Inside Facebook

While Facebook has over 230 million active users and has been rapidly growing around the world in the last 24 months, Orkut, the social network run by Google, has remained dominant in Brazil and India. Although Facebook has grown slowly in those two countries, it’s never been able to turn the corner - until now.

Starting about 60 days ago, Facebook’s growth began accelerating rapidly in both Brazil and India, growing several times faster in May and June than it did in March and April.

In fact, Facebook nearly doubled in Brazil during May alone. Its growth has continued in June, and today Facebook has just crossed the 1 million active user mark in Brazil for the first time ever - up 100% in the last 45 days.

Granted, Orkut still claims well over 20 million monthly visitors in Brazil, but we’ve seen this kind of pattern before. Facebook has the potential to double in new countries every 2-3 months several times over as it spreads through new populations, but it is probably still too early to claim that this is the canary in the coal mine for Orkut.

Curiously, however, just as Facebook started exploding in Brazil, the same thing was happening in India, the other major country where Orkut is the leading social network with 13 million monthly active users.

While Facebook has been growing slowly and steadily in India for the last couple of years, Facebook exploded in May and June, doubling from 1.6 million to 3.2 million monthly active users in the country in the last 60 days.

Do these trends correlate? Time will tell, but it certainly looks like Facebook is gaining significant steam in Orkut’s biggest strongholds.

Brazil and India are far from the only countries where Facebook is fighting to claw its way to the top spot. Nevertheless, Facebook continues to grow in almost every country we’re tracking the company in - and in most countries, by double digit percentages in total reach every month. Facebook is clearly a global phenomenon - it will be very interesting to see where things stand in another year.

Note: All data from Facebook’s advertiser tools.

Purchase this report The Facebook Global Monitor - Current Edition Buy PDF: $99 USD OR Buy 6 Month Subscription: $395 USD

Today, Inside Facebook has released the July 2009 edition of the Facebook Global Monitor - tracking Facebook’s growth in global markets. The Facebook Global Monitor tracks Facebook’s international growth for marketers, developers, and analysts to spot trends and opportunities. A few highlights from the June report’s findings:

• Facebook’s reach grew by 35% in Brazil during the last 30 days - Orkut’s home turf - to over 1 million monthly active users. Facebook also grew by 37% in India during June - the number of Facebook users in India has doubled in the last 90 days.
• Facebook crossed the 10 million active user mark in Italy last week. Over 17% of all people in Italy are now active on Facebook every month.
• The number of Facebook users in China grew by 60% last month. While the total number of active Facebook users in the country is still miniscule, is this a sign of growth starting to happen?

The Facebook Global Monitor is a premium service and newsletter produced by Inside Facebook that provides vital data and insight to media industry executives, global marketing and communications firms, analysts, and developers for whom Facebook’s rapid international expansion poses significant opportunities or threats.

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $99 per issue, or $395 for a six month subscription. Future monthly updates will be delivered directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic. (Custom reports are also available.) You can reach us at mail AT insidefacebook DOT com with questions at any time.

Each month, the Facebook Global Monitor provides the latest comprehensive data on the expansion of Facebook’s audience in nearly 100 global markets. In addition, the Monitor provides alerts on breakout and cooling markets, as well as our latest in-house projections on Facebook’s growth in each country 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months into the future.

See the full table of contents of the first newsletter below. All reports are based on primary research by Inside Facebook using data from Facebook, and each section is designed to elucidate key actionable trends.

We believe big opportunities exist for developers and marketers to reach and engage the Facebook audience in these rapidly emerging and expanding markets. Cheers to continued growth in 2009!

The Facebook Global Monitor

Tracking Facebook in Global Markets

July 2009

Contents

I. Introduction: The Year That Facebook Went Global

II. Global Market Report

1. Audience Size Today

2. Fastest Growing Audience

• Last 12 months
• Last 90 days
• Last 30 days

3. Market Penetration Today

4. Largest Market Penetration Increases

• Last 12 months
• Last 90 days
• Last 30 days

III. Emerging Market Analysis

1. Growth Projections

• Next 30 days
• Next 90 days
• Next 12 months

2. Technical Alerts

• Breakout Markets: Last 90 Days
• Cooling Markets: Last 90 Days

IV. Regional Summaries

1. Africa

2. Asia / Pacific

3. Europe

4. North America

5. South America

V. Country Updates

1. Argentina

2. Australia

3. Austria

4. Bahamas

5. Bahrain

6. Bangladesh

7. Belgium

8. Bolivia

9. Bosnia & Herzegovina

10. Brazil

11. Bulgaria

12. Canada

13. Chile

14. China

15. Colombia

16. Costa Rica

17. Croatia

18. Cyprus

19. Czech Republic

20. Denmark

21. Dominican Republic

22. Ecuador

23. Egypt

24. El Salvador

25. Finland

26. France

27. Germany

28. Ghana

29. Greece

30. Guatemala

31. Honduras

32. Hong Kong

33. Hungary

34. Iceland

35. India

36. Indonesia

37. Ireland

38. Israel

39. Italy

40. Jamaica

41. Japan

42. Jordan

43. Kenya

44. Kuwait

45. Lebanon

46. Lithuania

47. Luxembourg

48. Macedonia

49. Malaysia

50. Maldives

51. Malta

52. Mauritius

53. Mexico

54. Morocco

55. Netherlands

56. New Zealand

57. Nicaragua

58. Nigeria

59. Norway

60. Oman

61. Pakistan

62. Palestine

63. Panama

64. Paraguay

65. Peru

66. Philippines

67. Poland

68. Portugal

69. Puerto Rico

70. Qatar

71. Romania

72. Russia

73. Saudi Arabia

74. Serbia

75. Singapore

76. Slovakia

77. Slovenia

Purchase this report The Facebook Global Monitor - Current Edition Buy PDF: $99 USD OR Buy 6 Month Subscription: $395 USD

78. South Africa

79. South Korea

80. Spain

81. Sri Lanka

82. Sweden

83. Switzerland

84. Taiwan

85. Thailand

86. Trinidad and Tobago

87. Tunisia

88. Turkey

89. Ukraine

90. United Arab Emirates

91. United Kingdom

92. United States

93. Uruguay

94. Venezuela

95. Vietnam

Footnotes & Methodology

Since the Facebook Platform launched two years ago, Facebook has taken a relatively open approach to third parties interested in building advertising networks on the Platform. One of the companies that has been active on Facebook ever since the Platform launched is Washington, DC-based SocialCash, which has now entirely focused its efforts on Facebook. We recently spoke with SocialCash CEO Rob Jewell about the current state of the market, the recent Facebook policy enforcement actions that were taken against other Facebook Platform ad networks, and SocialCash’s plans going forward.

Inside Facebook: SocialCash got its start on Facebook building both an advertising network and an offer network, but now you’re focused just on your ad network. Why?

Rob Jewell: When we looked at the macro picture of all social networking inventory and all the available social information, we just saw a bigger opportunity over existing ad networks to use the social information across all inventory. We had to choose - it’s a massive opportunity, but it takes a lot of focus.

What products are working best for you right now?

Our main product is the headliners unit, which can be integrated in any Facebook app. From a technical perspective, it’s built more like a developer tool than an ad. We’re leveraging CPA advertiser relationships that we’ve had for a long time to create innovative ads, using dynamic social information to increase performance.

What are some good examples where you’ve seen performance increases?

Zoosk is a good example - it’s the biggest dating app on Facebook. We can do things like, “Tired of being a bridesmaid?” in ads, and show the person all their friends who are married, and that creates a pretty relevant and eganging ad that gets them thinking they should add Zoosk. We can also choose the best same-sex friends and put them in the ad. It really brings it home that it’s relevant and higher engagement.

We can also do stuff with education - for example, we can show you any of your friends that have jobs listed, show you what they are doing, and ask you if you want to advance in your career. We do this with the University of Phoenix. We can also see what students’ concentrations are, so for example if you recently changed your degree, we can show you what your friends are studying. It creates that sense of engagement around, “Why am I going down the path of being a lawyer?” As we get the targeting down, we can do more things like pulling in your favorite movies, and giving you the opportunity to stream now with Netflix. Some of these are in production now.

How many publishers are in your network?

We’ve got about 100 active ones across a variety of types of applications - gaming, gifting, quizzes, dating. Some of the largest are LivingSocial, FamilyLink, and Zwigglers.

How do things split out internationally?

70% of our impressions and 50% of our revenues are international. A lot of the efforts in the space now are focused on agencies and brands, but typically those dollars trickle in on a massive amount of inventory, and our efforts are to take the rest of that inventory and maximize it. We have infrastructure in all countries.

Is most banner advertising inventory CPA at this point?

I think CPA is majority of the banner advertising on the platform, but I think overall it’s probably less than the total virtual currency market. There’s still a lot of innovation happening, and things change significantly every month, especially due to regulations Facebook could put in as well.

How have Facebook’s recent suspensions of SocialReach and SocialHour affected you?

It really clears the path for innovation and for new advertisers. We’ve always been inside Facebook’s terms, and they’re really just enforcing the terms that have been around for a while.

We wanted to align the company with Facebook from the start. It’s no surprise that they enforced what they set out to do at some point. We think it will be good both for us and the platform in the long run, by keeping the playing field equal.

Do you think Facebook has successfully enforced Platform policies?

Yes, they have done a good job. However, it can’t be a one time thing - it has to be consistent to make sure everyone is playing by the rules. They have to be committed to doing that.

I don’t want to speak for them, but I think they also see the opportunity to increase the innovation that goes into the space by doing that. They’re very clear that a good user experience is their top priority.

Did you learn anything from your recent conversations with Facebook regarding the policy enforcements?

That they meant what they said. It’s as simple as that. Some people tried to call their bluff and others actually reacted to it and made the changes that they wanted to make.

Facebook has also started testing its in-house ad network this year. What have they told you about it?

I think that Facebook will always want to have third parties innovating social advertising on Facebook. They’ve told me that they encourage third parties to help innovate on the platform. It would be a massive shift from their overall philosophy if they were to say you have to use our ad network. It would put too much burden and risk on them to deliver what developers need and would stifle innovation, and it doesn’t seem like they’d want to do that.

What’s coming up next for SocialCash?

More diverse ads, higher CPMs, improved relevancy, more and deeper social content, more ad unit sizes. We feel like we’re still pretty early on in the process.

Thanks Rob. Any final thoughts?

I think it’s interesting that there haven’t been any of the larger ad networks like Advertising.com, Specific Media, or Right Media making a play inside Facebook. It’s obviously a large opportunity, I think it makes sense that they aren’t doing it because it’s a totally unique kind of creative and set of data you’re working with.

As the inventory grows and the open movement gets bigger and bigger and Facebook Connect takes off, I would think there’s going to be a big play there at some point for one of the bigger ad networks. But even Google hasn’t cracked the code on how to monetize social network traffic - it’s a paradigm shift for almost any ad network, and that puts us and any other ad network working on this at an advantage. Besides, they’ve got hugely successful business already, and they can probably barely keep up with growth on the rest of the internet.

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible - Current Edition Buy PDF: $49 USD OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Free Monthly Updates: $149 USD

The newly revised, expanded, and hot-off-the-press Facebook Marketing Bible: 40+ Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook - July 2009 Edition is now available!

The Facebook Marketing Bible has been purchased by thousands of agencies, marketers, social application developers, entrepreneurs, and educators, and is the leading resource on Facebook marketing today. It is also available in French, Spanish, and Italian. (A special edition for agencies and big brands is also available.)

The densely-packed Facebook Marketing Bible contains four detailed sections: Tools for Guerilla Marketers, Tools for Advertisers, Tools for Application Developers, and Tools for Webmasters. Each part outlines the best available channels and strategies for reaching your audience inside Facebook. Please see the full table of contents below.

In addition, Inside Facebook is happy to announce that through July 31st all customers who purchase the Facebook Marketing Bible will also receive a free $25 Facebook Ads advertising credit, courtesy of Facebook (see terms).

The July 2009 edition includes updates on the following topics:

• The latest updates on Facebook Pages (public profiles), including the vanity URL landrush and rule changes for generic Facebook Pages. We’ve broken down all the new elements piece by piece and offered detailed and specific advice for marketers hoping to reach more users inside Facebook than ever before - including details on why marketers should choose Facebook Pages over Facebook Groups, new updates to Facebook’s new Insights dashboard, and new rules for administrators of generic Facebook Pages. See the table of contents below for more details.
• The latest details on Facebook’s new “Pay with Facebook” virtual currency payment program for application developers. Find out the latest on what Facebook’s new payment program means for the future of virtual currency payments on Facebook (and Facebook revenues) - including Facebook’s latest international currency efforts.
• The latest details on Facebook’s new “Open Stream” API and what it means for marketers, publishers, and developers. With the new Open Stream API, Facebook has released the power of the Facebook stream to live anywhere developers can put it - including publisher websites, desktop applications, and mobile phones. Find out exactly what you can do with the new Open Stream, and what it means for the future of the Facebook Platform.
• The latest tools for webmasters to drive more traffic to their site and build more social context through Facebook Connect and Facebook Share. With Facebook Connect and Facebook Share, publishers have new opportunities for both enriching their sites with deeply social features and leveraging Facebook’s powerful feed system for driving traffic to their site. Get new details on metrics early Facebook Connect partners are seeing, and learn how to optimize your Facebook Share integration.
• New tools for advertisers to target their Facebook Ads better than ever before. With enhanced Facebook  targeting tools, advertisers now have the ability to reach their target audiences in much more powerful ways. Learn how to use these new tools to get the most out of your performance marketing dollars. Plus, check out ways Facebook is experimenting with virtual currency gifting and branded virtual gifts.
• Plus, more updates on Facebook’s “Live Stream” widget for live events on your website or Facebook Page, recent rule changes for Facebook Platform ad networks, and more.

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible - Current Edition Buy PDF: $49 USD OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Free Monthly Updates: $149 USD

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $49, or $149 with 12 months of free updates emailed directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic!

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Tools for Guerilla Marketers

1. Profile Page

2. Pages / Public Profiles

• “Facebook Pages 2.0″
  • The New Wall Tab - Making Pages More Dynamic and Viral
  • Status Updates - Now for Pages, Too
  • Application Boxes - Changing Places
  • Tab Management - Choosing a Landing Page
  • Conclusion - Facebook Learning from Twitter, Pages Getting Better
• The Future of Sharing on Facebook: A Hybrid Public/Private Model
• Branded Virtual Gifts on Facebook Pages Opening New Doors for Viral Advertising
  
• Adding Custom Modules to Your Page
• Strategy: 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups
• Strategy: I’ve just created a Page. How do I promote it?
• Group to Page Migration
• Guidelines for Promoting Pages Outside Facebook
• Official vs Unofficial Pages
• Pages and SEO
• Vanity URLs for Facebook Pages
• Which Celebrities are the Most Engaging on Facebook?
  
• Ways Page Owners Can Restrict Content for Underage Users
• How to Import Your Blog into Your Public Profile
• Page Invitations
• SMS Subscription Service for Pages
• Updating Facebook Page Status Via Text
• Getting Page Status Updates Via Text
  
• More Features Coming Soon
• Interesting Conversion Rate Metrics from Adobe Students Facebook Campaign
• Marketers Actively Bidding for Generic Facebook Pages
• Facebook Upgrades “Insights” Metrics Dashboard for Page Managers
• Facebook Disabling Stream Publishing for Generic Pages

3. Groups

• Strategy: What about spamming existing groups?
• SEO
  

4. Events

• Events API
• Events SEO
  

5. Notes and Photos

• Events API
• Events SEO
  

6. Messages

7. Status Updates

• Public Timeline Search

8. Share / Posted Items

9. Mini Feed and News Feed

10. Feed Importing

> Data: Latest US Facebook Age and Gender Demographics

> Recommended Strategies for Guerilla Marketers

II. Tools for Advertisers

11. Social Ads

• How Specialty Brands are Driving Sales on Facebook
  

12. Engagement Ads

• Summary of ad units available to Facebook advertisers
  1. Sponsorship Units on the New Facebook Home Page
     • Social Video Ads
     • Sponsored Virtual Gifts
     • Events Ads
     • Pages Ads
     • Polling Ads

  2. Advertising in the New Facebook News Feed
  3. Advertising on the Profile Page (and other pages)
     

13. Virtual Gifts

• The Future of Virtual Gifts on Facebook
• Scheduled & Holiday Virtual Gifts
• Facebook Testing Virtual Currency Gifting Program with Branded Virtual Gifts
  

14. Performance Ads

• Radius and Language Targeting
• Multiple Currency Support

15. Localization Opportunities

16. Integrated Opportunities

17. Facebook Platform Ad Networks

• List of Leading Facebook Platform Ad Networks
• What eCPMs do apps charge? Data from Facebook application developers
• Facebook Bans Platform Ad Networks for Deceptive Ads

18. Facebook Platform Application Sponsorships

• List of Leading Facebook Platform Sponsorship Resellers/Rep Firms
• Strategy: Why sponsor applications when I can sponsor Facebook itself?

19. Specialized Facebook Platform Advertising Service Providers

> Recommended Strategies for Advertisers

III. Tools for Application Developers

• Strategy: What is the Right Way to Market Through Facebook Applications?
• Strategy: Where do most new application users come from?

20. Profile Box

• 5 Things Developers May Not Know About the Facebook Redesign
• Profile Integration: Tour of New Facebook App Settings

21. Application Tabs

22. Application Info Sections

23. Designing Feed Stories

• Strategy: Designing High Performance Feed Items
• News Feed Optimization: Strategies and Techniques

24. Feeds 2.0

• Feed Forms
• Feed Clustering
• Action Links
• Policy Update: All Feed Story Calls to Action Must Now be Action Links
  

25. Feed Publisher

• Publishing in the Feed with Feed Comments

26. Requests / Invitations

• Policy Updates: Requiring Invites to Access Hidden Features, Offering Incentives for Invites, Ads on Profile Page Prohibited
• Strategy: Facebook’s Evolving Approach to Platform Governance
• Sending Application Invitations to Non-Facebook-Members

27. Chat Invitations

28. Facebook Notifications

• Chat Integration: Facebook Wants More Synchronous Notifications
• Policy Update: Bulk Pre-Selection Prohibited
• Facebook Turns On Instant Notifcation Popup Alerts
  
• Spammy Affiliate Marketers Sure to be Shut Down
  

29. Email Notifications

• Updates: Email’s Status as Core Application Marketing Channel in Doubt

30. Application Bookmarks

31. Application Directory & About Pages

• The Publisher Comes to Application About Pages
  

32. Status Updates & Donations

33. Demographic Restrictions

34. Verification and Certification

• Great Apps Program
• Application Verification

35. Translations

• Data: Stats on Facebook Apps Built for International Markets
• Tutorial: Translating Your Applications Using Facebook’s Crowd-sourced Translation Service

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible - Current Edition Buy PDF: $49 USD OR Buy PDF + 1 Year of Free Monthly Updates: $149 USD

36. Analytics Tools

• List of Leading Third-Party Facebook Platform Analytics Providers
• New Metrics for Developers with Facebook Profile Redesign

37. Search Engine Optimization

38. Mobile

• Facebook for iPhone and Connect for iPhone

39. Customer Service

40. Custom Tags

41. Open Stream

• What Does Facebook’s “Open Stream” Mean for Marketers?
  

42. Pay with Facebook

> Poll: Which viral channels do Facebook users hate most about apps?

> Recommended Strategies for Application Developers

IV. Tools for Webmasters

43. Facebook Connect

• Overview: Integrating Facebook Connect with Your Website
• Related: Google Friend Connect
• Examples: 40 Sites Live with Facebook Connect Today
• Variety of Facebook Connect Plugins Now Available for Blogs and Wikis
• Citysearch: Each Item Shared Through Facebook Connect Generates 30 Clicks
  

44. Comments Box Widget

45. Live Feed Widget

46. Facebook Share

Conclusion

Recommended Partners

Founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin in 2005, Slide has become synonymous with the explosion of social network applications in recent years. Its properties and widgets, including popular applications SuperPoke, Top Friends, FunSpace, and SuperPoke Pets, reach over 155 million people per month on popular social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, Friendster, and Tagged. And with around 24 million monthly active users on Facebook, Slide is (and always has been) one of the largest application developers on the Facebook Platform.

However, unlike other top app developers, Slide hasn’t been rolling out many new applications over the last year. Instead, it’s been honing and optimizing its core network of properties, and spending a lot of time and energy tuning its monetization efforts.

On the advertising side, Slide has built a sales team with several staff in New York and San Francisco that has been driving the company’s premium integrations like branded SuperPokes or viral FunSpace videos. However, the company has also quietly been building its direct to consumer business, selling virtual currency and subscriptions that give users access to premium features. For example, each bar of Slide Gold costs USD $0.10 (the same exchange rate as Facebook Credits), and unlimited premium SuperPokes can be purchased for a USD $4.99 monthly subscription fee.

Just how important has Slide’s virtual goods business become? As of today, a Slide spokesperson tells us its direct-to-consumer virtual currency sales and subscriptions account for 50% of the company’s overall revenues.

Furthermore, given the increasing importance of virtual goods sales to the company - and that Levchin, CFO Kevin Freedman, and VP Strategy and Business Development Keith Rabois all share a history at PayPal - we’ve been hearing increasing rumors lately that Slide has plans to bring more parts of the payments layer in house in order to be able to exert greater control over the payment user experience. Today, Slide confirms that that is indeed the case.

“We believe it’s important to improve the system for paying for virtual goods. We are working on innovating that technology to make the experience easier for our consumers,” Lily Lin, Slide’s Director of Communications, tells Inside Facebook.

Whether or not Slide will make its payment infrastructure available to other developers remains to be seen. Slide’s Lin, however, says that that is “not the plan.”

“The focus is just for our own users,” she says.

For a company like Slide, which has 150 million users around the world yet connects with many of them through social network platform partners, taking greater control over the payments infrastructure, which is of increasing strategic importance to the company as it grows its direct to consumer sales, makes a lot of sense. Unlike smaller developers, it has the resources and experience to potentially establish direct relationships with payment processing companies instead of working with social application payment service providers like Social Gold, Spare Change, Zong, or Boku - or the social networks themselves. (Facebook recently started testing a payments program for developers, and MySpace has said it plans to do the same later this year.)

Overall, we think these are all smart moves by the company. Virtual goods sales are booming on the Facebook Platform, and Slide is in a unique position to capitalize on both the advertising and e-commerce opportunities inside Facebook. We’ll continue to track the company as things progress on both fronts throughout the year.

Although Facebook has tens of thousands of advertisers using its self-serve Facebook Ads system and millions of users buying Facebook Credits to spend on Facebook Gifts and (recently) Platform applications, it has always required all advertisers and Credits buyers around the world to pay in US dollars. As a result, customers abroad have had to deal with exchange rates, and advertisers have had to manage budgeting campaigns in a different currency.

Today, however, Facebook has rolled out the ability to pay for Facebook Ads and Facebook Credits in 14 new currencies. Now, when you want to create an ad using Facebook’s online advertising system, buy a Facebook gift, or purchase a premium item in a Platform application participating in the payments alpha test like Group Card, you have the added option of paying in the following currencies:

1. Australian Dollars (AUD)
2. British Pound (GBP)
3. Canadian Dollars (CAD)
4. Chilean Peso (CLP)
5. Colombian Peso (COP)
6. Euro (EUR)
7. Danish Krone (DKK)
8. Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
9. Japanese Yen (JPY)
10. Norwegian Krone (NOK)
11. Swedish Krona (SEK)
12. Swiss Fanc (CHF)
13. Turkish Lira (TRY)
14. Venezuelan Bolivar (VEF)

For example, here’s what buying Facebook Credits in Chilean Pesos looks like. (The exchange rate is 54 Chilean Pesos to the Credit for those keeping track at home.)

What This Means for Advertisers

Growing and scaling its advertising solutions internationally is a key focus for Facebook, and the addition of 14 newly accepted currencies is a step in that direction, making the ad creation process as simple as possible for advertisers in many more locations around the world. Facebook will not be charging additional fees for the currency transactions involved, so advertisers in many new countries should be able to plan their Facebook campaigns more seamlessly.

What This Means for Developers

Facebook is currently testing a Facebook credits payments program for Facebook Platform developers in a few applications in an effort to create an additional low-friction payment option. So far, many developers monetizing their applications through payments have expressed interest in testing the system out, though only a few are actually live now. Given that over 70% of Facebook users live outside the US, the addition of new currency support should make Credits an increasingly viable option for users in those countries.

However, whether or not Facebook will be able to drive significant currency purchases in those countries remains to be seen - currently, the only way to actually purchase Facebook Credits is still with a credit card. Mobile payment companies like Zong and Boku have been aggressively working with Facebook application developers to help them access users in many international markets which are otherwise more challenging to monetize, so it will be interesting to see if Facebook’s new currency support has a significant impact.

Conclusion

Facebook has not yet broken out advertising volume or Credit sales by country. However, we expect Facebook to continue to expand its international payments infrastructure in order to be able to support an increasingly global base of advertisers and direct customers. With over 70% of users currently outside the US and growing, Facebook is giving advertisers and developers access to markets that would otherwise be much more challenging to reach.

Jessica Lee contributed to this story.

This morning I gave the opening presentation at the Social Gaming Summit, discussing an overview of the major platforms, players, and monetization stats in the social gaming industry. For those interested in checking out the slides, they are embedded below.

Topics covered: Facebook, Facebook Connect, iPhone, MySpace, Hi5, Twitter, Monetization, ARPUs on Facebook and MySpace, IP, copycats.

In a bid to make it easier for people who have gotten married or who have names in multiple languages to clearly express their identity, Facebook has just turned on a new feature enabling users to display an “alternate name” on their profiles.

Users had previously been able to specify an alternative name so that they could be more easily found in search results. However, now the alternate name is displayed in parentheses next to their full name wherever it appears on their profile, in search results, and in friend requests. For example, here’s how Sophia Huang’s profile looks now that she’s specified an alternate name in Chinese:

This feature should be very handy for people who have names in multiple languages, have a maiden name, or otherwise changed their name. To enter an alternate name, go to the Account Settings page here.

In order to make it easier for Persian speakers to use Facebook, Facebook has turned on a “beta” version of the site translated into Persian (Farsi) tonight. Persian is the native language of Iran.

While Facebook users were already translating the site into Persian - as they are with dozens of other languages using the crowd-sourced Translation application which enables users to suggest and vote on translations - Facebook released the Persian version earlier than normal to make it easier for Persian speakers in Iran and around the world to use Facebook.

Facebook says thousands of Persian translations have been submitted by over 400 users so far. Those interested in contributing to the effort can help by using the Translations app. Users have fully translated Facebook into over 60 languages, with many more in process.

If your browser is set to Persian, Facebook should automatically now display the site in Persian instead of English. You can also change your language into Persian by clicking here (or clicking the “Settings” link in the upper-right corner of Facebook and then going to the “Language” tab).

Today fbFund REV officially kicked off. And we’re continuing our look into this year’s 2009 fbFund REV winners by turning our attention to Samasource, one of the two nonprofit organizations that were selected as finalists. Unlike the other 18 winners, nonprofits didn’t receive funding due to the way fbFund is structured, but will be participating in this summer’s incubator program. Based in San Francisco, Samasource is a 501c3 nonprofit that helps businesses in the developing world find clients in the U.S. to do work on a variety on tech-based projects, including Facebook application testing. We recently spoke with CEO Leila Chirayath Janah on the impact that Facebook application development is having in underdeveloped markets.

Inside Facebook: What’s the problem statement that Samasource is addressing?

Leila Chirayath Janah: In our target market, unemployment is 60 percent among university graduates. They were raised on farms; their parents scrimped and saved to send them to school. In Kenya, for example, families spend 277 percent of per capita income on tertiary education, which means families are borrowing and not seeing any financial return after their children graduate. Unemployed young men are the single biggest reason why violence is so prevalent where we work. With no skilled jobs, joining the militia and making money that way is the next best and easiest option. In the developing world, income comes first. It’s what allows people to make investments in health and education and pushes them out of extreme suffering.

How does Samasource create jobs and sustainable living in the developing world?

We work with 13 partners, the majority of which are in East Africa in low-income countries. The average income there is below $900 dollars a year. After going through a thorough Screen and Select process, we offer our partners training in eight highly marketable services (e.g., data entry, Facebook application testing, etc.) that we’ve seen a demand for in Silicon Valley. Because we’re based in the Valley and are connected to this market, we can connect the two ends of demand and supply together. So far we’ve contracted $150,000 dollars of work with both large nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies. One of our clients is Benetech, an amazing nonprofit that has engaged two Samasource partners in Nairobi to do proofreading work.

Where does Facebook come into the picture? How are you leveraging the Facebook Platform to further the Samasource mission?

The idea for our app is to build an interface for developers to get their apps tested, track results, and pay for testing services. There are 57,000 apps on Facebook, and they need to be tested on a regular basis for functionality. We can provide such testing with our network of partners on a regular basis at a low cost. We connect developers to reliable quality testers who understand the Facebook Platform.

What’s the transaction model here, and how do you remain financially sustainable?

Samasource acts as a payment intermediary. Our clients send checks to us and we pass most of it onto our partners. We charge a 10 percent fee just to cover costs.

What is your background in international development?

I spent the last 10 years in international development and management consulting. At Harvard, I studied Africa development and went on to work at the World Bank and other NGOs. I got pretty disillusioned because I couldn’t see the impact fast enough, and I wanted to get out there and get my hands dirty.

In connecting two very different worlds (Africa and Silicon Valley), what’s a myth you hope to dispel?

When people think of Africa, they think of people with their hands out; but really, they are just like us and want opportunities and a leg up. It’s a moral challenge for us to level the playing field of opportunity. Facebook application testing is considered prestigious work in the markets we work in. You’re lucky to get a job where you can work at an office, in front of a computer. If you make $2.50 a day, you’ve made it! 500 people work for Samasource partners; most of them come from low-income backgrounds and are supporting family members. Jobs are mission critical. Money is well leveraged at Samasource; what’s harder to quantify is the dignity we make possible.

How is Samasource different from traditional outsourcing?

It’s silly to use the word outsourcing because it has this connotation of large U.S. companies sending jobs overseas to China and India – and that’s not at all what Samasource does. We handle much smaller projects, between $70 and $100,000. We enable living wages, and that’s no more outsourcing than it is fair trade. There’s also no reason why we can’t work with poor communities in the U.S. I recently went to Mississippi to see if we could extend our model there, training local people to do remote work or bringing women who are stay-at-home mothers into local technology centers. The poor are globally distributed, and there’s a definite possibility to bring our work closer to home.

How did you find the fbFund process this year?

The process was democratic. I think it’s great the fbFund even chose nonprofits at all. By naming us, we get valuable visibility to our cause.

As a nonprofit, how do you feel about the fbFund’s policy toward nonprofit finalists?

fbFund isn’t giving seed capital to nonprofits, which is unfortunate because we need it just as much as anyone else. Dave McClure is committed to nonprofits, but in general it’s an indication of Silicon Valley’s attitude toward the nonprofit industry. Nonprofits can innovative just as much, but it’s for an audience that can’t afford to pay.

Thanks Leila! Any final thoughts?

The most powerful way to alleviate poverty is to give work, not aid. Now developers on Facebook have a way to do that.

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