If 2010 is remembered as the year that games on social networks became a billion dollar business, 2011 is quickly becoming the year that the industry is starting to mature. Facebook is mandating Credits effective July 1st, creating massive changes in the monetization ecosystem, last year’s hit games are fighting for their lives, and new developers and games are climbing the leaderboards. At the same time, larger players are consolidating smaller studios and teams, and large media companies and traditional game developers continue to plot their social gaming strategies.

Get the Annual Membership Get Annual Membership (Includes Report + 3 Additional Quarterly Issues): $2,495 $1,995 USD* OR Buy Single Report: $995 $795 USD* * Pre-order discount ends June 13, 2011. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on June 14, 2011.

That’s why we’re excited to announce today a new original study in our Inside Virtual Goods series by co-authors Justin Smith and Charles Hudson that is exclusively focused on spending and usage patterns in the social gaming market, entitled Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011. The second annual installment of this report, it will be released on Tuesday, June 14, but is available for discount pre-order now.

Most of the studies on player spending and usage patterns in social games over the last year have actually been conducted by industry vendors. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 is our exclusive independent look at the virtual goods spending and behavior patterns of social game players on Facebook — data you won’t find anywhere else.

About the Report

Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 gives you an inside view of the market at this critical juncture in the intersection of social networking and online games.

We have surveyed nearly 2,000 players of social games on Facebook from around the world and across the demographic spectrum. Inside Virtual Goods: Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience 2011 is the most in-depth independent survey of player behavior and spending patterns in the social gaming market.

What We Cover

1. Spending Habits and Payment Methods in Top Games – It’s easy to compare games based on audience numbers, but which games monetize better? What payment methods do players use most often in top games? How is the shift to Credits affecting player behavior? We investigate how spending patterns compare across top social games.
2. Frequency of Play and Methods of Game Discovery - As Facebook has cut down on developer access to viral channels, designing an engaging and viral game is becoming both increasingly important and challenging. We investigate which games people play most frequently, and which methods of social game discovery are most effective for top games.
3. Demographic Differences by Region, Age, and Gender – While the social gaming market is increasingly global, the audience is also becoming increasingly diverse by age and gender. How do different segments of the audience differ in terms of spending and usage patterns inside social games? We take an in depth look.
4. Brand Recall for Social Games – How important are brands, and how well can users identify developers of top games? We investigate brand recall amongst social game players.

See the full table of contents below:

Table of Contents

I. Methodology and Respondents

1. Introduction

• About Inside Virtual Goods
• About the Authors
• Survey Objectives

2. Research Methodology

• Target Population
• Respondent Acquisition Method
• Survey Structure
• Potential for Bias

3. Survey Respondents

• Description of Total Respondent Population
• Total Number of Respondents
• Overall Breakdown

II. Overall Results

4. Favorite Game

• Distribution of Favorite Game
• Frequency of Play
• Favorite Game Discovery
• With Whom Do You Play?
• Spending on Favorite Game

5. Payments

• Consumer Perception of Facebook Credits
• Frequency of Payment Methods

6. Play Patterns, Spending, and Brand Recall for Top Games

• Frequency of Play in Top Games
• Spending in Top Games
• Aided Brand Recall for Top Games

7. Mobile Platform and Game Adoption by Social Game Players

III. Demographic Differences in Usage Patterns and Monetization

8. Age and Gender Differences

• Who are the Social Gaming “Whales”?
• Spend Across Games
• Trends in Favorite Games by Age and Gender
• Analyzing the Top Two Games
• How Do Midcore Games Compare?

9. Regional Differences

• Game Discovery and Spending
• Favorite Game
• Payment Types
  

Appendix

• Survey Questions

More Data, More Actionable Insights

In 2009 and 2010, social games began to show what kind of value can be created on top of social networks. 2011 will be an even more important year as the industry continues to mature.

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 $1,995 USD*

OR Buy Single Report: $995 $795 USD*

* Pre-order discount ends June 13, 2011. All pre-ordered reports will be delivered on June 14, 2011.

Although the report will not be released until next Tuesday, June 14, we are offering a special pre-order discount for those who purchase now. A one year subscription is $1,995 until June 14, at which point the price will go to US $2,495. The one year subscription includes three quarterly updates on key developments in the space, including future editions of our annual reports, Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2010-2011 and Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011.

Or, you can download just this report. The pre-order price is $795 until June 14, at which point the price will go to US $995.

Music Pages just about took over our list of top 20 growing Facebook Pages this week, occupying 12 of the 20 slots. The remainder of the list included YouTube and Facebook, a few TV shows, Harry Potter, Cristiano Ronaldo and Coca-Cola. The Pages on our list grew from between 1 million and 2.4 million Likes, we measure the growth of Pages with our PageData tool.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	Likes	Gain	Gain,%
1.	YouTube	36,335,231	+2,437,371	+7%
2.	Facebook	43,385,322	+2,249,789	+5%
3.	Shakira	31,709,723	+1,910,576	+6%
4.	Rihanna	35,369,725	+1,864,514	+6%
5.	Eminem	38,421,560	+1,789,255	+5%
6.	The Simpsons	28,449,683	+1,652,544	+6%
7.	Lady Gaga	36,330,897	+1,524,035	+4%
8.	Katy Perry	26,620,056	+1,512,412	+6%
9.	Coca-Cola	28,776,669	+1,509,262	+6%
10.	Beyoncé	22,357,915	+1,422,326	+7%
11.	South Park	28,444,691	+1,326,110	+5%
12.	Family Guy	31,902,867	+1,290,165	+4%
13.	AKON	23,996,778	+1,249,427	+5%
14.	Usher	19,573,724	+1,208,733	+7%
15.	Black Eyed Peas	19,333,205	+1,129,260	+6%
16.	Avril Lavigne	20,577,148	+1,109,198	+6%
17.	Lil Wayne	25,695,689	+1,058,421	+4%
18.	Linkin Park	29,118,054	+1,051,655	+4%
19.	Cristiano Ronaldo	27,436,242	+1,042,969	+4%
20.	Harry Potter	24,965,738	+1,033,571	+4%

YouTube grew by 2.4 million Likes to 36.3 million and Facebook by 2.2 million to reach 43.3 million, the pair of Pages occupied the one, and two, slots respectively on our list this week. Elsewhere on the list was Coca-Cola with a respectable 1.5 million new Likes to add to its 28.7 million; the Page features a landing tab encouraging visitors to Like the Page and frequent product-related status updates. Portuguese football (soccer) star Cristiano Ronaldo added more than 1 million Likes to his Page. totaling out at 27.4 million, talking about his professional experiences and threatening to sue media outlets for publishing photos of his son.

The only other non-music Pages on the list were TV shows and a movie. “The Simpsons” grew by 1.6 million Likes this week to 28.4 million partly because the Page involved fans in an intrigue as to whether or not two long-time characters should become a couple. “South Park” created an event for its most recent episode, which generated thousands of replies and comments; the Page grew by 1.3 million Likes to hit 28.4 million. “Family Guy” grew by just under that by just promoting the show to 31.9 million. The “Harry Potter” Page has begun a countdown to the release of the next film, supplementing the suspense with new posters and trailers; the Page added more than 1million Likes to reach 24.9 million.

The rest of the list was comprised of music Pages. A quick note, it becomes rarer and rarer not to see a musician’s Page that does not incorporate one or both of popular music apps:  BandPage by RootMusic or VEVO for Artists; the Pages below are no exception.

Shakira’s Page grew by 1.9 million Likes to 31.7 million; she’s promoting her album and releasing personalized Facebook vlogs. Rihanna was close behind with 1.8 million new Likes; she’s also promoting her songs and related products to her 35.3 million fans. Eminem’s Page grew by 1.7 million Likes to 38.4 million; he’s been promoting his album and singles with frequent updates. Lady Gaga was all over Facebook this week, resulting in 1.5 million new Likes, as she promotes her new album and its singles to her 36.3 million fans.

Katy Perry added 1.5 million Likes by promoting her album and related tour to 26.6 million. Beyoncé just released a single and is promoting her upcoming album, performed on “American Idol” and recruited 1.4 million new Likes this week to total out at 22.3 million. Akon’s 1.2 million new Likes may have resulted from his very frequent status updates and his fanbase now totals 23.9 million. Usher is currently promoting his tour and media appearances to the tune of 1.2 million new Likes to his 19.5 million fans. The Black Eyed Peas did pretty much the same thing, ending the week with 1.1 million new Likes and a total of 19.3 million.

Avril Lavigne added 1.1 million Likes to her 20.5 million total by promoting her new single on a landing tab. Lil Wayne grew his Page by more than 1 million Likes to 25.6 by updating his status frequently. Finally, Linkin Park’s million-plus new likes pushed the Page past 29.1 million as the band offered fans the chance to a free concert or place at the “Transformers” movie premiere.

Deal United hired a Munich-based Head of Finance, Syncapse hired a Global Head of Human Resources and Votigo brought on a VP of Business Development this week. Other hires ranged form social media management and customer support to graphic designers.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email mail (at) insidefacebook (dot) com, and we’ll get it into next week’s post. Also, please note that information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn.

Looking for new opportunities? Check out the Inside Network Job Board, which shows the latest openings at leading companies in the industry.

Here’s this week’s list of hires:

AdParlor

Sean Stone, Account Manager – formerly a Social Media Manager at HealthGenie.ca.

Deal United

Torsten Kiedel, Head of Finance in Munich, Germany - formerly the Corporate Risk Management Advisor for the BMW Group.

Efficient Frontier

Santhosh Chandrasekharan, Associate QA Engineer – previously a student at the Vellore Institute of Technology.

Involver

Heather Collins, Customer Success Manager - formerly a middle school teacher at Palo Alto Unified School District.

Shoutlet

Charles Guevara, Senior Business Development Manager – previously a Vice President of Sales at Trunity.

Gabriel Lilly, Customer Support Representative – formerly a student at the University of Wisconsin.

Michelle Mohr, Senior Business Development Manager – previously worked as a National Sales Manager at Questex Media Group.

Spencer Thiel, Development Lead – formerly Reporting Support Engineer at Epic Systems.

Paul Velleux, Graphic Designer – formerly Web Designer at LeMans Corporation.

Social Envi

Matt Sinnott, Community Manager – formerly a Community Manager at Apple.

Syncapse

David Wexler, SVP & Global Head of Human Resources – previously worked as a Senior Director of HR & Head of HR for EA Sports Canada at Electronic Arts.

Votigo

Mark Hodson, VP Business Development - formerly worked in business development at West Coast LiveWorld, Inc.

Brands used health as a draw for users to Like their Pages and purchase their products this week in our featured Facebook campaigns. Subway asked users to commit to a healthy lifestyle for a chance to win cash; NBC and Bravo also tried to bring users into a healthier lifestyle. Free Samsung television products, free concerts, the creation of an alter ego and some inside scoop about an upcoming fight match round out our featured campaigns.

We’ve excerpted two of the campaigns below. You can see the full week’s coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of dozens of other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Subway’s Commit to Fit Sweepstakes

Goal: Page Growth, Engagement, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: A sweepstakes on the landing tab allows users to make a commitment to be healthy for a chance to win $25,000, a Subway gift card or Champs Sports gift card.

Method: Users select what type of healthy commitment they want to make, enter their address and email, then have the chance to invite friends to enter.

Impact: In a week the Page grew from 6.6 million to 7.5 million Likes. A successful campaign with more than 1 million new Likes.

Samsung Television’s Like It, Reveal It, Win It Contest

Goal: Page Growth, Network Exposure, Product Purchase, Engagement

Core Mechanic: A weekly product giveaway that incentivizes users to invite their friends to participate and to check in on the Page regularly.

Method: The Like-gated contest from Ignite Social Media asks users to unlock a certain amount of pixels each week to reveal a photo of the Samsung Television prize for the week. Users can win instant prizes, or a grand prize.

Impact: Users enter by unlocking a pixel, thus, the more pixels unlocked the easier it is to see the prize, creating an incentive for users to share with friends. Ignite Social Media tells us that the Page has grown 12,000 new fans to 64,300 Likes in just about a two week run.

How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Different types of video-related applications were popular on our list of growing Facebook apps by monthly active users this week, as were photo and Page tab apps. We also saw horoscope and friend apps, and the Chase Community Giving app. The apps on our list this week grew from between 347,600 to 2.7 million MAU.

The list is compiled using AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook, and covers those that gained the most users in the past seven days.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	60 Photos	9,627,573	+2,718,940	+39%
2.	BandPage by RootMusic	26,867,709	+2,057,338	+8%
3.	Gardens of Time	12,332,879	+1,734,785	+16%
4.	Star Video	1,539,102	+1,535,333	+40,736%
5.	VEVO for Artists	5,156,458	+1,284,449	+33%
6.	HTML + iframe + FBML = iwipa	7,931,427	+1,143,277	+17%
7.	Static HTML: iframe tabs	37,071,055	+1,117,745	+3%
8.	Genç Video	1,307,910	+823,518	+170%
9.	Welcome Tab for Pages	4,779,528	+744,249	+18%
10.	Bubble Saga	6,037,158	+638,279	+12%
11.	Chase Community Giving	1,163,103	+582,476	+100%
12.	Daily Horoscope	9,054,603	+511,165	+6%
13.	Diamond Dash	8,894,406	+510,197	+6%
14.	Army Attack	508,800	+507,699	+46,113%
15.	Yahoo!	15,059,618	+497,836	+3%
16.	Welcome Tab for pages by SocialAppsHQ	4,414,157	+455,231	+11%
17.	Pieces of Flair	1,111,146	+408,380	+58%
18.	Auto Hustle	1,722,513	+389,325	+29%
19.	Compatibility With My Friends	1,514,101	+385,296	+34%
20.	OndaPix	2,978,307	+374,625	+14%

The app that saw the highest increase in MAU this week was 60 Photos, an app that saw 2.7 million MAU and allows users to rate friends’ photos, generating a feed story with a positive rating. Another photo app, OndaPix, grew by 347,600 MAU in both the United States and Mexico, publishing both a feed story and photo album after users are allowed to add designs to their own photos, or those of their friends.

Then there were all manner of video-related apps. BandPage by RootMusic grew by 2 million MAU. It is often used by bands as a landing tab featuring music videos and other information. Star Video, with 1.5 million MAU, is another video app. VEVO for Artists with 1.2 million MAU this week has been growing as a landing tab for artists’ Pages, too, by allowing them to feature their music videos on a tab. Finally, Genç Video added 1.3 million MAU this week; the app allows users to view, Like and share videos to the stream.

Page tab apps were popular again on our list.  HTML + iframe + FBML = iwipa grew by 1.1 million MAU, Static HTML: iframe tabs grew by 1.1 million MAU, Welcome Tab for Pages grew by 744,300 MAU and Welcome Tab for pages by SocialAppsHQ grew by 455,200 MAU. The apps allow users to create custom Page tabs.

The rest of the list included several types of apps.

Chase Community Giving grew by 582,500 MAU. Daily Horoscope grew mostly in Turkey by 511,200 MAU. Yahoo’s app grew mostly in the US by 497,800 MAU. Pieces of Flair grew by 408,400 MAU; the app allows users to create custom buttons/virtual gifts for their own Walls or those of their friends. Finally, Compatibility With My Friends, which publishes a photo and feed story upon calculating your relationship with your Facebook friends, grew by 385,300 MAU.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

Most developers on Facebook have many ups and downs, with an emphasis on the downs over the last 12 months or so as Facebook has cut back on viral channels. Zynga stands out not just for dwarfing the rest of the market, but because it has managed to keep traffic so high for so long.

A look back at the past few years in AppData provides a quick explanation of Zynga’s story, that will get the attention of investors trying to decide how to value it when it reportedly files to go public later this year.

The Data Timeline

At the end of 2008, Zynga was in a pretty good position. It had figured out how to monetize through virtual goods in its first hit, Texas Hold’Em Poker. It was in the process of launching Mafia Wars and a long line of other text-based role-playing games on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks. It was on its way to dominating that category through copying the competition, then using a careful combination of aggressive viral tactics, gradual but consistently improving game quality, back-end scaling expertise to handle the incoming traffic at the right times, and everything else that would eventually become the so-called “Zynga Playbook.”

It had 23.9 million monthly active users.

(Note that you can access the full data history for Zynga and its games, in our AppData Pro tracking service.)

Almost all of its growth since then came in 2009. It moved into the simulation category with the launch of FarmVille in June of that year, with the tailwind of Facebook’s spammily-designed Twitter style of news feed pushing the game far and wide across the social network. It also had capitalized on Facebook’s increasingly sophisticated advertising tool to cheaply and effectively reach users before most other developers (or other advertisers) were. Well-timed investments into all parts of the company, including fast hiring of experienced leaders in gaming, and in business and technical fields in other parts of Silicon Valley — a story that the company hasn’t talked about much yet.

> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.

Here are all the latest headlines from around Inside Network this past week.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms, and virtual goods.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

• Monday Mobile Roundup: Foursquare-INQ, EFF’s Call to Apple & More
• Emerging Paid iOS Apps: New Content Breaths New Life Into Older Apps
• Apple Responds to Lodsys Threats, Says Developers Are Protected
• Casey’s Contraptions Rises Up iPad App Charts

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

• Emerging Top-Grossing iOS Apps: Top Paid Apps Fill the Top Grossing List
• Microsoft Releases New Developers Tools for Windows Phone
• Nexon KartRider Rush Breaks Through 2 Million Downloads in 10 Weeks

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

• TinyCo Launches $5 Million Fund To Finance Games From Third-Party Developers
• Simogo Brings a Bit of Charm to iOS With Bumpy Road
• Emerging Top Free Apps on iOS: High Noon, iQuarterback & More
• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: TinyCo, PopCap Games, Roblox and More
• PopCap’s Second 4th & Battery Title, Candy Train, is Both Colorful and Challenging

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

• New Hires in Mobile: EA Mobile, Gameloft, Glu Mobile & More
• Building a Better Hospital With Game Insight’s Social-Mobile Title, My Clinic on iPad
• With Google Wallet, How Much Potential Will There Be For Third-Party Developers
• Room For Both The Familiar And The Unexpected in Glu’s Summer Lineup

Friday, May 27th, 2011

• Glue Boosts Second-Quarter Earnings Guidance, Stops Accounting for Incentivized Install Revenue
• Paypal-Google Lawsuit Reveals More About How Android Market Deal Went Awry
• Amazon Wants to Hire Game Designer to Create Mobile Social Games
• Friday Mobile Roundup: Margaritas, Lodsys Redux, iPhone 4 & More

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

• The Road to Credits: Mid-Market Developers Experience Technical Difficulties, Experiment With New Promotions

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

• GagaVille Pushes FarmVille Toward the Top of This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU
• CrowdStar Secures $23 Million Series A Funding From Intel, Time Warner, The9
• Rocket Ninja Seeing Retention Rise After Launching 3D Mode in Wrestler: Unstoppable
• “Facebook + Games” Equals a New Effort by Facebook to Communicate With Game Industry

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

• Rocket Ninja’ Shr3d Engine Provides Boost in Social Gaming 3D Arms Race
• Richard Garriott’s 3D Portalarium Plugin Appears in A Mystical Land
• Hero’s Blend of City-Building and Adventure Sees Steady MAU Growth but Variable DAU
• Report: Zynga Filing for IPO This Week of Next Week

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

• Deep Realms Doing Something on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Games by DAU
• Peak Games Finds Growth In Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, Secures $5 Million in Funding
• Nival North America to Bring Russian Strategy PC Series King’s Bounty to Facebook
• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: 6waves, AdParlor, Kixeye and More
• Fortune Creek Poker Gives Card Sharks a Place to Visit Instead of a Game to Play

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

• New Hires in Social Gaming: Cie Games, CrowdStar, Digital Chocolate, & More
• Facebook Announces PayPal Payouts to Developers for Credit Revenue
• It’s Official: Kabam Announces $85M Fourth Round of Funding
• Tagged Looks to In-House Social Game Development for New Growth
• Trials of Elsword Experiments With Demoing A Full MMOG on Facebook

Friday, May 27th, 2011

• King.com’s Bingo Adventure Appears on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
• LOLapps Side-Steps Sequels With Franchise Expansion in Ravenshire Castle
• Glu Boosts Second-Quarter Earnings Guidance, Stops Accounting for Incentivized Install Revenue
• Amazon Wants to Hire Game Designer to Create Facebook and Mobile Social Games
• Social Gaming Roundup: THQ, Supercell, Sim City, & More

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

• Pages, Music, Badoo, Videos and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU
• Featured Facebook Campaigns: Lancôme, Nivea, Cost Plus World Market, Allstate, Budweiser and Axe
• USA Network’s Chatter Aggregates Conversations About TV Shows From Facebook and More
• Platform Update: PHP SDK 3.0.0 Arrives, Client-Side Re-Authentication, & More

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

• Bruno Mars, Subway, Turkey, Disney, Vin Diesel and Converse on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Pages
• New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Efficient Frontier, Involver, Vitrue, Wildfire and More
• Facebook No Longer Blocking Comments for (Most) Pharmaceutical Pages
• Facebook Adds “Subscribe Via RSS” Option to Pages
• New Facebook Feature Has Users Post Recommended Pages to Wall, News Feed

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

• Chase Giving, Luck, Astrology, Mobile, BandPage and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by DAU
• Report: A More Official Spotify-Facebook Partnership Is Coming Soon
• New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Context Optional, AdParlor, PopCap Games and More
• ShopIgniter CEO Matt Compton on Raising $8M and the Growth of Ecommerce on Facebook
• Facebook Ecommerce: What Features Are Important in a Page Storefront Application

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

• Facebook Hires and Departures: Engineering, Account Management, Creative and More
• Facebook Careers Postings: Singapore, Recruiting, Engineering and More
• Facebook Announces PayPal Payouts to Developers for Credits Revenue
• BandRx: A Free Page Management App for Musicians That Matches Facebook’s Design

Friday, May 27th, 2011

• Friends, Photos, Videos, Weddings and More on This Week’s Top 2- Emergin Facebook Apps by MAU
• A New Facebook Lobbying Team Emerges to Match Increasing Political Scrutiny
• Facebook Platform Update: New Token Requirements, Photo and Video Graph APIs
• Facebook Roundup: Privacy, Europe, Mobile, Minors, Travel, Trading, Legal, Capital and Profanity

Facebook is accepting applications from engineers to join a new desktop software team at its Seattle office. The responsibilities of the “Software Engineer, Desktop Software” position we noticed last week include creating Mac and/or Windows desktops apps and building server-side APIs.

Based on several trends and the company’s principles we believe the new team could be working to develop software that reports media usage, such as music listening or video watching habits, so that users could easily share this info with friends. It could also be working on a photo uploader, or less probably, a Facebook internet browser.

Turning Media Consumption Into Facebook Content

The social network is becoming an increasingly important part of entertainment consumption. There are reports that Facebook is working on a deep integration with music streaming service Spotify that could allow users to share music with friends, and even listen to the same song at the same time. Meanwhile, some third-party developers are experimenting with offering film rentals in exchange for Facebook Credits.

With a nearly half of the most popular Facebook Pages belonging to musicians and television shows, the service is already a key source of entertainment news. Since the entertainment people consume is a way they define their identity, desktop software that helps users publish this information could populate Facebook with compelling content without burdening users. The software could turn users into authors of entertainment content, allowing them to easily post what DVDs or video files they watch, or what songs and artists they’re listening to most.

It could function similarly to Last.fm’s scrobbler which reports listening habits from iTunes, iPods, Spotify, Winamp, VLC media player and many web music services. Desktop software could prompt users to Like the Pages of the content they consume, or persistently display there latest consumption habits on their profile. These types of posts or information could also help a user’s friends discover entertainment Pages to Like, which might help draw support for Facebook desktop software from content creators.

Other Potential Desktop Software Projects

The desktop software team could also build a photo uploader that could reduce drop off in the upload process, or allow users to automatically upload photos when they import them from their cameras.

Some third-parties have attempted to build Facebook-centric internet browsers such as Rockmelt and Wowd, but neither have managed to attain significant traction, which may indicate users aren’t in dire need of this type of solution. A browser project could require a lot of engineering resources, and with Facebook’s focus on HTML5, we don’t see this as a probable direction for the desktop software team.

Media usage scrobbling desktop software would align well with Facebook Pages for content creators, and turn entertainment into more of a two-way conversation. With users learning about music, TV, film and other content verticals from both official outlets and their friends, desktop software could make media consumption more social, and make Facebook an even more attractive place for media advertisers.

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at AdParlor, 6waves, Openfeint, Tagged, TinyCo, PopCap Games, Context Optional, Roblox, PopCap Games and Kixeye.

• Product Manager (San Francisco, CA)
• Data Analyst (San Francisco, CA)

• Online Operations Project Manager (Seattle, WA)
• Software Developer – Game Services (Seattle, WA)
• Franchise Marketing Manager (Seattle, WA

• Flash Game Engineers (San Francisco, CA)
• Director of Quality Engineering (San Francisco, CA)
• Technical Project Manager (San Francisco, CA)

• Account Manager / Sales - 5 positions (Toronto, Canada)

• Product Manager – Monetization (San Francisco, CA)
• Creative Director – Social Games(San Francisco, CA)
• Game Designer (San Francisco, CA)
• Game Producer (San Francisco, CA)

• Producer/Product Manager, Game Publishing (San Francisco, CA)

• Ruby on Rails Developer – Social Marketing Suite (San Francisco, CA)

• Senior Scalability Engineer, Web Services Team (San Mateo, CA)

• Mobile Game Designer (San Mateo, CA)
• Product Manager (San Mateo, CA)

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Facebook, Google Lose Mobile Patent Ruling – Wireless Ink Corp will be able to sue both Google and Facebook over alleged patent infringements related to the companies’ mobile-social services, according to a ruling in New York this week.

Facebook, Others Oppose Calif. Law – Facebook and other tech companies have been building momentum in their opposition to California’s SB 242 law that would affect consumer privacy online. In addition to Facebook signing the letter, Google, Twitter, Oodle, Identified, Zecco, and BranchOut have joined the fight against the bill.

Facebook Responds to NY Owner Claim – Facebook filed its formal legal response to New York’s Paul Ceglia, who claims he’s legally entitled to half of Facebook. In the response the company called Ceglia an “inveterate scam artist” who used “a doctored contract and fabricated evidence.”

Facebook “Not Focused” on Mobile Ads - Facebook’s EMEA Head of Mobile Partnerships Fergal Walker noted this week in London that“we are not focused on  advertising on mobile at all…Our minds are very focused on the social web.”

Industry Group Gets Into Privacy Game - Companies like Zynga, Facebook AT&T, Google, Intel and TrustE are investing money into a group, the Future of Privacy Forum, to provide developers with resources to create privacy policies in an educated way.

Zuckerberg Downplays Facebook’s Role in Middle East - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week downplayed this social network’s role in the Middle East uprisings, saying the company’s platform was neither necessary nor sufficient for change there.

Zuckerberg Asks Europe to Relax About Privacy – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked European leaders this week to tone down their regulation of the web, noting it could dampen innovation and governments should be investing in new technologies instead.

Zecco’s Wall Street App Allows Trading on Facebook – Zecco’s new app, Wall Street, allows users to see quotes, charts, discussions and more in real time, as well as make stock trades on the platform.

The Need for a Facebook Alternative – An interesting post on Altly notes that Facebook is not just a sterile medium, but rather, influences the way we communicate with people. This changes the way we communicate outside of Facebook too, and so, the need for a social web alternative to Facebook.

No Kids on Facebook - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg assured European leaders this week that the website is not working towards opening up the platform for users under the age of 13.

Gtrot Uses Facebook for Travel - Gtrot is a new social network using Facebook data to help users navigate traveling by using their itinerary and Facebook profile to help them get advice from fellow travelers.

Facebook Helps Tornado Victims – Facebook Pages to help people in Joplin, Missouri locate missing loved ones have sprung up, attracting thousands of Likes.

Mixpanels Raises $1.25M - Mixpanel, which provides analytics solutions for companies, raised $1.25 million this week from Sequoia Capital and angel investors. The company is going to beef up its engineering team with the funding.

Milyoni Raises $3M – Milyoni, a Facebook commerce company, raised $3 million in Series A funding this week from ATA ventures and Thomvest Ventures, according to a release. The company is set to use the money to enhance social commerce products.

Half Facebook Profiles Contain Incriminating Evidence - Kaplan conducted a survey of third-year law students, finding that 49% of them reported seeing legally compromising material on others’ Facebook profiles.

About Half Profiles Contain Profanity – Reputation management company Reppler did a study, finding that about 47% of profiles contain some type of profanity.