Inside Facebook

We’ve heard a lot of people say the iPhone’s built-in support for YouTube video uploading is going to make a huge impact on the number of people posting videos online. That number could grow even more now that Facebook’s upcoming Facebook for iPhone 3.0 app is going to include video uploads - especially amongst people who want to easily post their videos online for friends and family to see, but not the general public.

Joe Hewitt, the lead engineer on Facebook’s iPhone app, says, “3GS video uploading for the Facebook iPhone app is a go — didn’t plan to include it in the 3.0 update, but it was really easy to code.”

Developers and marketers should prepare for many more user-generated videos shuffling around the Facebook ecosystem in the coming months.

In addition to including video uploads for iPhone 3GS users, Facebook for iPhone 3.0 will include the “new” News Feed, Events Likes, Notes, Pages, a new home page, and a variety of other features. However, Push Notifications, which are in high demand, will be included in Version 3.1 later this summer, Hewitt says. A release date has not been announced.

Facebook is holding a press call this morning on the future of privacy. Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, and Leah Perlman, Product manager, are going to be sharing updates on upcoming Facebook privacy enhancements. The new updates, which simplify the privacy controls on Facebook, will be rolling out in the next few weeks. Here are detailed notes and screenshots from this morning’s preview:

- Chris Kelly: We want to make sure we don’t create too many settings and too much complexity, to give people the power to share information as broadly or privately as they want over time. There was a rumor a while ago that Facebook is going to start charging for Facebook, and this is not the case. This also doesn’t have anything to do with advertising - as I testified before the house recently, we’re giving people control over the information that they’re choosing to share.

- Leah Perlman: Currently, the publisher privacy tests that we started running last week are proving quite effective. The new publisher allows for different types of sharing that we haven’t been able to support before. Sometimes you want to share more privately or in a more targeted way - for example, posting something just for my family to see.

- Leah Perlman: We’re also planning to remove regional networks. When Facebook started, networks were the bedrock for privacy. But when we expanded past college and work networks to regional networks to fit everyone, it actually created some confusion around privacy controls as it relates to regional networks. 50% of users don’t even join regional networks.

- Leah Perlman: Now, users will have the same privacy control to put on any piece of content on the site. The same 4 or 5 options:

1. Everyone
2. Friends and Networks (good for sharing photos of friends, so their friends can see them)
3. Friends of Friends
4. Friends Only
5. Custom (can choose a combination of networks and friend lists, and exclude particular people)

- Leah Perlman: Here’s what the new unified privacy page will look like. The lock icon will behave the same everywhere it appears.

- Leah Perlman: We’re going to be offering people a transition tool. It has 2 purposes: 1) To make sure everyone understands the changes that are going to be happening on the site. 2) To make it clear that if you open up access to content that you share it can make your experience of finding and interacting with friends richer. We’re testing different versions of this tool now. There will be 3 main options:

1. Open - people like bloggers or photographers who really want to be open.
2. Limited - those who only want to share with a limited number of people.
3. Recommended - this strikes a balance to help people make the appropriate information shared openly and privately.

Transition Tool 1:

Transition Tool 2:

- Leah Perlman: No matter what options people choose, everyone will see this privacy confirmation screen. We want to make sure that everyone is setting things exactly as they want them.

- Chris Kelly: The transition tool offers a powerful opt-in to let users make their choices. We think this degree of control is where the web is going.

- Question: if I set content to public, will it be indexable my major search engines?

- Leah Perlman: Not at this time, no.

- Elliot Schrage: We are not providing it in the broadest possible way at rollout, but we want people to be sensitive to that possibility, so we are rolling it out in this way to see what feedback we get.

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

Although Facebook is testing a redesigned publisher that makes it easy to share public status updates, it’s important to remember that some comments left inside Facebook are always public - most notably, Wall posts or comments on Facebook Pages.

For example, when you leave a comment on a Facebook Page like that of New York Times’s Modern Love column, they are visible to anyone who visits  - Facebook friend or not, Facebook user or not.

Similarly, Internet users who check out www.facebook.com/threadless and click on the Video box can see the comments left by Threadless’s Facebook fans.

For Facebook, making user-generated content on Facebook Pages public and searchable is desirable from an SEO perspective. But the important thing for users to remember is that it’s possible for people outside of your Facebook friends to see what Facebook Pages you’re a part of (via your public search listing) and to learn more about you through the comments you leave.

Related Resources:

• The Inside Facebook Guide to Protecting Your Privacy on Facebook

Two weeks ago, many Facebook users began asking questions about curiously good recommendations suddenly appearing in Facebook’s “People You May Know” suggestions list. At the time, many suspected that Facebook was saving contacts imported from Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, etc., in order to make future recommendations, but Facebook did not explicitly say that anywhere on the site at the time.

Now, that’s changed: within the last few days, Facebook has added the following message when you click a new “Learn More” link on the contact importer:

In addition, Facebook has added this new tool which allows users to delete contacts uploaded through the Friend Finder that Facebook auto-stored. According to the page, “Facebook uses the email addresses you upload through the Friend Finder to help you connect with friends, including using this information to generate Suggestions for you and your contacts on Facebook.” In other words, if your friends upload their contacts to Facebook, they could start showing up in your Suggestions list too.

As we wrote two weeks ago:

If Facebook is indeed storing imported contacts for the purposes of future friend suggestions, it should make that more clear. Because Facebook appears to only be using that information to make helpful friend suggestions, most users would not be concerned. Facebook generally has very high standards when it comes to user privacy, and not giving users the choice to not have their imported contacts saved isn’t worth “spooking” users who don’t want to see people they’ve emailed in the past showing up in their suggested friends list in the future.

Facebook has taken an important step in more clearly communicating what it’s doing with imported data, though there are always likely to be some users caught off guard by the nature of these recommendations.

As Facebook works out the ideal privacy model for the site, the topic became the center of conversation in Washington D.C. this past week. Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly, testified before congress about the social network’s privacy policies. Meanwhile, the Washington Post profiled the lobbying efforts of Timothy Sparapani, former senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who joined Facebook as its director of public policy back in March.

Privacy and the management of user data has begun to catch the attention of lawmakers. Facebook, Google and other companies in Silicon Valley have begun revving up their lobbying efforts to ensure that any future privacy laws don’t impede upon their business models, which rely heavily on advertising.

The addition of both Sparapani and Kelly to Facebook’s staff was welcomed by members of the privacy community, who have often been critical of Facebook. Most recently, Facebook experienced a backlash from users when it revised its terms of service. Many perceived the change to imply that Facebook would hold onto users’ data even after they cancel their memberships. Facebook reverted to its original terms of service, claiming users own their data, and later had a user vote to reflect what the new terms of service should be.

During his testimony, Kelly highlighted the terms of service incident and how the company responded in a way that would not only be fair to users, but that would also mirror the reality of Facebook’s business model. Facebook does not reveal the identity of users to advertisers — just basic information (such as keywords) that allows Facebook to service up relevant ads.

“In offering its free service to users,” Kelly told congress, “Facebook is dedicated to developing advertising that is relevant and personal without invading users’ privacy, and to giving users more control over how their personal information is used in the online advertising environment.”

Kelly also said that Facebook was “inartful” in the way it introduced Beacon - which quickly became a major PR incident for the company. With Beacon, users’ buying actions were broadcasted to friends without their clear consent. The feature sparked controversy and drew the ire of MoveOn.org, the political advocacy group.

“We learned many lessons about the importance of user education and extensive control from the imperfect introduction of our Beacon product in 2007,” Kelly said. “As a result, Facebook continues to be dedicated to empowering consumers to control their information in both the noncommercial and the commercial context because we believe that should be the future of advertising.”

Kelly’s role in the privacy lobbying will become less significant this fall, as he runs for California Attorney General. As he campaigns, Sparapani will move to the front and center of Facebook’s lobbying efforts to help shape future legislation concerning online privacy. As the Post story detailed, Sparapani brings a high level of credibility to how seriously Facebook takes privacy: When he worked for the ACLU, he championed privacy rights on key issues. He opposed “racial profiling in airport security lines and pushed for stricter rules for how patient information should be used in electronic medical records.”

With privacy, the stakes for Facebook are high. The company has built robust privacy settings that allow users to control what friends can see certain pieces of critical information on their Facebook profiles. From a business perspective, Facebook will thrive if people feel comfortable to share information that advertisers can target their advertising against.

Some reports suggest Facebook users, on a wide scale, care about privacy very deeply, but the terms of service incident and Beacon only caught a minority (albeit a loud one) of the Facebook populace.

Conclusion

Facebook should lobby congress as much as it can to influence the legislation. Try as they may, many congressional members do not understand the complexities of legal issues facing the Web (Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’ remarks on Net Neutrality still ring fresh in memory). While privacy matters, advertisements will sustain Facebook’s growth. Facebook, and any laws that congress may pass, must balance that reality.

There have been ample stories about employers scanning Facebook to find unflattering pictures and content of potential hires. Well, if you find that to be an unnecessary invasion of privacy, you might be appalled if you applied for a job in the City of Bozeman, Montana.

According to a report by ABC News, Bozeman asks you for your Facebook user name and password (or any social network you might belong to for that matter). Here is the precise wording, as listed in the city’s hiring document:

“Please list any and all, current personal or business web sites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.”

Apparently, the policy has existed for nearly three years. It didn’t surface until last week, when a citizen who contacted WBZK TV in Bozeman called the station to complain how the policy clearly violated people’s privacy. Such a policy not only represents a serious ethical breach of privacy; it also violates Facebook’s Terms of Service.

After the station ran a story, the city received several calls and e-mails, both locally and across the country, expressing outrage against the policy. The city reversed the policy on Friday, saying:

“The extent of our request for a candidate’s password, user name, or other internet information appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community. We appreciate the concern many citizens have expressed regarding this practice and apologize for the negative impact this issue is having on the City of Bozeman”

Conclusion

The city commissioners in Bozeman were right to overturn this policy. Leaving it in place would set a dangerous precedent. Religion, political affiliations and sexual orientation come to mind as pieces of information on Facebook profiles that an employer has no business knowing about employees. We doubt we’ll see many more cases like this incident. While people want jobs (especially these days), they also don’t want to work for organizations who would violate their privacy in such a personal way.

Tonight, Facebook has started testing a major revamp to Facebook search that promises to bring what many users and marketers have been clamoring for for a long time: live search of the News Feed and the public timeline.

Unlike the current Facebook search, which is pretty clunky in the way it organizes results, the new Facebook search is all about searching recently posted updates and content. Now, when you search on Facebook, you’ll get two sets of results:

1. Most recent posts by your friends
2. Most recent posts by all users who have made their profile open to everyone (including public profiles)

For example, here’s what a search on “Iran” would look like tonight:

If that looks very similar to Twitter Search, that’s because it is. However, the new Facebook search differs from Twitter in 2 important ways:

1. Updates from your friends come before updates from everyone.
2. All updates contain rich content in-line, from videos to music to thumbnails of shared links.

It’s important to note that updates from friends are usually private, and not on the public timeline. Although Facebook is making public timeline search available for the first time ever, it is still prioritizing communicating with friends above searching the public timeline in this iteration of Facebook search. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Inside Facebook earlier this year that the future of Facebook lies in a hybrid public/private sharing model.

Nevertheless, this marks a major step forward in the evolution of Facebook’s search services. Now, marketers and analysts will have another tool to monitor conversations on Facebook in addition to Facebook’s Lexicon tool, which only shows trends at a very high level. Facebook started allowing users to open up their profiles to everyone in March, in an attempt to better serve users who want to share their updates more openly as opposed to using Facebook’s robust privacy controls.

Facebook also has a search partnership with Microsoft, who also owns a 1.6% stake in Facebook, but we’re still awaiting word on whether Microsoft is contributing any search technology to the new Facebook search.

Facebook says the new version of search is open to only a “fraction of a percent of the people on Facebook” as it tests out the new features. We’ll keep tabs on how testing goes and let you know as Facebook rolls out its new search service more broadly.

Earlier this year, we first covered the news that Facebook had filed a federal lawsuit against famed “Spam King” Sanford Wallace, Adam Arzoomanian, and Scott Shaw for crimes under the CAN-SPAM Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and the California Anti-Phishing Act. Today, Facebook says Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in US District Court in San Jose that the case will proceed.

Wallace, making an unusual personal court appearance, filed for bankruptcy this morning. Nevertheless, Facebook, which has been fighting a number of phishing attacks and scams in recent months, says it intends to fully pursue Wallace and his associates. It sounds like Facebook wants to make a visible example out of Wallace as a deterrent against future scammers.

Wallace’s bankruptcy filing “is not unexpected and only delays our judgment temporarily,” a Facebook spokesperson told us. “We will continue to pursue the judgment and will be reviewing his filing very closely.”

“We see Fogel’s ruling as a strong deterrent against spammers. Spammers feel that they are immune from criminal prosecution. Fogel’s ruling demonstrates that judges will enforce restraining orders and spammers who violate them face criminal prosecution. This appears to have had an impact on Wallace who was in court today. To our knowledge, he has not appeared in any of the many previous cases against him.”

This is not the first time Wallace or Arzoomanian have been accused of malicious marketing practices on social networks. In May of 2008, MySpace won a $234 million judgment against Wallace and business partner Walter Rines for illegal spam and phishing attacks against MySpace users. Wallace has been actively building his “Spam King” reputation since 1997, having been charged with various federal crimes over the last decade.

Facebook’s original complaint, filed February 24, 2009, is embedded below.

With the announcement of the upcoming launch of Facebook usernames today, Facebook is taking another step toward strengthening identity on the site through vanity URLs. Now, user profiles pages will sit at URLs like facebook.com/Jenny instead of facebook.com/profile.php?id=12345678, which are much easier to understand and remember (and, great for SEO).

But Facebook usernames will also make it possible for users to tag each other through the use of an identifier like Twitter’s “@justinsmith” for the first time. The inability to address other users in a succinct way has always been a major limitation of Facebook status updates to date.

Now, Facebook users could easily tag other users (and Pages) in-line, without needing to attach a link or manually tag. This kind of addressable identity is one of the major strengths of Twitter.

This could mean a variety of interesting things for the future of Facebook usernames. For many users, Facebook usernames could eventually replace other email accounts for a broader range of messaging use cases. Eventually, Facebook usernames could become increasingly used across the web as unique identifiers through Facebook Connect.

For now, Facebook usernames will mainly strengthen identity within the site through URLs (and at the same time boost Facebook’s SEO). However, I expect we’ll be seeing them much more in the future.