Inside Facebook

About 250 people attended the Facebook Developer Garage San Francisco this afternoon/evening, hosted by Offerpal. The event was held at Mezzanine, which is a great venue. A couple quick notes from the evening:

• Siqi Chen, CEO of Serious Business: “Friends For Sale has 3 kinds of users: 1) guys with a lot of time, 2) guys with a lot of money, 3) hot people. Usually, groups 1 and 3 do not interact much - we allow them to do that… Interestingly, some of our highest paying users are in Saudi Arabia. One woman has spent over US $30,000 in the game so far. We get threatened and bribe attempts a lot.”
• John Hwang, Director of Products, RockYou: “You should earn about $75 per day per thousand DAUs.” (I’m pretty sure that’s the stat he quoted, but not 100%.)
• Kelly Winters, Platform Program Manager, Facebook: “Circle of Moms is an interesting application that’s demographically restricted so that only females can access it. It’s grown by 500,000 users since October.”

Our sister site AppData is a useful tool for spotting new trends on the Facebook Platform. For developers and journalists interested in spotting the next big thing, checking out the top gaining applications can often elicit trends on what’s coming in the near future. (For those interested in digging deeper, charts for the top gaining applications of different audience size or category are also freely available.)

If you look at the Top Gainers By Percent This Week leaderboard, it would be impossible to miss the theme this week: Even though Black Friday is still a week away, it’s already Christmastime on the Facebook Platform. 50% of the top 15 fastest growing apps this week are pretty simple apps with Christmas/winter themes. Taking basic applications that have proven successful and wrapping them in seasonal look & feel can be an easy way to get distribution on Facebook.

To learn more, check out the 7 apps below.

1. Santa Yourself +240,145 MAU, up 1330% this week

2. Throw Snowballs +103,153 MAU, up 129.6% this week

3. Snowball Fight +189,231 MAU, up 107.3% this week

4. Holiday Shoppe +41,651 MAU, up 43.0% this week

5. Kiss Under the Mistletoe +57,895 MAU, up 41.7% this week

6. Christmas Music Tree +61,105 MAU, up 36.5% this week

7. Christmas Countdown +41,220 MAU, up 36.4% this week

We’re here at the San Francisco Facebook Developer Garage at Mezzanine. The focus topic for the day is monetizing Facebook apps with virtual goods.

There’s a great lineup today, including:

• A presentation by Anu Shukla, the CEO of Offerpal, on tips for monetizing with virtual currency
• A panel discussion including Siqi Chen, Founder & CEO, Serious Business (developers of Friends For Sale!), Nicholas Talarico, Director of Operations, Sibblingz (developers of Make a Baby),  Markus Weichselbaum, PhD, CEO, TheBroth (developers of PuzzleBee, KickMania!, others), and John Hwang, Director of Products, RockYou.
• An update on the Facebook Platform from Kelly Winters, Platform Program Manager at Facebook.

Check out the live streaming video below:

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

It’s clear that with the looming slowdown in the US advertising markets, Facebook is ratcheting up its efforts to grow its direct-to-consumer virtual gifts business. While many different kinds of digital goods businesses have been big in the east for years, Facebook is hoping to bring virtual gifting to mainstream western markets in a big way for the first time. Current estimates put Facebook’s expected 2008 virtual gifts revenues somewhere between $50-$70 million, or about 20% of total revenues for the year.

Just two weeks ago, Facebook revamped its virtual currency system used for purchasing Facebook gifts. While they may appear minor at first, the changes enabled a more flexible pricing model designed to both 1) allow for increased variety in inventory “quality,” and 2) increase the total volume of gifts sold.

Now, this weekend, Facebook announced that it has launched a new service that will send users email notifications of upcoming friends’ birthdays. While this change also may appear minor at first, it’s a signal that Facebook is seriously eyeing the virtual gifts business, and is willing to play in a space that has several large players on the Facebook Platform.

We recently spoke with Raj Lalwani, CEO of SocialCalendar, one of the fastest growing applications on the Facebook Platform since the redesign launched 2 months ago, and the largest birthday notification and gifting app. Lalwani said a main factor he attributes SocialCalendar’s growth to is:

The compelling context of the application’s emails and notifications - reminding users to send a message or give a gift to their friends when it’s their birthday or a national holiday works quite well.

Lalwani also noted that:

SocialCalendar’s business plans call for pressing hard into gifting and gift cards, and the app has full integration with Amazon’s API for gift giving and wish lists. Soon, the company will make a natural move into high margin virtual gifts.

Facebook’s move is sure to make Lalwani, and other developers of large birthday notifications and gifting services like BigDates Solutions, makers of Birthday Calendar, quite nervous. However, it shouldn’t come as a total surprise. Birthday notifications have been a big business online for years, and Facebook has been showing upcoming birthdays on the home page for quite a while now.

It is important to note, however, that Facebook appears to be taking a careful approach with the launch of the service. It is currently an “opt-in” feature on the Notifications Settings page - all users will not start automatically getting birthday reminders from Facebook starting this week. However, it is possible that Facebook will encourage or make it very easy for users to turn on the feature in the future.

Ultimately, this is likely to be a market shared by Facebook and application developers. Facebook is unlikely to build out the robust calendaring, event planning, and in-depth shopping features that are core to the Social Calendar and Birthday Calendar user experiences any time soon. However, Facebook is quite likely to promote its own virtual gifting platform increasingly heavily around the birthday experience.

Just like any other social media service, Facebook needs to build diverse revenue streams in order to best handle challenges in the advertising markets. Adding reminders around events likely to drive virtual gifts sales probably looks like low hanging fruit.

AppData for Social Calendar:

AppData for Birthday Calendar:

While Facebook’s self-serve advertising solutions allow marketers to experiment with Facebook advertising for as little as $1.00/day or $0.01/click, getting reports at the ad or campaign level has not been the easiest process.

Today, Facebook released an update to its advertising dashboard that allows advertisers to export 3 kinds of reports:

• Advertising Performance
• Responder Demographics (age/sex/location of people who clicked)
• Responder Profile (most popular interests/tastes of people who clicked)

These reports can be run at the campaign, ad, or account level, and sliced by day, week, or month across the current month or last 3/6/12 months.

While the update may seem rote, it’s a meaningful step for advertisers who want to be able to better analyze the results of their Facebook advertising campaigns in order to optimize their ad buying strategies at a more granular level. The more data, the better.

As more brands seek to establish a presence within Facebook, a number of social media agencies are helping to bring brands into the fold via the Facebook application platform.

Refresh Partners is one such agency based in downtown Toronto, Ontario. The company was founded in May 2007, and has focused on the opportunities for marketers in the social networking space, particularly on Facebook. We spoke with managing partners Roy Pereira and Colin Smillie to learn more.

Roy and Colin, thanks for your time. Can you give us a little background on Refresh Partners?

Sure - we founded the company in 2007. We both have marketing backgrounds, and we basically came at social networking from a marketer’s point of view.  We started looking at what was happening in Facebook in terms of them opening up with their framework, and we realized that this was going to be huge for marketer’s to gain access to all those millions of users and to really interact with them instead of just posting a simple banner. We originally decided to focus on Facebook, because that seemed to be the number one interactive social network.

At the same time, we started looking at coming up with a Facebook developers garage up in Toronto. There is a lot of interest in Facebook in the area, and we started to see a lot of Facebook developers popping out of the woodwork. We held the the first FaceBookCampToronto in August 2007, and we’ve done four altogether, usually seeing over 400 attendees.

What services do you provide?

We have three core business units. The major one is really application development, or marketing in social networks. We mostly do Facebook apps, but we have done MySpace and we are getting some more interest on the OpenSocial platforms. We work with a marketing agency or just a client that has an idea and we take their concept or we build a concept for them and we make sure that its viral and that it will be successful in the social network, and then we build it. For example, we recently launched the Poll-a-Rizer application for Burger King.

We have one property that we manage called Dogbook, and we also manage other customers’ applications on an on-going basis. For Dogbook, we currently manage both the advertising and the overall strategy for growing the application.

Finally, we offer Refresh Analytics, which is a fully featured analytics tool for application developers. We tie it in to our branded apps, and we’ve found that marketing agencies love that data. We’ve added an API that allows advertising networks to actually plug into our analytics engine and pick up data, and we have one large advertising network that is actually using Refresh Analytics as the gatherer of data for their network. Our current goal is to get as many publishers as possible to use Refresh Analytics in its free state, and we will plan on offering future value add features.

How has the recent Facebook profile redesign affected your business?

With Dogbook we were on a traffic incline prior to the new profile, and obviously that change affected a number of applications and we are starting to recover from that. We saw a straight line decline from Sept. 10 to Sept 13, and these days we’re far below normal traffic lows. We are seeing some uptick, but we haven’t reached the pre-new profile levels yet.

What parts of your business are you the most bullish on?

We are really bullish on the branded apps side. We are expanding our team in both development and sales. Right now branded apps are still very hot, and we expect them to be hot next year as well. We are also very confident on the Refresh Analytics side, especially given the strategy that we have going forward for some of these features that we plan on adding to it. Finally, we’ve been doing work with Facebook Connect as well and we see it is an exciting opportunity to bring apps outside the Facebook box.

It seems like every day here at Inside Facebook, we get asked the same question by developers, investors, marketers, and analysts who are interested in the Facebook Platform:

Ever since the Facebook redesign launched, I’ve been hearing different things about what’s happening to Facebook applications. What’s really working well, and not so well, in the post-redesign Facebook Platform world?

Well, we’ve got good news for you. Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of AppData, a new resource for tracking what’s hot - and what’s not - on the Facebook Platform. AppData is the easiest way to track application traffic in the post-redesign Facebook world.

With AppData, you can:

• See which applications are gaining and losing the most traffic - every day
  
• See the leading applications and developers in any application category
• View historical traffic charts for over 44,000 Facebook applications

AppData was designed to be an easy to use resource for anyone interested in tracking application performance on the Facebook Platform. That being said, the site has a lot of room for growth and improvement, and we’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions for features and functionality that you’d like to see added. Please send your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback to mail AT appdata DOT com. AppData is still in very early beta, and (as long as Facebook lets us) we look forward to making the site increasingly valuable to you in the future.

Below, you’ll find a brief tour of AppData features. But finally, we’d like to extend a special word of thanks to social ad network AdParlor for their support as Charter Sponsor for AppData. AdParlor CEO Hussein Fazal also discusses some case studies of AdParlor’s recent work on his personal blog, Social Network Advertising.

Here’s a look at what you’ll find on AppData:

1. Facebook Application and Developer Traffic Leaderboards - For Any Application Category

2. Top Application Gainers and Losers - Every Day

3. Historical Traffic Charts - For Over 44,000 Facebook Applications

(By the way - as of yesterday there is a new #1 application on the Facebook Platform by monthly users - Causes!)

That’s it for now! We look forward to hearing your thoughts. See more at AppData.com.

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible - November 2008 Edition Buy PDF: $39 USD OR Buy PDF + 3 Months of Free Updates: $49 USD

The newly revised, expanded, and hot-off-the-press Facebook Marketing Bible: 39+ Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook - November 2008 Edition is now available!

The Facebook Marketing Bible has been purchased by hundreds of agencies, marketers, social application developers, entrepreneurs, and educators, and is the leading resource on Facebook marketing today.

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

The November 2008 edition includes updates on the following topics:

• Details on the latest Facebook advertising opportunities, placements, and ad formats. With the Facebook redesign, Facebook launched new advertising units on the home page, which can be filled with a variety of ad units that are deeply integrated into Facebook features like events, pages, and virtual gifts. Find out how you can make the most of your Facebook ad dollars with details on every ad unit available inside Facebook.
• Updates on Facebook’s virtual gifts store. Last week, Facebook signaled updates to the way it’s thinking about virtual gifts and the role they play in the future of Facebook. Get all the latest details here.
• The latest aggressive marketing practices in Facebook’s viral channels being used by application developers. Affiliate marketers spamming application users with links to landing pages are sure to be shut down, but app developers adding new “action links” are likely to see more engagement.
• Fully updated for the Facebook redesign. With the Facebook redesign now fully complete, new opportunities are available for marketers who want to optimize their campaigns for the latest Facebook updates. Get the absolute latest and most detailed analysis of all the recent changes.
• Plus, updates on Facebook Connect, Beacon, and more.

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $39, or $49 with three 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. Groups

• Strategy: What about spamming existing groups?
• SEO
  

3. Pages

• Strategy: Groups and Pages are very similar. Which makes more sense?
• 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
• Ways Page Owners Can Restrict Content for Underage Users
  
• More Features Coming Soon

4. Events

• Events API
• Events SEO
  

5. Notes and Photos

6. Messages

7. Marketplace

8. Share / Posted Items

9. Mini Feed and News Feed

10. Feed Importing

> Data: Tracking Facebook’s International Growth by Country

> Data: Latest US Facebook Age and Gender Demographics

> Recommended Strategies for Guerilla Marketers

II. Tools for Advertisers

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

12. Virtual Gifts

• The Future of Virtual Gifts on Facebook

13. Localization Opportunities

14. Integrated Opportunities

15. Beacon

16. Polls

17. Facebook Platform Ad Networks

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

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. Sponsored Facebook Groups

> Recommended Strategies for Advertisers

III. Tools for Application Developers

20. Profile Box

• Strategy: Where do most new application users come from?
• 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
  

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

27. Facebook Notifications

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

28. Email Notifications

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

29. Application Bookmarks

30. Application Directory

31. Status Update Source

32. Demographic Restrictions

33. Verification and Certification

• Great Apps Program
• Application Verification

34. Translations

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

35. Facebook Connect

• Overview: Integrating Facebook Connect with Your Website
• Related: Google Friend Connect

Purchase this report The Facebook Marketing Bible - November 2008 Edition Buy PDF: $39 USD OR Buy PDF + 3 Months of Free Updates: $49 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

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

> Recommended Strategies for Application Developers

Conclusion

Earlier today, we described how the Facebook application Causes is enabling users to spread the word about Election Day to their friends by “donating” their Facebook status message. The movement has grown significantly throughout the day, and Joe Green, the President of Causes, just sent us the latest stats on the scale of the action. As of 3:30pm PT:

• 1.6 million people have “donated their status” on Facebook
• 4.7 million status messages in total have been posted

These numbers are significant for a couple of reasons:

1. This may be the largest online political rally in history, with over 1.6 million people producing simultaneous social pressure for millions more to get out and vote.

How did Causes do it?  According to Green,

Starting Thursday night, Facebook users could sign up for the “Election Rally” on Causes.  This involved people “donating” their Facebook Status to remind friends to vote.  They could choose to promote voting for John McCain, Barack Obama, anything they wanted to write in, or just getting out and voting.

Then, shortly after midnight last night, about 1 million people’s Facebook Statuses were simultaneously set with a unified message to remind their friends to vote today. This rippled across Facebook, blanketing user’s feeds with reminders from their friends to go vote. This kicked off the largest online rally in history.

2. It’s the most widespread and interesting use of the Facebook Status API we’ve seen yet.

Facebook Status is one of the most prominent means of self-expression on Facebook, featured at the top of the profile page and the top of the News Feed on the home page. However, no application has leveraged the power of the status update at scale to date.

Causes has demonstrated that Facebook’s Status can be used as a tool to coordinate collective action. Expect to see more uses of Facebook Status like Causes’ in the future.

It’s election day in the US, and Facebook is buzzing with election-related activity. On the home page this morning, Facebook greeted US users with a voter count and the opportunity to publish a feed item encouraging friends to vote:

As of 10am PT, nearly 2 million users had already shared that they voted with their friends on Facebook.

Millions of Facebook users have also “donated their status” to the Causes application to remind their friends to vote. Causes is publishing messages like the following for users who authorized the app to publish a status message for them on election day:

As of 10am PT, over 1.5 million Facebook users had donated their status to Causes. Over 14 million users have partipated in Causes in the last 30 days leading up to the election:

Clearly, Facebook and Facebook applications are playing a major role in getting out the vote this year.