marketers, businesses, and brands to navigate the Facebook marketing ecosystem and execute successful Facebook marketing campaigns. Some topics which will be covered:

I. Facebook Consumer Psychology

Creating a winning campaign on Facebook requires a deep understanding of the new Facebook audience psychology. Hypertargeting and news feed updates are creating new social norms around how people interact, share, and make decisions across their personal and professional lives. More than ever, loyalty and referrals from existing users are the marketer’s most effective and cost-effective way to get results.

II. The Ins and Outs of Hypertargeted Facebook Ads

Data on social networks, such as where people are from, what they are interested in, and who their friends are, with the right privacy controls in place can then be implicitly or explicitly mined to make business interactions more tailored, personal, and precise. On Facebook, advertisers can now “hypertarget” ads to specific audience profiles based on any of the information captured on user profiles, including location, gender, age, education, workplace, relationship status, relationship goals, and interests.

III. Building the Right Facebook Presence

Now that you’re ready to build your Facebook presence, what should you know about building and managing your Facebook Page? See how successful businesses and brands are creatively managing their Pages in ways that best fit their products and strategy in order to gain insights on how to best manage your Facebookh Page. Learn how to use Facebook’s analytics tools to their full potential to maximize your success and learn what’s working and what’s not working – every day.

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Tire manufacturer Michelin has enlisted ad agency, TBWA, to help create a new Facebook campaign around the venerable Michelin Man. The company is initially focusing on the US market, with plans to expand worldwide into more than 50 countries.

TBWA was tasked with creating a new campaign centered around the new Michelin slogan, “The right rite changes everything.” There is also an apparent push to create a new image for the beloved mascot, and it seems that it may have something to do with creating a super hero persona.

The first commercial in the new campaign, which can be viewed on the Facebook page, is pushing the Energy Saver line of tires, with the Michelin Man battling an evil gas pump. Two other television commercials are teased on the Michelin site for two other lines. The commercial is also available on the Michelin Man’s new YouTube page, which was also created by TBWA.

The page gives fans the ability to post comments to the wall, add their own photos and view videos about tire care and the most recent Michelin commercials and ads. More than 1,100 Facebook users have become fans of the Michelin Man since the page was created last week.

That’s on okay start, considering the reaction we’ve seen in the past to companies creating pages for lovable mascots. Leveraging the existing popularity of those mascots, such as the Aflac Duck, has proven to be an effective way to help build a following to spread brand messaging.

Energizer is challenging players of the popular Rock Band console game to build unique Facebook pages for their bands — and get a chance to participate in a 20-hour “Advance Into Overdrive” Battle of the Bands concert in New York City. The promotion is highlighting battery-maker Energizer’s sponsorship of the in-game Battle of the Bands feature that allows Rock Band players to challenge one another for prizes.

The contest uses a Facebook application that requires bands to create a new Facebook page and populate it with creative content to build an online fan base. The band that makes the most interactive, fan-driven page will decide who gets to make the trip to Times Square to participate in a concert-style 20-hour game playing marathon — that will also be streamed live through the contest site.

This concert is the first in the “Advance Into Overdrive” series that will appear in the game, beginning Nov. 16, and allow bands and individuals to challenge one another online through three advancing stages of play. Winners will eventually be crowned, with prizes ranging from the entire 800 song Rock Band DLC catalog and a year’s worth of Energizer Advanced Lithium batteries to t-shirts and other various game-related items.

Anyone wishing to participate in the contest to rock in New York City can start building their rock star-worthy pages today. The contest will run through Nov. 3, with the concert taking place at the MTV store in Times Square on Nov. 13.

ComScore, Quantcast, and Compete have all just released their September numbers, so here’s the latest look at Facebook’s US traffic according to each metrics firm. As always, it’s important to note that these services often differ from one another because each service uses different methodologies with different strengths and weaknesses – usually based on some combination of self reporting, ISP reporting, and panel sampling – but together, we can use them to triangulate trends in Facebook’s US traffic. So, here’s the latest.

1. comScore: 95.5 million US uniques, up 8.9% m/m, up 131% y/y

comScore is reporting a big jump in Facebook’s US traffic this month – nearly 9 percent to 95.5 million people. comScore also reports that Facebook is reaching 60% of the total US social network audience of 156.7 million people right now.

2. Quantcast: 99.6 million US uniques, up 5.3% m/m, up 149% y/y

Quantcast is also reporting strong growth for Facebook in September, at 5.3% to just shy of 100 million uniques. That’s about a 150% gain over the last 12 months.

3. Compete: 122.9 million US uniques, up 1.9% m/m, up 209% y/y

Finally, Compete is reporting an increase in Facebook traffic in 2% for the month, to 122.9 million people. Again, we’re not sure why Compete’s numbers are so much higher than those reported by others (or Facebook itself), but one possibility is it’s lumping in Connect integrations somehow too.

For reference, Facebook reported its own US traffic at the end of September to be 88.3 million uniques in its own advertiser tools. Facebook’s published numbers are usually slightly delayed, however, and are usually lower than those reported by third party services.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been noticing that rock guitarist Slash, formerly of Guns N’ Roses, has doubled his number of Facebook fans to 1 million (i.e. that’s more than Oprah). Okay, for all of the Slash/GnR fans out there, we know he’s a talented guitarist. But his page was hardly growing until around September 23rd, when it started gaining thousands of new fans.

Meanwhile, Guns N’ Roses‘ own page is poking along at 345,000. Sure, Slash left the group in the mid-90s — so what about his new band, Velvet Revolver? We don’t even see an official page for it. Another possible cause: Slash has been playing live concerts recently, ahead of a solo album called “Slash & Friends” slated for release next year. However, we haven’t seen any sort of of massive ad campaign for that album, or anything else to do with Slash.

Facebook users have suddenly and spontaneously started expressing their long-standing love for Slash by becoming fans of his page.

And it appears Slash (aka Saul Hudson) has been doing a great job of fostering that love. For months, he has been actively updating his Facebook page multiple times a day, using the mobile text feature. He’s even feeding messages from his Facebook page to his Twitter account (which itself has around 100,000 followers). Thousands of fans are liking and commenting his every update. Maybe all this interaction is what’s driving the growth, although it doesn’t explain the surge of the last few weeks.

Any more ideas about what’s going on? Let us know in the comments.

Note: The drop-off in the growth graph, above, appears to be due to a data-reporting delay rather than an actual drop-off.

While virtual goods have been driving revenues in Asia and Europe for years, 2009 will be remembered as the year virtual goods-based businesses began to scale in the United States. Virtual goods may be bringing the largest disruption entertainment, communication, and e-commerce infrastructure companies have seen for a long time.

That’s why I’m excited to announce today a new in-depth research report with partner/co-author Charles Hudson that is exclusively focused on the size and future of the virtual goods market in the United States, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market, 2009 – 2010. It is being released for the first time this morning. The big picture? We estimate the total 2009 US virtual goods opportunity at just over $1 billion.

Purchase this report Buy PDF: $995 USD OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Quarterly Updates: $1,995 USD

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods is a new report designed specifically for entrepreneurs, investors, and analysts interested in the growth of this exciting new category of online commerce that is fueling the growth of games-as-a-service businesses. During our research over the last several months, Charles and I have spoken with dozens of executives and entrepreneurs from all parts of the ecosystem in order to form what we believe are the most detailed estimates, analyses, and predictions for 2009 and 2010.

We focused and organized the report around the following areas:

1. Social Networks, Applications, and Games - The explosion of the virtual goods market on social networks is in our view one of the biggest stories of 2009. We delve deeply into the trends, stats, key players, opportunities, and challenges facing the space this year and next.
2. Casual MMOs and Virtual Worlds - Virtual worlds and casual MMOs continue to grow as a meaningful share of the virtual goods opportunity in the United States. Our study breaks down the key drivers for success in this segment, trends in monetization and engagement, and the prospects for the future.
3. Hardcore MMOs and Free-to-Play Online Games – Developers in the MMO / MMORPG space have been among the earliest adopters of the free-to-play model. We explore why free-to-play MMOs are succeeding, revenue and user trends, and the key issues facing this space as we head into 2010.
4. Emerging Areas: Consoles, iPhone, and Subscription MMOs- As the virtual goods business model becomes more well understood, it is beginning to show up in new and interesting areas of the games and entertainment landscape. We highlight a few of the more promising areas where virtual goods are emerging as a promising opportunity.

Each section contains:

1. A brief history on the evolution and growth of this space in the US, including a description of all key players.
2. Estimates on the size of the US virtual goods market in 2009 in that area.
3. A diagnosis of the key opportunities and issues facing the growth of that space, including our outlook and projections for 2010.

In addition, prior to delving more deeply into each market segment, we’ve provided an overview of the emerging payments ecosystem that is growing to serve these new businesses. Traditional e-commerce infrastructure providers only offer a partial solution, and the virtual goods payments layer is currently in a major state of flux. In the report, we describe the variety of solutions that have been brought to market to date, and the key challenges facing the industry from a payments perspective as a whole.

For more details, check out the full table of contents below.

The price of the report is US $995. In addition, we will be releasing quarterly research and updates on key developments in the space. A one-year subscription is now available for US $1,995.

Charles and I are looking forward to continuing to cover the evolution of the space over the coming year. We look forward to hearing from you!

Table of Contents

Buy Now

The price of the report is US $995. In addition, we will be releasing quarterly research and updates on key developments in the space. A one-year subscription is available for US $1,995.

Purchase this report

Buy PDF: $995 USD

OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Quarterly Updates: $1,995 USD

List of Related Companies: Acclaim, Activision, AdParlor, Aeria Games, Amazon, Artix Entertainment, Bebo (AOL), Boku, Boomerang Networks, Challenge Games, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Fatfoogoo, Firecue, Frogster, Gaia Online, Gala-Net, Gambit, Google, GratisPay, Green Patch, gWallet, Hi5, IMVU, iovation, Jagex, Kontagent, Meez, Metaplace, Microsoft, MySpace, Nexon, Nintendo, Offerpal Media, Outspark, PaymentPin, PayPal, PeanutLabs, Playdom, Playfish, PlaySpan, Rekoo, Riot Games, RockYou!, Second Life, Serious Business, SGN, Six Degrees Games, Slashkey, Slide, SocialGold, Sometrics, Sony, Sony (Free Realms), SponsorPay, Sulake (Habbo Hotel), Super Rewards, SupersonicAds, SurfPin, TheBroth, ThreatMetrix, Three Rings (Puzzle Pirates), TokenAds, TrialPay, Turbine, Twofish, Viacom (MTV), Viacom (Neopets), Viximo, WeeWorld, Zong, Zynga