Inside Facebook

It’s been many weeks in the making, but we at Inside Facebook have some exciting news to share today - we are launching a new, experimental second blog called Inside Social Games! Inside Social Games is going to be entirely devoted to tracking the convergence of games and social network platforms.

So what are social games anyway - and why Inside Social Games now? Just as I was surprised two years ago by the way my “non-geeky” friends were using Facebook, I’m finding myself repeatedly being surprised by the way those same people are playing new kinds of “social games” inside Facebook (and MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Hi5, and Orkut) now. Games that, despite their apparent simplicity or complexity, are being adopted in large numbers by people outside traditional console, PC, and online gaming demographics. Games on social networks are bringing together family and friends like games never before have - and we think that’s pretty darn cool.

Like Inside Facebook two years ago, I’m starting Inside Social Games as an experiment. An experiment into what “social gaming” really means and how social games may or may not be changing the way large numbers of people play and communicate. What the results will be, I’m not yet sure, but I’m excited to see what conversations emerge over the coming weeks and months, especially between the game design and SNAP communities.

I’m proud to announce that I’ve been able to land Chris Holt (also of PC Gamer) to review current and new releases. Chris would love to receive tips on new games, so feel free to contact him at submit AT insidesocialgames DOT com to let him know what you’re up to.

We’re looking forward to tracking not only the games but also the people and companies behind them that are leading the charge into this new and exciting space. We believe some interesting new companies will be created as the worlds of gaming and social networks collide. It should be a fun ride. Please drop us a line any time!

Even though MySpace hasn’t turned on all its viral channels yet, the MySpace App Gallery is now live for all users and is being promoted in the header of all MySpace pages.

Since the MySpace App Gallery launched in beta just six weeks ago, over 1,000 applications have been created by developers and approved by the MySpace team, resulting in about 2 million total installations. However, the App Gallery was largely unpromoted by MySpace - users primarily discovered apps through profile boxes on others’ profile pages. The new link should drive much more app traffic and adoption than developers have experienced in the last few weeks.

As part of the App Gallery launch, MySpace is also launching a new way for developers to promote their apps called “Featured Applications.” It’s not clear whether the apps in this section are selected by an editor or if it’s purely an ad service that allows developers to pay for premium placement.

With the launch of the App Gallery, MySpace has also switched the default sorting of apps to Most Popular from Most Recent. This will make the browsing experience better for users exploring MySpace apps for the first time.

This morning at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco I moderated the Comparing Social Platforms panel, which was comprised of awesome folks speaking on behalf of the top social platforms on the web today:

• Allen Hurff, SVP of Engineering at MySpace
• Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook
• Jessica Alter, Director of Platform and Business Development at Bebo
• Patrick Chanezon, OpenSocial Evangelist at Google
• David Recordon, Open Platform Lead at Six Apart

While the panel covered a variety topics that each merit more discussion (there are entire conferences devoted to doing just that), this morning the panel discussed key issues for the social platform economy - such as each platform’s philosophy on key product integration points (profile, feeds, viral channels), aligning user and developer interests (engagement, marketing channels), monetization roadmap (ad networks, commerce), data portability, and potential business conflicts (in verticals like photos and music).

Since I was moderating the panel, I didn’t have time to take notes, but here are some paraphrases of some noteworthy panelist comments:

• Jessica Alter: We’re going to be driving developers to focus more and more on engagement. While I don’t have any specific announcements today, things like time spent and page views are going to become more important on the platform.
• Allen Hurff: On the question of verticals like music, of course MySpace is going to continue to work with major music distribution partners around the world. But we really want to remain as agnostic as possible. In fact, I expect there to be many more app feed items than MySpace system feed items.
• Dave Morin: We’re spending a lot of our time right now thinking about data portability, or perhaps it would better be called “privacy portability.” You should have the option to have your privacy settings follow you around the web.
• David Recordon: The term “data portability” almost can’t be used in that way any more, since the branding of the term now means something else.
• Patrick Chanezon: Unlike most of these social platforms, iGoogle is much more of a social content discovery service than social network. It’s a pretty different type of service that’s built on OpenSocial that we think is really interesting.
• Allen Hurff: The MySpace Platform actually represents a pretty big shift just in the last year from the way MySpace has traditionally viewed opening up its data. We’re going to push this even further in 2008.
• Dave Morin: Creating a platform is like creating a marketplace. You have your arbitrageurs, and we have those, you have your hedge funds, they’re like the guys staying up all night finding ways to tweak their way into the viral channels more.
• Patrick Chanezon: OpenSocial is really just an overlap of the most common set of services needed to run social applications. We may begin to see platforms on top of platforms in the coming year.

Despite the early start time (8:30!), by midway through the panel there were folks crowding in the back of the room. We only had time for a couple audience questions before we had to make room for the next panel. Thanks to everyone for a great discussion! For more, check out GSP East.

Update: Here’s a video of the panel, thanks to Simon Chen:

Web 2.0 Expo SF is happening this week at San Francisco’s Moscone Center - hard to believe it’s already here! This year, there are several excellent focus tracks on different days of the week, including Social Platforms, Marketing & Community, and the Mobile Web.

I’ll be moderating Wednesday’s session on Comparing Social Platforms, which kicks off the day’s Focus on Social Platforms track. I am honored to be joined by a terrific panel:

• Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook
• Allen Hurff, SVP of Engineering at MySpace
• Jessica Alter, Director of Platform and Business Development at Bebo
• David Recordon, Open Platform Lead at Six Apart

Look forward to seeing you there!

While developers wait on the MySpace Platform to launch many long-awaited viral channels, Max Newbould, lead developer and product owner of the MySpace Developer Platform, told developers in an IRC channel yesterday that:

• MySpace Platform notifications are launching “April 30th, unless something goes terribly wrong.”
• MySpace Platform invitations are a “good month away” (there is a separate team working on it?)

Newbould has been traveling through Asia and Australia in recent weeks drumming up developer support for the MySpace Developer Platform.

Earlier this week, MySpace announced new viral channels in the Post To API, some of which are not available on any other platform.

Last week, I interviewed Bret Taylor, the co-founder of FriendFeed, a new website which aggregates content you’re sharing around the web and shares it with your friends.

Today, Facebook launched a feature specifically designed to make it easier to share content from around the web, called Feed Importing. Like FriendFeed, just enter your credentials for your accounts at supported partner sites and your content will appear in your Mini Feed (and your friends’ News Feeds).

According to Facebook’s Harry Wang,

The option to import stories from other sites can be found via the small “Import” link at the top of your Mini-Feed. Only a few sites—Flickr, Yelp, Picasa, and del.icio.us—are available for importing at the moment, but we’ll be adding Digg and other sites in the near future. These stories will look just like any other Mini-Feed stories, and will hopefully increase your ability to share information with the people you care about.

This will certainly make Facebook a more powerful way to share content - currently, users have to actively “Post” items to their profiles or for certain friends. FriendFeed’s Taylor said the service was already the #2 referrer for some bloggers - if Facebook expands the feature to allow users to import any feed, will the same be true of Facebook?

However, Facebook feed importing is not quite FriendFeed–yet. Unlike FriendFeed, Facebook doesn’t allow conversations to take place in the feed itself. However, with an upcoming update to the Profile page, Facebook has alluded to a new kind of in-line “publishing flow” in the Mini Feed.

One further obvious difference with FriendFeed: while you can import RSS into Facebook, you can’t syndicate your Mini Feed or News Feed via RSS.

As Facebook users syndicate more content from external sources, selecting which of those feed items for News Feed distribution could become complicated. Facebook will need to continue developering effective News Feed selection algorithms to keep the News Feed from becoming too spammy.

Although it’s only been a few weeks since te Hi5 Platform launched (and MySpace’s Platform hasn’t even officially launched yet), developers are seeing big new growth - especially on Hi5.

Applications have been growing quickly since the Hi5 Platform opened to all users 2 weeks ago.  Eric Eldon reports that RockYou’s SuperFive app has been installed over 2 million times during that period - numbers that rival the “wild west” days following the launch of the Facebook Platform almost one year ago. Hi5, in an effort to preserve equality amongst developers in the early days of the Platform, is still ordering apps in the Hi5 gallery randomly, and not showing install counts in the gallery at all.

Meanwhile, the MySpace platform team has been busy building a new viral mechanism of their own — Post To. Post To allows apps to send content directly to different parts of a user’s profile page, where it can be discovered by their friends. Check out this sample application from the MySpace team which illustrates how Post To and other MySpace viral channels work. However, while many apps are live in the MySpace application gallery, the fully featured MySpace platform is still yet to launch.

While the Facebook Platform undergoes a chapter of maturity, the Hi5 and MySpace platforms are just getting going. We’ll keep close track of how developers are faring as each platform evolves.

MySpace today took its first step toward integrating applications into MySpace communication channels today by including “app add” updates in Friend Subscriptions (MySpace’s equivalent of the News Feed).

MySpace’s Kyle Brinkman writes,

We’re now beginning the process of increasing exposure of the Gallery - and your apps! - to the wider MySpace community. The first step in this process is getting apps into Friend Subscriptions. If you’re not familiar with Friend Subscriptions, it’s a key feature on user’s home pages that lets users see what their friends have been doing: posting pictures and videos, updating their profiles and blogs, and now, adding applications! …

As mentioned, this is just the first of many enhancements coming down the road. We’re working hard on new stuff for both “User” and “Developer” facing sides of the platform.

Brinkman said MySpace will be adding “communications capabilities” (i.e. more access to viral channels) next week. I’m sure developers will be paying close attention!

MySpace apps went live for the first time today. Which apps have users added most after Day 1?

	1. Playlist.com Music Playlists 6387 Installs “The Social Music Experiment - discover new music and broadcast it on your MySpace profile!”
	2. Ace Texas Hold’em Poker 1929 Installs “Compete in the biggest free Texas Hold’Em Poker game on the net with over 7 million players.”
	3. DrinkingSocial 1578 Installs “Organize your own personal drinking history and send beers to your friends!”
	4. Honesty Box 460 Installs “Honesty Box lets your friends send you anonymous messages. Find out the truth!”
	5. Metachat 354 Installs “Chat live with your friends, throw snowballs, and even watch movies together. Come join the party!”
	6. Pokey! 317 Installs “Meet Pokey, the cute, interactive 3D puppy who fetches frisbees and loves belly rubs!”
	7. Picnik 311 Installs “Make your photos fabulous with Picnik’s easy to use and powerful editing tools. It’s fun!”
	8. PhotoFX 295 Installs “Make your pics stand out with glitter and more”
	9. Movies 247 Installs “Flixster Movies lets you see what your friends say about movies.”
	10. Shelfari Books 239 Installs “Find out what your friends are reading, and show off your books on a cool shelf.”

After months of anticipation, the MySpace Platform launched today, bringing applications to MySpace users for the first time.

In an intentional “soft launch” of the MySpace Platform using the OpenSocial 0.6 standard, the top 10 applications reached about 12,000 total installations in their first day. About 200 applications have already been approved and appear in the MySpace Application Directory.

In addition to canvas page and profile box real estate, MySpace apps also get real estate on the home page: both an app list under the welcome module and app boxes further down the left rail. However, notification and request channels will not be live for at least a couple of weeks.

A big congratulations is in order for the entire MySpace Developer Team!