Cosmetics is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide and companies that sell them have begun using Facebook to market directly to customers, offering special deals to people in different countries as well as videos tips on how to use their products and contests associated with new merchandise.

The industry is directed almost exclusively to women — and women, as we reported earlier this month, comprise more than 56% of the U.S.’s 103 million monthly active Facebook users. Here, we review nine different brands in an effort to gain insight on how this industry is using Facebook across social and economic levels to sell makeup to women — from cosmetics available at the corner drug store to higher end brands sold in department stores.

The brands we examined, in order of the approximate number of fans: MAC Cosmetics, about 404,000; Sephora, 382,000; L’Oreal, about 216,000; Cover Girl, 152,000; Avon, 90,000; Avon’s Mark brand, 86,000; Clinique, 72,000; Mary Kay, almost 62,000 and Maybelline, 24,000. Avon, Mark and May Kay are generally sold by representatives to consumers, while MAC, Sephora and Clinique are usually sold in department stores or malls and L’Oreal, Cover Girl and Maybelline are widely available in drug stores.

Overall, the pages had many characteristics in common. Imagery was decidedly “girly,” with most pages using a lot of pink, for example. Walls were filled with feedback from Facebook users and Status Updates/Posts about company products. Contests were promoted, some exclusive to Facebook users, as were new products.

But, most of the brands we looked at have not yet create a presence on Facebook that is markedly different from their web sites. In other words, Facebook appears to simply be an extension of the company’s campaign, not a unique opportunity to intimately market their products to their Facebook fans.

One notable exception is Mark, Avon’s line of products sold by younger women for younger women. In addition to Mark representatives and customers sharing tips, reviews and questions, a Facebook store full of Mark products is available on the Shop tab.

Visitors to the site may shop for Mark products — makeup, fragrances, skin care, jewelry or fashion accessories — directly on the Facebook page, without having to visit Mark’s web site. Opening stores directly on Facebook pages is a not a new tactic, but Mark’s version is very easy to use and by asking for contact and shipping information, paves the way to retain Facebook buyers and future customers.

While no other Pages currently contain online stores, a few do offer Facebook-specific promotions.

Sephora blasts a Facebook-only offer directly on its welcome page – the Offers tab — of $25 off an eyelash enhancer and then directs fans who click to their site for the purchase; the company’s Facebook page was also part of a fan giveaway during the Christmas season. Another interactive feature of Sephora’s Facebook Page is the Mobile Review box on the home page asking users to enter product information to contribute a review.

MAC Cosmetics, Maybelline and Clinique have taken another approach to engaging their Facebook audience by offering apps that fans may use to spread the word about their products to their friends. MAC’s Beauty Marks, Maybelline’s Kiss and Tell and Clinique’s Share the Luck are gift apps that allow users to send company-themed gifts to friends and then publish the fact to their news feeds. Clinique has a second app, Lucky Day Sweepstakes, inviting Facebook users to enter to win the company’s newest lip gloss.

L’Oreal’s Facebook page is the only one of the bunch that is actively promoting products for men — a January 20 status update stating, “L’Oreal Paris USA  Can’t ignore the guys!” and plugging an eye roller to abate dark circles under the eyes. The company has also been running Facebook ads, which appears to be a roundabout way of getting people to their web site, given that most content on Facebook links there.

The Facebook pages of  Avon, Mary Kay and Cover Girl seemed like after-thoughts created primarily to drive traffic to their web sites; neither made effective use of Facebook by making a visit to their page unique for their fans. Rather, they just provided a lot of content that fans could find on their company web sites.

Mary Kay linked most content to its primary web site, including the sales representative locator function and the Virtual Makeover feature — in which users upload photos to try out different Mary Kay products on their avatar. However, that web site feature does not use Facebook Connect. This seems like a missed opportunity. Why not ask users coming from Facebook to use Connect to sync with the site, then upload their Facebook profile photos to play around with the feature?

Cover Girls’ page wasn’t much better, as most content linked back to their web site. Polls and videos were posted on the walls to promote interaction, but so were promotions to Proctor & Gamble sister companies Oil of Olay and Secret, which distracted from Cover Girl’s presence on its own Facebook page. One highlight was a Lashes Contest tab that utilized an app to allow Facebook users to enter to win a trip to New York by uploading a photo of themselves wearing Cover Girl’s products.

Overall it seems that most makeup companies use Facebook marketing to boost their web sites, with the notable exception of Mark, which uses Facebook to keep users on the site and gets their info to try to keep them as future customers; perhaps this is due to Mark’s stated goal of targeting younger women?

Going forward, we expect to see more serious experimentation from the other brands as they try to reach their target audiences on Facebook.

2009 will be remembered as the year that casual gaming stormed social platforms and changed the way millions of people socialized with friends online. With an up-to-$400 million acquisition of Playfish by Electronic Arts, hundreds of millions of dollars in venture investments, and some of the highest engagement numbers that online entertainment has ever seen, social games are now impacting businesses across the media landscape. It’s become clear that there are substantial opportunities for social game developers with virtual goods revenue models, but the market is still evolving rapidly.

Get the Annual Membership Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 OR Buy Single Report: $995

That’s why I’m excited to release today a new exclusive original research report with co-author Charles Hudson in our Inside Virtual Goods series that is exclusively focused on the future of the social gaming market, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010.

How big is the market, and where will social gaming go in 2010? How will existing players fare as Facebook shifts the social gaming landscape, and larger and more sophisticated players enter the market? Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010 provides deeper insight into social game monetization, development, customer acquisition, and the key questions facing the space in 2010 than you’ll find anywhere else.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010 gives you an inside view of the future at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games. The big picture? We estimate that the US virtual goods market will reach $1.6 billion in 2010, and that social gaming market will contribute $835 million of that total this year.

We have compiled months of original research from dozens of top executives and entrepreneurs from all parts of the social gaming ecosystem to produce eye-opening source data and analysis that is not available anywhere else. At over 140 pages, Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010 takes the closest look at the present state of social games and the future of what’s shaping up to be a very fundamentally strong and profitable industry.

What We Cover

1. Emerging Social Game Development and Studio Models – There is an emerging consensus around how social game developers are choosing to organize themselves for game development. How do small, medium, and large developers organize their teams? What do development cycle times for original titles and “expansion packs” look like? What is the role of testing and metrics in the development process?
2. Social Game Design and Mechanics – The emergence of a few key game genres with proven mechanics and monetization have spawned dozens of fast followers. Understand how publishers are continuing to innovate as we head into 2010.
3. Monetization Data and Payment Trends – Now that developers have proven the virtual goods model, what are ARPUs really like for different game genres? What is the lifetime value of users, and how long do players stick around? We take an in depth look at monetization methods and rates, and shed light on where payments are headed in the coming quarters. One more note on monetization – you may be wondering about everything you’ve heard about offers and alternative payments for virtual goods. We cover:
   • The offers ‘scandal’ and what will it mean going into 2010
   • Changes that advertisers and payments companies have – and haven’t – made
   • How both direct and alternate payment methods are most likely to grow or contract in the coming year.
4. Customer Acquisition and Marketing Trends – As the social gaming landscape has evolved over the past two and a half years, so have the ways that developers acquire and retain new users. How have user acquisition costs changed, and what do Facebook’s changes spell for the future of the marketing funnel? We take an in depth look at data and trends.
5. Facebook’s Platform Changes, Credits, and What’s In Store for the Future – Just when social game developers were settling in, Facebook announced major adjustments that will dramatically alter the way social games reach users through Facebook. Continued change is likely – what will it be, and how will it impact the industry? In addition, as Facebook rolls out its much-discussed Credits currency, how will monetization and the payments landscape be affected? Finally, will we see another dominant platform emerge? Our overview covers these developments, their impact on the industry, and what else is in store.

What you get

In addition to our deep dive into key aspects of the social gaming ecosystem, the report also offers extended coverage on:

• A brief history on the evolution and growth of this space in the US, including a description of all key players and how they rose to the top.
• Total social gaming market size estimates for 2010, including estimates on the “big three” developers.
• Our take on the key issues facing the growth of social gaming, including our outlook and projections for 2010.

See the full table of contents below:

Table of Contents

Appendix of Related Companies includes: 51.com, 6Waves, Activision, AddictingGames, AdNectar, AdParlor, Amazon, AOL, Apple, Atari / Cryptic Studios, BigFish Games, BigPoint, Blizzard, Boku, Boomerang Networks, Crowdstar, DeNA, DoubleDing, Digital Sky Technologies, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Firecue, Friendster, Gambit, Gameloft, Glu, GMG Entertainment, Google, GratisPay, Gree, Green Patch, gWallet, hi5, InComm, Kaixin001, Kongregate, Live Gamer, LOLapps, Microsoft, Mixi, MSN, MySpace, Nexon, ngmoco, Offerpal Media, OpenFeint, Orkut, PayPal, Peanut Labs, Playdom, Playfirst, Playfish, PlaySpan / Spare Change, Pogo, PopCap Games, QZone, Real Networks, RenRen / Xiaonei, RockYou, Serious Business, SGN, Shanda, Social Hour, Social Reach, SocialGold / Jambool, SponsorPay, Super Rewards / Adknowledge, SupersonicAds, Target, Tatto Media, Tencent, The9, TokenAds, TrialPay, Twitter, Ubisoft, Viacom, VKontakte, Yahoo, Zong, Zynga

More Data, More Actionable Insights

In 2009, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2010 will be an even more important year.

Social gaming, powered by virtual goods, is this year’s industry to watch. If you’re involved, or are considering jumping in, Inside Virtual Goods will be one of your most important tools.

One year of original data and exclusive in-depth reports delivered on a quarterly basis is $2,495 and contains:

• A detailed overview of the current state of the industry
• Specific estimates on market size by segment
• Diagnosis of key opportunities and issues by segment

Get The Annual Membership

Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495

OR Buy Single Report: $995

The annual membership, which includes the report and three additional quarterly updates, is USD $2,495. Alternatively, you can just download this report for USD $995.

Haiti’s humanitarian crisis still held an influence over this week’s Top 20 Facebook Pages, as charities World Vision and Doctors Without Borders joined the top gainer, Chase’s Community Giving campaign, on the list.

Recently and soon-to-be released movies, popular TV shows, a couple Philippino politicians, cookies, candy and a few regulars rounded out the rest of the list, according to PageData for the week of January 18 to January 25.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Chase Community Giving	2,024,073	+652,306	+47.55
2.	Dear John	763,132	+276,686	+56.88
3.	Muppets	411,163	+232,087	+129.60
4.	Mafia Wars	6,853,747	+178,516	+2.67
5.	Walmart	608,944	+172,456	+39.51
6.	Jersey Shore	681,635	+160,311	+30.75
7.	Official Avatar Movie	1,053,023	+151,797	+16.84
8.	♥ Jill Scott ♥	369,687	+133,608	+56.59
9.	Cadbury Creme Egg	492,273	+117,252	+31.27
10.	Glee	1,254,804	+113,110	+9.91
11.	Oreo	3,394,528	+103,741	+3.15
12.	Facebook	6,903,346	+80,302	+1.18
13.	Manny Villar	422,527	+75,776	+21.85
14.	The Artifice	1,912,204	+74,297	+4.04
15.	World Vision	174,349	+71,556	+69.61
16.	FaceMoods	344,312	+70,820	+25.89
17.	Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)	187,535	+68,255	+57.22
18.	The Lovely Bones	201,240	+66,956	+49.86
19.	Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III	465,331	+66,164	+16.58
20.	Lady Gaga	4,989,393	+66,016	+1.34

Chase’s Community Giving page was at the top of the list again this week as voting to award $5 million in charity based on Facebook and other venues closed on Friday.

Onto movies.

“Dear John,” the chick flick starring Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum opens on February 5 came in second place; the movie’s campaign has been accompanied by an active Facebook presence, including ads and a Page that includes trailers, updates and special messages for Facebook fans from the stars.

Box office smash “Avatar” came in seventh place, its Facebook fan surge due probably mostly to its domination of the box office, but also to recent awards wins. “The Artifice,” which according to its Facebook page is more than just a film, came in fourteenth place while “The Lovely Bones” came in eighteenth, on the heels of awards for the movie’s star and good ticket sales.

The Muppets Studio Facebook page ranked third this week, likely due to a Facebook consolidation of unofficial pages, as the page surged with 230,000 new fans on January 22. Mafia Wars came in fourth, due in large part to its popularity, but also probably because Mafia Wars Bangkok was promoted last week, finally launching for selected players Friday. Next, in fifth place, was Wal-Mart, which likely also benefitted from consolidation on January 22, with 141,000 new fans, but also debuted a new commercial over the weekend.

Television shows were also popular this week, with “Jersey Shore” coming in sixth place thanks to a spike in fans Thursday preceding the show’s final episode Friday and a brouhaha surrounding the cast’s demands for more money per episode in Season 2. “Glee,” which won a Golden Globe and was consequently featured in a Fox congratulatory commercial, came in tenth.

Musician Jill Scott came in at number 8, followed at number 9 by English chocolatier Cadbury Crème Egg’s page, a rise in fans likely attributable to its recent acquisition by the American conglomerate Kraft Foods for $19 billion (although there was also a January 22 surge of 84,000, probably consolidation of unofficial pages). Oreo rolled in at the eleven spot, probably having a lot to do with a promotion giving away free cookies.

Philippine presidential frontrunners Manny Villar (thirteenth) and Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III (nineteenth) were on this week’s top 20 again. Reports indicate that the race to the May 10 election is heating up.

Number 15 was World Vision, a Christian charity that’s been plugging its work in Haiti on Facebook, a likely contributor to growth. Doctors Without Borders, number 17, is another charity that’s been posting about its work in Haiti during the past few weeks.

FaceMoods, an app with glorified emoticons, debuted new features on Wednesday and that might explain some of its growth, landing at sixteenth this week. Finally, perennial favorites Facebook, at number 12, and Lady Gaga, at 20, were also on this week’s list.

Facebook has been showing off screenshots, running tests, and otherwise telling developers to watch out for big new changes to the home page UI and other aspects of the developer platform in recent weeks. Following a line of other moves described in a roadmap last november, user email addresses came last week. Now another big piece is starting to appear — the applications and games dashboards.

Available in application programming interface (API) form for developers since last week, one view of the the dashboards are live some users now, including us. You can see the pages by clicking in the soon-to-disappear bottom toolbar, on the Applications button on the far left-hand side. And try these URLs for yourself: here and here.

At some point soon — Facebook isn’t saying exactly when — the bottom toolbar will disappear completely and  be replaced on the left-hand side of the home page. The notifications counter on the right-hand side of the toolbar will be removed and counters will appear on application bookmarks.

The new dashboard will, similar to what you see here, make games separate from the other apps in recognition of their popularity. It will show users apps or games they’ve played before at the top, their friends’ recent activity, then ones that their friends have previously installed. The bottom of each page has a full directory. Notably, the game directory contains a subgenre of types of games, as seen in previous screenshots.

Del Taco, a Mexican fast food chain with hundreds of stores in more than a dozen states, launched a humorous campaign on Facebook a couple weeks ago targeting young men and debuting spokesmen Wes and Barry.

The campaign asks Facebook users to become a fan of Del Taco, then watch a four and a half minute video structured as a sketch comedy show. The 5 minute clip introduces two characters named Wes and Barry in their first episode of “The Del Taco Super Special Show.” After watching the video and becoming a fan, users are asked to vote on their favorite sketch and then receive a coupon for a free classic taco.

Currently the page has more than 34,000 fans.

Exploding tacos, cartoons, women in bikinis jumping up and down for no apparent reason, a taco sitcom and jokes about flatulence keep the viewer engaged throughout the new pitch — assuming they’re into these things — in which Wes, a Del Taco employee, transforms into the host of the show, complete with an oddball cast of characters.

Although the jokes alluding to parties “crawling with beaver” and Wes’ need for air freshener due to his roommate Barry’s flatulence seem in poor taste, people find them funny. The result is a pretty even mix of male and female fans on the page, from what we can tell.

Keeping the viewer entertained creates a captive audience Del Taco uses to criticize Taco Bell (its primary competition), promote its tacos and sauces and encourage viewers to patronize their business, “Those tacos aren’t going to eat themselves — that’s your job,” says Wes at the conclusion of his show.

After watching the video and becoming a fan Facebook users are prompted to select their favorite video sketch and allow access to Del Taco’s app before proceeding to their free coupon. Throughout the voting process, users are prompted to share with their friends, this culminates when the coupon is awarded and you’re asked whether you want to publish the promotion to your wall, where it will enter into your newsfeed and reach your network. As of Wednesday there were more than 1,700 votes.

The rest of Del Taco’s page is fairly engaging, too.

The wall is littered with faithful devotees to Del Taco’s affordable food, the What’s New and Menu tabs include information about the latest deals from the chain, there’s a Locations tab and an invitation to join Del Taco’s e-club where customers receive special offers and a Star Trek Online tab which includes promotions and information about the game from Del Taco.

The Page doesn’t seem to have grown as quickly as other Pages that offer free feed — TGI Friday’s Woody campaign holds the record, having gained most of its more than 900,000 fans in a month-long burger giveaway. Del Taco’s multi-step process for gaining the free taco may be obscuring the otherwise-visceral “free food” message.

Facebook has slowly introduced its virtual currency, Credits, to third parties over the last few years. But it has been planning to make Credits a more central part of its platform for third-party developers, and we’ve been hearing that a bigger launch is planned soon.

So here’s a look at how much Credits currently cost Facebook users around the world. A lot more people are going to care about these numbers if and when Credits becomes a way to buy virtual goods in Facebook apps and games.

The table you see shows how each of the 15 currencies that Facebook supports currently converts to Credits. We convert to 10 Facebook Credits because that’s the lowest denomination available (you can’t just buy a single credit). We also compare the conversion to how each currency converts to the US dollar based on numbers from Yahoo Finance — clearly, Facebook is benchmarking the value of Credits on the dollar for the time being, as the two sets of numbers almost exactly line up. The difference is likely due to Facebok updating the dollar conversion slightly later than real-world market changes.

Despite the dollar parity, Facebook has been making a few moves to make Credits more distinct. The virtual currency appeared in its earliest form as a means to by virtual gifts in the company’s Gift Shop, years ago — it only moved from US Dollars to Credits in November of 2008. Then, last May, it adjusted the exchange rate from 100 Credits per $1 to 10 Credits per  $1. In June, it followed this move by introducing the 14 additional currencies you see listed in the table.

We’ll be watching to see how Facebook handles Credits pricing. In order to make virtual gifts more affordable to more of its users, the company may choose to unpeg Credits from the Dollar, and allow users to purchase Credits for a range of prices aimed at local (and often poorer) markets. This is important because around 70% of Facebook’s more than 350 million monthly active users are outside of the US, with many of them in developing countries.

The Credits Timeline

The more users Facebook can get paying at all for Credits, the more money it can make. In May, the company also began letting third-parties sell goods in the virtual shop using Credits. Facebook has long planned to take an Apple-style 30% cut from transactions that go through Credits, as we first reported in May and then in November.

Facebook has been planning some sort of major launch with big developers since last fall; at one point, we heard that the company was aiming for a launch in time for Christmas virtual good sales. Happy Island, a social game by CrowdStar, launched last month using Credits as the sole means for virtual goods purchases. This month, the company has already made a push to hire for a new payments operation team, tested a payments resolution interface, and released Credits in more apps.

Credits might squeeze out payment services providers who currently provide currency support and other features to developers. We’ve heard unconfirmed rumors that Facebook will offer incentives or regulations that favor Credits over third-party virtual currency systems.

Yet many developers themselves have told us that Credits could them make more money. The reasons are that users will have a more seamless interface for purchasing and spending the virtual currency, all using Facebook’s own brand.

Stay tuned for more Credits news, soon.

The words “social media” seem to have been on the lips of everyone discussing Democrat Martha Coakley’s loss to Republican Scott Brown for the senate seat in traditionally left-leaning Massachusetts. Although social media alone doesn’t win elections, platforms like Facebook have increasingly become an integral part of getting out the word about candidates around the world, and while Facebook fans may not translate directly to votes, there does seem to be at least some correlation.

Brown got twice the number of searches as Coakley in Massachusetts and nearly three times more across the country, AdAge reported last week. From the article:

“On Twitter, @scottbrownMA has 10,765 followers vs. @MarthaCoakley with 3,657; on Facebook, it’s 83,535 friends [fans] to 15,573; and on YouTube, Mr. Brown has a souped-up channel with 675,208 views, while videos posted by the Coakley campaign have been viewed 76,805 times.”

Obviously, Brown’s 83,000 fans weren’t what won the election (among other reasons, not every person who became a fan is a Massachusetts voter). Still, every vote counts. Facebook — and Pages, in particular — allow politicians to communicate with supporters, and drum up enough enthusiasm that their friends decide to join in, too.

Also notable: Brown’s Page has now grown to 173,000 fans, more than half of whom have joined in the past week.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign gained millions of fans during his run in 2008, and is credited with helping him win the election. Brown is one of the many politicians around the world who has since used the service to find more voters.

Philippines presidential contenders Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III, a senator and Liberal party candidate and his rival Nacionalista Party Senator Manny Villar were ranked 11 and 12, respectively, on our weekly fastest-growing Facebook Pages list. Each Page had hundreds of thousands of fans, who supported and criticized each other in English and Tagalog on the candidates’ walls, a seemingly egalitarian and safe forum.

Elsewhere, Mexican politicians in the state of Aguascalientes took advantage of the social network to launch their campaigns prior to the official start of the electoral season and in Portugal journalists are keeping an active count of the politicians with the most Facebook fans.

Barack Obama’s election marked a turning point in electoral politics as the previously unseen use of social media such as Facebook was utilized not only to raise funds, but to organize and implement a campaign strategy that translated into a movement in the offline world, and most importantly, votes.

About 15% of Americans 18 and older participated in the 2008 presidential election via social networking tools like Facebook; they may not have walked blocks to campaign for their ideas, but they definitely marked their territory in the online world, according to Aaron Smith, a research specialist with the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. These users become the unofficial arm of campaigns, he tells us. Often mobilizing without any specific marching orders, they get the word out by posting stories and engaging in discussions on Facebook — and for a lot less money than it would take to get the same effect in the “real” world.

One of the reasons social media like Facebook are now so popular across the world is the fact that, with the advent of mobile connectivity, it’s no longer necessary to be wired in order to participate online. Most Americans who became fans of Obama or Brown probably did so via a desktop computer; in places like the Philippines, though, more almost certainly fanned their candidates through mobile devices.

Using communities in the U.S. with traditionally low levels of broadband access as an example, Smith says, one can extrapolate what mobile and wireless mean to the digital divide. Access to the Internet via mobile/wireless has begun to erode traditionally stark differences between communities with broadband (traditionally urban) and dial-up (rural) connections. Previously dial-up users were relegated to using email and doing searches, now they are able to take advantage of Facebook and other social networks.

“We’re seeing wireless and mobile connectivity bridging some of those gaps between populations. Mobile access is making up a lot of difference that we see in broadband usage,” Smith tells us.

While Smith only had data for the U.S., he pointed to Iran’s Green Revolution as an example of this phenomenon in action. Because Facebook and other social networks don’t require much technological infrastructure, such as a desktop computer, they are being adopted by people around the world to serve a variety of purposes.

“I think that, for a lot of the developing world, wireless mobility is a way to leapfrog out of this broadband structure. You can just put up a cell phone tower and let people go online that way,” he adds.

One of Facebook’s main pushes in 2009 was in mobile — it launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and for other mobile devices, and it worked with dozens of carriers around the world to launch mobile access to the service. In September, the company said more than 65 million users were currently accessing it through mobile devices.

In conclusion, the role of Facebook and other social media is still being defined in popular culture and politics, but a few things are clear. One, a cause-effect relationship between social media and votes is not completely clear, but there is a correlation as evidenced by the Obama and Brown campaigns. Two, this is further evidenced by the adoption of Facebook and other social media in campaign strategies around the world, particularly third world countries where accessing Facebook with mobile phones erases technological barriers associated with accessing the Internet with traditional means like a computer.

As Facebook continues to expand — and especially as it expands on mobile devices — it will also become more central to the political process.

[Iran photo via orgtheory.wordpress.com]

There’s no overriding theme in this week’s list of top apps by monthly users gained, taken from AppData, but it still represents a small triumph for the banner of diversity in apps: out of the top five, none are games. Facebook sometimes seems chock-full of social games, so it’s encouraging to see that non-game developers can succeed, too.

Of course, no victory is ever complete; the rest of the top ten is filled out by games, and they’re represented at the bottom of the list, too. Take a look:

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Birthday Cards	35,233,051	+5,532,567	+15.70
2.	Chase Community Giving	2,176,067	+1,584,358	+72.81
3.	Static FBML	10,988,752	+1,428,657	+13.00
4.	Calendario de Amigos	1,504,851	+1,087,971	+72.30
5.	Entrevista tus Amigos	7,977,312	+1,052,024	+13.19
6.	Pillow Fight	15,973,470	+909,488	+5.69
7.	Tiki Farm	5,531,403	+798,408	+14.43
8.	Happy Island	9,719,942	+707,162	+7.28
9.	Wild Ones	1,674,183	+680,843	+40.67
10.	Mafia Wars	23,807,218	+675,787	+2.84
11.	FarmVille	74,355,776	+495,488	+0.67
12.	Music	11,414,729	+493,274	+4.32
13.	Country Life	7,638,333	+480,711	+6.29
14.	Mobile	17,970,276	+476,526	+2.65
15.	How original are my parents?	13,760,954	+418,004	+3.04
16.	Quiz Planet!	14,634,377	+405,583	+2.77
17.	Texas HoldEm Poker	24,602,597	+404,850	+1.65
18.	My Town	1,160,646	+384,853	+33.16
19.	FamilyLink.com	18,117,280	+366,797	+2.02
20.	Causes	25,021,835	+330,329	+1.32

Birthday Cards, by RockYou, is fairly self-explanatory, but users do seem to like the app — maybe because they can play the game Zoo World in a frame within it. The app/game was number six last week. A more stunning rise, if not a surprising one, came from Chase Community Giving. Although we complained last week that aid apps haven’t made a strong showing following the earthquake in Haiti, this one is the lone breakout success. However, its growth seems to be coming from its own charity fundraiser.

Static FBML, which is used by some developers to add HTML or Facebook markup language to Pages, is also posting solid growth.

The next app to take note of is How original are my parents?. Number one last week, this quiz hit a wall at the end of last week: its previous growth of 6.2 million new users fell to only 418,004. That’s a steep decline, but not completely out of the ordinary for one-shot quiz apps. By contrast, the following app, Quiz Planet!, has hung around for longer because it lets users create their own quizzes.

As social games reach new plateaus of quality, the past week has seen everything from virtual fish farming to happy kitties. In case you missed anything in the social gaming world, here are the highlights from Inside Social Games:

Monday, January 18th, 2010

• Pillow Fight, Wild Ones and Inferno On Our Weekly List of Top Games By Monthly Users
• Meteor Game’s Little Rock Pool Combines Genres for Aquaculture Simulator
• Catch Me! If You Can Brings Cooperative Arcade Puzzle Play to the iPhone
• Playfish Raises the Bar on Mafia Role-Playing Games with Gangster City

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

• 3D Noid Brings a New Angle to Breakout Games for the iPhone
• Last Week to Pre-order Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2010
• Boku Raises $25 Million, Plans for More Global Expansion
• Understanding the Pieces of the Social Game Monetization Chain

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

• Birthday Becomes a Zoo and Pets Return on This Week’s Top Growing Games by Daily Active Users
• New Facebook Developer, Toy Studio, Launches Killer Toon
• IFB: Global Social Game Publisher 6 Waves Raises $17.5 Million
• Booyah’s MyTown 2.0 iPhone App Combines Gaming, Location and Virtual Goods
• China: Virtual Goods Are Big, Social Games Are Still Growing

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

• Facebook Game Garden World Offers Another Take on the Simulation Genre
• Casual Games Have Shortcomings on Facebook but Show Promise
• New SGN CEO Randy Breen on Mobile Development and the Future of Social Gaming
• Cash for Virtual Goods Company Rixty Raises $1.24 Million

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

• Few Big Names, But a Kitty With Growth Potential This Week in Our Top 20 Emerging Facebook Games List
• Hello Kitty Online’s Facebook App Teaches New Users How to Play
• Video: Social Gaming Executives Predict the Future of the Industry in 2010
• Social Gaming Roundup: Square-Enix, Zynga and Haiti, and More

Page Admins See Insights Per Post - On Thursday Facebook introduced a new feature of admins of authentic Pages with a minimum of 10,000 fans: per post insights. The feature gave administrators insight into the number of raw impressions produced by their posts. The company has since clarified what “impressions” means — an impression is not the number of users who have seen the post, but rather measures the number of times the post has been render on users’ browsers. In other words, the number of times a post appeared in a user’s news feed, lived feed, directly from the Page or via a fan box widget (including the post showing up below the fold). This feature is aimed at helping page admins better target their content. Other features that went live this week included the number of likes and comments per impression and Facebook asking admins to identify themselves by industry.

Procter & Gamble ‘Bullish’ on Facebook – Reporting on Procter & Gamble’s Innovation Outreach Venturing Day, David Hornik wrote Friday that the company owning 32 brands with more than half a billion in annual revenue, 135,000 full-time employees and $80 billion in revenue last year has a keen interest in Facebook. P&G is “bullish” on Facebook, currently has more than a dozen social media platforms in trial and wants to establish a “significant” presence on the social network. The company’s goal in 2010 is to ensure that each of their brands has a “meaningful” presence on Facebook, something they’re willing to “pay dearly” for, as the company sees Facebook as a “must-have” for brand building.

Facebook’s Dave Morin Leaves – In a blog post Friday Facebook’s Dave Morin announced that he will be leaving the company to partner with his friend and Shawn Fanning, of Napster fame, to build a new company. Morin had worked on developing the Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect, and his post he said he longed “to build a new company and to become part of the Facebook Connect community on the other side.” [photo via davemorin.tumblr.com]

FTC Has ‘Interest’ in Facebook’s Privacy Changes – The Federal Trade Commission responded to an Electronic Privacy Information Center-led complaint against Facebook’s new privacy changes January 14. FTC’s Burea of Consumer Protection head David Vladeck noted in a letter that the “complaint raises issues of particular interest for us at this time.” Vladeck also noted in the letter that he’s asked for a follow-up meeting with the EPIC. What that means in specific terms is unclear because the FTC doesn’t release investigative findings until a formal complaint is issued or an investigation is conducted.

Facebook Valued at $14 Billion – Facebook is worth $14 billion, if you use figures from SecondMarket, where offers to buy Facebook common stock rose to $32 per share this week. In December of 2009 that number was $25 per share, which would’ve given the company an $11 billion value.

KISSmetrics’ Best Design Practices for Facebook Connect – Ryan Spoon shared a presentation from the Dogpatch Labs/Facebook Connect event this past week that highlighted two important points: think about your users (not pageviews or actions) and the importance of “Test. Iterate.” The slideshow, from analytics services company KISSmetrics, is available at the link.

UK’s Manchester United Bans Players From Facebook – Football Club Manchester United banned its players from using Facebook and Twitter this week issuing a statement on its web site: “The club wishes to make it clear that no Manchester United players maintain personal profiles on social networking website. Fans encountering any web pages purporting to be written by United players should treat them with extreme scepticism (sic). Any official news relating to Manchester United or its players will be communicated via ManUtd.com.” Reportedly the Twitter accounts of some players were removed and the Facebook accounts of Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs were taken down.

TBG’s Two New Hires Mark U.S. Growth – Digital Advertising Agency TBG London hired two new managers this week as part of the company’s increased presence in the U.S. Rory Park, who previously served as CFO at Billetts, will serve as the new commercial director and Lee Griffin, previously the international publisher director of TradeDoubler, as the business development director.