Facebook started the year with just under 150 million active users worldwide, crossed 300 million in September, and we estimate it’s on track to end the year with just over 375 million. It’s hard to comprehend that kind of growth, but to put it in perspective, there are only about 1.65 billion active internet users in the world. If you exclude the 350 million active internet users in China, where Facebook is blocked, that means that about 29% of the total worldwide internet population will be active Facebook users by the end of 2009.

With estimates calling for the global internet population to grow to 2.1 billion in 2012, potentially to 2.5 billion by 2015, could Facebook reach 1 billion active users in the next five years? In order to achieve that mark, Facebook would need to achieve nearly 50% penetration of Internet users in almost every country outside of China.

In order to get there, Facebook will need to show strong growth in all regions of the world. Today, Facebook continues to increasingly saturate some western markets, where in many cases over 30% of the entire national population is active on Facebook (in Iceland it’s 51%; Norway is at 45%; the UK is at 36% and the US is at 32%). At the same time, Facebook is beginning to tip major international markets where it is unseating popular incumbent social networks.

For example, the user growth curve is concave up in Brazil and India, where Orkut has been dominant for years, and Facebook continues to gain ground in Germany, where StudiVZ sites have been the most popular for a while. In southeast Asia, Facebook has exploded in recent months, which doesn’t bode well for Friendster and other networks in the region. However, growth has been slower in Russia, where Vkontakte has maintained local dominance – Facebook has only 670,000 active users in the whole country.

Note: all data sourced from Facebook’s advertiser tools.

Of course, Facebook’s approach to crowd-sourced translations of its web service and, more recently, any website through Facebook Connect, has played a major role in Facebook’s international growth over the last couple of years. Today, Facebook is available in more than 70 languages, with dozens more on the way. While we still hear complaints from some users that translations in localized versions of Facebook are not quite up to snuff, the quality does seem to be improving overall.

Facebook’s mobile efforts have played a significant role in the company’s international growth over the last couple of years as well. Facebook has quietly built apps for many mobile devices and struck deals with dozens of local carriers to facilitate Facebook’s spread around the world. While we don’t know exactly how many of Facebook’s active user count comes from its variety of mobile platforms and apps, we do know stats on some mobile apps and that overall, Facebook’s mobile audience has tripled in the last year. The company had 65 million mobile users as of early September, according to internal numbers it made public then.

While we expect Facebook to continue pushing both of these efforts forward in the years ahead, Facebook’s growth will still be fundamentally driven by the viral nature of the product. As more people join Facebook, the service becomes increasingly valuable to those already on Facebook, making it increasingly difficult for competitors to stop Facebook in its tracks. We are not seeing any signs of decreases in Facebook’s total audience size in any country that we track (except China of course and, last month, Cyprus). Thus, we believe it’s quite possible that the rate at which Facebook approaches 1 billion active users will be most affected by the growth rate of the Internet population overall.

If Facebook does reach that point, it will be in a position to shape a number of other industries, and it will also be subject to a number of other pressures. Search, media, entertainment, telecom, shopping, and payment companies will all be watching Facebook closely, as the company’s continued growth will likely mean significant things for their future. Facebook will also become subject to new kinds of international regulations and political pressure, particularly as it is increasingly used in ways that national governments would like to have more control over.

It’s no surprise that a recent Razorfish survey of online consumers shows that many are following Facebook brand pages to take advantage of the freebies that pages are offering to increase their fan numbers, and nowhere is that trend more evident than with restaurants and food brands on Facebook. Free food offers are popping up all over Facebook, and the food-for-fans campaigns are returning big numbers for those brands.

The Razorfish survey revealed that of the 1,000 users polled, 40% are following brands on Facebook or MySpace, with 44% of that number citing freebies and deals as the main reason for becoming fans of any given brand. We’ve been tracking the numbers for many of the brands and restaurants offering free food in exchange for becoming fans of their Facebook pages for a while, and these campaign are some of the  more successful ones out there when it comes to increasing follower numbers. Indeed, we just noticed that two brands running free-food campaigns had some of the fastest-growing Facebook pages this page week.

Outback Steakhouse Trades Bloomin Onions For Followers

One of the current free-food offers running on Facebook is from Outback Steakhouse, which is serving up a coupon for a free Bloomin Onion with the purchase of an entree to the first 500,000 people who become fans of the page. So far, the campaign has created a following of nearly 125,000 fans, with more than 100,000 joining the page since the launch of the free Bloomin Onion offer last week — and bringing it into our top 20 pages list,  yesterday.

Papa John’s Continues To Push It’s Page Through Freebies

Pizza maker Papa John’s is no stranger to successful Facebook campaigns, and its latest offer gives new fans a free medium pizza with a minimum online order of $10. Papa John‘s teamed with mega-brand Coke earlier this year to give new fans a shot at tickets to the NCAA Men’s Final Four, and the brand was one of the first to experience real success with a food for fans campaign with a previous offer for free pizza. It grew by 259,000 fans last week to reach 696,000 as of yesterday.

Starbucks Finds New Fans While Promoting New Products

Starbucks recently ran a successful campaign this summer that had a two-fold positive effect for the brand — the coffee company was able to rope in new Facebook fans and get the word out about its new line of ice creams. The Starbucks campaign did not require Facebook users to become fans of the page to take advantage of the coupon offer, but it obviously drove a considerable amount of traffic to the already popular page. As of today, the page has 4.97 million fans, the seventh-largest page on Facebook overall.

Free Hot Sauce Becomes A Hot Item For Texas Pete

Popular hot sauce maker Texas Pete offered 10,000 bottles of its product to Facebook users and quickly ran through the supply. The success of the campaign fueled another push for more fans, and the brand is aiming to reach 100,000 fans by Nov. 15th, at which point they’ll offer a coupon featuring a buy one get one free offer.

Woody Brings In Nearly 1 Million Fans For T.G.I. Friday’s

By far one of the most popular recent free food offers involved the T.G.I Friday’s chain of restaurants, which used an original character named Woody to gather fans on the the promise of a free Jack Daniel’s sandwich. The campaign was one of the few to offer a freebie with no strings attached, and the goal of 500,000 fans was quickly eclipsed, causing T.G.I Friday’s to reevaluate its goals. The brand put a lot of money and effort into the push for fans, and is the only time we’ve seen a Facebook promotion for free food cross over into TV ads.

Facebook users have shown that they are willing to fan almost any page offering free food, but it’s then up to those brands to maintain their fans through interesting and engaging pages. While many of the fans taking advantage of the freebies are probably already users of the products, Facebook offers a new opportunity to bring in new consumers. Without an engaging, interactive page, however, new users may just jump on board for the free offer and then drop the page once they’ve collected their prize. Brands need to also be careful about over-engagement — nothing will make Facebook users quit a brand page faster than a flood of unnecessary posts in their news feeds. It’s up to each brand to find that balance to continue to grow its page once it has hooked fans with free offers.

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

Nearly a month ago, we first reported that gaming giant EA (ERTS) was looking to acquire large social game developer Playfish. Today, the deal was made official: EA is acquiring Playfish for USD $275 million in cash plus up to USD $125 million more in earnouts and equity retention bonuses.

We just spoke with Playfish COO Sebastien de Halleux about the deal, the future of virtual goods monetization in social games, and what the acquisition means for the industry. To read the full interview, head over to Inside Social Games.

This is by far the largest acquisition of a leading Facebook Platform developer to date, and a symbolically very different one than the early ones we saw in 2007, like Extended Info and Favorite Peeps. Today, EA is acquiring a leading developer of games as a service that is monetizing through virtual goods for up to USD $400 million.

What can Facebook developers learn from the Playfish case?

1. High quality social games monetizing through virtual goods are creating sustainable value. “This is the biggest validation this industry has had, and I can guarantee you this transaction would not have happened if there was not some sustainable value,” de Halleux says. “EA’s acquisition validates this space, and shows how big this is about to become. Now, this is going to grow on a really massive scale… This will become a multi-billion industry over the next couple of years.”

2. Don’t confuse long term value with short-term revenue maximization. “Value is easily confused with maximum revenue in the short term. We want to create the most valuable IP over time,” de Halleux says. “We want to create the Star Wars of social games, or whatever franchise you can think of.”

3. Expect increased marketing spend from a suddenly-much-richer competitor. “EA gives us more resources to grow right now – more marketing budget to reach new users in new ways,” de Halleux says. “Over the longer term this is the best way to secure the dominant position that we’ve been aiming for.” That could mean more marketing dollars coming Facebook’s way.

4. Be conservative on what offers you run. “We have been using offers very conservatively because we believe advertisers have a role to play in social game monetization,” de Halleux says. The “vast majority” of Playfish revenues come from direct transactions with end users. “Some people call it the most conservative view, we call it the most long term view around high quality offers… The bottom line here is that we are trying to create high quality products, and the ultimate test of quality is do users want to pay for the product.”

> Read the full interview at Inside Social Games

For whatever reason, some of the biggest games on Facebook seem to be growing slower this week versus last week, according to our AppData service. Specifically, the past few months have seen Zynga‘s FarmVille — and then Café World — gain millions of new users each week. But on today’s list of the top 20 applications with the most new users, FarmVille comes in at number 5 with 781,000, and Café World at 13 with only 395,000. “Only” is relative, as these are still the largest games on Facebook. And Zynga’s other games, like Mafia Wars and Roller Coast Kingdom, are also on today’s list.

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Happy Aquarium	25,123,788	+2,371,679	+9.44
2.	Quiz Monster	14,167,791	+1,865,781	+13.17
3.	Mafia Wars	26,764,060	+1,094,482	+4.09
4.	QuizBone	1,731,426	+906,594	+52.36
5.	FarmVille	63,704,394	+781,298	+1.23
6.	Island Paradise	5,335,048	+773,460	+14.50
7.	Friend Quiz	5,451,964	+652,376	+11.97
8.	Roller Coaster Kingdom	15,124,485	+606,204	+4.01
9.	Mobsters 2: Vendetta	4,493,661	+559,275	+12.45
10.	Little Warrior	1,650,081	+541,771	+32.83
11.	Facebook for iPhone	17,238,632	+449,936	+2.61
12.	Bejeweled Blitz	10,635,910	+401,424	+3.77
13.	Café World	28,372,852	+394,972	+1.39
14.	Honesty Box	2,412,887	+351,948	+14.59
15.	Sorority Life	7,728,334	+326,556	+4.23
16.	Fish Life	1,222,421	+311,021	+25.44
17.	Quiz Planet!	12,107,185	+298,849	+2.47
18.	Family Tree	5,973,507	+248,377	+4.16
19.	Castle Age	1,905,213	+244,560	+12.84
20.	Paf le Sarko	1,105,133	+239,171	+21.64

But why did none of them gain the millions they had before? Did Facebook’s switch from a raw news feed to an algorithmic feed a few weeks ago make it harder for Zynga (and other developers) to engage users? Possibly, although growth rates appear similar to before when you look further down the list. Perhaps Zynga has cut back on running ads in Facebook in the past week?

Anyway, Happy Aquarium, by CrowdStar, came in at number one on the list. This virtual aquarium decoration game gained 2.37 million users to reach 25.1 million total, making it the fifth-largest app on the platform.

Playdom also shows up, with Mobsters 2: Vendetta and Sorority Life making the list. So does Bejeweled Blitz, from Popcap Games.

There are some other interesting new apps on the list, from game developers we haven’t seen much. One is virtual farming game Island Paradise, from NeoPets creator Meteor Games. Another is fighting game Little Warrior, from an independent developer team. And another is Caste Age, a nice-looking fantasy role-playing game that’s also from an independent developer team. There’s also Fish Life, another virtual aquarium game, from Singapore-based Clipwire Games.

Indie social games are not the only ones growing these days. There are four quiz or quiz-creating applications on the top 20 list, including Quiz Monster at number 2, with 1.87 million new users this week. We’ve been noticing more quiz apps, recently, and maybe there’s some viral loop they’re tapping into in the new news feed? Or maybe it’s just that a lot of people love to take quizzes.

Some of these apps have seen recent drops in engagement in terms of daily active users — due to the new news feed? We’ve previously noted that at least some Quiz Monster quizzes disguise ads as features, and maybe that trick is driving people away? The rest of the apps appear to be growing DAUs along with MAUs, despite what appeared to be a small drop in DAUs around the time of news feed in previous weeks.

Speaking of non-games, there’s also Family Tree, a genealogy app, and a French-language humor app, Paf le Sarko, where you launch French president Nicolas Sarkozy into the air.

Finally, a classic app has also showed up on the list — Honesty Box, one of the first to launch on the Facebook platform. The app asks you and your friends to anonymously share secrets about each other. It grew by 352,000 new users to reach 2.41 million monthly actives.

And one more thing: Facebook for iPhone continues to lead as the largest mobile Facebook app that we know of. It gained 450,000 to total 17.2 million monthly actives.

A few companies running specialized content, like coupons and video trailers, are also seeing solid growth on this week’s list of the top 20 growing pages on Facebook. But same as last week, the number one page is for the Turkish national flag. October 29th was the 86th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey, and the growth from last week was apparently due ongoing enthusiasm from many of the 15.3 million monthly active users in the country. The page added 277,000 to reach 1.57 million fans.

Papa John’s comes in at number two. The pizza-maker has been running successful experiments on its page for many months, and its latest one offers users a free medium pizza in exchange for becoming a Facebook fan. The result, as we have seen with food giveways from TGI Friday’s and other restaurants, is a lot of hungry new fans. Papa John’s page grew by 260,000 fans to reach 696,000.

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Türk Bayrağı	1,567,664	+277,137	+21.47
2.	Papa John’s Pizza	696,242	+259,543	+59.43
3.	Starbucks	4,984,191	+225,317	+4.73
4.	Mafia Wars	5,429,964	+224,857	+4.32
5.	李连杰 Jet Li	2,308,437	+203,398	+9.66
6.	Vin Diesel	6,988,056	+185,091	+2.72
7.	All Blacks	194,686	+168,248	+636.39
8.	Texas Hold’em Poker	3,832,843	+166,763	+4.55
9.	Owl City	796,634	+154,366	+24.03
10.	Celebs on Facebook	1,967,497	+151,961	+8.37
11.	Jay-Z	1,057,383	+150,336	+16.57
12.	Disney	2,022,501	+148,754	+7.94
13.	Big Prize Giveaways	1,774,416	+130,538	+7.94
14.	Facebook Site Governance	406,277	+129,991	+47.05
15.	Cheryl Cole	1,425,052	+121,182	+9.29
16.	Not Panicking Over Swine Flu	534,751	+100,850	+23.24
17.	Twilight	4,062,881	+99,052	+2.50
18.	Eminem	2,297,507	+96,136	+4.37
19.	Slash	1,401,919	+84,306	+6.40
20.	Outback Steakhouse	102,536	+76,314	+291.03

Moving on down the list, here are a few other pages that are seeing consistent day-to-day growth — it’s important to watch for this metric, as some pages on this list see one-day spikes when Facebook adds unofficial pages in to official pages. That sort of growth is not as interesting, because it is not driven by the page itself spurring engagement with fans.

Actor Jet Li is also on the list for the second week in a row, although it’s not entirely clear why. His page is consistently growing — it gained 203,000 new fans to reach 2.31 million — but he only updates his page every few days. Maybe he’s just that popular? Maybe Facebook has been running ads for his page, as it has been doing with rock star Slash (also on this week’s list), and other celebrities?

Speaking of musicians, electronica act Owl City and pop diva Cheryl Cole also have pages seeing consistent growth; Cole has been on a roll since the launch of a hit new album last month, that included an intensive social media campaign. However, Owl City appears to be updating its page directly, whereas one of Cole’s marketers seems to be doing the job for her.

Another brand with a coupon on its page is Outback Steakhouse, which has been offering a giant helping of onion fries (with the purchase of an entrée) to the first 500,000 Facebook user who becomes a fan. The page has grown by 76,000 to reach 103,000 fans in the last week. It turns out that fans like free food — see our list of 8 tips for restaurants for more on that — and we expect other big restaurants and fast-food chains to offer the same.

Entertainment brands are also on the list. Disney‘s home page is running a big promotion for its “A Christmas Carol” movie, including a block of trailer clips above its page’s wall. The page gained 149,000 fans to total 2.02 million. Vampire television series Twilight‘s page continues to grow, ahead of a new movie coming out later this month. The page grew by 99,000 to reach 4.06 million, and we expect this teen hit to keep climbing.

Nearly a month ago, we first reported that gaming giant EA was looking to buy Playfish. Today, the deal is official. The purchase price is $275 million in cash, with $25 million in “equity retention arrangements,” according to the press release, as well as “a maximum of $100 million” based on meeting performance milestones over the next two years.

The significance is that EA, one of the largest video-game makers in the world, believes that its future is tied up with social gaming. Playfish has distinguished itself by creating well-polished social games and gaining tens of millions of users.

In fact, as Inside Social Games readers know, we broke the story around a month ago. From our first article:

We have a few more details on what has supposedly been happening with Playfish. A reliable industry source says EA may have even acquired the company several weeks ago, with an announcement possibly happening in the next few weeks. We believe that Playfish could be on track to make as much as $75 million this year.

> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.

The Big Diesel is once again lending his fame to a Facebook campaign, teaming up with Toys “R” Us to help raise money for the Toys for Tots program. Toys “R” Us is donating $1 to the cause for every fan the Toys R Us Facebook page collects between now and Dec. 6, and Shaq-A Clause is onboard to help draw in fans.

The campaign is run through a “Shaq” tab on the Toys R Us Facebook page, and users can add to the contribution total by simply becoming fans of the page. Once becoming a fan, there is the usual option to post campaign information to news feeds, as well as a video message from O’Neal and a few links to the Toys “R” Us Web page with details about the Toys for Tots program.

Toys R Us has been partnering with Toys for Tots since 2004, but Shaq has been working with the toy retailer for more than a decade to provide toys and games for children. Both Shaq and Toys “R” Us are no strangers to Facebook marketing campaigns — Shaq has made a name for himself on Facebook with various promotions, and Toys “R” Us recently launched a dedicated Facebook application for its annual Big Book.

So far , the page has raised more than $12,800 through its Facebook endeavors, and those wishing to donate more can also contribute from a link in the application or in Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us stores.

One of the founding features that made Facebook so popular is the ability to easily share photos with friends and family. Of course, among the billions of photos that have been posted, there are inevitably a few that some users probably wish would go away forever. A branded application from detergent maker Wisk is offering to do just that, finding tagged photos of users that they’d like removed from friends’ albums, and requesting those pictures be taken down.

Once users log onto the application, Wisk It automatically pulls up any photos in friends’ albums that have been tagged with the users’ names. There’s also the option to search through friends’ albums to find any photos that feature users and aren’t tagged with their names. Wisk It then sends a message to the friend that has posted the “dirty” photo requesting that it be taken down. Of course, it’s still up to that friend to actually remove the picture or pictures, and if they decline, there isn’t anything more the app can do to delete the photo.

Users can keep track of their removal requests through the application, with categories for “dirty” photos (unread requests, “in the wash” for requests that have been read but the pictures remain, and “clean” for pictures that have been pulled down. The overall application and features are a clever spin on the laundry process — although there’s no literal connection between Wisk’s core product and this app — and the actual purpose of the application could be popular as more and more companies troll social networks to check up on potential and current employees.

Check out the top headlines and insights this week from Inside Social Games – tracking all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Top 25 Facebook Games for November 2, 2009
Top 25 MySpace Games for November 2, 2009
The Future of Offer Monetization in Social Games
Facebook Home Page Changes Affect Some Games On Our Top 20 List This Week
Zynga CEO Speaks On Offers, We Provide Some Context
Former MySpace CEO Looking at Social Gaming Roll-up

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Bebo Social Games Experience Launches
With GoPets Purchase, Where Will Zynga Head Next?
PayPal Introduces New Payment Features for Developers
MySpace Takes Close Aim At Scammy Offers

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

European Social Network Netlog to Add Social Games
Merscom Looks to Expand into Social Gaming
How Big Social Games Maintain Their Sticky Factors
Offerpal Names Direct-Response Ad Vet George Garrick As New CEO

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A Look at Who’s New in Social Gaming: Gravity Bear
Blizzard Adds Virtual Goods to World of Warcraft
5 Tips for Managing Fraud and Risk in Mobile Payments
Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues… But Not Really On Facebook

Friday, November 6, 2009

Planet Cazmo – Bringing More World to the Virtual
New Games Hit Stride in This Week’s Up and Coming Facebook Games List
Zynga Launches FishVille — How Big Will This Virtual Aquarium Game Get?
Spore Grows on to Facebook
Social Gaming Roundup: A Tough Week, Cyworld, Miraphonic, Storm8, Glu, EA

These days, running promotions on Facebook Pages and inside Facebook apps is one of the simplest and most effective ways of engaging Facebook users. However, while Facebook does allow third parties to run contests and promotions on Facebook, it has been posting increasingly specific guidelines throughout the past year detailing just what is and what isn’t allowed.

Now, Facebook has just posted a new set of promotional guidelines that go into much more detail. We’ve excerpted and highlighted some of the most relevant sections below, but the most important part: All promotions that run on Facebook must be fully located on either 1) the canvas page of an application, or 2) in an application box or tab on a Facebook Page – AND you must get prior Facebook approval before the promotion starts.

The Updated Policies

Here’s the most important section of the updated promotional guidelines:

Section 3. Administering a Promotion through the Facebook Platform

You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except that you may administer a promotion through the Facebook Platform with our prior written approval. Such written approval may be obtained only through an account representative at Facebook. If you are already working with an account representative, please contact that representative to begin the approval process. If you do not work with an account representative, you can use this contact form to inquire about working with an account representative. If we provide you such approval, you agree to the following:

3.1 You will only administer the promotion through an application on the Facebook Platform, as directed by us.

3.2 You will only allow users to enter the promotion in the following locations on Facebook:

3.2.1 On the canvas Page of an application on the Facebook Platform.

3.2.2 On an application box in a tab on a Facebook Page.

3.6 You must submit materials for any promotion you plan on administering through the Facebook Platform to your account representative for our review and approval at least 7 days prior to the start date of such promotion. Promotions not approved in writing within such time period will be deemed unapproved.

What’s Clearly Not Allowed

This means the following types of Facebook contests are not allowed:

• “Status update” contests (like the one that Intuit ran earlier this year)
• “Photo upload” contests (like the one Utah restaurant Mo’ Bettah Steaks ran last month)
• Any kind of contest that requires commenting on or responding to items in the News Feed (brands could otherwise boost their News Feed engagement and thus distribution by constantly running contests in the feed)

Instead, all contest promotions must be run through third party applications, and must be approved by Facebook “at least 7 days prior to the start date.” This is especially important for all Page administrators to be aware of, as many businesses and organizations have been experimenting with different types of contests to drive traffic and engagement on their Facebook Page.

Two More Details

1) Aside from the usual prohibitions around allowing users under 18 to under or including any alcohol, tobacco, etc, in the campaign, the new guidelines say clearly that marketers must not require users to “purchase a product” or complete “a lengthy task” in order to enter.

Section 2. Prohibitions

2.6 The promotion is a sweepstakes that conditions entry upon the purchase of a product, completion of a lengthy task, or other form of consideration.

2) Facebook says marketers must not indicate in any way that Facebook is a sponsor or administrator of the promotion.

Section 4. Publicizing a Promotion on Facebook

4.1 You will not directly or indirectly indicate that Facebook is a sponsor or administrator of the promotion or mention Facebook in any way in the rules or materials relating to the promotion.

Examples of What To Do and Not To Do

Finally, Facebook has given the following examples to help marketers understand how to apply the new Promotion Guidelines:

You cannot: Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment or photo upload.

You can: Use a third party application to condition entry to the promotion upon a user providing content. For example, you may administer a photo contest whereby a user uploads a photo through a third-party application to enter the contest.

You cannot: Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a fan of your Page.

You can: Only allow fans of your Page to access the tab that contains the third-party application for the promotion.

You cannot: Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.

You can: Collect an address or email through the third-party application for the promotion in order to contact the winner by email or standard mail.

You cannot: Instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion.

You can: Instruct users to visit the third-party application to enter the promotion (as described in Section 3.4(i)). Since users must have a Facebook account in order to access an application on the Facebook Platform, if you give this instruction, they will be prompted to sign up for a Facebook account if they do not already have one.

The Page Apps/Management Ecosystem

This update should be a boon to companies like Buddy Media, Context Optional, Wildfire, Fanappz, Involver, theKbuzz, Votigo, and Vitrue that are helping big brands, small businesses, and celebrities engage users on Facebook through white label application platform specifically designed for Facebook Page and application promotions.

By requiring all promotions to occur within applications of some kind, Facebook is both keeping the News Feed cleaner and signaling to the tools community that it wants them heavily involved in the future of marketing on Facebook.