About Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook is the leading source of news and analysis on Facebook’s global growth, corporate developments, and product innovations. Inside Facebook provides daily news and analysis for developers, marketers, and investors.
Inside Facebook is an independent news service of Inside Network, the industry’s leading research and news organization dedicated to providing original market research, critical analysis, data services and news on the Facebook platform, social gaming, and mobile applications ecosystems. Inside Facebook was founded by Justin Smith in 2006.
Inside Network is a division of WebMediaBrands (NASDAQ: WEBM).
Who Reads Inside Network News?
Leading and emerging developers -Developers at all stages of business need to stay on top of the latest changes on social and mobile platforms. Inside Network’s news sites track technical and business changes affecting developers and entrepreneurs working in app development.
Advertisers, and marketing and digital agencies - Today’s mobile and social platforms open up opportunities and risks for marketing teams. Our marketing coverage is comprised of original reporting, exclusive metrics, and insights on the campaigns and strategies.
Industry analysts, investors, financial institutions, and journalists - Inside Network news sites are the leading source for analysis of breaking news, growth trends, and key events shaping the mobile and social app ecosystem. Our work has recently been cited by many large publications and news services, including:
Research Services and Publications
We publish original research to serve developers, marketers, and analysts interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem. Our current research includes:
- AppData – Independent, Accurate Application Metrics and Trends
- Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2012
- Inside Virtual Goods: Tracking the US Virtual Goods Market, 2011 – 2012
- The Facebook Marketing Bible: A Comprehensive Guide
Justin Smith
Founder
Justin Smith is the founder of Inside Network, the first service dedicated to providing news and market research to the Facebook platform, social gaming, and mobile app ecosystems. Prior to Inside Network, he was Head of Product at Watercooler, now Kabam, a leading application developer on the Facebook Platform. Prior to Watercooler, Justin was an early employee at Xfire, the largest social utility for gamers, which was sold to Viacom in 2006. Justin holds a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Mayfield Fellow and a recipient of the Terman Award in Engineering.
AJ Glasser
Managing Editor
AJ Glasser is Managing Editor at Inside Network. Previously, she served as Lead Writer for Inside Social Games. Before Inside Network, she served as News Editor at GamePro Media and as San Francisco Correspondent for Gawker Media games blog, Kotaku. Her work can also be found in Future US Inc. publications like GamesRadar.com and the Official PlayStation and Xbox magazines. AJ earned her Masters of Journalism from Stanford University, and her undergraduate degree in International Relations from Mills College.
Brittany Darwell
Lead Writer, Inside Facebook
Brittany Darwell is lead writer for Inside Facebook, Inside Network’s site focused on the products and business of Facebook and its developer and marketer ecosystems. Brittany previously held a social media marketing position at Ignited. There she managed communities, developed content and provided social media strategy for clients including NBC Universal, Sony, Activision, Princess Cruises and Coca Cola’s Venturing and Emerging Brands unit. Brittany graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri.
Kieran Barr
Vice President of Sales, Social Media Research
Kieran Barr is vice president of sales, social media research, at Inside Network. Prior to joining Inside Network, Kieran was vice president of business development and sales at Constellation Research, and Director of Sales at GigaOm Pro. Kieran also serves on the Board of Directors of the Puget Sound Research Forum. Kieran earned his BA in Finance, Economics, and Information Systems from the University of Washington.
Brendan Irvine-Broque
Product Manager
Brendan Irvine-Broque is the Product Manager for Inside Network’s AppData, the leading app tracking service, and Facebook Marketing Bible, the leading resource for marketing, advertising and developer strategies on Facebook. Brendan has several years of experience at the intersection of rich media content and technology, most recently as Director of Operations for PL70.net and co-founder of Maravil. In his past work, Brendan has focused on social media strategy and product development, with the aim of monetizing online content and driving traffic. Previously, Brendan founded and operated Cavern Discos, one of the premier online retailers of high-end vintage vinyl records. Brendan completed his undergraduate studies at UC Santa Cruz, graduating with a degree in Linguistics.
Kathleen De Vere
Writer
Kathleen De Vere is a writer for Inside Network. Prior to Inside Network, she worked in journalism and public relations. Kathleen has a joint degree in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Northern British Columbia.
Mike Thompson
Lead Writer, Inside Social Games
Mike Thompson is lead writer at Inside Social Games, Inside Network’s resource for analysis and news covering the social games industry. Previously, Mike regularly contributed to sites like The Escapist, Gamezebo, and Ars Technica focusing on technology and video games. Mike earned undergraduate degrees in Advertising, Journalism, and Photography from Northern Arizona University.
Trevor van Woerden
Senior Sales Manager, Advertising
Trevor van Woerden is Senior Sales Manager for Advertising at Inside Network. Prior to coming over to the Inside Network team, Trevor represented the mediabistro network specializing in social media. He also spent several years focused on developer targeted accounts with QuinStreet’s B2B division: internet.com. Trevor graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Chemistry and French from the College of Idaho.
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November 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
hi,
i m looking to be in touch with facebook france, do you know how i can find some details to contact them?
thanks , it s very important.
pierre
November 15th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
The Facebook Dilemma
We publish a weekly college newspaper at a large public university. When Facebook opened up its registration window to non-students we thought it would be a good idea to get involved. After all, we share the same primary user base — college students. At that time, businesses were creating profiles and adding friends. We were no different. As of yesterday we had about 500 friends who added us voluntarily. Today, we have none.
With no warning, we received the following email from Facebook:
Hi XXXXXXX,
Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual.
Groups, clubs, businesses and other types of organizations are
not permitted to maintain an account. We apologize for the
inconvenience, but you will no longer be able to use this
account. This decision is final.
If you would like to use Facebook to represent your
organization, we offer a Groups application. Facebook Groups
allow users with common interests to come together to express
objectives, discuss issues, post photos, etc. If you have a
personal Facebook account, you can create a group from the top
of the Groups page.
Thanks for understanding,
XXXXXXX
Customer Support Representative
Facebook
So all our hard work and expense of getting local readers to add us has been for naught. Adding insult to injury, we have spent money on Facebook flyers in the past. What is most ironic about the days events is that just 30 minutes prior to receiving the termination notice, we had finalized written plans to develop a FB Application for our newspaper’s content — stories, drink specials, local events, bar photos and more. Our plan was to migrate our “Friends” into “Fans” of our new Facebook Page (which we had recently created). That page would be the home for users to add our new App.
Now we are extremely hesitant to build any Application on Facebook for obvious reasons. It is clear to us now that Facebook is NOT a business friendly ecosystem. At least not unless you’re spending major advertising dollars with them which rules out the local advertiser. No matter how successful an Application, no matter how many “Fans” you have, at the end of the day they are Facebook’s users — not yours. This alone is a risky environment on which to build a business. There has been speculation on many blogs and websites that application developers feared the heavy hand of Facebook. Let this be a real-world example that there is merit to that concern. It’s one thing if you know the rules of the game ahead of time. It’s another if they can and do change the rules with impunity.
I understand what they are doing. They are clearing the airspace of local, small business “clutter” so the big brand bombers can come pouring in. We also had many friends who were local businesses and they are all gone too.
It is my belief that businesses who operate in that ecosystem will eventually be the ones who pay the piper. There is no reason to believe (and lots of evidence to suggest otherwise) that Facebook will “tax” Facebook Page operators and/or Application owners. I make this assertion on the premise that traditional advertising is not effective in that environment. I should know, I’ve tried it on multiple occasions. Countless amounts of anecdotal evidence from other advertisers has suggested the same. If this is the case, Facebook will be forced to look elsewhere for revenue. As long as they hold the user base in their back pocket, businesses will have no choice but to pay or abandon their Facebook investment.
A wiser investment, at least for us, appears to be to develop our own site to control our destiny. Will we get as many users as a Facebook integrated App — probably not. But in the end they will be OUR users — not subject to the Terms of Service police at Facebook. We would rather succeed or fail based on what WE have to offer users and how WE execute.
WTL
December 12th, 2007 at 9:21 am
[...] The Facebook Marketing Bible is the best quick study I’ve yet seen on this topic. Oh, and speaking of viral! This little guide was started by Justin Smith of Facebook application developer Watercooler and he should get kudos for thinking of this in the first place! This is brilliant online marketing for his own company and it illustrates that the best online viral marketing campaigns provide something of value to users. Pretty simple philosophy isn’t it! No gimmicks! [...]
January 17th, 2008 at 7:28 am
[...] or categorize them. As a result, tonight, I’ll be hosting Dave McClure, Justin Smith (of Inside Facebook), Rodney Rumford (of FaceReviews), and colleague Charlene Li over to Forrester in Foster City [...]
January 18th, 2008 at 5:44 am
[...] teach the Stanford Facebook class, and runs the Graphing Social Patterns conference), Justin Smith (of Inside Facebook), Rodney Rumford (of FaceReviews), and myself brainstormed last night trying to understand the [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[...] InsideFacebook.com has done an interview with Ben Leong, lecturer of CS3216, otherwise known as “the NUS Facebook Course”. [...]
February 25th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Cool
April 20th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I have been having such horrible issues with FaceBook lately. Over the past month approximately. There are now applications that in order to “play or win” you need to add as many “friends” as possible.
This leads to adding people you don’t know just to continue enjoying the App.
Unfortunately I am now experiencing unbelievable amount of problems and had my pc in with techs to get it “cleaned” as there were a lot of issues.
Deleting some applications seem to have helped but why is there this kind of problems in the first place?
April 27th, 2008 at 11:57 am
[...] general. It’s certainly been an exciting two years – hundreds of posts, lots of interviews, conference and speaking engagements, a small publication, and, oh yeah, a [...]
April 29th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Facebook is a pretty new player in the social media business (it came after hi5, myspace etc..). However, once again, the newest player became the leader.
Facebook is the google of the social media world, the prodigal son of web 2.0 . It is only normal that you see changes occuring but i think nobody should neglect facebook’s advertising power neither fear it’s power of deletion. If you want to start using it as a guerrilla marketing tool, you should not invest to much into it. After all that’s what guerrilla marketing is all about.
You can’t deny all of those bad experience posted below still attracted attention on your brand. In response to WT Lewis post, here is an easy strategy that could be applied to outsmart facebook move of deleting your facebook page. You had 500 friends who added you or fanned you. Suddenly your friends will see a page saying that this page has been deleted. They will certainly search for you organization name on facebook after ending on such a page.
Example of a strategic response to FB would be:
1. Start a group named “Petition to bring back [insert organization name here] page on facebook.
2. As facebook stated, Pages are only for individuals not organisation. Then play within their guidelines. Start a page called [insert organization name here] with a random word after. In that page you do a quick introduction of yourself as the founder of the organisation and that organisation being your focal point of interest. And then, you copy paste and build the page exactly as it was before. By doing this you are promoting yourself as the founder of the organization instead of promoting the organisation.
3. Put a link to that page in your new group called back [insert organization name here] page on facebook saying that this is the new location of that page.
4. invite your old subscribers to join and to tell their friends to join as well. This way you will fully benefit from the viral marketing those events can bring you. This will create a snowball effect for sure.
End of the story.
We all know it wont change much for facebook as petitions are useless. However it will target the subscribers that were truly interested that you can’t get a hold of since they will search for your organisation by themselves. It will also filter the non-active members that you don’t necessarily need. When you are doing guerrilla marketing, the only way to be successful is to be creative. Get out there and brainstorm :)
May 12th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I have a rumor which has been circulating about Facebook’s seach box that you might have heard about but I couldn’t figure out how to search your site so I don’t know if you’ve already written about it:
If you sign into Facebook and click in the search box like you want to search someone’s name, but instead of typing a name or group in you press the down arrow on your keyboard, a list of 5 names pop up. These are rumored to be the top 5 people who view your facebook profile.
I found a Yahoo Answers page about this subject but it was full of a bunch of idiots who didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. Have you heard about this malfunction? It seems too easy to have a back door open to something as private as that…
November 28th, 2008 at 8:39 am
It has become common knowledge that Facebook has been removing, banning, freezing many American Conservative members they have. The numbers that they have illegally censored are in the thousands. It has become so bad and so rampant that a class action suit is forming. Facebook will all togeteher freeze up a Conservatives personal profile, they will actually block them for 48 hors from being able to retreive their own personal messages, keep them from being able to use the IM feature. They will totally close down their personal account, siting they posted information that had a copyright..etc..they infringe on free-speech with the excuse they have a privacy policy and not have to tell you why you were banned. They are really good to ban your account on weekends, holidays or around an election, you may get access back after the busy hours have passed. They will remove your own personal thoughts from your personal profile. Why they call it a personal profile is unknown. We found they will also read your personal messages between other Facebook users. For the most part they are now just totally banning Conservatives all together and will send you a whole list of excuses why, they will not reply except with one computerized canned answer over and over. Also, note, in their alphabetized section they exclude Conservative groups. They do however have one group that is not alphabetized or where it belongs..The Obama group is the first one you see in the Alphabetized section eeven though it starts with an O!! Seeing how FOX bews has been promoting a friendship with Facebook and advertsing it in their daily shows, this makes no sense for FOX since the largest part of their viewers are Conservative, FOX will not be happy they are wasting their money on Facebook, Conservative groups who are paying for advertising on Facebook are also be frauded by Facebook. Report crimes against Conservatives to us: We are united!!
RepublicanFaith@aol.com
March 13th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
2]Get your own Nintendo Wii
The games console with one of the strangest names on the planet (it’s pronounced ‘wee’) is also one of the most innovative. In fact, with its potential to change the face of the gaming landscape, Wii may be on the verge of a new era, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The $400 Wii package comprises a square white console unit and stand that plugs into your TV or AV receiver, a wireless sensor bar that connects to the console and receives wireless commands from the battery-powered paddle-style Wiimote controller. Basic composite cables are supplied, but if you have a plasma or LCD the $50 component cable options will deliver better picture quality. The console also supports an SD slot, USB port and a DVD drive for games.
Games data can be saved to SD memory cards, which weren’t officially released at the time of publication, but in lieu of their arrival, GameCube memory cards will suffice. The USB port can’t be used to save games either, but will enable future hardware upgrades such as a hard drive or DVD player, although no announcements have been made to this effect.
Despite its DVD drive, the console is not a DVD player (a modification chip is required if you want to watch movies). Nor is it the high definition, hard drive-toting, networked multimedia online multiplayer gaming machine that is the Xbox 360 or forthcoming Playstation 3. Instead, it presents as the most affordable ‘next generation’ games machine available and, certainly, lacks for no important ingredients if you want to have fun.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
You the man, Smitty! Keep up the interesting work and posts.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:23 am
[...] Inside Facebook Blog Inside Facebook is an independent blog based in Palo Alto, California, focusing on Facebook and the Facebook Platform for developers and marketers. Provides agencies and marketers with information to help them understand the opportunities and risks associated with investing in both Facebook and Facebook applications. Provides reports and insight on the campaigns marketers and brands are deploying inside Facebook. [...]
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Thanks for providing an informative article.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
i would like to join your facebook
November 5th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I Am trying to change my location Network from Little Rock Arkansas to Lawton Oklahoma & Cannot figure out to do it any help would be appreciated thanks
November 12th, 2009 at 9:17 am
[...] for instance, the site AppData: Independent, Accurate Facebook Application Metrics and Trends from Inside Facebook. Seriously. People make a living trying to figure out how to use Facebook to sell crap to us. They [...]
November 16th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Thanks for All…I really enjoy..
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 am
@Pierre,
Contact Colette Ballou at Ballou PR in Paris. They handle PR for Facebook in France. I’m sure Colette can get you in touch with the right person.
March 13th, 2010 at 10:55 am
this is the best place for facebook data ever!
March 17th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
will there be video chat on facebook
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:43 pm
very cool site :)
May 9th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Now we are extremely hesitant to build any Application on Facebook for obvious reasons. It is clear to us now that Facebook is NOT a business friendly ecosystem. At least not unless you’re spending major advertising dollars with them which rules out the local advertiser. No matter how successful an Application, no matter how many “Fans” you have, at the end of the day they are Facebook’s users — not yours. This alone is a risky environment on which to build a business. There has been speculation on many blogs and websites that application developers feared the heavy hand of Facebook. Let this be a real-world example that there is merit to that concern. It’s one thing if you know the rules of the game ahead of time. It’s another if they can and do change the rules with impunity.
+1
August 7th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
This is nice site
August 17th, 2010 at 2:36 am
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ACHIVMENT.
September 7th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Please help!!! My grandson used my credit card for his Frontville and I approved of 2 charges and there are 4 more. I need to have my information out of his or anyone elses account.
October 18th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
[...] Inside Facebook, provider of news and market research on Facebook and social gaming, was quick to point out that Facebook wasn’t the only one sharing data that users believed was private. “Public Facebook Information is part of a Larger Online Data Gray Market.” [...]
November 8th, 2010 at 1:41 am
its great to see that all these big giants follow our bog inside faceebook great work…
its all about updates if you are up to date than everyone follow you
February 21st, 2011 at 5:36 am
Inside Facebook is the best source of tutorials for beginners who work on social media or community management, Thanks guys
May 21st, 2011 at 3:55 am
[...] – If you’re interested in F-Marketing, don’t forget to go the source at Facebook Marketing on Facebook. They have interesting (a bite salesy, of course) case studies. You can also check Inside Facebook by Justin Smith. [...]
November 7th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
[...] Inside Facebook is devoted to tracking Facebook and Platform news for developers & marketers. Read more… [...]