This Week’s Headlines From Across Inside Network

•Jun 12th, 2011
Facebook

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

IMA LogoInside Mobile Apps

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

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

Monday, June 6th, 2011

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Friday, June 10th, 2011

ISG LogoInside Social Games

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

Monday, June 6th, 2011

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Friday, June 10th, 2011

IF LogoInside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, June 6th, 2011

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Friday, June 10th, 2011

New This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Acquinity Interactive, Lolapps, A Bit Lucky and More

•Jun 11th, 2011
Jobs

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Acquinity Interactive, lolapps, A Bit Lucky, Tagged, Kixeye and King.com.

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 Roundup: Sharing, AT&T, Buddy Media, Fusion-io, iOS5, Bing Mobile, Iran, Jobs, The White House, and Iran

•Jun 10th, 2011
Business, Data, Facebook, Finance, Google, Government, International, iPhone, Page Management, Privacy, Venture Capital

ShareThis: 56% Of Sharing Is Via Facebook – ShareThis, the maker of a sharing widget available on a variety of web sites, conducted a study finding that 56% of all content shared online goes through Facebook.

Facebook, Tech Companies Back AT&T, T-Mobile Merger – Facebook, along with Yahoo and Microsoft, filed letters supporting the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T mostly because of how the merger would affect wireless broadband.

Buddy Media IPO? – It would appear that Page management giant Buddy Media is set for an IPO based on the hiring of former Yahoo-er Dennis Morgan as CFO.

Facebook Likes Flash Servers, Fusion-io’s IPO Shows – Fusion-io’s IPO this week for $1.8 billion revealed some interesting data about Facebook, specifically that the company accounts for 52% of flash memory chip maker Fusion-io’s revenue in the first quarter.

Apple Builds Facebook Integration into iOS5 – Apple’s new iOS5 for iPhones and other mobile devices allows users to add Facebook handles into the entries in its native Contacts app.

Emotions Spread Among Friends Via Facebook – A new study by Facebook’s data scientist Adam D.I. Kraner found that emotions such as happiness or sadness are contagious when shared between friends using the Facebook news feed. Writing positive words such as “happy” and “hug”, and negative words such as “sick” in status updates can impact the emotions of friends for up to three days.

TopProspect Reports Top Tech Companies – TopProspect reported that more workers are flocking to work at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Apple while Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, eBay, and Amazon are losing employees. Facebook is winning the talent war, though, with it gaining employees from most of the others tracked. It is poaching especially efficiently from Microsoft, from whom it gained 30.5 employees for each one it sent to the Seattle-based company.

Bing Mobile Enables Facebook Sharing – Bing for Mobile Browser, m.bing.com, just enabled some new social features, including allowing users to easily share some types of search results to Facebook, such as images and local business details. [Screenshot via Bing]

Facebook Expands Women in Computing Program – Facebook quadrupled, to 20, the number of Facebook Grace Hopper Scholarship recipients this year for female university students who excel in computer science. The scholarship includes full-paid trips to Facebook HQ and this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference in Portland, Oregon where COO Sheryl Sandberg will be the keynote speaker.

Postagram Launches Android App – Postagram, which allowed users to transform Instagram photos into postcards, has created an Android app that doesn’t allow users to actually take Instagram photos, but rather, make postcards from photos on their phone or Facebook accounts. The iOS version of the app can also now import Facebook photos. [Image via TechCrunch]

Facebook Activity Led to Arrest in Iran – One man in Iran was purportedly arrested for activities on Facebook, which is banned in that country. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty reported that Houshang Fanaian was arrested for posting about his religion, which is banned in Iran.

White House Polls Facebook Fans -The White House announced this week the results of an informal Facebook and Twitter poll that found, among other things, 62% of users visit the Page on a weekly basis and about 56% share posts on a monthly basis.

France Bans Mentioning “Facebook” on TV, Radio – Due to a law banning the promotion of commercial enterprise on news programs, French broadcasters are no longer allowed to say “Facebook” or “Twitter” on the airwaves unless the social networks are part of the story. Thus, saying “Like us on Facebook” is now forbidden.

Join Inside Facebook’s Josh Constine at the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp

•Jun 10th, 2011
Facebook

We’re happy to announce that Inside Facebook lead writer Josh Constine will be leading a how-to session at the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp, an online conference featuring weekly keynotes from current leaders in social media and marketing.

About the Session

Executing a Facebook Marketing Campaign: Advertising + Content Updates

Learn how to use Facebook ads, including the recently released Sponsored Stories ad unit, to drive Likes of your Facebook Page with Josh Constine, lead writer at Inside Facebook and the Facebook Marketing Bible. Find out how to publish a mix of different types of Facebook Page posts to these fans in order to increase brand loyalty and generate the type of conversions that help your business.

About the Bootcamp

The Social Media Marketing Bootcamp is an online conference and learning series for marketing professionals that includes:

  • Weekly keynotes given by top social media pioneers, with interactive question and answer sessions
  • Practical how-to sessions that show attendees how to put broader strategies into immediate practice
  • Unique homework assignments designed to enable attendees to launch a working social media strategy quickly
  • Peer interaction that allows attendees to work closely with a small group, solicit feedback from an experienced advisor, and make meaningful connections across the entire attendee roster.

The Social Media Marketing Bootcamp is on now, and registration will be open for one more week! Learn more about the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp here.

Facebook Account Groups Let Agencies Access Multiple Ads Accounts Simultaneously

•Jun 10th, 2011
Advertising, Facebook

Yesterday, Facebook launched a new feature in its Ads Manager called “Account Groups”. It allows advertising agencies to aggregate the Facebook Ads accounts of multiple users so they can be accessed simultaneously by any member of an Account Group.

The feature reduces friction and improves security in ad account management, relieving multiple agency employees or brand representatives from having to share a single account or distribute the passwords for several accounts. This will facilitate cooperation between multiple ad executives on complex campaigns, which could lead to better campaign performance and the subsequent shift of more ad dollars to Facebook.

Facebook has been working to improve the ad management experience for teams. Last year it began allowing advertising-specific business accounts to be shard by multiple personal accounts, and brought a multiple ad account dashboard to the Ad Manager.

As game developers are big advertisers on the site who often work with agencies, Facebook began allowing developers to list advertising accounts that can target their users. Third-party Facebook Ads API tool provider are also supporting team management, agencies, with AdParlor designing a tool called Pulse specifically for agencies. Some might consider Account Groups an encroachment on the territory of Facebook Ads API tool and service developers, but similar to Facebook’s new ads Power Editor, this feature is more about streamlined accessibility options than serious performance optimization.

Facebook has released an “Account Groups How-To Guide” .pdf that walks through how to set up and manage the new feature. When advertisers enter the Ad Manager and set their Account to “All Accounts” in the left hand navigation menu, they’ll see a bookmark for Account Groups. This allows them to create and name a group, select ads accounts to be accessed by the group, and add or Facebook friends or Facebook accounts linked to an entered email address as group members.

Members of the group can be set as administrators, general users,  be given access to reports only, or be removed from the group. Newly-added members must confirm their invite from within the Account Groups section of their own Ad Manager. Once a group is set up, members can select it from the Accounts drop-down of the Ad Manager, and see all the campaigns of all the accounts which have been added. Note all of a member’s ad accounts are accessible — just those that have been added on the Account Groups settings page are.

Facebook could do more to ensure responsible use of Account Groups. Similar to how Facebook’s user-facing personal Groups feature lists who added new group members or changed a group’s settings, an activity feed for Account Groups could promote accountability. It’d be useful to know who admitted new members to an Account Group, or activated or paused campaign such that unapproved actions could be nullified and their authors could be reprimanded.

Still, this design evolution of the old shared business accounts system should make it easier for agency teams to manage a client’s various campaigns around the clock, and smooth transitions when employees leave or a advertising project changes.

Facebook Testing “Happening Now” Column That Could Reduce Home Page Bounces

•Jun 10th, 2011
Facebook, Modules, News Feed

Facebook is testing a new version of the home page that displays a column titled “Happening Now”  listing recent actions of friends in the right sidebar where the “Upcoming Events” section usually is. The short Happening Now entries such as status updates, Likes, new friendships, posted links, and comments can be clicked to pop up a window in-line that shows the original wall story and all its associated Likes and comments.

Happening Now could give users a snapshot of more than 10 stories about friends before they even scroll beneath the fold of the news feed, decreasing the bounce rate. For now, though, Facebook says the ”test includes a small percentage of Facebook users,  just a fraction of a percent”.

An Abbreviated Feed Provides a Wider Breadth of Content

The Facebook news feed only has room to show a maximum of roughly five stories above the fold before users have to scroll to see more, and this number can dwindle as low as one or two in the case of posted links with lots of comments. Happening Now allows Facebook to display a much wider breadth of stories above the fold through an independently scrollable frame, increasing the likelihood users will see something that catches their eye, and decreasing the immediate bounce rate of the home page. It does this by abbreviating some stories such as posts of links by omitting feedback and the author’s description, so the stories bear resemblance to notifications.

Unlike Twitter’s stream, which this test looks similar to, Facebook doesn’t always show a new update at the top of the news feed, and the rich content can make it difficult to rapidly consume. In 2009, Facebook at one point altered the news feed to be purely real-time updates similar to Twitter, but moved back to its original algorithmic design after seeing a prolonged negative response from users.

As Facebook becomes a hub for so much of people’s social activity, many have probably gotten into the habit of quickly opening a Facebook tab in their browser, scanning for new notifications and interesting stories at the top of the news feed, and closing the tab if nothing hooks them.

Happening Now could ensnare these impulsive visitors by giving them instant access to relevant content, and encourage them to leave Likes and comments that trigger notifications for friends. These actions, as well as more complicated ones such as watching posted videos, can all be done from the in-line pop up. Facebook Ads that are traditionally shown in the right sidebar appear to be pushed above or below the new column. If the feature was rolled out, Upcoming Events would have to be moved somewhere, and Facebook would need to prevent redundant content from appearing side by side.

Facebook briefly tried out a different “Happening Now” on the Events home page in August, which showed people currently active Places checkins as well as events going on that day. The web version of Facebook doesn’t have a way to see an aggregated list of checkins by friends, so users must either sift through their news feed or access Facebook via a mobile site or app. If checkins can appear in the new Happening Now, the column could inform users that their friends are at a nearby cafe and they should considering meeting them before they get engrossed in the site.

The Twitter-esque Happening Now has the potential to offer a more concise stream of content than the news feed without requiring significant redesign that might shock users. It augments the news feed’s algorithmically sorted Top News and real-time Most Recent feeds with an abbreviated, scannable feed. Happening Now could help users stay closer connected to more friends without having to browse or scroll.

Update 6/16/2011 2:15pm PST: Some users have commented that they don’t enjoy the Happening Now module and wish to remove it. Facebook does not provide a way to remove Happening Now, and rarely allows users to opt out of the small percentage of the user base who experiences design tests like this. However, Facebook will likely remove Happening Now from the home page of the test group once the test has concluded if it chooses not to roll the feature out wider.

Update 8/5/2011: Facebook has confirmed the existence of the Happening Now, telling CNET “We are currently testing a feature within News Feed that gives people the ability to see what their friends are commenting on and ‘liking,’ as these actions are being taken on Facebook. This test includes a small percentage of Facebook users, just a fraction of a percent. In the coming weeks, as we learn more from this test, we’ll keep making improvements and may expand it to more people.”

Facebook Now Reaches 687 Million Users – Traffic Trends and Data at Inside Facebook Gold, June 2011 Edition

•Jun 10th, 2011
Facebook

Facebook hit 687 million users worldwide in the month of May, increasing its total monthly audience by 1.7%. Growth rates came in below April numbers, which were themselves just under March numbers. The company’s upward growth touched all regional markets outside with the exception of North America. In that region, the site saw traffic declines in both the US and Canada. Meanwhile, the site grew most in its emerging in Asia and Latin America.

The full breakdown of growth by country and demographic, including 12-month historicals and projections, is available in this month’s edition of Inside Facebook Gold.

Inside Facebook Gold is Inside Network’s data service providing monthly data on Facebook’s growth outlook through a comprehensive data feed service and growth report.

The June 2011 edition of Inside Facebook Gold includes:

  • Global Data Feed Service, a comprehensive data CSV supplying vital stats on Facebook’s audience size, demographic distribution, advertising business, and global language distribution.
  • Facebook Global Monitor, 100 pages of leaderboards and charts covering audience change in 160 Facebook country markets.

Inside Facebook Gold is a data service designed for analysts seeking to understand and maximize opportunities in the Facebook ecosystem, and presents data on key indicators ranging from the site’s traffic growth to its advertising business and its robust applications platform.

Download the June 2011 data suite at Inside Facebook Gold.

Daily Luck, Videos, Turkey and Profile Statistics on This Week’s Top 20 Emerging Facebook Apps by MAU

•Jun 10th, 2011
AppData

Turkish video applications, profile statistics calculators and a random assortment of other titles were on our list for the top 20 emerging Facebook apps by monthly active users this week.

The apps on our list grew from between 187,800 and 733,800 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook. All in all, it was a pretty typical week for the emerging category, which we define as apps that grew between 100,000 and 1 million in the past week.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1. Your Luck [daily] 868,412 +733,836 +545%
2. PAC-MAN 522,739 +522,725 +3,733,750%
3. VideoTivi 603,269 +463,449 +331%
4. Video House 390,730 +370,888 +1,869%
5. Alrena Roushe – Profile 497,759 +343,633 +223%
6. En Çok Beğenilen Videolar 555,939 +332,156 +148%
7. Social Statistics 805,414 +287,805 +56%
8. HOSGELDiNiZ 703,765 +271,265 +63%
9. Planet Domo 502,856 +261,192 +108%
10. Seçim Anketi 256,464 +255,928 +47,748%
11. World Series Superstars: Baseball with MLB teams! 736,272 +231,047 +46%
12. Who likes you the most. 288,993 +225,950 +358%
13. Akıllı Tv Video 891,231 +215,419 +32%
14. Tu Nombre Cani, Quillo 213,735 +213,690 +474,867%
15. ลูกมดสู้ๆ 478,110 +211,863 +80%
16. TinierCafe 609,418 +202,755 +50%
17. Görüntülü Sohbet 722,567 +200,740 +38%
18. Global Warfare 731,999 +196,051 +37%
19. Chatterbox 283,767 +194,685 +219%
20. 森の物語 206,993 +187,845 +981%

Your Luck [daily] topped out list with 733,800 MAU this week; the app publishes a daily luck percentage to your feed. Then there was a round of Turkish apps. VideoTivi with 463,500 MAU,  Video House with 370,900 MAU, Akıllı Tv Video with 215,400 MAU and  En Çok Beğenilen Videolar with 332,200 MAU are video apps. These were followed by HOSGELDiNiZ with 271,300 MAU which has users comment on a particular topic, Seçim Anketi with 256,000 MAU, which is a voting app that publishes to your feed. Finally there was Görüntülü Sohbet with 200,700 MAU.

Social Statistics grew by 287,800 MAU and publishes a feed story of a user’s top friends.  Who likes you the most. grew by 226,000 MAU and gives users the option to publish their top 7 friends collage, or just get the results without a feed story. Chatterbox grew by 194,700 MAU by publishing quiz answers to friends’ Walls.

Lastly there was Alrena Roushe – Profile with 343,600 MAU; it’s apparently part of a viral marketing campaign for “theHOUSE 2,” a Flash game about a haunted house. And Tu Nombre Cani, Quillo grew by 213,700 MAU.

Facebook Hires Team From Sofa, a Dutch Development and Design Company

•Jun 9th, 2011
Business, Facebook

Facebook has hired the team of Amsterdam-based startup Sofa, and will incorporate it within its design group. The talent acquisition does not include the Sofa’s software products, which include Kaleidoscope for tracking differences in text and images, Versions – a Mac client for Subversions which offers code version control, Enstore for managing sales and accounting of physical retail stores, and ecommerce platform Enstore.

The Sofa team will move to Palo Alto to work at Facebook HQ, but its products will remain live and supported. “We were just blown away by the Sofa team’s work, from their Mac and web software to the interfaces and brand identities they created for clients,” Facebook director of design Kate Aronowitz said in a statement. “The more we got to know them, the more we realized that their passion for working in small teams and iterating to find solutions to hard problems matched our own culture. We can’t wait for them to join the team.”

Aside from working within the design team, Sofa’s expertise could help Facebook with a variety of products. Its knowledge of tracking file changes could keep Facebook from indexing redundant data, such as when identical copies of a photo are uploaded. Its experience building ecommerce products could allow Facebook to offer better support to the growing developer ecosystem of Facebook Page ecommerce storefronts.

The Sofa team could even work farther behind the scenes, assisting with development of Facebook’s internal engineering tools it has built to handle the unique complexities of its scale.

This is Facebook’s seventh talent-focused acquisition this year, following personal analytics developer Daytum, HTML5 experts RecRec, hyper-local advertising startup Rel8tion, feature phone app developer Snaptu, social recruiting site Pursuit, and group messaging service Beluga.

Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet v1.0.5 Adds Video Uploads, Still No Events

•Jun 9th, 2011
Blackberry, Facebook, Mobile, Video

BlackBerry released an update this week of its Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet mobile app that gives uses the ability to upload videos, select albums to add photos to, and improves the interface for search, Pages, and the news feed. The app still lacks Events, which we see as a glaring omission for any somewhat-mobile Facebook app, even if you don’t consider tablets truly mobile.

BlackBerry released the first iteration of its Facebook app for PlayBook at the beginning on May, about two weeks after the launch of the device itself. Some reports and BlackBerry have said sales are healthy, including one estimating 250,000 units sold in the first month. A conflicting report from a source at Best Buy stated that sales had missed goals by 90% and the return rate was high.

Facebook apps have been pegged as big drivers of engagement on mobile devices, so a strong and innovative version for PlayBook could help sales of the device that analysts say is crucial to the future of Blackberry developer Resarch In Motion (RIM).

Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook v1.0.5 has the ability to upload video. Since the PlayBook’s video recorder shoots in 1080p, users could easily record and upload a high-def video of a demo at business conference.

Other improvements bring the PlayBook app’s design in line with that of iPhone and Android devices. Pages can be accessed from a button in the Friends section, users can filter search by friends, everyone, or Pages, and a ‘+’ button beside news feed stories allows users to quickly add Likes or comments without leaving the news feed view. Photos can be uploaded to a specific album, and links to settings and the Help Center are readily available.

The most recent version of Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones allows users to choose when they delete Messages whether to delete them from just their device, their Facebook account, or both. The PlayBook update allows for Message deletion, but only from both your device and account at the same time.

V1.0.5 does not resolve the app’s lack of Facebook Groups or Events. With the PlayBook catering to business networkers who often attend business conferences and mixers, the omission of Events is difficult to understand. The feature’s presence in even the earliest iterations of most Facebook mobile apps would suggest it isn’t a difficult technology problem to solve. While unique features may attract attention, a Facebook mobile app needs to cover the basic Facebook experiences, and the PlayBook’s doesn’t yet.

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