Social marketing platform provider Involver today released its Social Markup Language which allows anyone with basic HTML, CSS, or javascript coding skills to design Facebook applications. The scalable server-side language abstracts away Facebook social actions using simple tags, allowing developers to creates apps more efficiently. SML can be licensed as part of Involver’s Audience Management Platform, and will allow those experienced with more common languages to stand in for Facebook Markup Language of iframe experts.

Involver developed SML internally over the last year to help them scale their custom app creation business. During that same period of time, Involver’s client base has grown from 20,000 to 125,000, revenue has increased ten fold, and the company has grown to six times as many employees. Involver used SML to create and test the scalability of some high profile applications, including Facebook’s Security Quiz. The $8 million in funding the company raised in October helped it build out and productize SML and hire a dedicated support staff to maintain the language.

SML lets developers control pixels within Facebook, pull in content channels such as Twitter and YouTube, and create custom apps for contests, ecommerce, and more. When Facebook tweaks its features or the platform, Involver updates SML on their end, allowing developers to use the same tags and spend less time fixing their existing applications. If Facebook releases new features, Involver releases new tags, allowing themselves and licensees to take advantage of the latest functionalities. SML code can be copy and pasted to replicate elements in different settings, and it will eventually work with other platforms and the open web.

A number of brands and agencies were enlisted as beta partners to test SML, and they’ve reportedly found that cheaper HTML, CSS, and java developers could accomplish work that previously required expensive PHP or Ruby developers. These companies and smaller development firms can use SML and their in-house staff to quickly deliver custom Facebook apps to their clients. Forgoing outsourcing or contracting provides them with more granular control over their apps, increasing customer satisfaction.

Involver is licensing SML as part of its packages for mid size and enterprise-level businesses. The language ties directly into the Audience Management Platform and app suite, allowing developers to modify pre-made applications. To help developers adopt SML, a training program, documentation, and developer community were also launched today. Involver says that SML may be made more openly available sometime in the future.

Patents for SML have been filed, but competitors such as Webtrends, Wildfire, and Buddy Media may seek to develop their own languages for scalable app development. The design flexibility and speed afforded by SML or similar languages created in the future should attract developers who want to focus on the more creative aspects of building applications.

An emergent behavior is demonstrating the unprecedented power users have over the profiles of friends who’ve opted into the new redesign. The five photos a user was most recently tagged in are displayed in a panel at the top of the profile. A user’s friends can therefore tag them in a sequence of photos to display a large message across the top of their profile.

Due to the opt-out nature of photo tags, single tagged photos or a photo sequence will be displayed to the profile’s visitors until the user hides the photos from this panel by clicking the ‘x’ button or detags themselves. Depending on a user’s privacy settings, these photos may be visible to people who aren’t their friends.

Facebook users have complained in the past about the potential negative impact of being tagged in photos without their consent. Some conclude that a user should simply defriend those who abuse the feature, but that can be a drastic sanction against someone who was just playing a practical joke or didn’t mean to offend them by tagging an embarrassing or objectionable photo.

The impact of unwanted photo tagging was previously limited, though, as users could only affect things on a friend’s wall or buried within the friend’s tagged photos. The profile redesign creates a highly visible section which can be manipulated by others.

Users can of course upload photos and tag themselves to use the trick to display their own message as a joke, for self-promotion, or to draw attention to a desired cause or interest. However, unless Facebook changes its opt-out tagged photo policy or creates special settings for the Recently Tagged Photos panel, expect to see these photo sequences pushed to people’s profiles without their consent, both as pranks and maliciously.

With the launch of Places, Facebook began allowing businesses to merge their Page with a Place they’ve claimed. While there are some advantages for businesses focusing on generating foot traffic to a single physical location, merging has important disadvantages including lost functionality (at least for now). Here we’ll take a look two of the biggest problems with merged Places/Pages: an unfamiliar interface, and the inability to set the landing tab.

Facebook launched Places in August, allowing users to create Places for physical locations they’d like to tell their friends they’ve visited. Legitimate owners of Places can apply to claim their Place, giving them the ability to edit details, moderate comments, and advertise the Place.

The official guide to Place for advertisers explains that users who claim Places and are also an admin of a similar Page may be prompted to merge their Place and Page. Facebook recommends merging if a business has only one physical location and only one Page. The guide says, “you’ll be able to manage your business centrally on Facebook”, and Likes, content, custom tabs, and ads directing to the Page will remain intact.

However, Facebook fails to inform admins that merged Places Pages cannot be separated. This has angered some Page admins, and a few have formed a protest Page called “Unmerge Places & My Business Page“.

An important reason not to merge is that users may be confused by the change in user interface: a merged Places Page does not display tabs the way a traditional Page does. (However, it’s possible will move the tabs under the profile photo like they are on the recently redesigned user profiles – though Facebook hasn’t said that.) Instead, it uses a navigation panel beneath the Page’s picture. Users won’t see a panel of friends who Like that Places Page or previews of uploaded photos and videos, plus the option to suggest the Places Page to friends is dropped to the very bottom of the left sidebar.

Engaging with merged Places Pages is more difficult as well. The default landing tab is the Profile, which shows the Places address, a map, hours, and a description. Even if users have Liked the Places Page, they still see this tab upon visiting, and have to navigate to the Wall via the navigation panel in order to share their opinions or publish content. This is much different than traditional Pages, where those who’ve clicked Like can immediately post to the wall upon visiting. If getting users to communicate with each other and foster a sense of community is a business’ goal, the traditional Page is a better fit because those who’ve clicked Like see the Wall and publisher first.

While this navigation format is similar to the newly redesigned user profile, users are accustomed to seeing tab applications along the top of a Page, not running down the left sidebar.

Another serious deficiency of merged Places Pages is that admins cannot change the landing tab. Many businesses spend a lot of money or time creating custom tab applications or outsourcing this job to a Page management company. Being unable to show these apps to those who haven’t Liked your merged Places Page can hurt Page growth. Therefore, merged Places Pages miss out on much of the opportunity to condition access to tab app contests or content on a user Liking the Page.

It’s possible that Facebook will address these issues in upcoming product updates, but that’s the way it works for now.

Facebook says a “A solution for linking multiple Places to a single Facebook Page will become available in the future”, but it first needs to make this a more attractive option. The ability to set a landing tab promotes Page growth, which is important to Facebook as well as admins.

The user profile redesign released yesterday alters how Pages are discovered, and will provide more user information for advertisers to target. User Likes have been moved off of the primary tab, but reinforced with images, and users are prompted explicitly and socially to enter more biographical information. Better ad targeting will increase revenues for Facebook, while its unclear how Page discoverability changes will affect spend on ads for Pages.

We’ll examine the key changes below, and focus on how this will affect Pages and advertisers in the Facebook Marketing Bible later today.

Pages – Hidden, then Vividly Represented

When Pages are easy to discover and there is organic growth, brands see Facebook as a healthy communication medium to which they should devote resources. This includes augmenting discovery with paid traffic through Facebook ads which make the social network money. Facebook’s other efforts to improve Page discovery include the release of a Page Browser, prompts for new users to add more Likes of Pages, and the introduction of a more compelling feed story for when friends Like a Page.

The profile redesign removes the Likes panel from the bottom left corner of a user’s profile. Users see the Likes they have in common with the person whose profile they’re browsing, but there’s no longer a way to discover Pages on the primary view of the profile. This may decrease the rate of new Likes, especially amongst casual users who don’t click through to the info tab. This could scare brands who are only focusing on Page growth, but not other analytics such as click through rates of links.

However, within the secondary Info tab, Likes in the main categories (people, arts, entertainment, activities and Interests) now show their pictures. This makes Likes much more attention-grabbing than the text links of a user’s Likes from the old Info tab. That means more experienced users who do navigate to the info tab are more likely to discover new Pages. Pages in the people, sports, and music categories which appear first will benefit most, while Pages in the interests and activities categories which appear last may be hurt by the change. Facebook has released statistics that Likers, who are often experienced users, click outbound links 5.4 times more often, meaning Likes stemming from the profile redesign may lead to more conversions in the long run. It’s these conversions which translate into revenue for brands and increased advertising spend which benefits Facebook.

Advertiser Will Have More to Target

The more information advertisers have to target through Facebook ads, the more relevant those ads will be to the recipients, and the higher the conversion rates will be. Facebook can then charge more per click, and advertisers will buy more volume. To improve targeting, Facebook now allows advertisers to automatically broaden age targeting, and view analytics on ads which include friend recommendations. Facebook is also testing engagement ads which utilize a user’s own words, and has filed for a patent for inferential advertising targeting based on a user’s actions, browsing behavior, and the interests of their friends.

The new Profile Info Summary which now appears in the center of the profile shows a user’s job position and employer, concentration and university, current city, relationship status, languages spoken, hometown, and birthday. Previously this info (other than birthday) was only shown in the secondary Info tab, meaning  that information’s author and their friends rarely saw it. The redesign causes a user and all their friends to see that information frequently, so users are naturally inclined to keep it up to date. Along with IP addresses and other data, Facebook can use this to ensure that when a user switches cities or employers, advertisers can keep showing them relevant ads and aren’t paying for the wrong audience.

If a user leaves elements shown in the Profile Info Summary blank, they’re prompted to “add your…”, and there’s always a link to “Edit Profile”. This means that while users only need to enter their name, gender, and birthday to sign up for Facebook, they’re constantly encouraged to enter additional personal information which helps advertisers target them better.

If someone lists themselves in a romantic relationship with another user, that person’s profile picture and the relationship status appears at the top of the Featured Relationships pane on the left side of the redesigned profile as well as the Profile Info Summary. When users see this on the profiles of their friends, they internalize a social recommendation to list their own romantic situation. Relationship status indicates a great deal about the identity and purchasing habits of a user, so more users adding this info should lead to increased ad spend and more money flowing to Facebook.

Lastly, the redesign added a “Sports You Play” info category to the profile, allowing users to create a special connection to a community Page indicating they participate in that sport, not just appreciate it. Facebook may soon add a way for advertisers to target  users based on the sports they play, creating big opportunities for the retailers and manufacturers of a wide variety of consumer goods.

Conclusion

It will take a few months for Page growth to show in the metrics and for bid prices and ad volume to adjust to the profile redesign. The changes seem to be a net positive for brands, advertisers, and Facebook, but users will also benefit from seeing ads and Pages they’re interested in. The redesign succeeds in putting pressure on users to enter more information without making them feel that they’re explicitly helping Facebook to make money.

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

There was definitely an eclectic mix of on our list of Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages this week, one that we compile based on data from our PageData service, which counts the number of Likes added to a Page each day. The collection ranged from regular additions of music, TV and movies to food like Oreos to media like Wikileaks. It took between 406,000 to 985,900 Likes to make our list this week.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Harry Potter	11,597,755	+985,914	+9.29
2.	YouTube	24,314,380	+724,219	+3.07
3.	Shrek	3,138,928	+720,927	+29.82
4.	Wikileaks	839,869	+654,308	+352.61
5.	Rihanna	18,224,311	+615,614	+3.50
6.	SpongeBob SquarePants	14,319,507	+613,320	+4.47
7.	Disney	14,500,181	+595,708	+4.28
8.	The Simpsons	16,096,374	+592,340	+3.82
9.	Facebook	29,541,491	+574,602	+1.98
10.	Red Bull	13,895,524	+557,672	+4.18
11.	Texas Hold’em Poker	29,403,462	+553,931	+1.92
12.	Eminem	23,155,532	+551,641	+2.44
13.	MTV	11,904,609	+542,356	+4.77
14.	Coca-Cola	20,322,433	+541,812	+2.74
15.	Shakira	16,004,534	+517,518	+3.34
16.	Discovery Channel	1,409,636	+497,565	+54.55
17.	ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas	1,045,407	+440,976	+72.96
18.	Oreo	15,646,936	+417,592	+2.74
19.	Katy Perry	14,819,462	+407,458	+2.83
20.	Usher	10,083,065	+406,056	+4.20

Wikileaks has the most notable Page. It grew by 654,300 Likes to reach 839,900 this week, the fourth-most out of any on our list. The site, in case you haven’t read the news in weeks, has been busy sharing leaked government documents. While other technology companies are, for unclear reasons, blocking Wikileaks, some web sites, including Facebook, have not. The company appears to be holding that line.

There was a small group of movies on our list this week. The “Harry Potter” Page added more than 985,900 Likes to make number 1on our list this week, coming in just over 11.5 million. The movie has been out for a while now and continues to rake in the money at the box office. Third place went to “Shrek” which added 720,900 Likes to the Page; the franchise has recently been promoting a set of DVDs and Blu Rays for the upcoming holiday season. Consequently, the Page added 720,900 Likes to reach a total of 3.1 million. In seventh place was Disney, which added 595,700 Likes to bump up to 14. 5 million; the company’s recent release, “Tangled,” has also been extremely successful in theaters.

An assortment of tech companies were on our list this week as well.

YouTube came in second place after adding 724,200 Likes to its 24.3 booty. Facebook was ninth with 574,600 new Likes after a week in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the show “60 Minutes” and former President George W. Bush participated in a life chat. Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker came in at number 11 with 553,900 new Likes and passing 29.4 million after a ton of promotions on the Page.

Musicians, as usual, were also prominent on the list.

Rihanna was number 5 with 615,600 new Likes, 18.2 million total and four Grammy nominations. Then Eminem was twelfth with 551,600 new Likes and 23.1 million total without updating his Page. Shakira was at 15 with 517,500 new Likes; she’s on tour. Katy Perry recently appeared on an episode of “The Simpsons,” as well as a TV special for the military, and is performing and on tour; so, she added 407,500 LIkes to her 14.8 million. Finally, Usher, who’s on tour, added 406,000 Likes to pass 10 million fans.

Television shows and channels made up a significant portion of the list, too.

These included “SpongeBob SquarePants” at number 6 with 613,300 new Likes and 14.3 million total. Number 8 was “The Simpsons” with 592,300 new Likes to pass 16 million. Then there was MTV with 542,400 new Likes, 11.9 million total and a regular promotion of its programming. The Discovery Channel took sixteenth place with 497,600 new Likes to pass 1.4 million; there was a spike of 471,000 so it may have been a Page consolidation. Same with the number 17, ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas Page, which added 222,000 of its 441,000 new Likes in one day to pass 1 million fans. Of course, Christmas is also upon us, so some of the growth was probably due to the popularity of the holiday, too.

Finally there were a few food companies that made the list. Red Bull took the tenth spot with 557,700 new Likes to reach 13.8 million, mostly by sports-related promotions. Coca-Cola was fourteenth with 541,800 new Likes to pass 20 million Likes. Number 18 Oreo is still doing its “Fan of the week” promo and added 417,600 Likes to come to a total of 15.6 million.

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

Mobile and social analytics provider Webtrends has upgraded its app creation and promotion packages with collaboration functionality, drag-and-drop interface, and integration with its Facebook ads API services. The improvements allow users to design apps without programming, run advertising campaigns with automatic dynamic bid management, and view post click conversion and engagement analytics within the same system. Peter Yared, CEO of Webtrends’ recent full-service and self-service app creator acquisition Transpond, spoke with us about trends in the types of apps the company’s clients have been using.

Webtrends acquired Transpond in August and has integrated its services and technology to offer start-to-finish solutions for launching apps on platforms including Facebook, MySpace, iPhone, Android, and Facebook Connect websites. Yared says that clients of the two separate companies frequently requested the other’s services, so joining the teams seemed logical. Many other companies we’ve profiled recently, including Involver, Context Optional, Vitrue, and Wildfire offer app creation services. However, these services don’t offer the efficiency of marketing spend available through a Facebook ads API tool, or self-service app design which is as easy as with Webtrends.

Previously, Webtrends clients had to use coordinates and pixel counts to position and size design elements when creating apps. The new drag-and-drop interface makes composition similar to designing a Powerpoint presentation. Marketing teams familiar with arranging creative assets to make banner ads will be able to publish applications without the help of engineers.

Webtrends has added a collaboration inviter which allows clients to give additional team members permission to edit an app or view analytics on its performance. Collaborators can’t edit apps concurrently, but the the system works well for dividing initial app creation and post-publishing maintenance responsibilities.

Once apps have been installed on a Facebook Page, released to an app store, or otherwise published, Webtrends can conduct managed spend advertising campaigns to promote the app through its Facebook ads API tool. Targeting parameters and creative elements are combined to create all the possible permutations of an ad. Clients set a budget and specific bid maximums, and Webtrends’ algorithms automatically adjust bid prices to maximize conversions or other desired metrics. Typically, an advertising tool or full-service provider would have to provide conversion tracking pixels to be embedded in the app’s code, but with Webtrends the apps are created with conversion tracking already on board.

Webtrends offers three Social Accelerator Packages. $15,000 buys a single campaign, $30,000 buys multiple campaigns, and $45,000 gets clients set up with multiple apps and a schedule for rotating them through a Facebook Page tab. Each package comes with advertising, of which Webtrends takes 10% of spend, so the $15,000 package is actually $10,000 in app creation and consulting, $4500 to Facebook in advertising, and $500 for Webtrends’ ad fee. While this is a relatively high markup on advertising, clients have the entire custom app creation and optimized marketing process handled within a single system.

Since Webtrends works with clients to find the most appropriate, best performing apps for their campaigns, we asked Yared if he had noticed any trends in what types of apps have been the most successful lately. He says the company was a bit surprised to see a resurgence in popularity and performance of older app types such as badges, especially for non-profits, and this-or-that voting apps. Yared believes that after a period where brands would devote “$150,000 to a big campaign and make really complicated apps that click off into iframes just to justify their spend, clients are going back to basics.” Songs cards which can be posted to walls, web forms, and other low-touch apps are performing significantly better than high-touch, user generated content apps and contests where users upload photos or video.

Yareds advice? “Give something to your fans every two weeks that interests them — keep the content fresh, and keep cycling though apps.”

A very early pioneer in the location-based social networking space, Loopt is adapting to a new reality where Facebook is fast-becoming the central hub for location sharing.

It’s launching a new version of its app today with a simpler interface that better marries its own check-in data with Facebook’s location service, Places.

Loopt was one of the original launch partners for Places in August, and the company followed by integrating it in October.

Think of the new version as a more in-depth way of navigating your friend’s whereabouts than what Facebook currently offers. It seems to be a bet that Loopt can be an interesting interface for location in the same way that companies like Tweetdeck positioned itself as a more high-powered interface for Twitter.

“Facebook is going to be the platform for the Internet,” said Loopt founder Sam Altman. “We can’t compete with these guys head-on but we can use this to make what we do better.”

The homepage has been reduced from a grid of buttons to just five. Loopt continues to offer a full range of ways to share your location — from always-on tracking for a special group of close friends you choose to check-ins for your broader social network.

It also has a map view of where your friends are, which Facebook has yet to build. It supports location text messages, called Pings, that lower the cost of requesting and pushing information about your whereabouts to friends.

On top of that, it lets you see your friend’s favorite places based on their check-in history, which Facebook doesn’t do. The main news feed also shows a mix of media like photo check-ins and maps.

The question is will these additional features be enough for it keep its users actively engaged.

As a company, one of Loopt’s weaknesses is that it was too early to market. It raised funding starting in 2005, before the iPhone and the emergence of Apple’s app store, which drastically lowered the cost of acquiring new users. Before the app store, time-consuming deals with carriers were necessary to get in front of consumers. Those early disadvantages later allowed companies like Foursquare to eclipse Loopt in media attention and growth pace last year.

However, Foursquare now finds itself in a similar position after it spurned talks with Facebook to pursue an independent path and raise $20 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. Today it also carries the burden of high investor expectations paired with Facebook’s ability to cannibalize its core utility.

Other players in the space like Scvngr and Booyah, which raised funding from Facebook investor Accel Partners, are more differentiated with richer gameplay.

Loopt’s changes are a step in the right direction, but may not be enough.

A collection of big-name banks and boutique investment firms compete across Silicon Valley to provide financial advice to client companies planning to sell themselves, raise money, or buy. They normally try to stay out of the public eye to preserve trust and focus with clients. And in social gaming, they’ve been especially quiet.

However, ThinkEquity today disclosed that it had advised Peanut Labs in its acquisition earlier this fall by Research Now. After starting out as Xuqa, a social network, Peanut Labs has been a provider of surveys and other offers for social application developers on Facebook and online games for the last couple of years. ThinkEquity is an investment bank based in San Francisco.

We’ve previously heard that JP Morgan may have worked on Playfish’s sale to Electronic Arts last year, and that Allen & Co has advised Zynga on its various funding rounds (hiring managing director David Wehner in July to be its new chief financial officer). We’ve also heard from industry sources that Allen & Co has worked with other developers, as has Code Advisors and George Boutros from Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners.

Have any more to share on the topic? Email us here: eric (at) insidenetwork (dot) com.

Facebook has been pushing back a set of updates to its graph API since last month, but according to a developer update from late last week, it’s happening this coming Sunday, the 12th.

The changes are for the most part small (we’ve covered them in more detail when they were announced). Here they are:

• Graph API: The fan_count attribute on the Page object will be renamed to likes.
• Graph API: The likes connection on the Post object will include both the count and the users that have liked the object.
• Graph API: All id fields returned by POST calls will be typed as strings.
• Graph API: For events, start_time and end_time will use UTC time rather than in Pacific time. This address a common (and vocal) requested from the community.
• FQL: The networks field in privacy table will be ‘ALL_NETWORKS’ instead of ’1′ if an object is shared for all of user’s networks.

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