After years of anticipation, this morning the Spotify music streaming service launched in the United States with support of all the major record labels. The launch is the continuation of a partnership between Spotify and Facebook that could evolve into a special integration including prominent placement on Facebook. This alliance has the potential to threaten Apple, which chose to partner with Twitter for social integrations in iTunes Ping and iOS 5.

For now, the Spotify-Facebook experience is limited to the use of Connect in the Spotify desktop client. This allows one to import their friend list so they can listen to music from the playlists of friends, and to easily share songs to Facebook.

The current Facebook Connect integration should help Spotify ramp up traction in the United States, and doesn’t raise any privacy concerns. Beyond the iTunes rivalry, a deeper Facebook integration could help Spotify become a serious competitor to other established music services such as Pandora, Amazon, and Rhapsody.

Spotify is now distributing invites to its free service to pre-registered users and honoring invites already passed to users by friends from abroad. Soon, anyone in the US will be able to stream music for 10 hours through the free but ad-supported Spotify Open service. US users can get immediate access by paying $4.99 a month for Spotify Unlimited which has no listening cap or ads, or $9.99 for Spotify Premium which also includes access from mobile devices and enhanced sound quality.

Spotify has also partnered with Klout to give the influence scoring service’s users Spotify invites. However, the overwhelming demand crashed Klout and it has run out of invites, but will distribute more tomorrow.

As we’ll describe below, US users can now listen to the music of their friends and share links to songs to the news feed. Spotify properly protects user privacy by not publishing a user’s playlists without permission. Those in the US will also now be able to use Facebook apps such as branded promotions that are powered by Spotify. Users will not see a bookmark to Spotify in the Facebook navigation menu, or be able to simultaneously listen to a song with friends — two features that could be released in the future as either a special integration or as part of Facebook’s Music Dashboard.

Social Music Discovery With Respect for Privacy

Once users have downloaded and launched the desktop client, they’ll see a big “Connect to Facebook” prompt on the right side of the music player which tempts users to “Discover what your friends are listening to”. Facebook is Spotify’s premiere social partner, powering identity and interconnection between users. A Twitter integration is present, but merely allows users to launch a tweet composer in their browser to share songs. This draws some battle lines, as Apple has chosen Twitter to power single-sign on and quick sharing in iOS 5 as well as it’s in-app social network Ping.

If users click through the Facebook Connect button and grant the app extended permissions, they’re informed that upon completing the connection, their playlists will be shared publicly. However, in a smart privacy move, users are given a chance to first edit their privacy settings and select to hide the playlists they created in Spotify or that have been automatically imported from iTunes. Users can also choose whether newly created or imported playlists will be visible by default.

As some users might have playlists with sensitive names or content, such as ones dedicated to friends or romantic partners, it’s important that Spotify provides the option to hide playlists before they’ve ever published.

Once users finish the Facebook Connect proces, they see all their friends who are on Spotify in the right sidebar. Clicking on these friends displays their published playlists, which users can stream. Users can click to compose and publish a news feed story linking to a song or playlist within Spotify. Links can also be easily shared directly with Facebook friends that are on Spotify through an in-app messaging, or be published to Twitter or Windows Live Messager through web popups.

When users click through Spotify news feed stories while on Facebook, songs do not play in-line. Instead the song will automatically play in Spotify if the app is open, or the user will be prompted to get the app if they don’t have it. Until Spotify completes its rollout in the US, these links could be a little infuriating to users waiting for an invite.

Once Spotify is publicly available to the 150 million or so Facebook users in the United States, you can expect more brands to integrate the music streaming service into the tab applications they host on their Page. Spotify API-powered apps let brands offer compelling experiences cheaply and easily, while providing exposure for the streaming service. For instance, a Page could display a playlist and ask users to vote for what song best describes their brand.

There’s certainly room for deeper social integration, especially on Facebook.com. Turntable.fm has shown that users are interested in synchronous listening with friends. The ability to perisistently display one’s recent listens in the Facebook profile, or a central hub where one could view all the songs shared by friends could drive conversation and Likes of musician Pages.

Facebook gave Spotify some love this morning, posting an announcement of the launch and a link to the service to several of its official Pages. Former Facebook President Sean Parker also published an emphatic Facebook Note heralding Spotify as the successor to his old company Napster and the answer to the music industry’s financial woes. Those are nice tokens, but placement on the Facebook home page could give Spotify the exposure it will need to displace iTunes and the other music download and streaming services.

Facebook made some exciting hires this week, in addition to the usual suspects from the company’s Careers Page and LinkedIn feed, the company hired a former aide to President Barack Obama, Sarah Feinberg, and Google’s former director of product management for search, client and infrastructure products, Tom Stocky.

Feinberg was formerly a special assistant tot he president, worked as the communication director for the House Democratic Caucus, a press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and was also a press secretary for former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Now Feinberg will still work in communications, focusing on safety, security and litigation. Stocky has worked for Google since 2005 and is joining Facebook as a director of product.

The company also hired more interns, some engineers, people in Asia and Africa, marketing and more.

New hires per LinkedIn and Other Sources:

• Elke Karskens, Head of Platform Marketing & Communication EMEA – formerly the Platform marketing Manager at Skype.
• Alex Şuhan, Software Engineer – formerly a Teaching Assistant at Politechnica University of Bucharest.
• Connor Hayes, Analyst, Online Sales Operations – formerly a features editor at The Rice Thresher.
• Justin Allen, Account Executive – previously did similar work at Apple.
• Caitlin Hipskind, University Recruiting – formerly a Recruiter Coordinator at Facebook.
• Tatyana Bezuglova, MBA Intern, User Operations for EMEA – previously worked as a Senior Associate at The Boston Consulting Group.
• Jonasz Pamuła, Software Engineering Intern – formerly a Linux Software Engineer at NComputing.
• Ivan Georgiev,  Software Engineer Intern – previously did similar work at Musala Soft.
• Shomir Dutt, User Operations Analyst – formerly a student.
• Binoy Xavier, Network Deployment Engineer – previously worked as a Network QA Test Engineer at Brocade.
• Jesse Chen, Marketing & Product Analytics Intern – previously did similar work at LinkedIn.
• Heather Marquez, Asset Manager – formerly a manager of Asset Lifecycle & Logistics at eBay.

Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:

• Business Analyst, Hyperion
• Product Manager, Tax Technology
• Product Manager, Technical Operations
• Strategic Product Manager
• Growth Manager Africa – Contract (Nigeria or Kenya)
• Strategic Partner Development, Local Monetization (Palo Alto)
• Lead, Data Warehouse Operations
• User Interface Engineer, Communication Design
• Financial Analyst – Information Technology
• Account Executive (Hong Kong)
• Account Executive (Sydney)
• Client Partner (Paris)
• Sales Associate (Sao Paulo)
• DSO Account Manager (Hong Kong)
• Strategic Partner Development, Local Monetization (Palo Alto)
• Manager, Online Sales Operations (Palo Alto)
• Associate, Ad Operations (Chicago)
• Manager of Online Sales & Operations (Austin)
• Manager of Online Sales & Operations (Palo Alto)
• Manager of Online Sales & Operations (Austin)
• Manager, Online Sales Operations (Palo Alto)
• Lead, Risk Management (Austin)
• Analyst, Platform Operations (Hyderabad)
• Monetization Product Marketing – Sales and Marketing Solutions
• Marketing Communications Copywriter
• Web Optimization Engineer 1106002

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook added a few managerial positions this week to its Careers Based on the job posts added this week to Facebook’s Careers Page and jobs posted by the company on their LinkedIn feed, Facebook is continuing to grow in Dublin, Ireland and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Jobs ranging from recruiting to sales to data center work were added to the company’s mix this week, see the full list below.

Posts added this week on Facebook’s Careers Page:

• HRIS Analyst (Contract) – Dublin
• Lead Recruiter (Hyderabad)
• Technology Partner, Hyperion
• Technology Partner, Infrastructure
• Technology Partner, Sales and Marketing
• Technology Partner, Tax Technology
• Network Engineer
• Data Center Capacity Planning Manager
• Business Operations Associate (SQL) – EMEA (Dublin)
• Financial Planning & Analysis Manager – EMEA (Dublin)
• Account Executive (Melbourne)
• Client Partner (Sao Paulo)
• Optimization Specialist, Online Sales Operations (Austin)
• Optimization Specialist, Online Sales Operations (Palo Alto)
• Software Engineer – Payments

Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:

• HRIS Analyst (Contract) – Dublin
• Manager, National Sales (Palo Alto)
• Manager, National Sales (Austin)
• Account Manager, Online Sales Operations (Sao Paulo)
• Client Partner (Sao Paulo)
• Business Operations Associate (SQL) – EMEA (Dublin)
• Financial Planning & Analysis Manager – EMEA (Dublin)
• Director of Policy (Various Locations)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook today released the results of a study it conducted on what types of posts by the Facebook Pages of journalists performed the best. Among the highlights: Incorporating personal analysis in posts increased referral clicks by 20%, and including a thumbnail image when posting a link boosted Likes by 65% and comments by 50%.

While these findings are for Pages of journalists, the best practices they illuminate can be useful for the admins of any type of Page.

Regarding the methodology of the study, Facebook’s journalist program manager Vadim Lavrusik tells us “We looked at 25 journalist pages that included a variety of both local, national and international journalists. They also ranged in primary media focus (TV, web, radio, newspaper, etc.) We selected a group of journalist that we felt offered a diverse sample of subject areas, media focus, and both US and international journalists. We looked at 2-weeks worth of data.” The sample size is relatively low, so there is potential for some inaccuracy in the data.

Turn Off Your Auto-Publisher

The most important finding is that posts saw 20% more referral clicks when personal analysis was added to a post’s description, opposed to just publishing a headline, blurb, and thumbnail.

The ability to include a longe description of what’s behind a link is one of the fundamental differences between Facebook and Twitter. While journalists and other content publishers may not prefer spending the extra time crafting Facebook posts, the benefits in traffic driven that this study shows should convince them the effort is worth it.

Pages that automatically cross-post Twitter updates or that auto-post when an article is published to their website should consider switching to manual publishing. Having a human writing copy specifically to accompany a Facebook post makes the news feed story seem more organic and personal, and therefore more compelling and clickable.

Photos Draw Feedback

When a link is pasted into Facebook’s publisher, it’s formatted into a rich feed story that includes a thumbnail image when possible. Facebook’s study shows that posts that display a thumbnail image receive 65% more Likes and 50% more.

It’s believed that by getting more feedback on its posts, Pages improve their EdgeRank — the algorithm that determines how prominent a post is in a user’s news feed. By courting feedback, Pages can increase the number of users that see their posts past the somewhat disheartening average of 7.49 news feed post impressions per day per 100 fans.

Therefore, Page admins shouldn’t manually strip out the thumbnail unless absolutely necessary. If the publisher can’t find an image behind the link to thumbnail, admins should consider adding an image to the web page, or marking up their site with Facebook’s Open Graph tags such that a site logo is pulled in as the thumbnail.

Post Length and Timing

For post by journalists, Facebook found that 4-line posts received 30% more feedback than average and 5-line posts received 60% more. This means that Pages looking to court feedback should generally publish long posts, though these may have lower click through rates because some users will skim past a dense block of text.

Engagement with one-line posts, on the other hand, fluctuated greatly but displayed the highest maximum feedback of any length, with some receiving 15 times the average. Therefore, when appropriate for the content, one-line posts can be the most engaging, likely because they take so little work on the reader’s part to consume.

In terms of timing, Facebook’s study showed that posts on Thursday through Sunday had higher engagement rates. Posts on Saturday received 85% more clicks than average, and those published on Wednesday had 37% more.

However, these figures may be less generalizable because of the cultural norm of reading news on weekends. Buddy Media’s report on engagement by day showed significant fluctuation by industry, so Pages outside of journalism will need to track their analytics to determine the best days to post. Facebook’s reports of engagement spikes at 7am and 5pm match Buddy Media’s data.

Every Page’s audience is different, so the best way for any Page to determine how to post more effectively is to follow their Page Insights. Pages can thereby modify their strategy based on trends in performance for different content, tone, length, and timing. Still, the findings of Facebook’s study should help point admins in the right direction.

For more strategies on how to get the most clicks, Likes, and comments out of your Page’s posts, visit the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing and advertising on Facebook.

Will you be at Casual Connect Seattle next week? We will! Inside Network invites you to join us for panel discussions with gaming industry leaders at Casual Connect and afterward, at our Happy Hour at The W Hotel.

AJ Glasser, lead writer for Inside Social Games, will moderate a daytime panel conversation on top companies’ transition from casual to social. Later, join Inside Network and our friends and party sponsors at Rightscale, Amazon Web Services, and Couchbase for an evening of networking and drinks in downtown Seattle.

All are welcome, and drinks are on us with your RSVP.

Happy hour starts at 5:30 p.m. at the Living Room and Bar, W Seattle. We’ll be right by Benaroya Hall, so stop by after Casual Connect’s panels and talks and say hello!

Inside Network Cocktails in Seattle
Wednesday July 20, 2011
5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Living Room and Bar, W Seattle
1112 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA
Please RSVP here

If you will be at the conference, don’t miss AJ Glasser moderating “Casual Games Rule Cross-Platform,” July 20 at 10:30 am.

See you there!

Thanks to Our Sponsors:

Rightscale provides cloud computing management for social application and game developers.

Couchbase products, which are built on Apache CouchDB, Membase, and Memcached open source software, represent a comprehensive family of database solutions for building scalable web and mobile applications.

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides businesses with a secure, reliable, easy-to scale, low-cost computing platform “in the cloud.”

Facebook is showing some users a module in the right sidebar that highlights one of the Groups they’re a member of and asks them to share something to it. The module, titled “Groups” displays the name of one of a user’s Groups, when it was last updated, and options to either post or leave the Group.

Facebook’s attempt to spur reengagement with its micro-sharing product could be a response to competition from Google+, which is centered around sharing to specific groups of people called Circles rather than sharing with all of one’s contacts.

At the product announcement for ad hoc group chat and video calling last week, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that over half of Facebook population use Groups. He noted that part of the reason for decoupling group chat from Groups was that many wanted to chat with multiple friends at once, but not all users were sharing to their Groups.

The new Groups right sidebar module may be aimed at changing that. It appears to users as they’re browsing the site, similar to other modules Facebook employs to engage uses with products, such as “Discover New Games” and “Friends’ Photo Albums“.

Groups are usually accessed via small bookmarks in the dense left sidebar. By occasionally showing users larger, more prominent links to their Groups in the right sidebar, Facebook may be able to encourage users to post more often.

Since posts to Groups generate notifications for all members, reengaging one member can kickstart participation by others. The screenshot we received of the Groups module showed it highlighting a Group that hadn’t been posted to in two weeks. The sidebar module could be an effective way to awaken Groups that have fallen dormant.

The sidebar module could also remind users experimenting with Google+ that they have microsharing options within Facebook. Google+ requires that users choose a subset of friends to share each piece of content with. Facebook shares content with all of a user’s friends by default. It requires a long series of clicks to limited a status update to a specific friend list, but just one extra click to share with a Group.

If Facebook can get users more engaged with Groups, through this new sidebar module or otherwise, they may have less reason to join and become active users of Google+

[Thanks to Brittany Darwell for the tip]

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 Context Optional, W3i, Acquinity Interactive, Kabam, A Bit Lucky, Glu Mobile, Pontiflex and TinyCo.

• Director of Marketing, U.S.
• Web Designer– Social Marketing
• Associate Product Manager
• Marketing Manager
• Application Genius/Ruby on Rails Developer

• Business Development Manager

• Web Designer / Graphic Designer – Online Marketing
• Online Media- Senior Affiliate Manager
• Online Ad Trafficking Operations Associate/Coordinator
• Senior Online/Web Product Manager

• UI/UX Artist
• Senior UX Specialist
• Senior 2D Artist
• UX Director
• Mobile Art Director

• Senior Product Manager
• Technical Game Designer

• Design Director

• Mobile Development Associate

• Product Manager
• Data Analyst

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.

There was a varied mix of applications on our list of apps growing by daily active users this week. Yahoo’s app topped the list, but then there were horoscopes and photos and Windows’ app and the Spanish version of Phrases. Mobile apps were on the list, in addition to a handful of social apps, Yelp’s app, Page admin apps and a video app. The apps on our list below grew from between 131,600 and 1.2 million DAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	DAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Yahoo!	9,743,266	+1,268,350	+15%
2.	The Fortune Teller	2,066,051	+1,041,742	+102%
3.	60photos	2,170,402	+587,403	+37%
4.	Gardens of Time	3,689,899	+585,659	+19%
5.	Super Texas Holdem Poker	538,387	+495,357	+1,151%
6.	Windows Live Messenger	17,064,441	+365,136	+2%
7.	Zynga Game Bar	2,504,241	+293,086	+13%
8.	Frases Diarias	799,418	+265,832	+50%
9.	Samsung Mobile	1,901,057	+252,057	+15%
10.	BandPage by RootMusic	1,533,273	+211,842	+16%
11.	Facebook for Every Phone	820,363	+202,236	+33%
12.	21 questions	1,284,704	+197,377	+18%
13.	Yelp	810,123	+197,071	+32%
14.	Socialbox	429,785	+180,622	+72%
15.	WhoIsNear?	313,584	+177,067	+130%
16.	Empires & Allies	7,603,645	+173,664	+2%
17.	Status Shuffle	909,961	+165,988	+22%
18.	Sayfalar için Hoşgeldiniz Sekmesi – Davet ve Beğen butonlu!	152,951	+146,009	+2,103%
19.	Love Video	136,805	+135,565	+10,933%
20.	Global Warfare	401,136	+131,550	+49%

Yahoo!’s homepage app on Facebook grew 1.2 million DAU, meanwhile the Windows Live Messenger app grew by 365,100 DAU. The Fortune Teller, a horoscope app, grew by more than 1 million DAU. 60photos, an app that publishes ratings of Facebook photos from a user’s friends, grew by 587,400 DAU. Frases Diarias grew by 265,800 DAU; the app allows users to publish a quote to their Wall.

BandPage by RootMusic grew by 211,800 DAU mostly in the United States. Yelp grew by 197,100 DAU. A Turkish Page tab app,  Sayfalar için Hoşgeldiniz Sekmesi – Davet ve Beğen butonlu!, grew by 146,000 DAU while a Turkish video app, Love Video, grew by 135,600 DAU.

A pair of mobile apps were on our list, too. Samsung Mobile grew by 252,100 DAU in mostly India and Indonesia. Then Facebook for Every Phone grew by 202,200 DAU.

Social apps were popular on our list this week, too. 21 questions, which taps virality by asking users 25 questions about their friends, publishing a feed story to their Wall with each answer. The app grew by 197,400 DAU. Socialbox, a downloadable desktop app, grew by 180,600 DAU. WhoIsNear? is a combination check-in/social app that publishes feed stories when you check in on Facebook; it grew by 177,100 DAU. Then Status Shuffle grew by about 166,000 DAU; the app grew in the US and United Kingdom and allows users to Like, edit, share and publish status updates to the feed.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top emerging apps on Friday.

The primary means of app discovery on Facebook is sharing between friends, but the company is today announcing changes to the other options — search, and its Application Directory.

“Many developers have been confused about what it means to submit to the App Directory and frustrated by the length of time it took to get approved,” Facebook product manager Carl Sjogreen writes on the company blog. “As we have looked into this issue, we found that the App Directory drove less than 0.5% of all app installs while a significant number of app installs came as a result of Facebook search.”

Instead, developers will now be able to submit their apps directly to be indexed in search results, and Facebook is in the meantime “removing the App Directory (in its current form).”

Before, developers had to register through the App Directory in order to be visible in results. Meanwhile, Facebook gradually de-emphasized the directory over the years, and for more than a year has not linked to it from anywhere on the site that we know of. (The URL was still live as of publication, but is now dead.)

Developers who have more than 10 monthly actives can go to the Developer App and click on the “Submit to Search” link on the left sidebar in edit mode. Facebook will then place the app in the search index. Sjogreen says that changes to app settings will automatically be updated in the index, and that it can take up to 72 hours for search results to begin showing newly-added apps.

He also notes that “as always, there is no approval process for launching an app on Platform.” Apple’s App Store, arguably the biggest rival platform today, both requires an application process and mainly drives growth through its official leaderboards, and now Facebook has neither. While Sjogreen might have hinted that there will be some new version of the App Directory one day, the main message seems to be that it’s doubling down on its strengths: being open and social.

Yesterday we confirmed that Facebook will soon begin limited private testing of a tool for corporations with local branches that allows corporate Page admins to manage the Places of their branches. As part of this parent-child limited private beta, corporations can also access a new Facebook Check-in Deals API. It lets them create different incentives, and run and manage them programmatically across any multiple Places.

The Check-in Deals API will make the product much easier for businesses to use at scale. This could increase adoption of the foot traffic reward system, which to date has appeared to be low even in highly wired markets like San Francisco.

Facebook launched Check-in Deals in November to allow businesses to give users discounts and gifts for checking in to their physical location by themselves, with friends, or multiple times. It was initially a managed service for select partners, but Facebook later rolled it out as in a self-serve tool to Pages that list a street address. In March, Check-in Deals metrics were added to Page Insights.

Before the Check-in Deals API, the product was best suited for small businesses with just one location, as manually administrating the rewards across multiple Places was difficult. Soon, test partner businesses with thousands of locations will be able to efficiently use Check-in Deals, which could significantly increase the volume of Check-in Deals available for users to redeem with their mobile devices.

To use the API, businesses must have already been set up with the parent-child Page structure by a Facebook representative. Once a Page admin has given manage_pages permission they can begin creating “prototype deals” that once approved can be copied to children Places. Admins can segment their total list of children Places and then run Check-in Deals at specific segments.

For example, one Check-in Deal could be run at every branch with a certain speciality, within a geographic area, or that carries a certain product. Admins can also use segmentation to A/B test deals at a few similar stores to determine which type and reward performs best before copying that deal to other stores.

Performance data will appear in Page Insights and Facebook plans to include metrics that aggregate performance across local instances of a prototype Check-in Deal. For details on Check-in Deal API calls, authorized users can consult this Scribd-hosted PDF.

Ease of use for big corporations should induce experimentation, in turn increasing awareness of the Check-in Deals product amongst both users and smaller businesses. If Facebook shows that the product can increase foot traffic to some of the worlds most popular store chains, the Check-in Deals API could start a snowball of adoption for the check-in incentive system.