Inside Facebook

Last week, Inside Facebook reported that Facebook had opened up discussion in Groups and Pages for search engines. Soon, Facebook may make Events public and searchable as well.

The Facebook Directory, Facebook’s search-engine-friendly list of indexable content, is expanding with Facebook’s redesign: while the old directory only includes People, Pages, and Applications, the new directory also includes Events and Groups, spots reader Dan Birdwhistell of BigSight.

While many Groups are already currently indexable, this could mark the first time many Events would be publicly available for search, greatly increasing the number of Facebook events in search indexes.

How will users respond to their Facebook events showing up in Google search results? Facebook will need to do a good job communicating the default privacy settings for Events. It’s not clear that the creators of or participants in events like Gettin’ too drunk on Two Lick, one of the events in the Facebook Event Directory, know that their event could now potentially be accessible to searchers worldwide.

As we reported yesterday, Facebook has released a new Applications menu that significantly improves applications’ overall visibility in the new design. While the direct links in the shortcut bar and the menu itself have received much acclaim, the “Add bookmark” icon could prove to have the greatest material impact on developers.

Bookmarking an application is a relatively new behavior for users on Facebook, as previously the application sidebar was populated by links that were added during the initial installation process. Before the introduction of the application menu, some developers (and users alike) complained that the bookmarking process was too unclear. Now, the “add bookmark” icon is readily available to users, thus those complaints should largely disappear.

Gone from the prior Applications menu implementation (which used to be in the new design’s top nav) is the “Recently used” section, which used to sit above a user’s bookmarked applications. Now, the Applications menu exclusively features bookmarked applications. This change is subtle, but the impact could be substantial. For example, if a user were to “allow” a new application, she would need to bookmark it during her first session or possibly have no easy means of rediscovery in the future (other than recall). In most cases, that user is effectively lost as a potential repeat visitor if she didn’t click “add bookmark” during her first visit.

If developers were able to integrate the “add bookmark” functionality directly into their canvas page experiences this problem could largely be mitigated, though this implementation would lack the elegance and consistency of the icon in the menu bar. Alternatively, the “Recently Used” section could resurface either when the full Applications list is opened or in place of the application bookmarks in the homepage’s right column, which is essentially equivalent to the new menu bar.

While that is largely speculation, and the currently menu bar is likely to change, the issue is indicative of the reality of Platform: developers and companies can be seriously impacted by even the smallest of Facebook’s changes.

The 11th London Facebook Developer Garage took place last night at Sun Microsystems, the gold sponsor of the event. Here’s a quick rundown of highlights from the night’s speakers:

Chris Thorpe from MySpace gave us a quick introduction to their platform:

• MySpace would love to see more developers on their platform
• Make sure any applications you develop are complying with the terms of service as the approval process is more stringent than with Facebook applications

Duncan Arbour and Jon Marks from LBi on the agency and brand perspective:

• Brands producing applications can be a hit-and-miss affair
• Advertising on existing successful applications may be a more viable and predictable way forward

Toby Beresford from Nudge on an Englishman at F8:

• Applications are treated as viable businesses in their own right, which is less common in the UK
• People with money and developers mix much more freely in the US than they do in the UK

John Cole from Adknowledge (which includes Cubics) gave an introduction to the company:

• Adknowledge are currently serving 8 billion impressions a month

Reto Lämmler gave an introduction to the Doodle application:

• Doodle provides users with a common, shared calendar to easily arrange social or work events
• Currently serving around 1 million users a month via the Doodle website
• Recently launched Facebook application provides integrated functionality with the main website, and users can switch between the two transparently

Max Niederhofer from Atlas Venture gave us some valuable insight from the venture capital world:

• Before engaging with VCs, make an effort to understand their needs. (“Read a book FFS.”)
• VCs are interested in £1m plus, business angels in lower amounts, so there is something of a gap if you’re looking for £500k
• Make sure you can explain your idea in simple terms
• Although the undoubted main thing that VCs bring is money, there is often a strong network of consultants and trusted agencies that can benefit a business
• Always do due diligence on everybody involved in a deal, and hire a good lawyer who’s done VC work before

Finally, Iskandar Najmuddin from Nudge gave us a rundown on the latest technical changes on the platform and the prize for application of the month was presented by Stewart Townsend of Sun to Doodle.

The next London garage is on Wednesday October 8th. More details will be announced before the event on the garage group page.

As Facebook becomes a larger player in global media, multinational agencies are playing an increasingly active role in the marketing ecosystem around Facebook and the Facebook Platform. Inside Facebook recently sat down with Camilo La Cruz, Executive Creative Director at Rapp Collins Worldwide, to learn more about how the global agency sees Facebook.

Thanks for your time today Camilo. What does the Facebook ecosystem look like to you at Rapp Collins?

We see our task for our clients as creating communication that can enable a dialogue. Frankly, that will never work if you don’t have anything interesting to say. But we are hyper-social creatures. Ultimately, we see brands as facilitators of social engagement under the general umbrella of entertainment or knowledge gaining. Facebook is one of the biggest places where that is happening right now. The question is how do you activate that “social tissue” and add real value?

We’re definitely still in the early stages. Most of the things that we’re doing are experimental. We’re an agency rooted in direct marketing, so we measure everything (and we have to or we’re not invited back to the table). Today’s Facebook is a mass medium in its own right, but that doesn’t mean you can activate it with traditional mass media approaches.

So how do you go about it?

You have to think about how to activate the social tissue. We start with a concept focused on people (not “consumers”) that we want to engage. For example, take Kidnap!, an application created for the Travel Channel with Context Optional. We’ve had two million “kidnap requests” sent since the application launched in July. Why? It’s entertaining, and it’s built with the traveler in mind - not the tourist. It’s delivered in an unbranded space, and only people that dig deeper for information about a particular location are exposed to the brand. However, that doesn’t mean that if Kidnap goes extremely well we wouldn’t build it as a standalone application or a gaming application.

How does Rapp think about working with Facebook directly vs. on the Facebook Platform?

Facebook is still trying to figure out how to engage and monetize their users, which leads them to think about experiences that are ultimately more interrupting in nature - even though they are more social. 98% of applications have less than 1,000 users per day. We want our brands to provide value to people as a service - either entertainment or information. Brands can’t just say things, they must do things. We see applications in particular as an interesting way to experiment.

My ultimate concern is my client’s business. One thing we’ve all learned is that the old model of interruption is no longer viable. The touch points with users must be emotionally rewarding. Facebook is a great space for that to happen.

We need to add value to your life so that you pay attention. And we want to allow co-creativity so that you can share it with your friends and make it social.

Can you talk about any other projects to date?

We’re working on several things that I can’t talk about yet. We’re very proud of our early accomplishments with the Travel Channel. I think we’re at around 250,000 monthly users. It’s definitely working for the brand by other KPI’s as well - like website traffic directly from the application, and in general. We’re fans of Facebook, and we will cotinue experimenting.

Thanks Camilo.

With the Facebook redesign going live this week and other recent changes to the Facebook Platform, many developers find themselves asking, “What is the best way to communicate with my users”? Several channels exist which developers can utilize to effectively communicate with their current user base, as well as with potential users. While most of these methods are covered in the Facebook Developer’s Wiki, their intended purposes and best uses are often left to the developer’s interpretation.

Notifications

Two methods exist when sending notifications to users. An application can either send an app_to_user notification, or a user_to_user variant. Both types of notifications appear in the bottom right-hand corner of all Facebook pages.

App_to_User

These notifications are ideal for sending updates to current users of your application, with limitations. The largest restriction is that an application may only send a maximum of 7 notifications to an individual user per week. The advantage is that a notification of this type is portrayed as coming from your application, and not another user; therefore they are ideal for anonymous communication. These notifications can only be delivered to users who have already authorized your application. In order to fully leverage notifications of this type, you will probably want to send these out via a CRON script set to run once every 24 hours. This will guarantee your application does not run over the limit of 7 per week.

User_to_User

This communication type is the broadest channel that exists on Facebook currently. If you plan on sending a large number of updates or requests, your application should be using user_to_user notifications. These notifications exist between 2 users, and may be sent from User A to User B under any of the following scenarios:

1. User A is an application user, and is friends with User B who is also an application user.
2. User A is an application user, and is friends with User B who is not an application user.
3. User A is an application user, and is not friends with User B but who also is an application user.

In the past, it has been possible to store the session key of an application user, and forge that user’s session in order to send an “anonymous” notification to himself/herself. This action is somewhat dubious with respect to Facebook’s Terms of Service. It is worth noting, with the new profile, this method will only work if the user has granted your application an infinite session key (the user checked the “always keep me logged into this application” box).

• Resources for Notifications: Developer’s Wiki, App_to_User Notifications via Developer’s Forums, Notification Spam Limitations

Requests

One important communication channel for developers to utilize are requests. These are often sent to non-application users who may be interested in using your application. The downside is that they cannot be sent automatically. The sender most approve a Facebook pop-up in order for these to be sent. Your application can pre-fill the FBML tag with a list userids as well as a personalized message; however the same message must be sent out to all users in each batch.

Many users ignore requests altogether because they were often abused by applications before Facebook imposed allocations and application limits. They do have one advantage, though: An application can convey a considerable amount of information to an end user before they can hide it. A user must click on a request, and then at the bottom of the request, click ignore. However, the body of the request may contain several lines of information to catch the appeal of the end user. By contrast, notifications have at most one or two sentences to strike interest - otherwise, end users will click “x” to hide all notifications from your application.

• Resources for Requests: Developer’s Wiki

News Feed

This is the most complicated of the communication channels available to implement. Feed stories can be created by your application which appear on on a user’s Wall feed - and potentially on their friend’s News Feeds. This communication channel should not be used for communication between 2 people, but rather, between a user and all of their friends. There is also no guarantee that a news feed story will be published to a user’s friends, so be sure to utilize other communication channels as well as this one. This communication channel is great for growing your application within friend groups, while avoiding the risk of appearing “spammy” to users.

The technical details regarding feed stories can be found in the Developer’s Wiki.

• Resources for News Feed: Developer’s Wiki, Developer’s Forum, Feed Preview Console, Inside Facebook Article

Emails

Facebook exposes an API to send a user an email to the account they registered for Facebook with. It is worth noting there is no current method for accessing a user’s email address directly. An application may only send 5 emails to a user per day, and that user must have previously authorized the application in order to do so. Emails from this API call will contain a “Disable” link (which will prevent your application from sending further emails to that user) which exists either at the top of the email or at the bottom, depending on how many users have clicked it. You can find where the link is located on your application’s insights page. Emails are great for applications that may exist outside of the Facebook Platform, and are best realized when informing a user of a time-sensitive action (such as an auction about to end).

• Resources for Emails: Developer’s Wiki

Other Ideas:

Several communication channels also exist outside the core Facebook Platform channels that developers can use to communicate with application users. Tactics include:

• Import a user’s contact list from another source with their permission, and send invites
• Ask users for their email address via a form, and send updates
• Collect instant messaging account names from application users, an send updates via messages (this can be automated)
• Create an RSS feed which users can subscribe to
• Create a link which pre-fills an inbox message (the end user must still press send)
• Update an application box on a user’s profile to alert them of new application activity

Communicating with users is essential to creating a compelling application experience. Successful applications typically utilize more than one (if not all) of the above communication chanels. It is up to you, the developer, to determine which is the best match for the type of communication your application will be doing.

While discussion on Facebook Pages has always been publicly accessible to the world and indexed by search engines like Google, wall posts and discussion within Facebook Groups have historically been “off limits” to search engines. However, in recent days, many marketers and users have started noticing Groups discussions and wall posts showing up in Google search results.

For users, while Facebook is currently only allowing discussion in “public” groups (groups accessible to all Facebook members) to be accessible to search engines, it does need to do a better job of communicating to users when their posts - which are tied to their Facebook identities - are going to be visible to the public web. Currently, Facebook’s own search does not even search discussions in Facebook Groups, so many users may be surprised to find out that what they’re saying could turn up in future Google searches about them by potential employers, friends, or members of the opposite sex. Facebook’s Privacy Settings does not provide a “Groups discussion” setting, so for now, be careful what you say.

For marketers, public visibility of Facebook Groups discussion means you need to be spending more time and energy monitoring conversation around your brand inside Facebook Groups - what Facebook users say is now visible to anyone on the web.

Alcoholic beverage brands spend $2 billion on advertising every year in the US alone. Multinational Monitor says that alcohol companies “aired more than 2 million television ads and published more than 20,000 magazine advertisements” from 2001 to 2007.

It’s no surprise then that, only weeks after Facebook changed its policies regarding alcohol promotion on the Facebook Platform and enabled to Demographic Restriction functionality, alcohol companies are invading the Facebook Platform.

Just yesterday, we covered new Facebook campaigns by Miller and Absolut. Today, Buddy Media told us that it is running two successful campaigns with Bacardi and Anheuser-Busch:

• Bacardi - Over 100,000 adult Facebook members have installed the Bacardi-branded Mojito Party apps since it was launched last week. “Buddy Media developed a social app-vertisment for Bacardi which includes a Mojito bartender game, a Mojito Cocktail Calculator that helps people plan their own Mojito party, and other features that allow drinking-age Facebook users to engage with the Bacardi’s ‘The Original” branding campaign,’ said Buddy Media’s Greg Roth.
• Anheuser-Busch - The Anheuser-Busch “Party Cruise” app just launched on Facebook and is open to the 4,500 winners of Anheuser-Busch’s party cruise contest.  “This VIP micro-site, which adheres to Facebook’s new demographic restrictions API, will serve as the official ‘pre-party’ destination for winners to locate, interact and engage with fellow cruisers,” says CEO Michael Lazerow.

As Facebook wades further into alcohol advertising, it will need to navigate the legal and potential ethical challenges of ensuring that those advertisements are not predominantly seen by underage users. So far, it’s giving robust tools to Page owners and application developers to allow advertisers to take a clear approach to the issue.

While some agencies and marketers are building full-fledged applications to engage Facebook users, others are taking the simpler route and are just building Facebook Pages.

Now that Facebook has is opening its gates more broadly to beer, wine, and liquor companies, what can those companies who must restrict access to certain content do when building Facebook Pages? Here are 3 tactics recommended by Facebook:

1. Use Settings to Restrict Access to Your Page: Facebook allows you to restrict access to your Page to users who say they are over 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, or the “legal drinking age where they live.” To change this setting, go to its edit page and change the “Settings” at the bottom.
2. Use FBML Tags to Restrict Certain Content within Your Page: You can use FBML to restrict certain content on your Page according to the viewing user’s declared country and age. For example, if you have rights to certain content in North America but not other locations, you can show different things to folks outside that region
3. Target Your Messages to Certain Demographics: When sending a message to fans of your Page, you can restrict who receives your messages by declared age, geography, and gender. To change this setting, select the “Target this update” box when sending a message.

These are great tools that all marketers in relevant industries should use. Marketers interested in learning more about the ins and outs of marketing on Facebook using Pages should also check out our Facebook Marketing Bible for more detailed information on the capabilities of Facebook Pages and Facebook applications.

Related Inside Facebook Resources:

• Facebook Enables Demographic Restrictions for Developers

Well, it didn’t take long after Facebook’s change of stance on alcohol sales for brewers and distillers to launch applications on the Facebook Platform. This week, Miller, Absolut, and tech behemoth Microsoft launched new applications aimed at engaging the Facebook audience with app firm Context Optional:

1. Today I’m Toasting - Miller

“Miller was looking to engage young people online in an interactive and social way.  To meet their goals, Miller and Digitas worked with us to design and build a toasting application that celebrates everyday with fun random holidays,” says Kevin Barenblat, Context CEO.  The application is one of the first branded alcohol apps to use Facebook’s newly launched demographic restrictions; interaction with the app is limited to those who say they are over 21.

2. Absolut Top Bartender - Absolut

3. Got Pies - Microsoft

One major change in the new Facebook redesign is the combination of the Wall and Mini-Feed. And while the change is certainly significant from an end-user’s point of view, it is even moreso from a developer’s perspective. The News Feed system has been overhauled, with new publishing methods and story sizes for developers to utilize when creating feed stories.

Feed Story Templates

All feed stories are now required to be published using templates, which must be registered beforehand. Feed templates allow Facebook to aggregate and display multiple application stories simultaneously. More relevant stories that involve multiple friends (known as “targets”) will get more distribution, so users will view application stories as more engaging and useful overall.

Feed Story Sizes & News Feed Distribution

In addition to templates, three feed story sizes now exist:

1. One Line - One lined stories are now the default size that an application can publish onto a user’s Mini Feed. These stories are typically 1 sentence long and can be easily aggregated by Facebook to display on friend’s News Feeds. These stories cannot have images in them, and are cached by Facebook once published.
2. Short - These are medium sized stories which may contain images. This type of story is also cached on Facebook’s servers. Both One Line and Short stories may be published to friends’ News Feeds.
3. Full - These stories are the equivalent of the wall attachments in the old profile design. They contain pre-formatted FBML and can be up to 700px in height. They are not cached and will not be published to friends’ News Feeds.

Here’s an example of a Short and One Line story, respectively:

Publishing from the Canvas Page with Feed Forms

While an application may publish a one line Feed Story through the API, Facebook is requiring the use of Feed Forms to publish Short and Full stories from the Canvas Page (though this is apparently a bug, as applications are supposed to be able to publish short and full stories from an API call so long as the user has previously granted the application permission to publish these story lengths). These forms are called via Javascript and generate a standardized Facebook dialog with the story along with options for the user to select the size to be published.

These standardized forms are also being used throughout the new profile design to prompt for application permissions, in an attempt to boost the poor reputation (with respect to actions performed on a user’s behalf) that applications have received within the Facebook platform thus far.

Here’s an example Feed Form dialog:

Additional Resources

More resources are available for technical details about the new feed stories and how to create them:

• Developers Forum
• Developers Wiki
• Feed Preview Console