RemoveFACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS FACEBOOK NEWS Facebook Pages We just launched an improved Notes application to make it easier to communicate on Facebook Pages.
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FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS New features include: formatting notes more easily with a familiar text editor, tagging Facebook Pages, and a cleaner layout to help you find relevant notes. Check it out!
New Tools for Facebook Notes | Facebook blog.facebook.com
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http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Since Facebook first launched Credits
Since Facebook first launched Credits, its own in-game virtual currency, for externally developed applications in May of 2009, app developers have been worried about the potential the hefty 30 percent fee Facebook charges for the currency and the potential that it might enforce their use for all apps.
But another group had been watching, and worrying about, Credits for much longer: payment and monetization companies. If Credits are made mandatory across Facebook, a whole swathe of payment companies started on the platform will be at risk.
One of those companies is Jambool, which was founded by two former Amazon.com payment executives. Despite the threat from Credits, Jambool is still hard at work with its Social Gold payment platform on Facebook and elsewhere; this morning, in fact, it’s releasing a significant update to its inventory management, Flash payment, analytics and other features.
However, CEO and co-founder Vikas Gupta has also made no secret of his opposition to Credits. Below, we interview Gupta to get an in-depth look at his arguments against the currency.
Note that some of the arguments below assume specific policies and actions from Facebook that the company has not yet made clear; we covered many of these uncertainties in our own June article.
Inside Social Games: You’ve said that you’re not completely against Credits.
Vikas Gupta: I think there are definitely some advantages to Credits, that we believe in and have always believed in. For example, I believe Credits as a store value system makes sense for certain kinds of purchases. Credits also does well at eliminating the need for a developer to have multiple different currencies around the world.
The third thing they have as an advantage is that more consumers would have trust and loyalty to Facebook with Credits. How much of an additional benefit that will have is the question, but it’s definitely an intangible benefit that we see Credits could bring. And from the user’s point of view there’s an advantage in being able to use their Credits across multiple applications.
ISG: OK, now let’s talk about the downsides. What’s the big picture?
VG: There are definitely cons to Facebook Credits as a universal currency. The first one is the way many of these games work — they’re mini-economies of their own. If you look at games like FarmVille, the currency is an integral part of the game.
Facebook has been saying that Credits will work like the Euro, which works across the European economies, but we believe that’s very wrong. Credits is a stored value system — the only people who participate are those who purchase credits.
Right now there are only 1-2 percent who will spend money to buy goods in a game. That’s a big distinction between this and a true economy. In a true economy it should be in the hands of 50-60 percent of the people. Facebook hasn’t seeded credits through its own platform — it is relying on the applications to help spread their adoption.
They have experimented with Credits on their site but we haven’t seen any of those experiments succeed — for example, they’ve even shut down the gift store. Developers are helping Facebook build the Credits, and it is evolving into a pre-paid stored value system, that as we discussed sits in the hands of a small percentage of the user base.
Facebook Credits doesn’t really work like the Euro — the applications do not contribute to the currency. As an example, problems in Greece’s economy resulted in the entire Euro being affected. However, any one application on the Facebook platform cannot disrupt Credits or any other application. Instead of a universal currency, it works as a stored value system — where users can buy credits from Facebook and spend it in applications.
ISG: What’s the difference between a real currency and what Facebook is doing, then?
VG: One example of a real currency is a [Second Life] Linden Dollar. It has many aspects in which it works like a real currency, there’s a lot more transparency into where people get it and what people can do with it. The Linden Dollar did not need an external ecosystem to build it — it evolved amongst its users and content. The way Credits work is more like prepaid cards. So how many people would buy prepaid cards anywhere?
Pre-paid systems have traditionally had limited success. They’ve had lower conversion and lower adoption because people have to commit to buying more up front, even though they don’t know how much they’ll spend or in what amounts. That leads to breakage. An example is Amazon gift certificates — you could buy them but there’s always a large amount of remnant value on the card that isn’t used. In an economy like this platform, that will lead to developers never seeing the value even though they created it.
ISG: Let’s move on to other potential problems with Credits.
VG: The second thing that has come up a lot is the fee. There’s a 30 percent fee, and this is the first time ever on the web that someone has taken such a high a fee for payments. People have taken that fee on closed platforms, but on the web it’s the first time. And when you add in things like breakage, it’s more like 50 percent.
And fraud is a very serious issue with Facebook. It’s not that fraud gets built into the 30 percent, and Facebook won’t issue money back to developers. The assumption is that Facebook is giving the Credits earnings to the game even if they’re generated from fraud. What we’re hearing is that’s not what’s happening. If the money came from fraud it never makes it to the game developer.
ISG: Let’s talk about some of these points in more depth, starting with the last. Isn’t fraud already a problem for developers?
VG: When I am building my game and people are buying my currency, I see the complete process end to end. When I see fraud, it affects me and I can manage and control that. But when people are coming through an intermediate step, it’s very difficult to figure out who perpetrated the fraud and how it affects any game using Credits.
ISG: So transparency is a problem in fraud. Is it also a problem elsewhere?
VG: When a user is playing my game, the user comes in and spends maybe $10. I know the fact that they spent $10, and that’s how much currency I’m giving away. When it comes to using a third party system, I don’t know what they spent overall, there’s just what they spent in my game. I don’t know how much the user could have spent in the game.
When the user spends $10 today I can actually change the game experience to get the gamer to spend all that currency in the game. I can’t do that as effectively when only Facebook knows how much they spent. That’s a bigger issue when, at the end of the month, you get paid and you don’t know anything about the users. It’s more effective when developers can see the end-to-end flow of money.
ISG: You brought up breakage. What are the issues around that?
VG: Right now, when a user knows they have money that can be spent across games, they’ll become very cautious about where they spend the money. There was a promotion in Hello City, in which they gave away 5 Credits. I got them, and never spent them — they’re in my account today. That’s because I know that I can spend it anywhere.
The thing with virtual currency is that it should feel very cheap. Now you have this system of currency that you can spend in other places, so users are perceiving value in it, and they don’t want to spend it as easily in a particular game. Users will be very cautious about where they actually spend the money, because they have the option to spend it on other games, not just the game they’re playing right now.
A less obvious problem is that on Facebook there have been a lot of similar games being built, farming games and so forth. In any genre there are multiple titles. For users there have been high switching costs, because a user who couldn’t switch their currency couldn’t move. Now you can have a game that convinced the user to spend money on virtual currency, but the user can take it elsewhere. The switching costs with currency, especially, have gone down. Can games keep users engaged, or can other developers take the users away along with the money they got them to spend?
ISG: Is Facebook justified in charging 30 percent?
VG: There has never been a precedent where someone took 30 percent on the web purely for payments. If it was done in a way that developers saw value, or if it was really cheap and easy, it would be understandable. But I think that we all know at this point that Facebook is not that straightforward for distribution — we all have to spend money on distribution. So you’re not just paying 30 percent for payments, you have to spend on top of that for advertising. If all I was doing was spending for distribution, it would be a lot easier, you’d have that extra 25 percent margin.
A big difference between Facebook and Apple or Microsoft is that there’s no other distribution channel other than Facebook itself. On the Xbox, if I’m building a game, I’m selling directly to users in the retail channel, and the distribution channel is up to me; the viral channels are not dependent on Microsoft. But here’s a platform that I’m dependent on for distribution as well as monetization — that’s a problem.
I believe we’ll start seeing that there will be a lack of motivation for people to build on Facebook. That’s a big thing we’ve seen in the last few months, that every developer is much more excited about building for off-Facebook distribution.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
But another group had been watching, and worrying about, Credits for much longer: payment and monetization companies. If Credits are made mandatory across Facebook, a whole swathe of payment companies started on the platform will be at risk.
One of those companies is Jambool, which was founded by two former Amazon.com payment executives. Despite the threat from Credits, Jambool is still hard at work with its Social Gold payment platform on Facebook and elsewhere; this morning, in fact, it’s releasing a significant update to its inventory management, Flash payment, analytics and other features.
However, CEO and co-founder Vikas Gupta has also made no secret of his opposition to Credits. Below, we interview Gupta to get an in-depth look at his arguments against the currency.
Note that some of the arguments below assume specific policies and actions from Facebook that the company has not yet made clear; we covered many of these uncertainties in our own June article.
Inside Social Games: You’ve said that you’re not completely against Credits.
Vikas Gupta: I think there are definitely some advantages to Credits, that we believe in and have always believed in. For example, I believe Credits as a store value system makes sense for certain kinds of purchases. Credits also does well at eliminating the need for a developer to have multiple different currencies around the world.
The third thing they have as an advantage is that more consumers would have trust and loyalty to Facebook with Credits. How much of an additional benefit that will have is the question, but it’s definitely an intangible benefit that we see Credits could bring. And from the user’s point of view there’s an advantage in being able to use their Credits across multiple applications.
ISG: OK, now let’s talk about the downsides. What’s the big picture?
VG: There are definitely cons to Facebook Credits as a universal currency. The first one is the way many of these games work — they’re mini-economies of their own. If you look at games like FarmVille, the currency is an integral part of the game.
Facebook has been saying that Credits will work like the Euro, which works across the European economies, but we believe that’s very wrong. Credits is a stored value system — the only people who participate are those who purchase credits.
Right now there are only 1-2 percent who will spend money to buy goods in a game. That’s a big distinction between this and a true economy. In a true economy it should be in the hands of 50-60 percent of the people. Facebook hasn’t seeded credits through its own platform — it is relying on the applications to help spread their adoption.
They have experimented with Credits on their site but we haven’t seen any of those experiments succeed — for example, they’ve even shut down the gift store. Developers are helping Facebook build the Credits, and it is evolving into a pre-paid stored value system, that as we discussed sits in the hands of a small percentage of the user base.
Facebook Credits doesn’t really work like the Euro — the applications do not contribute to the currency. As an example, problems in Greece’s economy resulted in the entire Euro being affected. However, any one application on the Facebook platform cannot disrupt Credits or any other application. Instead of a universal currency, it works as a stored value system — where users can buy credits from Facebook and spend it in applications.
ISG: What’s the difference between a real currency and what Facebook is doing, then?
VG: One example of a real currency is a [Second Life] Linden Dollar. It has many aspects in which it works like a real currency, there’s a lot more transparency into where people get it and what people can do with it. The Linden Dollar did not need an external ecosystem to build it — it evolved amongst its users and content. The way Credits work is more like prepaid cards. So how many people would buy prepaid cards anywhere?
Pre-paid systems have traditionally had limited success. They’ve had lower conversion and lower adoption because people have to commit to buying more up front, even though they don’t know how much they’ll spend or in what amounts. That leads to breakage. An example is Amazon gift certificates — you could buy them but there’s always a large amount of remnant value on the card that isn’t used. In an economy like this platform, that will lead to developers never seeing the value even though they created it.
ISG: Let’s move on to other potential problems with Credits.
VG: The second thing that has come up a lot is the fee. There’s a 30 percent fee, and this is the first time ever on the web that someone has taken such a high a fee for payments. People have taken that fee on closed platforms, but on the web it’s the first time. And when you add in things like breakage, it’s more like 50 percent.
And fraud is a very serious issue with Facebook. It’s not that fraud gets built into the 30 percent, and Facebook won’t issue money back to developers. The assumption is that Facebook is giving the Credits earnings to the game even if they’re generated from fraud. What we’re hearing is that’s not what’s happening. If the money came from fraud it never makes it to the game developer.
ISG: Let’s talk about some of these points in more depth, starting with the last. Isn’t fraud already a problem for developers?
VG: When I am building my game and people are buying my currency, I see the complete process end to end. When I see fraud, it affects me and I can manage and control that. But when people are coming through an intermediate step, it’s very difficult to figure out who perpetrated the fraud and how it affects any game using Credits.
ISG: So transparency is a problem in fraud. Is it also a problem elsewhere?
VG: When a user is playing my game, the user comes in and spends maybe $10. I know the fact that they spent $10, and that’s how much currency I’m giving away. When it comes to using a third party system, I don’t know what they spent overall, there’s just what they spent in my game. I don’t know how much the user could have spent in the game.
When the user spends $10 today I can actually change the game experience to get the gamer to spend all that currency in the game. I can’t do that as effectively when only Facebook knows how much they spent. That’s a bigger issue when, at the end of the month, you get paid and you don’t know anything about the users. It’s more effective when developers can see the end-to-end flow of money.
ISG: You brought up breakage. What are the issues around that?
VG: Right now, when a user knows they have money that can be spent across games, they’ll become very cautious about where they spend the money. There was a promotion in Hello City, in which they gave away 5 Credits. I got them, and never spent them — they’re in my account today. That’s because I know that I can spend it anywhere.
The thing with virtual currency is that it should feel very cheap. Now you have this system of currency that you can spend in other places, so users are perceiving value in it, and they don’t want to spend it as easily in a particular game. Users will be very cautious about where they actually spend the money, because they have the option to spend it on other games, not just the game they’re playing right now.
A less obvious problem is that on Facebook there have been a lot of similar games being built, farming games and so forth. In any genre there are multiple titles. For users there have been high switching costs, because a user who couldn’t switch their currency couldn’t move. Now you can have a game that convinced the user to spend money on virtual currency, but the user can take it elsewhere. The switching costs with currency, especially, have gone down. Can games keep users engaged, or can other developers take the users away along with the money they got them to spend?
ISG: Is Facebook justified in charging 30 percent?
VG: There has never been a precedent where someone took 30 percent on the web purely for payments. If it was done in a way that developers saw value, or if it was really cheap and easy, it would be understandable. But I think that we all know at this point that Facebook is not that straightforward for distribution — we all have to spend money on distribution. So you’re not just paying 30 percent for payments, you have to spend on top of that for advertising. If all I was doing was spending for distribution, it would be a lot easier, you’d have that extra 25 percent margin.
A big difference between Facebook and Apple or Microsoft is that there’s no other distribution channel other than Facebook itself. On the Xbox, if I’m building a game, I’m selling directly to users in the retail channel, and the distribution channel is up to me; the viral channels are not dependent on Microsoft. But here’s a platform that I’m dependent on for distribution as well as monetization — that’s a problem.
I believe we’ll start seeing that there will be a lack of motivation for people to build on Facebook. That’s a big thing we’ve seen in the last few months, that every developer is much more excited about building for off-Facebook distribution.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Facebook: "Tip from Facebook Security: On Facebook, there's no way to see who has visited your profile. We've also prevented others from providing this functionality. We're working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don't be fooled, and report it to us immediately."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Thursday, July 22, 2010
How To Secure Your Facebook Account In 5 Seconds
How To Secure Your Facebook Account In 5 Seconds: "« Free Facebook Credits Now Showing Up In GamesFacebook Launches Stories To Celebrate 500 Million Users »How To Secure Your Facebook Account In 5 Seconds
Posted by Nick O'Neill on July 21st, 2010 10:33 AMShare1343 11 Comments Want to keep your Facebook account safe from hackers? A little known feature in Facebook will help you stay on top of your Facebook account and everyone who’s accessing it. The feature, provides you with notifications every time a person accesses it from a new computer. You can receive both email and SMS notifications about the access. It’s a feature that Facebook doesn’t heavily broadcast, but it’s definitely useful. Here’s how to secure your account in 5 seconds.
Step 1
Log in to Facebook and simply click on the “Account” drop down in the top right corner of the site. Then click on “Account Settings” as pictured in the image below.
Step 2
After you are in your account settings, simply click on the “change” link directly next to “Account Security” toward the bottom of the page (as shown in the image below). From there you will be able to turn on notifications for each login that takes place from a new device.
You’re Done!
That’s it! You will now receive notifications every time someone logs in to your account from a new computer. Thanks a million to Mari Smith who pointed out this feature on here Facebook wall."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Posted by Nick O'Neill on July 21st, 2010 10:33 AMShare1343 11 Comments Want to keep your Facebook account safe from hackers? A little known feature in Facebook will help you stay on top of your Facebook account and everyone who’s accessing it. The feature, provides you with notifications every time a person accesses it from a new computer. You can receive both email and SMS notifications about the access. It’s a feature that Facebook doesn’t heavily broadcast, but it’s definitely useful. Here’s how to secure your account in 5 seconds.
Step 1
Log in to Facebook and simply click on the “Account” drop down in the top right corner of the site. Then click on “Account Settings” as pictured in the image below.
Step 2
After you are in your account settings, simply click on the “change” link directly next to “Account Security” toward the bottom of the page (as shown in the image below). From there you will be able to turn on notifications for each login that takes place from a new device.
You’re Done!
That’s it! You will now receive notifications every time someone logs in to your account from a new computer. Thanks a million to Mari Smith who pointed out this feature on here Facebook wall."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Top 20 Facebook Pages: Music, Big Brands, Celebrity and Bob MarleyJuly 20th, 2010
By Sara Inés Calderón 1 Comment » Share
Bob Marley made a surprise appearance on our list of Top 20 Facebook Pages this week, compiled by our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to a Page each week. It took between 942,800 and 438,000 fans to make the list this week and most were entertainment-related, although there were a few outliers and some official Page consolidation."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Sara Inés Calderón 1 Comment » Share
Bob Marley made a surprise appearance on our list of Top 20 Facebook Pages this week, compiled by our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to a Page each week. It took between 942,800 and 438,000 fans to make the list this week and most were entertainment-related, although there were a few outliers and some official Page consolidation."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "The original owner of an ad account may now “Add a User to This Ads Account” and assign them an access level, including “General User” with full control, or “Reports Only” which merely allows for monitoring of results but not editing of campaigns. In the text, Facebook reassures managers that adding others to a shared ads account won’t give anyone else access to their personal profile or other ads accounts they operate. This relieves privacy concerns, both personal, and for companies who share an ads account manager with other businesses.Top Gainers This Week
Name Fans Gain Gain, %
1. Family Guy 12,657,886 +942,791 +8.05
2. Facebook 13,345,516 +802,944 +6.40
3. House 10,110,166 +796,383 +8.55
4. Vin Diesel 11,678,073 +744,534 +6.81
5. The Twilight Saga 9,652,222 +704,959 +7.88
6. Bob Marley 6,614,497 +691,025 +11.67
7. Linkin Park 8,353,779 +681,533 +8.88
8. Starbucks 10,459,408 +620,257 +6.30
9. Shakira 5,012,217 +602,038 +13.65
10. Cristiano Ronaldo 8,325,181 +589,347 +7.62
11. Oreo 6,663,826 +518,367 +8.43
12. Red Bull 6,477,214 +517,411 +8.68
13. Adam Sandler 5,178,013 +503,794 +10.78
14. Justin Bieber 7,635,942 +500,912 +7.02
15. David Guetta 5,151,761 +484,568 +10.38
16. Taylor Swift 7,359,368 +478,310 +6.95
17. The Simpsons 3,801,326 +464,770 +13.93
18. Metallica 6,645,584 +459,318 +7.42
19. Drake 4,302,610 +448,626 +11.64
20. Barack Obama 10,909,764 +438,000 +4.18
First place this week was “Family Guy,” a popular Fox show that added 942,800 fans to grow to 12.6 million. Medical drama “House” took third place, adding 796,400 fans to total 10.1 million and “The Simpsons,” another Fox show, came in at number 17 by adding 464,800 fans to come out with 3.8 million.
There was also a group of big brands on the list this week.
Facebook came in second place, adding about 803,000 fans to pass 13.3 million; this week Microsoft launched a Facebook capability for its Outlook products. Starbucks, which was the first brand to earn 10 million Likes, added 620,300 fans to grow to 10.4 million this week. Starbucks is promoting an in-store coupon special for customers.
Oreo came in at 11, adding 518,400 fans to reach 6.3 million and is currently asking fans across the world to pose with its products to win a spot as the Page’s profile photo for fan of the week. Red Bull followed in twelfth place, adding 517,400 fans to hit the 6.4 million mark.
Movie- and celebrity-related Pages made up a chunk of the list, too.
Vin Diesel came in fourth, adding 744,500 fans to his Page last week to grow to 11.6 million with steady growth. “The Twilight Saga” followed at number 5, adding 705,000 fans to grow to 9.6 million, mostly by posting movie-related news.
Football (soccer) megastar Cristiano Ronaldo took tenth place, promoting himself with vacation photos and his endorsement advertisements, adding 589,300 fans to reach an 8.3 million audience. Comedian Adam Sandler’s Page seems to have benefited from official Page consolidation at number 13, as his Page grew by 504,000 fans to 5.1 million after not having been updated for a year. President Barack Obama, arguably a celebrity, also made the list at number 20, adding 438,000 fans to come in just under 11 million at 10.9 million Likes.
Finally, there were the musicians, who pretty much owned this list.
Bob Marley came in sixth, seemingly due to official Page consolidations, as there was huge growth on his Page but nothing spectacular happening on his Page to warrant 691,000 new fans. His Page totals 6.6 million. Linkin Park followed at number 7, adding 681,500 fans to grow to 8.3 million. Shakira took ninth place, adding 602,000 fans to pass 5 million mostly, it seemed, due to promotion of her World Cup song “Waka Waka.”
Then there was Justin Bieber, who came in at number 14, adding 501,000 fans to reach a base of 7.6 million. At number 15 was David Guetta, who added 484,600 fans to reach 5.1 million total, apparently partly because of his promoting a new collaboration with rapper Flo Rida. Taylor Swift followed at 16, adding 478,300 fans to her 7l.3 million total. Metallica at 18, adding 459,300 fans to a total of 6.6 million by promoting a music tour. Finally, Drake took the number 19 spot, adding 448,600 fans to now boast 4.3 million via promotion of his new album.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Name Fans Gain Gain, %
1. Family Guy 12,657,886 +942,791 +8.05
2. Facebook 13,345,516 +802,944 +6.40
3. House 10,110,166 +796,383 +8.55
4. Vin Diesel 11,678,073 +744,534 +6.81
5. The Twilight Saga 9,652,222 +704,959 +7.88
6. Bob Marley 6,614,497 +691,025 +11.67
7. Linkin Park 8,353,779 +681,533 +8.88
8. Starbucks 10,459,408 +620,257 +6.30
9. Shakira 5,012,217 +602,038 +13.65
10. Cristiano Ronaldo 8,325,181 +589,347 +7.62
11. Oreo 6,663,826 +518,367 +8.43
12. Red Bull 6,477,214 +517,411 +8.68
13. Adam Sandler 5,178,013 +503,794 +10.78
14. Justin Bieber 7,635,942 +500,912 +7.02
15. David Guetta 5,151,761 +484,568 +10.38
16. Taylor Swift 7,359,368 +478,310 +6.95
17. The Simpsons 3,801,326 +464,770 +13.93
18. Metallica 6,645,584 +459,318 +7.42
19. Drake 4,302,610 +448,626 +11.64
20. Barack Obama 10,909,764 +438,000 +4.18
First place this week was “Family Guy,” a popular Fox show that added 942,800 fans to grow to 12.6 million. Medical drama “House” took third place, adding 796,400 fans to total 10.1 million and “The Simpsons,” another Fox show, came in at number 17 by adding 464,800 fans to come out with 3.8 million.
There was also a group of big brands on the list this week.
Facebook came in second place, adding about 803,000 fans to pass 13.3 million; this week Microsoft launched a Facebook capability for its Outlook products. Starbucks, which was the first brand to earn 10 million Likes, added 620,300 fans to grow to 10.4 million this week. Starbucks is promoting an in-store coupon special for customers.
Oreo came in at 11, adding 518,400 fans to reach 6.3 million and is currently asking fans across the world to pose with its products to win a spot as the Page’s profile photo for fan of the week. Red Bull followed in twelfth place, adding 517,400 fans to hit the 6.4 million mark.
Movie- and celebrity-related Pages made up a chunk of the list, too.
Vin Diesel came in fourth, adding 744,500 fans to his Page last week to grow to 11.6 million with steady growth. “The Twilight Saga” followed at number 5, adding 705,000 fans to grow to 9.6 million, mostly by posting movie-related news.
Football (soccer) megastar Cristiano Ronaldo took tenth place, promoting himself with vacation photos and his endorsement advertisements, adding 589,300 fans to reach an 8.3 million audience. Comedian Adam Sandler’s Page seems to have benefited from official Page consolidation at number 13, as his Page grew by 504,000 fans to 5.1 million after not having been updated for a year. President Barack Obama, arguably a celebrity, also made the list at number 20, adding 438,000 fans to come in just under 11 million at 10.9 million Likes.
Finally, there were the musicians, who pretty much owned this list.
Bob Marley came in sixth, seemingly due to official Page consolidations, as there was huge growth on his Page but nothing spectacular happening on his Page to warrant 691,000 new fans. His Page totals 6.6 million. Linkin Park followed at number 7, adding 681,500 fans to grow to 8.3 million. Shakira took ninth place, adding 602,000 fans to pass 5 million mostly, it seemed, due to promotion of her World Cup song “Waka Waka.”
Then there was Justin Bieber, who came in at number 14, adding 501,000 fans to reach a base of 7.6 million. At number 15 was David Guetta, who added 484,600 fans to reach 5.1 million total, apparently partly because of his promoting a new collaboration with rapper Flo Rida. Taylor Swift followed at 16, adding 478,300 fans to her 7l.3 million total. Metallica at 18, adding 459,300 fans to a total of 6.6 million by promoting a music tour. Finally, Drake took the number 19 spot, adding 448,600 fans to now boast 4.3 million via promotion of his new album.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Facebook Allows Advertising Accounts to Have Multiple Users [Updated]July 20th, 2010
By Josh Constine 9 Comments » Share
Today, Facebook began to allow multiple personal accounts to be granted permission to access a single advertising account. Previously, an advertising account or campaign could only be accessed by a single personal account. This prevented cooperative management or transfer of control of an ad account, and led many advertisers to technically violate the Facebook terms of service by creating fake, generic personal accounts whose login info could be shared or reassigned.
[Update, 7/21/10: Some readers tell us that they're not getting access yet. Here's what commenter Aaron says he heard from Facebook support: “Unfortunately it’s still not ready and I don’t have a time frame as to when it will be available. I really apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we try to get it rolled out to advertisers.”]
The new addition has been one of the features most heavily requested by advertisers, we’ve heard, and will pave the way for orchestration of complex advertising campaigns by multiple managers working in parallel."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Josh Constine 9 Comments » Share
Today, Facebook began to allow multiple personal accounts to be granted permission to access a single advertising account. Previously, an advertising account or campaign could only be accessed by a single personal account. This prevented cooperative management or transfer of control of an ad account, and led many advertisers to technically violate the Facebook terms of service by creating fake, generic personal accounts whose login info could be shared or reassigned.
[Update, 7/21/10: Some readers tell us that they're not getting access yet. Here's what commenter Aaron says he heard from Facebook support: “Unfortunately it’s still not ready and I don’t have a time frame as to when it will be available. I really apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we try to get it rolled out to advertisers.”]
The new addition has been one of the features most heavily requested by advertisers, we’ve heard, and will pave the way for orchestration of complex advertising campaigns by multiple managers working in parallel."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Despite Controversy, Pencake Is the Largest Known Quiz Developer on FacebookJuly 20th, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
You’ve probably never heard of Pencake Limited, but the Hong Kong-based developer is the largest non-social gaming developer on Facebook — at least by monthly active users, as it now has 36.2 million, according to AppData. Why? It’s a quiz application developer, with more than 100 titles (and perhaps many more) in a variety of languages, that has managed to grow despite Facebook’s efforts to tune down these sorts of apps.
Founded in 2008, the company describes itself as a “marketing solutions provider” that makes custom quizzes, contests and other campaigns for other companies. Its web site currently lists a number of Asian brands as well as others like Microsoft and Olay as clients.
Pencake is most visible due to a series of core applications: Element Analyst, Friends Interview, Star of the Day, Five Friends Analyst, Gifts Creator, and Create Your Quiz.
Create Your Quiz alone sits atop the Pencake list with over 22.3 million monthly active users (followed distantly by Element Analyst Creator at 2.7 million). This has led to the creation of lots of quizzes, with each localized in over 20 languages, including Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French. This method of growth on the Facebook platform is not anything new. In fact, the Gift Creator and Create Your Quiz apps ought to ring a bell for long-time Facebook users.
Facebook has been making a few changes that have made these sorts of applications more visible. It has started associating many child quiz apps with the parent apps, which both shows these apps to be much bigger than they appeared before. More importantly for growth, it condensed multiple news feed stories from apps into single entries in news feeds, meaning that users had to click to see all of the news feed stories about the app.
Pencake has been, according to other developers, an especially aggressive quiz-maker, having been accused of many acts of spam on the Facebook developer forum (in fact, the company appears to be admitting to spamming in the Hong Kong press). However, when we asked the company, founder Terry Tsang said that it has stopped these practices, that it has been talking to Facebook, and that it continues to improve its apps. We’ve seen some user complaints, but we expect Facebook will take action if there are more problems.
The platform has been defined by developers pushing the limits of what Facebook offered in every way possible. The company has had to scale back many features, like third-party notifications, because developers have abused them. Given the years of back and forth on platform design and regulation, it’s surprising to see a company like Pencake get this far.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
You’ve probably never heard of Pencake Limited, but the Hong Kong-based developer is the largest non-social gaming developer on Facebook — at least by monthly active users, as it now has 36.2 million, according to AppData. Why? It’s a quiz application developer, with more than 100 titles (and perhaps many more) in a variety of languages, that has managed to grow despite Facebook’s efforts to tune down these sorts of apps.
Founded in 2008, the company describes itself as a “marketing solutions provider” that makes custom quizzes, contests and other campaigns for other companies. Its web site currently lists a number of Asian brands as well as others like Microsoft and Olay as clients.
Pencake is most visible due to a series of core applications: Element Analyst, Friends Interview, Star of the Day, Five Friends Analyst, Gifts Creator, and Create Your Quiz.
Create Your Quiz alone sits atop the Pencake list with over 22.3 million monthly active users (followed distantly by Element Analyst Creator at 2.7 million). This has led to the creation of lots of quizzes, with each localized in over 20 languages, including Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French. This method of growth on the Facebook platform is not anything new. In fact, the Gift Creator and Create Your Quiz apps ought to ring a bell for long-time Facebook users.
Facebook has been making a few changes that have made these sorts of applications more visible. It has started associating many child quiz apps with the parent apps, which both shows these apps to be much bigger than they appeared before. More importantly for growth, it condensed multiple news feed stories from apps into single entries in news feeds, meaning that users had to click to see all of the news feed stories about the app.
Pencake has been, according to other developers, an especially aggressive quiz-maker, having been accused of many acts of spam on the Facebook developer forum (in fact, the company appears to be admitting to spamming in the Hong Kong press). However, when we asked the company, founder Terry Tsang said that it has stopped these practices, that it has been talking to Facebook, and that it continues to improve its apps. We’ve seen some user complaints, but we expect Facebook will take action if there are more problems.
The platform has been defined by developers pushing the limits of what Facebook offered in every way possible. The company has had to scale back many features, like third-party notifications, because developers have abused them. Given the years of back and forth on platform design and regulation, it’s surprising to see a company like Pencake get this far.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Wildfire is launching a Groupon or LivingSocial Deals-style application on Facebook this week, called Group Deals. It’s designed to allow brand Page administrators to set up group promotions on a Facebook Page within a matter of minutes, then get their discount offers shared among friends.
Group Deals works for Facebook Pages and via Facebook Connect like the others — group discounts require a minimum number of participants in order to be profitable for the business, and Facebook provides distribution to make that happen.
Wildfire’s product costs at least 99 cents a day to run, and provides a variety of pricing and customization capabilities. Setting up a Group Deal on Facebook via the Wildfire social application wizard is designed to be fast and simple, requiring three parameters: the value of the deal, the critical mass of takers needed for the deal to activate and the time period during which the deal will be valid."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Group Deals works for Facebook Pages and via Facebook Connect like the others — group discounts require a minimum number of participants in order to be profitable for the business, and Facebook provides distribution to make that happen.
Wildfire’s product costs at least 99 cents a day to run, and provides a variety of pricing and customization capabilities. Setting up a Group Deal on Facebook via the Wildfire social application wizard is designed to be fast and simple, requiring three parameters: the value of the deal, the critical mass of takers needed for the deal to activate and the time period during which the deal will be valid."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FACEBOOK MOVIE
The first few years of Facebook’s existence has already been closely scrutinized in court and in the media. This fall, there’s even a feature-length movie coming out about one version. The common theme is that, during late 2003 and early 2004, founder Mark Zuckerberg was both working on his own Facebook precursor sites while talking or even working with rivals. But now all of those stories could be getting updated, if claims in a new court case against Facebook turn out to be true.
During his sophomore year at Harvard, in late 2003, Zuckerberg became famous for launching a site called Facemash. A college version of Hot or Not, it scraped students’ names and photos from university sources, then asked students to rank each others’ photos for attractiveness.
Aaron Greenspan, meanwhile, had launched a student web portal of sorts called houseSYSTEM, that he says he discussed with Zuckerberg in great detail over the course of the fall. By the end of the year, Zuckerberg was also doing contract work for HarvardConnection, a site intended to serve as a student portal, per an oral contract agreement. Greenspan has up to this point laid claim to the earliest date, having launched his houseSYSTEM site on August 1st of that year.
The new court case implies that Zuckerberg was actually working on “The Face Book” back in the spring of 2003, apparently before any of the others.
A wood-pellet company owner named Paul Ceglia is suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in New York federal court, claiming that the two had an agreement whereby Ceglia would get a large ownership portion of a Zuckerberg project called “The Face Book.” The two signed the agreement on April 28, 2003.
Ceglia was a designer at the time, looking for Zuckerberg’s help on a separate project, and happened to sign on for a good chunk of Facebook stock as part of a contractor agreement. Or so the story went in New York today, as Bloomberg reports:
[Ceglia lawyer Terrence Connors] told the judge that Ceglia was a Web designer trying to develop a project called “StreetFax” in the spring of 2003. Ceglia’s plan was to put millions of photos of streets into a database and charge insurers money to access it.
“What he needed was a coder,” Connors told the judge.
Ceglia solicited bids to do the work. The lowest bidder was Zuckerberg, then a Harvard freshman. Zuckerberg said he would do the job for $1,000, Connors said.
“But I’ve got a project of my own,” Connors said Zuckerberg told his client. “I’m developing an online yearbook for Harvard kids now, but I’m thinking of expanding it.”
The contract was intended to cover the coding work on StreetFax and Ceglia’s investment in Zuckerberg’s “fledgling project,” Connors said. “Who knew then that it would turn into what it is today?”
VentureBeat has taken a closer look at the documents submitted by Ceglia. Although riddled with typos, and in parts not clearly phrased — it refers to Ceglia being granted ownership of the software language that Zuckerberg was to use, for example, rather than the code — it would give him most of Facebook’s shares. From VentureBeat:
The contract itself says that Ceglia agreed to pay Zuckerberg $1,000 for StreetFax and $1,000 for another project called PageBook. The contract also mentions an expanded project called The Facebook to be completed by January 2004, saying “an additional 1% interest in the business will be due the buyer for each day the website is delayed from that date.”
Ceglia attached a $1,000 receipt from his checkbook, dated six months after the contract, as evidence that he paid Zuckerberg for his work. But it wasn’t the full $2,000 amount and the agreement doesn’t describe what happens if there is a default.
Facebook, for its part, has not yet completely denied the specific claims. In court, one of the company’s lawyers confirmed that Zuckerberg did have a contract with Ceglia, but also said that there are “many substantial questions surrounding the authenticity” of the particular document provided by Ceglia, and was “unsure” such as whether Zuckerberg had actually signed it.
The company’s general statement on Ceglia’s claim sounds confident, in any case: “We believe this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously.”
Whether or not the document is real, Ceglia’s case has other problems, beyond some of vague phrasing. For example, his claim is more than six years old, seemingly disqualifying it under New York’s statute of limitations. And his document oddly has Zuckerberg using the term “Facebook” nine months before Zuckerberg actively began using the term. Legal experts have noted both as major issues. And Ceglia himself has been in trouble with the law recently, getting arrested for failure to fulfill wood pellet orders after having taken their money — maybe he was just having business problems, but the timing makes his Facebook suit (and character) look more suspicious.
Given the many frivolous lawsuits brought against major companies, only to be summarily dismissed, one wouldn’t be surprised to see the judge relegate Ceglia’s claims to the same category. But if the document does somehow turn out to be authentic, Facebook’s legal team will no doubt contest its language, the time-lapse, and anything else it can find, and look for a quick settlement. We have a hard time seeing Ceglia’s desired outcome — 84% ownership of Facebook — ever happening.
And, if the claim is found true, there’s another twist coming: the Harvard Connection (now ConnectU) team and Greenspan will need to explain how Zuckerberg was working on his idea many months before they say he stole it from them. Sure, ConnectU’s long-running lawsuit is mostly done, and Greenspan has moved on to other projects, but ConnectU’s version of events appears slated for a retelling in The Social Network, the new movie coming out on October 1st of this year. The new headlines about the Celia case — which, to our knowledge is not addressed in the movie — might confuse the movie’s plot, or at least its audiences.
If Ceglia’s case turns out to be somewhat true, but not true enough to give Ceglia anything like the stock he wants, the result could be an odd sort of public relations win for Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
During his sophomore year at Harvard, in late 2003, Zuckerberg became famous for launching a site called Facemash. A college version of Hot or Not, it scraped students’ names and photos from university sources, then asked students to rank each others’ photos for attractiveness.
Aaron Greenspan, meanwhile, had launched a student web portal of sorts called houseSYSTEM, that he says he discussed with Zuckerberg in great detail over the course of the fall. By the end of the year, Zuckerberg was also doing contract work for HarvardConnection, a site intended to serve as a student portal, per an oral contract agreement. Greenspan has up to this point laid claim to the earliest date, having launched his houseSYSTEM site on August 1st of that year.
The new court case implies that Zuckerberg was actually working on “The Face Book” back in the spring of 2003, apparently before any of the others.
A wood-pellet company owner named Paul Ceglia is suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in New York federal court, claiming that the two had an agreement whereby Ceglia would get a large ownership portion of a Zuckerberg project called “The Face Book.” The two signed the agreement on April 28, 2003.
Ceglia was a designer at the time, looking for Zuckerberg’s help on a separate project, and happened to sign on for a good chunk of Facebook stock as part of a contractor agreement. Or so the story went in New York today, as Bloomberg reports:
[Ceglia lawyer Terrence Connors] told the judge that Ceglia was a Web designer trying to develop a project called “StreetFax” in the spring of 2003. Ceglia’s plan was to put millions of photos of streets into a database and charge insurers money to access it.
“What he needed was a coder,” Connors told the judge.
Ceglia solicited bids to do the work. The lowest bidder was Zuckerberg, then a Harvard freshman. Zuckerberg said he would do the job for $1,000, Connors said.
“But I’ve got a project of my own,” Connors said Zuckerberg told his client. “I’m developing an online yearbook for Harvard kids now, but I’m thinking of expanding it.”
The contract was intended to cover the coding work on StreetFax and Ceglia’s investment in Zuckerberg’s “fledgling project,” Connors said. “Who knew then that it would turn into what it is today?”
VentureBeat has taken a closer look at the documents submitted by Ceglia. Although riddled with typos, and in parts not clearly phrased — it refers to Ceglia being granted ownership of the software language that Zuckerberg was to use, for example, rather than the code — it would give him most of Facebook’s shares. From VentureBeat:
The contract itself says that Ceglia agreed to pay Zuckerberg $1,000 for StreetFax and $1,000 for another project called PageBook. The contract also mentions an expanded project called The Facebook to be completed by January 2004, saying “an additional 1% interest in the business will be due the buyer for each day the website is delayed from that date.”
Ceglia attached a $1,000 receipt from his checkbook, dated six months after the contract, as evidence that he paid Zuckerberg for his work. But it wasn’t the full $2,000 amount and the agreement doesn’t describe what happens if there is a default.
Facebook, for its part, has not yet completely denied the specific claims. In court, one of the company’s lawyers confirmed that Zuckerberg did have a contract with Ceglia, but also said that there are “many substantial questions surrounding the authenticity” of the particular document provided by Ceglia, and was “unsure” such as whether Zuckerberg had actually signed it.
The company’s general statement on Ceglia’s claim sounds confident, in any case: “We believe this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously.”
Whether or not the document is real, Ceglia’s case has other problems, beyond some of vague phrasing. For example, his claim is more than six years old, seemingly disqualifying it under New York’s statute of limitations. And his document oddly has Zuckerberg using the term “Facebook” nine months before Zuckerberg actively began using the term. Legal experts have noted both as major issues. And Ceglia himself has been in trouble with the law recently, getting arrested for failure to fulfill wood pellet orders after having taken their money — maybe he was just having business problems, but the timing makes his Facebook suit (and character) look more suspicious.
Given the many frivolous lawsuits brought against major companies, only to be summarily dismissed, one wouldn’t be surprised to see the judge relegate Ceglia’s claims to the same category. But if the document does somehow turn out to be authentic, Facebook’s legal team will no doubt contest its language, the time-lapse, and anything else it can find, and look for a quick settlement. We have a hard time seeing Ceglia’s desired outcome — 84% ownership of Facebook — ever happening.
And, if the claim is found true, there’s another twist coming: the Harvard Connection (now ConnectU) team and Greenspan will need to explain how Zuckerberg was working on his idea many months before they say he stole it from them. Sure, ConnectU’s long-running lawsuit is mostly done, and Greenspan has moved on to other projects, but ConnectU’s version of events appears slated for a retelling in The Social Network, the new movie coming out on October 1st of this year. The new headlines about the Celia case — which, to our knowledge is not addressed in the movie — might confuse the movie’s plot, or at least its audiences.
If Ceglia’s case turns out to be somewhat true, but not true enough to give Ceglia anything like the stock he wants, the result could be an odd sort of public relations win for Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Who’s Using Facebook’s Top Apps?
Who’s Using Facebook’s Top Apps? Newer Games Attract More Older WomenJuly 22nd, 2010
By Chris Morrison Add Comment » Share
[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Visit Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]
Last month we shared data for selected Facebook apps that showed diverse audiences across some of the top social gaming titles on the social network. Today we’re following up with stats on another popular set of games that have one key difference: they’re much newer than those we examined in June.
We chose four: FrontierVille and Treasure Isle, both by Zynga; Social City by Playdom; and Hotel City by Playfish. All date back no earlier than March. Looking at newer games allows us to gain some insight into how the audience has changed in the hectic first half of this year.
The first and most obvious insight we came across is that these apps, among the most popular of 2010, have a higher percentage of women than our last sample, which found about a 60/40 split between women and men:
As you can see, the gender distribution has swung even more strongly toward women. In part, this is because there have been few male-friendly hits released this year, like Zynga’s classic Texas HoldEm Poker.
Here’s how the breakdowns look for all four apps:
Women have long been the dominant force in the casual gaming industry, helping to produce estrogen-friendly hits like Diner Dash. While it’s also common knowledge that women play games in greater numbers on Facebook as well, the divide appears to be becoming starker than it was last year.
Of course, the force in casual gaming isn’t just women; it’s middle-aged women. Our next chart shows the age distribution for each of the four games:
Here, we have an interesting split. While the Zynga and Playfish games are almost identical in their age splits (Treasure Isle was exempted for clarity, but is very similar to FrontierVille), Hotel City stands out from the pack with a much younger audience.
Without the presence of Hotel City, it might seem that Facebook gaming is destined for the same almost exclusively female and older audience that casual games target. However, it’s entirely possible that developers are simply playing to the largest audience, while underserving the men and younger players.
For marketers, these results are also notable, for their suggestion that young people and kids who are gaming are moving (or being pushed) into more niche titles — even Hotel City, with its huge base of 8.3 million monthly active users, is smaller than the other games shown above.
The full demographic breakdown by app, as well as extensive audience demographic data for Facebook’s markets around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Applications, Games, Marketing, Metrics
Facebook’s Hires This Week: Austin, Google and eBayJuly 22nd, 2010
By Sara Inés Calderón Add Comment » Share
Facebook hired people for its sales, analytics and human resources teams this week from competitors like Google and eBay. Our weekly list is derived from LinkedIn. In alphabetical order, here are the new employees:
•Chris Burton will be working as a recruiter for Facebook in Austin and previously worked as an account manager at TEKsystems, and similar positions at Robert Half International, ConsumerReview, CBS Sportsline and PointCast.
•Fred Leach has joined the advertising measurement team and has worked at Better Place, Inc. and Google.
•Scott Lewis has joined Facebook as a risk and compliance analyst and comes from a similar position at eBay. he’s also worked at Deloitte & Touche, S. Lewis Design and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
•Ritesh Mehta is now part of Facebook’s platform operations and comes from a position in enterprise online sales and operations at Google.
•Kate Simpson joined Facebook this week as part of the online sales operations team. She did similar work at ad2-one and as an agency relationship manager at Google.
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Filed in Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy
RockYou Also Signs on to Exclusive Five-Year Deal for Facebook CreditsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
Last week, RockYou began telling users (and us) about its plans to make Credits the exclusive payment option in its Facebook applications. Today, the company has gone further, announcing a five-year deal to exclusively use Facebook’s in-house virtual currency on the platform.
RockYou is one of the largest developers on the platform, with around 34.6 million monthly active users and 2.70 million daily active users, according to AppData. By getting this commitment, Facebook is ensuring that the company’s user base will start using the currency, thereby furthering its reach across the platform.
Facebook intends for Credits to get more users buying more virtual goods on third party applications than they have through third party payment options. It is experimenting with a variety of promotions to help spur the currency along, including giveaways, and special advertising for third-party developers who adopt it — also signing up other developers to exclusive five-year deals, including CrowdStar and Lolapps.
Meanwhile, some developers have balked at Credits, because Facebook takes a 30% cut — whereas it has taken 0% up until now — and because the implementation of Credits can create additional costs for developers.
For more, see our coverage from last week about RockYou’s Credits integration.
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Filed in Applications, Business, Credits, Monetization, Payments
Facebook Adds Team Focused on Games and Plans New Communication ChannelsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
More big changes are coming to Facebook’s communication channels this year, as Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor told us in an interview recently. They’re worth a closer look, as they’re likely to impact all developers, and especially social game developers.
The first is an automated spam filter for all Facebook communication channels. Granted, the spam problem has lessened as Facebook has removed some entirely, like notifications, or scaled back others, like news feed stories and requests. Here’s the relevant excerpt, from Taylor:
So rather than saying you’re not allowed to do X, Y, and Z with a dialog box in your game, if you’re sending useless messages from your game, we just won’t deliver them, and we’ll give you that feedback. And then you can change the way you send messages to send higher signal-to-noise content. This is something that we just haven’t invested enough in, but we now have a very large team working on spam and quality. That will touch all of our communication channels, and news feed. This is going to be a year-long project though, because we’re not going to remove the policies until we know that the system that replaces it is high quality.
Expect Facebook to start sharing more about its plans here in the coming months. If it wasn’t obvious already, given Facebook’s changes to date, developers should think about how to provide useful communication in their apps.
But it’s not just more automated punishment ahead. Taylor also said that the company is giving social gaming a new focus, describing games as a “killer app” on the platform.
> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.
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Filed in Applications, Business
User Survey Results: What Do Young Female Users Think of the Facebook Privacy Debate?July 21st, 2010
By Chris Morrison 1 Comment » Share
[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Visit Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]
Facebook privacy is a big issue — at least to some people. In our latest user survey, we set out to research whether ordinary Facebook users are concerned about the social network’s changing privacy policies.
A quick recap on the issue: Facebook has repeatedly run into criticism over user privacy following various product launches, including news feeds, Connect, and the ill-fated ad platform Beacon. This May, public anger at Facebook appeared to reach a fever pitch as the company released new features that would bring up user information on external websites like Yelp and Pandora.
We covered the issues exhaustively on Inside Facebook. However, even our coverage left a question open: do ordinary users care? The loudest voices against Facebook came from the tech community, which one might reasonably expect to have high expectations for being able to customize privacy options. Other users, with less web expertise (and without megaphones) may not feel very strongly.
This question is an important one for brand advertisers, marketers, app developers and other websites that plan to integrate social features. All of these groups are eager for more contact with Facebook’s half-billion users, but they also need to know where the comfort boundaries are.
Below, we focus specifically on survey responses from several dozen female users who are mostly under 25 — an age group one might expect to be fairly tech-savvy.
Our broadest question about Facebook privacy turned up only a small group, 25 percent, that was concerned. A plurality, 39 percent, were neutral, while about an equal number, 36 percent, felt comfortable with the privacy of their information on Facebook.
Interestingly, another question we posed to users (full results are only available on Inside Facebook Gold) shows a change toward a more neutral opinion when we asked specifically about Facebook’s efforts.
Below we asked about user’s confidence levels in using the privacy tools Facebook provides:
Here, a full 50 percent of users have only a moderate level of confidence that they know how to use the tools. This contrasts with another finding, which showed that users were by and large happy with the tools.
This is an area that Facebook could certainly improve upon; many users have been confused about how to add or remove specific information from their pages. Facebook’s regular redesigns likely make this task more difficult.
However, the picture is by and large one of satisfaction. While there is a significant minority, at least of young female users, who feel that privacy is a problem on Facebook, that user group is not currently sizeable enough that it should cause Facebook serious concern — although as we’ve already seen, new problems are only a redesign away.
What does this demographic of users think of privacy on a feature-specific level, and what changes (if any) have they made in how they interact with Facebook? The full results of this survey, as well as extensive demographic data for Facebook’s audiences around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Advertising, Facebook, Metrics
Facebook Releases C# SDKJuly 21st, 2010
By Mike Knoop 2 Comments » Share
Recently Facebook announced the alpha release of their new C# SDK. This release marks the first C# SDK produced by Facebook, “built to meet the needs of the significant community of Facebook developers using C#”. The new C# SDK has several features, according to Andrew Gode who built it during a recent Facebook hackathon:
•Works with both Web (ASP.NET) and desktop applications.
•Uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication.
•Supports a convenient way of making calls to the new Graph API using the OAuth 2.0 access token.
Notably, C# is a primary platform for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. Facebook already has an iPhone and Android SDK, so a C# SDK fits well. No word from Facebook on whether this alpha release adheres to the differences between C# for Microsoft’s upcoming mobile operating system and its web/desktop counterpart.
Developers can access and download the Facebook C# SDK from Github today. As this is an alpha release, feedback and support are welcomed.
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Filed in Applications, Development
Facebook Announces 500 Million Users, Stories and Thanks ApplicationsJuly 21st, 2010
By Eric Eldon 3 Comments » Share
Facebook says it has reached 500 million monthly active users “as of this morning,” according to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. In a blog post today, he also announced a new in-house Stories application that features positive stories from users around the world, relating how they did things like reunited with long-lost family members through the service. Another application, a photo album of sorts called Thanks, shows Zuckerberg and company employees thanking everyone for using the service.
From his post:
We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world. These stories include:
Ben Saylor, a 17-year-old high school student, who turned to Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who, during his time in office, would go jogging with 100 of his fans from Facebook.
Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.
Here are some more details on the app. There are dozens of themes including “Love” and “College.” A “popular” section will feature the stories with the most likes. Other companies, 31 in total, are featuring some Stories as tabs within their own Pages. And the app is going to be around for awhile: “A team from Facebook will be hitting the open road in the U.S. to meet the people, towns and organizations behind these stories in our first Facebook Stories road trip. We’ll be sharing more details of the trip and initial stops in future posts on this blog and the Facebook Page. Finally, note the Bing integration, as it’s another example of Facebook working with strategic partner Microsoft.
Facebook’s rapid growth in the past few years has made it one of the largest web sites in the world — it gained 100 million users in the last 5 months, by its own measure. That success has also made it a big new target for everyone else in the world, from rival businesses to lawyers, politicians, pundits and even religious leaders. The application is a way for the company to remind everyone that it has grown to 500 million users because its products provide special value to people.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Chris Morrison Add Comment » Share
[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Visit Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]
Last month we shared data for selected Facebook apps that showed diverse audiences across some of the top social gaming titles on the social network. Today we’re following up with stats on another popular set of games that have one key difference: they’re much newer than those we examined in June.
We chose four: FrontierVille and Treasure Isle, both by Zynga; Social City by Playdom; and Hotel City by Playfish. All date back no earlier than March. Looking at newer games allows us to gain some insight into how the audience has changed in the hectic first half of this year.
The first and most obvious insight we came across is that these apps, among the most popular of 2010, have a higher percentage of women than our last sample, which found about a 60/40 split between women and men:
As you can see, the gender distribution has swung even more strongly toward women. In part, this is because there have been few male-friendly hits released this year, like Zynga’s classic Texas HoldEm Poker.
Here’s how the breakdowns look for all four apps:
Women have long been the dominant force in the casual gaming industry, helping to produce estrogen-friendly hits like Diner Dash. While it’s also common knowledge that women play games in greater numbers on Facebook as well, the divide appears to be becoming starker than it was last year.
Of course, the force in casual gaming isn’t just women; it’s middle-aged women. Our next chart shows the age distribution for each of the four games:
Here, we have an interesting split. While the Zynga and Playfish games are almost identical in their age splits (Treasure Isle was exempted for clarity, but is very similar to FrontierVille), Hotel City stands out from the pack with a much younger audience.
Without the presence of Hotel City, it might seem that Facebook gaming is destined for the same almost exclusively female and older audience that casual games target. However, it’s entirely possible that developers are simply playing to the largest audience, while underserving the men and younger players.
For marketers, these results are also notable, for their suggestion that young people and kids who are gaming are moving (or being pushed) into more niche titles — even Hotel City, with its huge base of 8.3 million monthly active users, is smaller than the other games shown above.
The full demographic breakdown by app, as well as extensive audience demographic data for Facebook’s markets around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Applications, Games, Marketing, Metrics
Facebook’s Hires This Week: Austin, Google and eBayJuly 22nd, 2010
By Sara Inés Calderón Add Comment » Share
Facebook hired people for its sales, analytics and human resources teams this week from competitors like Google and eBay. Our weekly list is derived from LinkedIn. In alphabetical order, here are the new employees:
•Chris Burton will be working as a recruiter for Facebook in Austin and previously worked as an account manager at TEKsystems, and similar positions at Robert Half International, ConsumerReview, CBS Sportsline and PointCast.
•Fred Leach has joined the advertising measurement team and has worked at Better Place, Inc. and Google.
•Scott Lewis has joined Facebook as a risk and compliance analyst and comes from a similar position at eBay. he’s also worked at Deloitte & Touche, S. Lewis Design and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
•Ritesh Mehta is now part of Facebook’s platform operations and comes from a position in enterprise online sales and operations at Google.
•Kate Simpson joined Facebook this week as part of the online sales operations team. She did similar work at ad2-one and as an agency relationship manager at Google.
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Filed in Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy
RockYou Also Signs on to Exclusive Five-Year Deal for Facebook CreditsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
Last week, RockYou began telling users (and us) about its plans to make Credits the exclusive payment option in its Facebook applications. Today, the company has gone further, announcing a five-year deal to exclusively use Facebook’s in-house virtual currency on the platform.
RockYou is one of the largest developers on the platform, with around 34.6 million monthly active users and 2.70 million daily active users, according to AppData. By getting this commitment, Facebook is ensuring that the company’s user base will start using the currency, thereby furthering its reach across the platform.
Facebook intends for Credits to get more users buying more virtual goods on third party applications than they have through third party payment options. It is experimenting with a variety of promotions to help spur the currency along, including giveaways, and special advertising for third-party developers who adopt it — also signing up other developers to exclusive five-year deals, including CrowdStar and Lolapps.
Meanwhile, some developers have balked at Credits, because Facebook takes a 30% cut — whereas it has taken 0% up until now — and because the implementation of Credits can create additional costs for developers.
For more, see our coverage from last week about RockYou’s Credits integration.
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Filed in Applications, Business, Credits, Monetization, Payments
Facebook Adds Team Focused on Games and Plans New Communication ChannelsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
More big changes are coming to Facebook’s communication channels this year, as Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor told us in an interview recently. They’re worth a closer look, as they’re likely to impact all developers, and especially social game developers.
The first is an automated spam filter for all Facebook communication channels. Granted, the spam problem has lessened as Facebook has removed some entirely, like notifications, or scaled back others, like news feed stories and requests. Here’s the relevant excerpt, from Taylor:
So rather than saying you’re not allowed to do X, Y, and Z with a dialog box in your game, if you’re sending useless messages from your game, we just won’t deliver them, and we’ll give you that feedback. And then you can change the way you send messages to send higher signal-to-noise content. This is something that we just haven’t invested enough in, but we now have a very large team working on spam and quality. That will touch all of our communication channels, and news feed. This is going to be a year-long project though, because we’re not going to remove the policies until we know that the system that replaces it is high quality.
Expect Facebook to start sharing more about its plans here in the coming months. If it wasn’t obvious already, given Facebook’s changes to date, developers should think about how to provide useful communication in their apps.
But it’s not just more automated punishment ahead. Taylor also said that the company is giving social gaming a new focus, describing games as a “killer app” on the platform.
> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.
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Filed in Applications, Business
User Survey Results: What Do Young Female Users Think of the Facebook Privacy Debate?July 21st, 2010
By Chris Morrison 1 Comment » Share
[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Visit Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]
Facebook privacy is a big issue — at least to some people. In our latest user survey, we set out to research whether ordinary Facebook users are concerned about the social network’s changing privacy policies.
A quick recap on the issue: Facebook has repeatedly run into criticism over user privacy following various product launches, including news feeds, Connect, and the ill-fated ad platform Beacon. This May, public anger at Facebook appeared to reach a fever pitch as the company released new features that would bring up user information on external websites like Yelp and Pandora.
We covered the issues exhaustively on Inside Facebook. However, even our coverage left a question open: do ordinary users care? The loudest voices against Facebook came from the tech community, which one might reasonably expect to have high expectations for being able to customize privacy options. Other users, with less web expertise (and without megaphones) may not feel very strongly.
This question is an important one for brand advertisers, marketers, app developers and other websites that plan to integrate social features. All of these groups are eager for more contact with Facebook’s half-billion users, but they also need to know where the comfort boundaries are.
Below, we focus specifically on survey responses from several dozen female users who are mostly under 25 — an age group one might expect to be fairly tech-savvy.
Our broadest question about Facebook privacy turned up only a small group, 25 percent, that was concerned. A plurality, 39 percent, were neutral, while about an equal number, 36 percent, felt comfortable with the privacy of their information on Facebook.
Interestingly, another question we posed to users (full results are only available on Inside Facebook Gold) shows a change toward a more neutral opinion when we asked specifically about Facebook’s efforts.
Below we asked about user’s confidence levels in using the privacy tools Facebook provides:
Here, a full 50 percent of users have only a moderate level of confidence that they know how to use the tools. This contrasts with another finding, which showed that users were by and large happy with the tools.
This is an area that Facebook could certainly improve upon; many users have been confused about how to add or remove specific information from their pages. Facebook’s regular redesigns likely make this task more difficult.
However, the picture is by and large one of satisfaction. While there is a significant minority, at least of young female users, who feel that privacy is a problem on Facebook, that user group is not currently sizeable enough that it should cause Facebook serious concern — although as we’ve already seen, new problems are only a redesign away.
What does this demographic of users think of privacy on a feature-specific level, and what changes (if any) have they made in how they interact with Facebook? The full results of this survey, as well as extensive demographic data for Facebook’s audiences around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Advertising, Facebook, Metrics
Facebook Releases C# SDKJuly 21st, 2010
By Mike Knoop 2 Comments » Share
Recently Facebook announced the alpha release of their new C# SDK. This release marks the first C# SDK produced by Facebook, “built to meet the needs of the significant community of Facebook developers using C#”. The new C# SDK has several features, according to Andrew Gode who built it during a recent Facebook hackathon:
•Works with both Web (ASP.NET) and desktop applications.
•Uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication.
•Supports a convenient way of making calls to the new Graph API using the OAuth 2.0 access token.
Notably, C# is a primary platform for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. Facebook already has an iPhone and Android SDK, so a C# SDK fits well. No word from Facebook on whether this alpha release adheres to the differences between C# for Microsoft’s upcoming mobile operating system and its web/desktop counterpart.
Developers can access and download the Facebook C# SDK from Github today. As this is an alpha release, feedback and support are welcomed.
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Filed in Applications, Development
Facebook Announces 500 Million Users, Stories and Thanks ApplicationsJuly 21st, 2010
By Eric Eldon 3 Comments » Share
Facebook says it has reached 500 million monthly active users “as of this morning,” according to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. In a blog post today, he also announced a new in-house Stories application that features positive stories from users around the world, relating how they did things like reunited with long-lost family members through the service. Another application, a photo album of sorts called Thanks, shows Zuckerberg and company employees thanking everyone for using the service.
From his post:
We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world. These stories include:
Ben Saylor, a 17-year-old high school student, who turned to Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who, during his time in office, would go jogging with 100 of his fans from Facebook.
Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.
Here are some more details on the app. There are dozens of themes including “Love” and “College.” A “popular” section will feature the stories with the most likes. Other companies, 31 in total, are featuring some Stories as tabs within their own Pages. And the app is going to be around for awhile: “A team from Facebook will be hitting the open road in the U.S. to meet the people, towns and organizations behind these stories in our first Facebook Stories road trip. We’ll be sharing more details of the trip and initial stops in future posts on this blog and the Facebook Page. Finally, note the Bing integration, as it’s another example of Facebook working with strategic partner Microsoft.
Facebook’s rapid growth in the past few years has made it one of the largest web sites in the world — it gained 100 million users in the last 5 months, by its own measure. That success has also made it a big new target for everyone else in the world, from rival businesses to lawyers, politicians, pundits and even religious leaders. The application is a way for the company to remind everyone that it has grown to 500 million users because its products provide special value to people.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Friend lists, launched in late 2007, made this narrow-casting possible. However, few people have used them even when they were featured more prominently on the site. Per the latest redesigns, they are buried behind the “Friends” navigation button on the home page’s left sidebar, and require a long series of clicks to apply as a privacy parameter for posts. Zuckerberg said “Most people don’t want to create lists of things, but the act of adding friends is a very nice feeling. No doubt it would be better if everyone had these friend groups [automatically] created.” "
This hint at a new version of the feature suggests Facebook will analyze user data such as people you are frequently tagged in photos with, who likes your posts, or other relevant information, like location, age, or mutual friends. If combined with instructions for use, a more prominent placement in the interface, and an easy way to share only to a certain list, friend lists could become integral to the future of engagement on Facebook.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end. The product and policy decisions are going to be the most important decisions we make in the next 5 years,” Zuckerberg stressed throughout the talk. “We’re not in maintenance mode, there’s a lot of innovation to do”, he said, emphasizing their work as a platform and utility which can make any website social.
But a threat to Facebook’s longevity is the nagging user worry that the site could use their vast stores of data for evil. “The Social Network” has the potential to increase this worry if audiences think it is factual. In order to minimize reactions to the film coloring the public’s opinion of Facebook, Zuckerberg said he probably won’t see it, repeatedly using the word “fiction” to describe the film. “I wish when people did media or journalism about Facebook that they would at least try to get it right. We try to focus on building the best product and I hope that’s what people remember us for, not the stories along the way.”
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
This hint at a new version of the feature suggests Facebook will analyze user data such as people you are frequently tagged in photos with, who likes your posts, or other relevant information, like location, age, or mutual friends. If combined with instructions for use, a more prominent placement in the interface, and an easy way to share only to a certain list, friend lists could become integral to the future of engagement on Facebook.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end. The product and policy decisions are going to be the most important decisions we make in the next 5 years,” Zuckerberg stressed throughout the talk. “We’re not in maintenance mode, there’s a lot of innovation to do”, he said, emphasizing their work as a platform and utility which can make any website social.
But a threat to Facebook’s longevity is the nagging user worry that the site could use their vast stores of data for evil. “The Social Network” has the potential to increase this worry if audiences think it is factual. In order to minimize reactions to the film coloring the public’s opinion of Facebook, Zuckerberg said he probably won’t see it, repeatedly using the word “fiction” to describe the film. “I wish when people did media or journalism about Facebook that they would at least try to get it right. We try to focus on building the best product and I hope that’s what people remember us for, not the stories along the way.”
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook is working on improvements to the friend lists feature during a talk yesterday –“hopefully soon we’ll have something more to talk about,” he said.
Friend lists allow users to categorize friends into named subsets which can be used to restrict distribution of posts, quickly invite a selection of friends to an event, view only certain people in the news feed, and organize Facebook Chat’s buddy list. Zuckerberg explained how sharing something with “friends” used to mean it was relatively private. Now, since people have friends from across their social spheres, it’s important that they be able to share with exactly who they want."
Zuckerberg also reiterated key company talking points yesterday during his talk at the Computer History Museum, formatted as an interview with David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. One point is that Facebook is nowhere near the end of the product roadmap; the other is that the upcoming film about Facebook’s origins, “The Social Network,” is fictional.
Friend list changes are an intriguing part of that product roadmap. “More and more people have subgroups”, Zuckerberg said, explaining how the definition of friends has evolved since the college-only days when users typically only added their peers. Since registration was opened to everyone, friends began to include co-workers, family members, and others with whom it might be inappropriate to share the same posts that you share with friends. Creating a system with which users feel comfortable sharing personal hardships only with family, jokes and wild stories exclusively with best friends, and only the most benign content with their co-workers or bosses is essential to Facebook maximizing its utility and relevance.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Friend lists allow users to categorize friends into named subsets which can be used to restrict distribution of posts, quickly invite a selection of friends to an event, view only certain people in the news feed, and organize Facebook Chat’s buddy list. Zuckerberg explained how sharing something with “friends” used to mean it was relatively private. Now, since people have friends from across their social spheres, it’s important that they be able to share with exactly who they want."
Zuckerberg also reiterated key company talking points yesterday during his talk at the Computer History Museum, formatted as an interview with David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. One point is that Facebook is nowhere near the end of the product roadmap; the other is that the upcoming film about Facebook’s origins, “The Social Network,” is fictional.
Friend list changes are an intriguing part of that product roadmap. “More and more people have subgroups”, Zuckerberg said, explaining how the definition of friends has evolved since the college-only days when users typically only added their peers. Since registration was opened to everyone, friends began to include co-workers, family members, and others with whom it might be inappropriate to share the same posts that you share with friends. Creating a system with which users feel comfortable sharing personal hardships only with family, jokes and wild stories exclusively with best friends, and only the most benign content with their co-workers or bosses is essential to Facebook maximizing its utility and relevance.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News: "Indian cosmetics giant Emami launched the first skin-whitening cream for men in 2005, called 'Fair and Handsome' and advertised by Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan. It came 27 years after the first cream for women.
Since then a half dozen foreign brands have piled into the male market, including Garnier, L'Oreal and Nivea, which promote the seemingly magical lightening qualities of their products in ubiquitous advertising.
In 2009, a poll of nearly 12,000 people by online dating site Shaadi.com, revealed that skin tone was considered the most important criteria when choosing a partner in three northern Indian states.
'More and more, there's an anxiety in the mind of men about having fair skin,' sociology professor T. K. Oommen at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told AFP.
'Indians believe that if you have fair skin you belong to the higher caste, the Brahmins,' he added, explaining that a succession of light-skinned colonisers in India reinforced the association of fairness with power.
'The Aryans, who came from central Asia, in addition to the Portuguese, the French and the British colonisers ruled over the country and probably contributed to this negative perception of dark-skin.'"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Since then a half dozen foreign brands have piled into the male market, including Garnier, L'Oreal and Nivea, which promote the seemingly magical lightening qualities of their products in ubiquitous advertising.
In 2009, a poll of nearly 12,000 people by online dating site Shaadi.com, revealed that skin tone was considered the most important criteria when choosing a partner in three northern Indian states.
'More and more, there's an anxiety in the mind of men about having fair skin,' sociology professor T. K. Oommen at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told AFP.
'Indians believe that if you have fair skin you belong to the higher caste, the Brahmins,' he added, explaining that a succession of light-skinned colonisers in India reinforced the association of fairness with power.
'The Aryans, who came from central Asia, in addition to the Portuguese, the French and the British colonisers ruled over the country and probably contributed to this negative perception of dark-skin.'"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News: "NEW DELHI (AFP) – Skincare group Vaseline has introduced a skin-lightening application for Facebook in India, enabling users to make their faces whiter in their profile pictures.
The download is designed to promote Vaseline's range of skin-lightening creams for men, a huge and fast-growing market driven by fashion and a cultural preference for fairer skin.
The widget promises to 'Transform Your Face On Facebook With Vaseline Men' in a campaign fronted by Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur, who is depicted with his face divided into dark and fair halves.
'We started campaign advertising (for the application) from the second week of June and the response has been pretty phenomenal,' Pankaj Parihar from global advertising firm Omnicom, which designed the campaign, told AFP."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
The download is designed to promote Vaseline's range of skin-lightening creams for men, a huge and fast-growing market driven by fashion and a cultural preference for fairer skin.
The widget promises to 'Transform Your Face On Facebook With Vaseline Men' in a campaign fronted by Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur, who is depicted with his face divided into dark and fair halves.
'We started campaign advertising (for the application) from the second week of June and the response has been pretty phenomenal,' Pankaj Parihar from global advertising firm Omnicom, which designed the campaign, told AFP."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Reviewed facebook applications will have a review rating and a link to the actual review. You can also use the search box to find the facebook application review.
30 Boxes Calendering Widget Rating: read review
Rating:
Radical Buy Challenges eBay:It allows users to list and sell items on facebook. read review
Snowboard Challenge Video Game
Rating: Addictingly fun game. Read the review
Amazon Book Reviews Widget Rating: read review
BallHype: Sports Centric Widget
Box:File storage & sharing widget Rating: read review
Delicious:
Digg: Recent diggs widget Rating: read review
Feedburner:
Flixster:Movie centric widget Rating: read review
Flickr:
Stock Tracker By Forbes Rating: read review
Graffiti Drawing Widget Rating: read review
Hot or Not App. Rating: read review
Scrapblog: Photo Scrapbooking widget
Slideshow Photo Sharing Rating: read review
Top Friends Display Rating: read review
Trackzor
Messaging Centric Widget Rating: read review
Veoh Video
Voiceplayer:
Yackpack:"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
30 Boxes Calendering Widget Rating: read review
Rating:
Radical Buy Challenges eBay:It allows users to list and sell items on facebook. read review
Snowboard Challenge Video Game
Rating: Addictingly fun game. Read the review
Amazon Book Reviews Widget Rating: read review
BallHype: Sports Centric Widget
Box:File storage & sharing widget Rating: read review
Delicious:
Digg: Recent diggs widget Rating: read review
Feedburner:
Flixster:Movie centric widget Rating: read review
Flickr:
Stock Tracker By Forbes Rating: read review
Graffiti Drawing Widget Rating: read review
Hot or Not App. Rating: read review
Scrapblog: Photo Scrapbooking widget
Slideshow Photo Sharing Rating: read review
Top Friends Display Rating: read review
Trackzor
Messaging Centric Widget Rating: read review
Veoh Video
Voiceplayer:
Yackpack:"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Now that the election is over and you are coming down from that high, there is another election for you to participate in. Facebook is in the final stage of the fbFund competition.
Help facebook choose the top five teams with the best applications. Each will be awarded $225,000 in addition to the $25,000 they […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Help facebook choose the top five teams with the best applications. Each will be awarded $225,000 in addition to the $25,000 they […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Facebook has been trying to encourage application developers to create more engaging and useful applications for the platform. Part of that encouragement has come from financial rewards from the facebook fund. Facebook started a contest a few months back. They chose finalists and then let the facebook user community vote for the the apps they […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Don’t believe Facebook Platform is gaining traction? Last fall New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) released a Subway Status application that allows Facebook-savvy rail-riders to share their commute stats with others of similar ilk.
Subway Status creates a sort of sub-Facebook social network based around which trains one rides. For instance, […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Subway Status creates a sort of sub-Facebook social network based around which trains one rides. For instance, […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "On Friday, Facebook made yet another progressive (and unexpected) move, with the release of of a Javascript-based client library that allows developers to host applications on their own servers. The impact of this could be immense.
Now, rather than being confined to coding within Facebook, developers can build and host apps natively. The update allows […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Now, rather than being confined to coding within Facebook, developers can build and host apps natively. The update allows […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "A lot has happened since the launch of Facebook Platform last May. The company has seen some controversy, launched some other products (controversially), gotten investments and it continues to grow exponentially — all while Platform matured. Although many developers still haven’t figured out what to do with it, others are making keen uses of Platform […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Facebook announced last night an important update to Platform that will throttle the number of notifications allotted to each app. Currently every application has a static upper limit of 40 notifications per user per day. That number will now be variable and will be adjusted according to various forms of feedback.
One of the methods […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
One of the methods […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "There is a fundamental flaw in the overall state of Facebook applications. The issue as I see it is that for a venue with as much potential Facebook, the apps built on its platform have no real use (other than diversionary). It seems as though almost every Facebook app is something irrelevant, some way to […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "TechCrunch today caught an interesting emergence on the Adonomics valuation chart. A mystery company dubbed The UADA has recently topped the chart of App companies with over 97 million installs, 3.1 million active users and a valuation of about $223 million — over a week before it’s even launched.
Research done into The UADA has uncovered […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Research done into The UADA has uncovered […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Digg-competitor Mixx has launched its own Facebook app, aiming to bring its own brand of social news to the social network. Mixx has been making headlines lately, first with the implementation of clustered, meme-style stories and more recently with the announcement that it had secured $2 million in Series A1 capital.
So what’s the verdict on […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
So what’s the verdict on […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Sunday, July 18, 2010
WOMEN AND FACEBOOK
FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks, according to a new study released earlier today by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research. In fact, as many as one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up, even before they get to the bathroom.
The study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits. While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).
last Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Are Young Women Addicted to Facebook?
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While the study covers all of social media, it’s clear that women in the 18-34 range are focused on their Facebook accounts. More than half of young women (57%) say they talk to people online more than face-to-face. A full 39% of them proclaim themselves Facebook addicts, while 34% of young women make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom.
Here are some other interesting stats regarding young women and Facebook:
21% of women age 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night
63% use Facebook as a networking tool
42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
79% are fine with kissing in photos
58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers
What conclusions can we draw from this data? It’s not just that young women are using Facebook religiously: it’s that they’re very open with what they post and who they accept as friends. Combined, it can lead to a privacy mess.
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Social Media’s Role in Dating
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We already knew that Facebook has radically changed dating, and Oxygen Media’s stats only back up that assertion. 50% of women believe that it’s just fine to date people they’ve met on Facebook, compared to 65% of men. 6% of women use it to “hook up” (20% of men do the same).
It gets murkier for relationships. 49% of women believe it’s fine to keep tabs on a boyfriend by having access to his accounts (42% of men think the same way). 9% of women have broken up their relationships via Facebook, as compared to a full 24% of men.
Luckily, most women don’t believe that breaking up via Facebook is okay: 91% to be exact. I don’t want to meet the 9% who think it’s just fine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Women and Privacy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Oxygen Media/Lightspeed Research survey is filled with a lot of other interesting data points, but it all circles back to the privacy issue. 54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.” That seems contradictory to the 42% that think it’s fine to post pictures of themselves drunk.
Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It’s not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies
see more http://www.facebook.com/GiftandQuizApps
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
The study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits. While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).
last Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Are Young Women Addicted to Facebook?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the study covers all of social media, it’s clear that women in the 18-34 range are focused on their Facebook accounts. More than half of young women (57%) say they talk to people online more than face-to-face. A full 39% of them proclaim themselves Facebook addicts, while 34% of young women make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom.
Here are some other interesting stats regarding young women and Facebook:
21% of women age 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night
63% use Facebook as a networking tool
42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
79% are fine with kissing in photos
58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers
What conclusions can we draw from this data? It’s not just that young women are using Facebook religiously: it’s that they’re very open with what they post and who they accept as friends. Combined, it can lead to a privacy mess.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Social Media’s Role in Dating
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We already knew that Facebook has radically changed dating, and Oxygen Media’s stats only back up that assertion. 50% of women believe that it’s just fine to date people they’ve met on Facebook, compared to 65% of men. 6% of women use it to “hook up” (20% of men do the same).
It gets murkier for relationships. 49% of women believe it’s fine to keep tabs on a boyfriend by having access to his accounts (42% of men think the same way). 9% of women have broken up their relationships via Facebook, as compared to a full 24% of men.
Luckily, most women don’t believe that breaking up via Facebook is okay: 91% to be exact. I don’t want to meet the 9% who think it’s just fine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Women and Privacy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Oxygen Media/Lightspeed Research survey is filled with a lot of other interesting data points, but it all circles back to the privacy issue. 54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.” That seems contradictory to the 42% that think it’s fine to post pictures of themselves drunk.
Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It’s not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies
see more http://www.facebook.com/GiftandQuizApps
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Facebook Fan Is Worth $3.60 Annually
FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS
Each Facebook Fan Is Worth $3.60 Annually
Posted by Raj Dash on April 13th, 2010 3:23 PMShare177 6 Comments Social media marketing platform company Vitrue has determined that the average value of a Facebook ‘fan’ is about $3.60 in equivalent media each year. This calculation is based on having one million Fan Page fans, and is not weighted for brand recognition.
In some figures published in AdWeek, Vitrue revealed how they determined this per-fan value. They made their findings based on the aggregated fans of their client base for their Wall Apps Facebook applications, which is part of their SRM (Social Relationship Manager) software suite. Collectively, Vitrue’s clients have 41M Facebook Fan Page fans. Their study results show that companies with a fan base of 1M find an average return of $3.60 per fan in the form of “equivalent media,” spread out over a year.
The numbers work like this. If a brand posts to their Facebook Fan Page twice a day and have a million fans, that’s 60M impressions per month in the collective “news feed”. Vitrue used a figure of $5 CPM (Cost per Mille, aka Cost per thousand impressions), so 60M impressions would result in $300K/month of media value. I.e., what the brand might have to spend elsewhere to get the same eyeballs. That $300K /month is $3.6M/ year, meaning that with 1M fans, the average value is $3.6 per fan.
These numbers are just averages, but the general statistic is important to those who need to measure social media metrics. Brand notoriety seems to play a part in whether all companies realize the $3.60/ Facebook fan value, or go above or beyond. E.g., a popular brand might get additional impressions from the Facebook news feed, partly because of fans sharing information with friends.
If you want to learn more about Facebook Page-related promotion opportunities, have a listen to our sister site MediaBistro’s podcast interview with Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford, from early Mar 2010
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Brands have rushed to attract fans on Facebook in hopes of grabbing up consumer mindshare for a bargain. But when it comes to estimating the value of such efforts, they're shooting in the dark, given the embryonic stage of Facebook marketing and lack of data. Wednesday morning, Adweek tried to address that by publishing numbers from social media consultancy Vitrue, which put a price of $3.60 on each Facebook fan. AllFacebook and AllThingsD have parroted the number. Precision makes for great headlines... the only problem is, the figure is highly dubious.
First of all, Vitrue didn’t publish the study at all, and makes no mention of it on its website, which suggests these are back-of-the-napkin figures(**see update). Adweek’s Brian Morrissey didn’t respond immediately for comment on how he obtained the figures, but I’ll update the post if I hear back.
Second, Vitrue makes money by managing companies’ campaigns on Facebook. If it can make brands feel better about investing in its services, that’s money in the bank. This is not exactly an impartial source.
Third, it seems Vitrue could have easily produced more accurate estimates that would yield a lower value. Here’s how they got the figure (bold is mine):
The firm has determined that, on average, a fan base of 1 million translates into at least $3.6 million in equivalent media over a year.
[…]
The company's findings are based on impressions generated in the Facebook news feed, the stream of recent updates from users' networks. Vitrue analyzed Facebook data from its clients -- with a combined 41 million fans -- and found that most fans yielded an extra impression. That means a marketer posting twice a day can expect about 60 million impressions per month through the news feed.
[…]
Vitrue arrived at its $3.6 million figure by working off a $5 CPM.
Vitrue estimates the average annual impression per fan by taking the finding that "most fans yielded an extra impression," (over what time period?) and then multiplying that by 650, assuming two postings a day. Wouldn't it be more honest to take the average number of postings per day among Virtue’s client base? That would probably be relatively easy to determine. I'm sure most brands don't post twice a day and if they did, they would lose fans fast--at the very least, they'd lose impressions as users remove the brand's updates from their feeds.
Vitrue didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment (update: they declined to comment, and simply referred me to their blog post, twice). In the meantime, I’m assuming the average value of a Facebook Fan is a fraction of $3.60.
Update: Vitrue's post published later Wednesday morning indicates the company does intend this as a serious study, and not just a back-of-the-napkin response to Adweek... which means the flimsy math is even less excusable.
The post doesn't dispel any concerns over its methodology, though it does clarify what it means by "most fans yield an extra impression:
how many impressions can a single wall post receive? To our surprise we learned the average was approximately 1:1 (0.96:1 to be exact). This means our 1 million Fan Facebook Page can average 1 million impressions with a single post to the wall.
Taking that and multiplying by two posts a day is still unrealistic, for the reasons stated above. Vitrue could determine how much a fan worth is worth in reality. Instead, the company opts for an unrealistic theoretical extrapolation that yields a bigger number. That's a predictable maneuver from a marketing department, but it's surprising that Adweek and AllThingsD would give it so much play.
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Great questions Tauya! Here are my thoughts:
5,000 visitors are worth vastly different amounts of money depending on what niche you’re targeting. If you’re targeting Arizona DUI Lawyer (5 Sure-fire Ways To Know If Your Business Will Work Or Not) then it could be worth a lot of money. If you’re targeting a niche that doesn’t pay very much then your 5,000 visitors are practically worthless.
Here is how I would break down your revenue projection:
Visitors: 5,000
Estimated Click Through Rate: 1% (this would require a prominent ad placement above the fold)
–> # of clicks: 50
How much is a click worth?
According to Google’s Keyword Tool, here are a few examples based on what Tauya gave me:
•Social website: $2.17 / click
•African-Caribbean community: $0.08 / click
•Afro: $0.69 / click
•United Kingdom: $2.33 / click
•Facebook: $0.95 / click
As you can see there is a wide range of click prices. If your content focused on “social website” and “United Kingdom” the cost per click would be over $2.00. But if you target the “African-Caribbean community” or “Afro” then the price drops off dramatically. For sake of an example let’s assume the $2.17 / click price for “social website” which will be at the high end of your spectrum. If you’re using AdSense, Google will now take 30-50% of that as commission for lining up the sale. Assuming they only take 30% then you’re left with 70% of $2.17 which is $1.52. I would note that these estimates are very very high – in reality you’ll likely be seeing 10% of that figure. But let’s say you did make $1.52 per click. Now with the 50 clicks that we’re getting that would mean we’ve made $76 from our 5,000 visitors. Under this very optimistic scenario you’ll need to get 660 clicks to earn $1,000. With the 1% click through rate that we assumed, that means you’ll need to drive 66,000 visitors to your site to make $1,000.
To summarize:
•Visitors: 5,000
•Click Through Rate: 1%
•–> # Clicks: 50
•Assumed Cost Per Click: $2.17 (very high assumption)
•Assumed 30% Google Commission: $0.65
•–> Your Revenue Per Click: $1.52
•Total Revenue from 5,000 visitors = 50 clicks x $1.52 = $76
It can be tough to make a living online! Other factors to keep in mind are that ad rates are falling due to the economic recession and that social media sites tend to have very very low click through rates (way below 1%) because many people return to the site, know where the ads are, and don’t click on them. It’s called “ad blindness” and if they’re not clicking on your ads then you’re not making money. I hope this helps in building your business case! Good luck!
Evan Carmichael
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS It should come as no surprise that the ad inventory on social networks like Facebook are not worth much. A new offer by Lookery, a startup that places ads on social apps inside Facebook and Bebo, is offering a guaranteed ad rate of 12.5 cents for every thousand impressions (CPM). The promotion, which runs through April is probably close to what Lookery can get for ads it places on Facebook. Add in 2 cents per thousand impressions for serving the ads and you get to about a 15 cent CPM. That is probably a good average for the bulk of inventory on Facebook, which makes up the vast majority of Lookery’s business.
This is a market-share play for Lookery. By offering a guaranteed rate, it hopes to attract enough application publishers to get to a billion impressions a month, up from 170 million in December. Lookery is smaller than the other major social-app ad networks, like Slide, RockYou, and Social Media. On social networks, more so even than on the Web in general, advertising is obviously a volume game. And Lookery is trying to catch up to the larger app ad networks, which may very well have higher average CPM rates, by taking all the low-hanging penny inventory that is out there.
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS The average person’s newsfeed reaches 164 friends on Facebook (see here), so each time a Facebook user becomes a Fan, 164 people have the opportunity to also become a fan and learn more about that company.
One way to establish a value for fans is to look at it in terms of what it would cost to buy 164 impressions. If we assume a $5 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) for 164 impressions, that would cost you roughly $.82 each time someone becomes a fan and has that displayed on their news feed. In the Lamborghini example, they received over 73,300,000 impressions from their 447,000+ fans, which equates to $366,540 worth of free advertising.
Ultimately, if you could conclude that as a result of someone becoming a fan, they influenced another person in their network to make a purchase from you, then that is when fans become profitable. The value is equal to the amount of profit you earn from that customer’s initial order and perhaps all of their future orders. Unfortunately, it is not possible to track to this magnitude today.
There are a few types of tracking available today that can give more insight into the value of fans. The first is to put special offers on your fan pages. If someone reacts to a special offer that is promoted on your fan page and is only accessible to fans, you could tell the number of sales you received from that specific promotion and, therefore, assign a value to your fans. A second method is more rudimentary. When one becomes a fan of yours, you know only a few things about them: First name, last name, date they became a fan. You could put this information in a database and cross-reference that with the name of the customers you receive each week. Anytime you find a match, you can infer that you received that sale, in part, because they are a fan. Obviously, there could be many other reasons why they bought from you, and you may have some difficulty matching just names in an accurate manner.
I’m interested to hear more thoughts and ideas of how others in the online marketing world value Facebook fans.
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11 Responses to “What Is the Value of a Facebook Fan?”
Gab Goldenberg says:
January 20, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Facebook doesn’t get $5 CPM, so you have to cut the numbers. An extremely high CTR ad (0.16% CTR – great for FB) saw 0.49 CPM and n average it’s closer to $0.15. But that is an interesting approach to measuring the value of a FB fan.
Adam Goldberg says:
January 21, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Hey Gab,
Didn’t mean to infer Facebook charges a $5 CPM. I was only using a $5 CPM to demonstrate how one could calculate the value of the free impression one receives when a Facebook user becomes a fan. You can replace that $5 CPM with whatever CPM you are more comfortable with.
Bruce Dietzen says:
August 15, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Adam,
I’ve tried to crunch the numbers every which way, but couldn’t convince myself of any solid way to value a fan. I’m guessing that the ultimate value of a fan is what a comany like Pepsi will pay a developer or advertiser to increase its fanbase so its bigger than Coke’s
Have you heard of any companies paying on a “Cost Per Fan” (CPF) basis yet? Is anyone even using such a term?
Alex Frakking says:
August 16, 2009 at 12:47 am
that $5 CPM isn’t unreasonable considering the “ad” is coming from a trusted source (a friend), and placed exactly where people are looking for information (the newfeed, as opposed to the ad strip).
However we can’t assume an update will reach 164 people just because that’s the number of friends they have. 1) Facebook filters the feeds, 2) some people won’t log on in time so it won’t even be displayed to them.
Good post!
yinka olaito says:
September 24, 2009 at 3:04 am
I like your cost per impression analysis, it speaks volumes about your knowledge. keep it up
Christian Del Monte says:
September 24, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Great post Adam. Couple of items I thought would be worth mentioning….because I had to read your analysis several times before I got it:)
That’s $0.82 per 164 impressions WHEN they become a fan. I’m curious as to what others say, but I’ve been averaging fans for about $2.50/fan while using FB’s advertising program. I believe that the cost/fan relies on several factors such as the product/service, facebook content, and brand. However, you can not deny the fact that when people “fan” a site, they ultimately are advocating your brand and are in tune with your company.
I’m not as interested in the “broadcasting measurement” as you so put it; as I am in the fact that fans have a lifetime value. In your Lamborghini example, that means when a new improved model comes out, 40x (versus Toyota) the amount of people will receive an newsfeed update alerting them to the fact….and keeping mind that they asked to know that in the first place. Lets go a step further and talk about how that could be monetized. What if a new James Bond film came out that featured a new Lambo. What would that announcement be worth to the film producer if that were seeded in Lamborghini’s news feed?
Best Regards,
Christian
Mike Nierengarten says:
September 28, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I would consider the value of a fan not by CPM but closer to the value of adding someone to your opt-in email list (possibly a little higher). You get the benefit of connecting directly with the fan via fan updates. You also get the initial endorsement of when the user becomes a fan, which is much more valuable than an regular impression on paid search or with a FB ad.
In terms of cost/fan, I would add targeting. If you are running very targeted ads on Facebook, your cost/fan should shrink significantly. Also, if you are running a contest or giveaway, you can also reduce costs. With my campaigns, I typically shoot for $0.50 per fan.
Rob Duncan says:
September 30, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Like the approach, but value is never the same as cost… so, it would be a good argument that by getting the exposure to those fans, Lamborghini “saved” itself some amount of money ($366k in your example) that it would have COST to gain the same exposure… of course, many would argue that such a campaign ($366k in CPM spending) would likely not have that VALUE to the company.
The bottom line is the “investment” building a fan base could stay around for a while, instead of the expense in PPC/CPM advertising which has no residual value. It should be used, when possible, as part of an overall strategy.
Akash Pai says:
October 8, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Interesting analysis, Adam. The numbers that you use for number of fans per user – 164 is from 2007. Do you have the latest nums? I guess they must be upwards of 200 now.
spanky says:
January 27, 2010 at 3:25 pm
$5 CPM lol – what are you smoking? Maybe if ALL of your friends are active, high-wealth investors. But your analysis is interesting…
Benjamin Weiss says:
February 25, 2010 at 5:14 pm
It’s a good start at measuring the acquisition of one new fan…but what about the lifetime value of that fan? Every time that the fan “likes” one of your posts or engages your group, the message is likely to be re-broadcast to ~160 users. It’s these subsequent engagements with your brand that make the bulk of the value of 1 friend.
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Resolved QuestionShow me another »
2 Million page impressions a month, how much can i earn with cpm?
How much can i earn with 2.5 million page impressions a month on cpm ads...isit worth me trying? Im new to webmaster and have no clue..
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by ben b Member since:
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dont get this sh*t.
you get 2 MILLION site visits? whats your site? even if you sold tooth brushes at 2p, with 2 million visitors, you'ud get some business? why the talk of cpm, whatever that is?
this is why i dont get it. if you had a page saying ill give you a fiver, you get loads of hits, yet youve got a wothless site. why people think numbers equals profit? its like your saying ive got loads of viewers, however gained, is there a product that will give me money for this? but yet somehow i cant, for all these millions of visitors?
the answer below confirms my misunderstanding of web bullsh*t.
he can make "o" dollars per "pr" so he should email this guy, to make "1000" "$" and no doubt, pay him his per "smooge" fee for "smege", but he'll find the small print much better paginated, and in perfect english, on the direct debit, pay per click mandate, when entering his bank details.
One thing i have noticed on the web, how many adverts that product your show to maximise dollar and you earn in sterling pound, can spaeak perfect small print english on a direct debit madate form?
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by ozzigold Member since:
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If you have that much traffic to a half decent site, you may like to consider NetAudioAds. Simply place the small code within your pages, and your visitors will be presented with a 5 second audio ad. You get paid on every ad played. The best part of this program is that it doesn't rely on "click-throughs" for you to get paid, and it doesn't take up valuable website space, that could be used for other advertising etc. No cost to you to participate.
Source(s):
http://www.sellingppp.com/s.cgi?ppp=1202…
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There are two questions that need to be asked
Is the quality of the vistors good ?
Is the traffic targeted?
Traffic from pop-unders etc is no good
cpm pays from 50c to $150 per 1000 viewers
If you have good targeted traffic can make a lot of money in advertising directly to the visitors. Check out affiliate programs. Or if you want to be lazy try adsense.
Good luck
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Depends on what you do with it. Example, I have one comunity Website, where I get about a $1.00 for every 1000 page impressions using Adsense. I have another website, where it's mostly technical how to's that I grew out of my computer business, where I get as much as $5.00 per click for referring someone to buying a peice of software, or a book. Most of the better PPC deals are on doubleclick, but now that Google has bought them out, I'm wondering if they'll keep paying out as well. The absolute best sites are the ones that are very tightly focused on one particular market segment, and you have someone advertising on there that direclty relates to it. Such as if you run a gaming site, and all you Game reviews, have something they can click to buy the game. Situations like that, you can get you the most. Good Luck
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Are the 2 million page impressions from unique visitors? In analytics it can be a bit misleading as it also can say 'page hits' which aren't unique visitors. Page hits include all the graphics in a single page, for example if your page had 10 graphics, that would be 10 page hits.
If it is indeed unique visitors, well done! You've done well!
There isn't a set price. If you are just starting, some would recommend to go for 0.005c per impression. So 1000 impressions would be $5.00. You can increase the price later when you get more advertisers lined up. But it's totally up to you.
Source(s):
http://www.gooruze.com/
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS So, You Want Sponsors/Advertisers, Huh?
By Joe Burns
Use these to jump around or read it all...
[What Do You Have That People Want?]
[Hits Vs. Visitors] [What Is The Magic Number?]
[How Much Do I Ask For?] [Flat Rate Or Impressions?]
[How Do I Get Started?] [Getting Advertisers]
[Do I Have To Advertise to Get Advertisers?]
[How Many Advertisers on One Page?]
[Final Thoughts]
Note to the Reader: The following is a tutorial that people have been asking me to write for some time now. Below are a lot of my opinions. Most of the information comes from my slant after having gone through the process. There are other ways of doing this. What is below is my way of doing it. So far, it's worked. The topics discussed are from different e-mails I have received.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Do You Have That People Want?
That's a bold question, Joe. Yes, but it's a pretty good one. I get letters all the time saying they want to advertise on their home page. I say, Great! How many people are coming in a day? I'm not talking hits mind you, I'm talking visitors. How many? Furthermore, does that warrant someone paying money for your site?
Hits vs. Visitors
When you are talking to a possible advertiser about the number of people that roll through your site in a day, month, or year, the advertiser usually wants to know about "Impressions" or "Visitors." Too often this gets confused with the concepts of hits. Here are the differences:
Hits: A "hit" is a request of the server. Let's say, for example, that you have a page that has five graphics on it. That page is equal to six hits, the page and then the five graphics. Sometimes people report "hits" to a possible advertiser. This is wrong, as it creates an inflated report of site traffic. If I could report hits alone, I could create graphics-filled pages and report numbers into the tens of millions.
Impressions (also called "Page Views"): This is a listing of how many times the ad banner was seen. It may be that one person saw the ad banner three times. That's fine. Impressions are simply the number of times the banner was seen.
Visitors: Visitors are the number of individual people coming into the site. Usually this number is reported right alongside Impressions. Something like, HTML Goodies creates 3 million impressions a month from 1.1 million individual visitors. (True, by the way.)
When I first started Goodies, I made a point of making my pages one hit each, three at the most. The reason was that I sold by impressions, but I paid by hits. I wanted the two numbers as equal as possible. Now I pay by space rather than impressions so I've gussied up the pages a bit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What Is The Magic Number?
Ten thousand per month. The question I am asked time and time again is how many people must come through the site for it to be worth selling to an advertiser. The number I kept hearing was 10,000 per month. Not 10,000 hits, but 10,000 individual visitors creating however many impressions. This appears to be the threshold where a serious advertiser will begin to talk to you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How Much Do I Ask For?
How much do you need? I don't mean that to be clever, either. What does it cost you in both hardware and time each month to run your site? I add "time" to that list because you must put in time. People want to be able to talk, or e-mail, to a real person. People also want to see change and improvement. It is my opinion that a site must evolve or it will die. I am forever answering e-mail or writing a new tutorial.
Now stop and think how much profits you wish to make. Yes, we'd all like to make 500% profit, but that's not always possible. You may price yourself right out of contention.
Finally, be flexible. You know what you want, but maybe an advertiser would like a break in price. You might say okay if they then offer to buy for five months rather than one, or pay up front. There is always a deal to be made.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flat Rate per CPM, Click-Throughs, or Impressions?
Your choice. I go with a flat rate per 1000 impressions, called a CPM (cost per thousand). I think it is most fair to the advertiser. I often give more impressions than I offer. That's good for the advertiser and shows good faith on my part. The advertiser also has it easier with flat rate as he/she is able to budget easily and can forecast whether they can remain on your site next month.
If you go by exact number of impressions, you make the cost a floating number and that makes it harder to forecast dollars. It may lead to the end of an advertiser relationship. Plus, with a floating rate you will need to prove exact numbers which are far more difficult to provide than your simply hitting a plateau of visitors.
Selling by click-throughs is another popular method. A click-through is when someone clicks on the advertiser's banner to see what it links to. I've seen contracts anywhere from .20 cents to $1 per click, though.
The problem with click-though advertising is that you need to be able to keep track of the clicks. I do it through a program I purchased that rotates my advertising banners and records impressions and clicks. The program is from Central Ad Pro and cost me around $600. You have to decide if that is worth it to you.
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How Much Does HTML Goodies Ask For?
None of your business. Just kidding! I used to have different costs for each of the pages. When I first created "htmlgoodies.com", if you wanted to be at the top of the main page, I asked for $500. Each tutorial was $200. That was for one calendar month.
That meant I could offer 150,000 impressions for $500. Maybe that will help you decide on the amount you want to charge as you're getting off the ground.
As I said above, I am now using a CPM rate. Plus I have someone selling for me. I actually stay pretty far away from the money side of the site. I believe the rates now run about $30 or better for a thousand impressions. The site's pretty profitable.
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How Do I Get Started?
I would suggest putting together two things, after the Web site of course:
A description of the site (make this detailed). This is a PR-type thing. Say someone asks you to send some information about your site and what it offers. This is the information you would send them.
A Rate Card. This is a listing of every page and its price. Or how much per 1000 impressions, or however you are going to do it. You may only be selling the main page. If so, great. List it.
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Getting Advertisers
There are couple ways of doing this. I only use one.
Sell yourself.
Hire someone to sell for you.
Sell Yourself
Get out there! Press the flesh! Shake a few hands! Slap a few backs! Sell! Sell! Sell!
Not much I can say here but to sell where you might find clients. Head to Internet shows. Write to advertisers over the Net. Put your pages on every search engine you can find. Post a rate card for all to see. I've never really done this outside of people asking about advertising simply because the site was there. I personally have never solicited for an advertiser outside of a return e-mail now and again.
Hire Someone
This is what I did. I felt I put enough time in working on the site. I'd head to the poorhouse before I made any contacts, so I hired a company to sell for me. I think it's the best way. The site became fun again when I got out of the money side. I actually came pretty close to closing Goodies altogether in 1996 because of having to sell the site myself.
The one downfall is that you don't get to keep all the money. These people won't work for free, you know! There is always a commission involved. In my case, it's 30% of the gross. Also, usually there is a statement that you don't get paid until the advertiser pays. So you may run a banner for a while, the advertiser doesn't pay, and you lose out. It happens, and it's part of doing business. That said...
Here is Yahoo's Internet Services Page. You can find companies there.
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Do I Have To Advertise To Get Advertisers?
I guess you can. I never had to outside of search engines. Plus, you should get some form of advertising from the company you sign up with. People tell me that the Internet Link Exchange is good for some free advertising. The only problem with that is that they want to post a banner, which takes away from space you, may sell in the future and also makes it appear that you have banners already and might not need advertising.
I'm just a big believer in "build a better mousetrap and they will come." Just make a point of registering all your pages so you are fairly easy to find when someone goes looking for what you offer.
Click Here to learn how to register your pages!
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How Many Advertisers Should Go On One Page?
That depends on you, your advertisers, and the size of their banners. Some advertisers want to be the only one on the page and will write that right into a contract. Other advertisers will allow themselves to be around other banners if they themselves are at the top or close to the top. My limit was four when I had the old format of one long page linking everything; two at the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom. I offered special prices to the one at the bottom.
Now that I use a program to rotate my banners for me, I only go with just a few per page.
Notice on this page, too, that ad banners are different sizes. Smaller banners allow for more per page with less intrusion.
If you do start selling ad space on your site, let me suggest that you also purchase a program that posts banners to pages on the fly. If you assign specific ad banners to specific pages, it tends to make the site look static. The CentralAd program I use can do that for you.
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Final Thoughts
It is my opinion that undertaking advertising is more than a hobby on the side. You must look at this as a small business. Not only must you offer something nice to attract people, but you need to continually update and add to what you offer. You need to keep balance sheets for tax purposes. It's hard to hide that you're making money on the WWW since everyone can see it.
Most important of all, ask yourself the question: "What do you have that people want?" The purpose should be providing something people will come to see. The advertising will come easily after that.
Finally, I can give no better thought-provoking information than this: This site was up and running for a year and five months before I made a penny in profit. Now that it is getting established, I am making enough for the site to pay for itself, and a dinner out with my wife once a week ...and that's about it.
May you become rich! I'm certainly not... not yet anyway.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Each Facebook Fan Is Worth $3.60 Annually
Posted by Raj Dash on April 13th, 2010 3:23 PMShare177 6 Comments Social media marketing platform company Vitrue has determined that the average value of a Facebook ‘fan’ is about $3.60 in equivalent media each year. This calculation is based on having one million Fan Page fans, and is not weighted for brand recognition.
In some figures published in AdWeek, Vitrue revealed how they determined this per-fan value. They made their findings based on the aggregated fans of their client base for their Wall Apps Facebook applications, which is part of their SRM (Social Relationship Manager) software suite. Collectively, Vitrue’s clients have 41M Facebook Fan Page fans. Their study results show that companies with a fan base of 1M find an average return of $3.60 per fan in the form of “equivalent media,” spread out over a year.
The numbers work like this. If a brand posts to their Facebook Fan Page twice a day and have a million fans, that’s 60M impressions per month in the collective “news feed”. Vitrue used a figure of $5 CPM (Cost per Mille, aka Cost per thousand impressions), so 60M impressions would result in $300K/month of media value. I.e., what the brand might have to spend elsewhere to get the same eyeballs. That $300K /month is $3.6M/ year, meaning that with 1M fans, the average value is $3.6 per fan.
These numbers are just averages, but the general statistic is important to those who need to measure social media metrics. Brand notoriety seems to play a part in whether all companies realize the $3.60/ Facebook fan value, or go above or beyond. E.g., a popular brand might get additional impressions from the Facebook news feed, partly because of fans sharing information with friends.
If you want to learn more about Facebook Page-related promotion opportunities, have a listen to our sister site MediaBistro’s podcast interview with Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford, from early Mar 2010
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Brands have rushed to attract fans on Facebook in hopes of grabbing up consumer mindshare for a bargain. But when it comes to estimating the value of such efforts, they're shooting in the dark, given the embryonic stage of Facebook marketing and lack of data. Wednesday morning, Adweek tried to address that by publishing numbers from social media consultancy Vitrue, which put a price of $3.60 on each Facebook fan. AllFacebook and AllThingsD have parroted the number. Precision makes for great headlines... the only problem is, the figure is highly dubious.
First of all, Vitrue didn’t publish the study at all, and makes no mention of it on its website, which suggests these are back-of-the-napkin figures(**see update). Adweek’s Brian Morrissey didn’t respond immediately for comment on how he obtained the figures, but I’ll update the post if I hear back.
Second, Vitrue makes money by managing companies’ campaigns on Facebook. If it can make brands feel better about investing in its services, that’s money in the bank. This is not exactly an impartial source.
Third, it seems Vitrue could have easily produced more accurate estimates that would yield a lower value. Here’s how they got the figure (bold is mine):
The firm has determined that, on average, a fan base of 1 million translates into at least $3.6 million in equivalent media over a year.
[…]
The company's findings are based on impressions generated in the Facebook news feed, the stream of recent updates from users' networks. Vitrue analyzed Facebook data from its clients -- with a combined 41 million fans -- and found that most fans yielded an extra impression. That means a marketer posting twice a day can expect about 60 million impressions per month through the news feed.
[…]
Vitrue arrived at its $3.6 million figure by working off a $5 CPM.
Vitrue estimates the average annual impression per fan by taking the finding that "most fans yielded an extra impression," (over what time period?) and then multiplying that by 650, assuming two postings a day. Wouldn't it be more honest to take the average number of postings per day among Virtue’s client base? That would probably be relatively easy to determine. I'm sure most brands don't post twice a day and if they did, they would lose fans fast--at the very least, they'd lose impressions as users remove the brand's updates from their feeds.
Vitrue didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment (update: they declined to comment, and simply referred me to their blog post, twice). In the meantime, I’m assuming the average value of a Facebook Fan is a fraction of $3.60.
Update: Vitrue's post published later Wednesday morning indicates the company does intend this as a serious study, and not just a back-of-the-napkin response to Adweek... which means the flimsy math is even less excusable.
The post doesn't dispel any concerns over its methodology, though it does clarify what it means by "most fans yield an extra impression:
how many impressions can a single wall post receive? To our surprise we learned the average was approximately 1:1 (0.96:1 to be exact). This means our 1 million Fan Facebook Page can average 1 million impressions with a single post to the wall.
Taking that and multiplying by two posts a day is still unrealistic, for the reasons stated above. Vitrue could determine how much a fan worth is worth in reality. Instead, the company opts for an unrealistic theoretical extrapolation that yields a bigger number. That's a predictable maneuver from a marketing department, but it's surprising that Adweek and AllThingsD would give it so much play.
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Great questions Tauya! Here are my thoughts:
5,000 visitors are worth vastly different amounts of money depending on what niche you’re targeting. If you’re targeting Arizona DUI Lawyer (5 Sure-fire Ways To Know If Your Business Will Work Or Not) then it could be worth a lot of money. If you’re targeting a niche that doesn’t pay very much then your 5,000 visitors are practically worthless.
Here is how I would break down your revenue projection:
Visitors: 5,000
Estimated Click Through Rate: 1% (this would require a prominent ad placement above the fold)
–> # of clicks: 50
How much is a click worth?
According to Google’s Keyword Tool, here are a few examples based on what Tauya gave me:
•Social website: $2.17 / click
•African-Caribbean community: $0.08 / click
•Afro: $0.69 / click
•United Kingdom: $2.33 / click
•Facebook: $0.95 / click
As you can see there is a wide range of click prices. If your content focused on “social website” and “United Kingdom” the cost per click would be over $2.00. But if you target the “African-Caribbean community” or “Afro” then the price drops off dramatically. For sake of an example let’s assume the $2.17 / click price for “social website” which will be at the high end of your spectrum. If you’re using AdSense, Google will now take 30-50% of that as commission for lining up the sale. Assuming they only take 30% then you’re left with 70% of $2.17 which is $1.52. I would note that these estimates are very very high – in reality you’ll likely be seeing 10% of that figure. But let’s say you did make $1.52 per click. Now with the 50 clicks that we’re getting that would mean we’ve made $76 from our 5,000 visitors. Under this very optimistic scenario you’ll need to get 660 clicks to earn $1,000. With the 1% click through rate that we assumed, that means you’ll need to drive 66,000 visitors to your site to make $1,000.
To summarize:
•Visitors: 5,000
•Click Through Rate: 1%
•–> # Clicks: 50
•Assumed Cost Per Click: $2.17 (very high assumption)
•Assumed 30% Google Commission: $0.65
•–> Your Revenue Per Click: $1.52
•Total Revenue from 5,000 visitors = 50 clicks x $1.52 = $76
It can be tough to make a living online! Other factors to keep in mind are that ad rates are falling due to the economic recession and that social media sites tend to have very very low click through rates (way below 1%) because many people return to the site, know where the ads are, and don’t click on them. It’s called “ad blindness” and if they’re not clicking on your ads then you’re not making money. I hope this helps in building your business case! Good luck!
Evan Carmichael
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS It should come as no surprise that the ad inventory on social networks like Facebook are not worth much. A new offer by Lookery, a startup that places ads on social apps inside Facebook and Bebo, is offering a guaranteed ad rate of 12.5 cents for every thousand impressions (CPM). The promotion, which runs through April is probably close to what Lookery can get for ads it places on Facebook. Add in 2 cents per thousand impressions for serving the ads and you get to about a 15 cent CPM. That is probably a good average for the bulk of inventory on Facebook, which makes up the vast majority of Lookery’s business.
This is a market-share play for Lookery. By offering a guaranteed rate, it hopes to attract enough application publishers to get to a billion impressions a month, up from 170 million in December. Lookery is smaller than the other major social-app ad networks, like Slide, RockYou, and Social Media. On social networks, more so even than on the Web in general, advertising is obviously a volume game. And Lookery is trying to catch up to the larger app ad networks, which may very well have higher average CPM rates, by taking all the low-hanging penny inventory that is out there.
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS The average person’s newsfeed reaches 164 friends on Facebook (see here), so each time a Facebook user becomes a Fan, 164 people have the opportunity to also become a fan and learn more about that company.
One way to establish a value for fans is to look at it in terms of what it would cost to buy 164 impressions. If we assume a $5 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) for 164 impressions, that would cost you roughly $.82 each time someone becomes a fan and has that displayed on their news feed. In the Lamborghini example, they received over 73,300,000 impressions from their 447,000+ fans, which equates to $366,540 worth of free advertising.
Ultimately, if you could conclude that as a result of someone becoming a fan, they influenced another person in their network to make a purchase from you, then that is when fans become profitable. The value is equal to the amount of profit you earn from that customer’s initial order and perhaps all of their future orders. Unfortunately, it is not possible to track to this magnitude today.
There are a few types of tracking available today that can give more insight into the value of fans. The first is to put special offers on your fan pages. If someone reacts to a special offer that is promoted on your fan page and is only accessible to fans, you could tell the number of sales you received from that specific promotion and, therefore, assign a value to your fans. A second method is more rudimentary. When one becomes a fan of yours, you know only a few things about them: First name, last name, date they became a fan. You could put this information in a database and cross-reference that with the name of the customers you receive each week. Anytime you find a match, you can infer that you received that sale, in part, because they are a fan. Obviously, there could be many other reasons why they bought from you, and you may have some difficulty matching just names in an accurate manner.
I’m interested to hear more thoughts and ideas of how others in the online marketing world value Facebook fans.
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 9:07 am and is filed under All Blogs, Attribution Management, News, Optimization, Uncategorized, What's New?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
11 Responses to “What Is the Value of a Facebook Fan?”
Gab Goldenberg says:
January 20, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Facebook doesn’t get $5 CPM, so you have to cut the numbers. An extremely high CTR ad (0.16% CTR – great for FB) saw 0.49 CPM and n average it’s closer to $0.15. But that is an interesting approach to measuring the value of a FB fan.
Adam Goldberg says:
January 21, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Hey Gab,
Didn’t mean to infer Facebook charges a $5 CPM. I was only using a $5 CPM to demonstrate how one could calculate the value of the free impression one receives when a Facebook user becomes a fan. You can replace that $5 CPM with whatever CPM you are more comfortable with.
Bruce Dietzen says:
August 15, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Adam,
I’ve tried to crunch the numbers every which way, but couldn’t convince myself of any solid way to value a fan. I’m guessing that the ultimate value of a fan is what a comany like Pepsi will pay a developer or advertiser to increase its fanbase so its bigger than Coke’s
Have you heard of any companies paying on a “Cost Per Fan” (CPF) basis yet? Is anyone even using such a term?
Alex Frakking says:
August 16, 2009 at 12:47 am
that $5 CPM isn’t unreasonable considering the “ad” is coming from a trusted source (a friend), and placed exactly where people are looking for information (the newfeed, as opposed to the ad strip).
However we can’t assume an update will reach 164 people just because that’s the number of friends they have. 1) Facebook filters the feeds, 2) some people won’t log on in time so it won’t even be displayed to them.
Good post!
yinka olaito says:
September 24, 2009 at 3:04 am
I like your cost per impression analysis, it speaks volumes about your knowledge. keep it up
Christian Del Monte says:
September 24, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Great post Adam. Couple of items I thought would be worth mentioning….because I had to read your analysis several times before I got it:)
That’s $0.82 per 164 impressions WHEN they become a fan. I’m curious as to what others say, but I’ve been averaging fans for about $2.50/fan while using FB’s advertising program. I believe that the cost/fan relies on several factors such as the product/service, facebook content, and brand. However, you can not deny the fact that when people “fan” a site, they ultimately are advocating your brand and are in tune with your company.
I’m not as interested in the “broadcasting measurement” as you so put it; as I am in the fact that fans have a lifetime value. In your Lamborghini example, that means when a new improved model comes out, 40x (versus Toyota) the amount of people will receive an newsfeed update alerting them to the fact….and keeping mind that they asked to know that in the first place. Lets go a step further and talk about how that could be monetized. What if a new James Bond film came out that featured a new Lambo. What would that announcement be worth to the film producer if that were seeded in Lamborghini’s news feed?
Best Regards,
Christian
Mike Nierengarten says:
September 28, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I would consider the value of a fan not by CPM but closer to the value of adding someone to your opt-in email list (possibly a little higher). You get the benefit of connecting directly with the fan via fan updates. You also get the initial endorsement of when the user becomes a fan, which is much more valuable than an regular impression on paid search or with a FB ad.
In terms of cost/fan, I would add targeting. If you are running very targeted ads on Facebook, your cost/fan should shrink significantly. Also, if you are running a contest or giveaway, you can also reduce costs. With my campaigns, I typically shoot for $0.50 per fan.
Rob Duncan says:
September 30, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Like the approach, but value is never the same as cost… so, it would be a good argument that by getting the exposure to those fans, Lamborghini “saved” itself some amount of money ($366k in your example) that it would have COST to gain the same exposure… of course, many would argue that such a campaign ($366k in CPM spending) would likely not have that VALUE to the company.
The bottom line is the “investment” building a fan base could stay around for a while, instead of the expense in PPC/CPM advertising which has no residual value. It should be used, when possible, as part of an overall strategy.
Akash Pai says:
October 8, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Interesting analysis, Adam. The numbers that you use for number of fans per user – 164 is from 2007. Do you have the latest nums? I guess they must be upwards of 200 now.
spanky says:
January 27, 2010 at 3:25 pm
$5 CPM lol – what are you smoking? Maybe if ALL of your friends are active, high-wealth investors. But your analysis is interesting…
Benjamin Weiss says:
February 25, 2010 at 5:14 pm
It’s a good start at measuring the acquisition of one new fan…but what about the lifetime value of that fan? Every time that the fan “likes” one of your posts or engages your group, the message is likely to be re-broadcast to ~160 users. It’s these subsequent engagements with your brand that make the bulk of the value of 1 friend.
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Resolved QuestionShow me another »
2 Million page impressions a month, how much can i earn with cpm?
How much can i earn with 2.5 million page impressions a month on cpm ads...isit worth me trying? Im new to webmaster and have no clue..
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by ben b Member since:
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dont get this sh*t.
you get 2 MILLION site visits? whats your site? even if you sold tooth brushes at 2p, with 2 million visitors, you'ud get some business? why the talk of cpm, whatever that is?
this is why i dont get it. if you had a page saying ill give you a fiver, you get loads of hits, yet youve got a wothless site. why people think numbers equals profit? its like your saying ive got loads of viewers, however gained, is there a product that will give me money for this? but yet somehow i cant, for all these millions of visitors?
the answer below confirms my misunderstanding of web bullsh*t.
he can make "o" dollars per "pr" so he should email this guy, to make "1000" "$" and no doubt, pay him his per "smooge" fee for "smege", but he'll find the small print much better paginated, and in perfect english, on the direct debit, pay per click mandate, when entering his bank details.
One thing i have noticed on the web, how many adverts that product your show to maximise dollar and you earn in sterling pound, can spaeak perfect small print english on a direct debit madate form?
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by ozzigold Member since:
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If you have that much traffic to a half decent site, you may like to consider NetAudioAds. Simply place the small code within your pages, and your visitors will be presented with a 5 second audio ad. You get paid on every ad played. The best part of this program is that it doesn't rely on "click-throughs" for you to get paid, and it doesn't take up valuable website space, that could be used for other advertising etc. No cost to you to participate.
Source(s):
http://www.sellingppp.com/s.cgi?ppp=1202…
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There are two questions that need to be asked
Is the quality of the vistors good ?
Is the traffic targeted?
Traffic from pop-unders etc is no good
cpm pays from 50c to $150 per 1000 viewers
If you have good targeted traffic can make a lot of money in advertising directly to the visitors. Check out affiliate programs. Or if you want to be lazy try adsense.
Good luck
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Depends on what you do with it. Example, I have one comunity Website, where I get about a $1.00 for every 1000 page impressions using Adsense. I have another website, where it's mostly technical how to's that I grew out of my computer business, where I get as much as $5.00 per click for referring someone to buying a peice of software, or a book. Most of the better PPC deals are on doubleclick, but now that Google has bought them out, I'm wondering if they'll keep paying out as well. The absolute best sites are the ones that are very tightly focused on one particular market segment, and you have someone advertising on there that direclty relates to it. Such as if you run a gaming site, and all you Game reviews, have something they can click to buy the game. Situations like that, you can get you the most. Good Luck
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Are the 2 million page impressions from unique visitors? In analytics it can be a bit misleading as it also can say 'page hits' which aren't unique visitors. Page hits include all the graphics in a single page, for example if your page had 10 graphics, that would be 10 page hits.
If it is indeed unique visitors, well done! You've done well!
There isn't a set price. If you are just starting, some would recommend to go for 0.005c per impression. So 1000 impressions would be $5.00. You can increase the price later when you get more advertisers lined up. But it's totally up to you.
Source(s):
http://www.gooruze.com/
on Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS So, You Want Sponsors/Advertisers, Huh?
By Joe Burns
Use these to jump around or read it all...
[What Do You Have That People Want?]
[Hits Vs. Visitors] [What Is The Magic Number?]
[How Much Do I Ask For?] [Flat Rate Or Impressions?]
[How Do I Get Started?] [Getting Advertisers]
[Do I Have To Advertise to Get Advertisers?]
[How Many Advertisers on One Page?]
[Final Thoughts]
Note to the Reader: The following is a tutorial that people have been asking me to write for some time now. Below are a lot of my opinions. Most of the information comes from my slant after having gone through the process. There are other ways of doing this. What is below is my way of doing it. So far, it's worked. The topics discussed are from different e-mails I have received.
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What Do You Have That People Want?
That's a bold question, Joe. Yes, but it's a pretty good one. I get letters all the time saying they want to advertise on their home page. I say, Great! How many people are coming in a day? I'm not talking hits mind you, I'm talking visitors. How many? Furthermore, does that warrant someone paying money for your site?
Hits vs. Visitors
When you are talking to a possible advertiser about the number of people that roll through your site in a day, month, or year, the advertiser usually wants to know about "Impressions" or "Visitors." Too often this gets confused with the concepts of hits. Here are the differences:
Hits: A "hit" is a request of the server. Let's say, for example, that you have a page that has five graphics on it. That page is equal to six hits, the page and then the five graphics. Sometimes people report "hits" to a possible advertiser. This is wrong, as it creates an inflated report of site traffic. If I could report hits alone, I could create graphics-filled pages and report numbers into the tens of millions.
Impressions (also called "Page Views"): This is a listing of how many times the ad banner was seen. It may be that one person saw the ad banner three times. That's fine. Impressions are simply the number of times the banner was seen.
Visitors: Visitors are the number of individual people coming into the site. Usually this number is reported right alongside Impressions. Something like, HTML Goodies creates 3 million impressions a month from 1.1 million individual visitors. (True, by the way.)
When I first started Goodies, I made a point of making my pages one hit each, three at the most. The reason was that I sold by impressions, but I paid by hits. I wanted the two numbers as equal as possible. Now I pay by space rather than impressions so I've gussied up the pages a bit.
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What Is The Magic Number?
Ten thousand per month. The question I am asked time and time again is how many people must come through the site for it to be worth selling to an advertiser. The number I kept hearing was 10,000 per month. Not 10,000 hits, but 10,000 individual visitors creating however many impressions. This appears to be the threshold where a serious advertiser will begin to talk to you.
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How Much Do I Ask For?
How much do you need? I don't mean that to be clever, either. What does it cost you in both hardware and time each month to run your site? I add "time" to that list because you must put in time. People want to be able to talk, or e-mail, to a real person. People also want to see change and improvement. It is my opinion that a site must evolve or it will die. I am forever answering e-mail or writing a new tutorial.
Now stop and think how much profits you wish to make. Yes, we'd all like to make 500% profit, but that's not always possible. You may price yourself right out of contention.
Finally, be flexible. You know what you want, but maybe an advertiser would like a break in price. You might say okay if they then offer to buy for five months rather than one, or pay up front. There is always a deal to be made.
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Flat Rate per CPM, Click-Throughs, or Impressions?
Your choice. I go with a flat rate per 1000 impressions, called a CPM (cost per thousand). I think it is most fair to the advertiser. I often give more impressions than I offer. That's good for the advertiser and shows good faith on my part. The advertiser also has it easier with flat rate as he/she is able to budget easily and can forecast whether they can remain on your site next month.
If you go by exact number of impressions, you make the cost a floating number and that makes it harder to forecast dollars. It may lead to the end of an advertiser relationship. Plus, with a floating rate you will need to prove exact numbers which are far more difficult to provide than your simply hitting a plateau of visitors.
Selling by click-throughs is another popular method. A click-through is when someone clicks on the advertiser's banner to see what it links to. I've seen contracts anywhere from .20 cents to $1 per click, though.
The problem with click-though advertising is that you need to be able to keep track of the clicks. I do it through a program I purchased that rotates my advertising banners and records impressions and clicks. The program is from Central Ad Pro and cost me around $600. You have to decide if that is worth it to you.
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How Much Does HTML Goodies Ask For?
None of your business. Just kidding! I used to have different costs for each of the pages. When I first created "htmlgoodies.com", if you wanted to be at the top of the main page, I asked for $500. Each tutorial was $200. That was for one calendar month.
That meant I could offer 150,000 impressions for $500. Maybe that will help you decide on the amount you want to charge as you're getting off the ground.
As I said above, I am now using a CPM rate. Plus I have someone selling for me. I actually stay pretty far away from the money side of the site. I believe the rates now run about $30 or better for a thousand impressions. The site's pretty profitable.
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How Do I Get Started?
I would suggest putting together two things, after the Web site of course:
A description of the site (make this detailed). This is a PR-type thing. Say someone asks you to send some information about your site and what it offers. This is the information you would send them.
A Rate Card. This is a listing of every page and its price. Or how much per 1000 impressions, or however you are going to do it. You may only be selling the main page. If so, great. List it.
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Getting Advertisers
There are couple ways of doing this. I only use one.
Sell yourself.
Hire someone to sell for you.
Sell Yourself
Get out there! Press the flesh! Shake a few hands! Slap a few backs! Sell! Sell! Sell!
Not much I can say here but to sell where you might find clients. Head to Internet shows. Write to advertisers over the Net. Put your pages on every search engine you can find. Post a rate card for all to see. I've never really done this outside of people asking about advertising simply because the site was there. I personally have never solicited for an advertiser outside of a return e-mail now and again.
Hire Someone
This is what I did. I felt I put enough time in working on the site. I'd head to the poorhouse before I made any contacts, so I hired a company to sell for me. I think it's the best way. The site became fun again when I got out of the money side. I actually came pretty close to closing Goodies altogether in 1996 because of having to sell the site myself.
The one downfall is that you don't get to keep all the money. These people won't work for free, you know! There is always a commission involved. In my case, it's 30% of the gross. Also, usually there is a statement that you don't get paid until the advertiser pays. So you may run a banner for a while, the advertiser doesn't pay, and you lose out. It happens, and it's part of doing business. That said...
Here is Yahoo's Internet Services Page. You can find companies there.
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Do I Have To Advertise To Get Advertisers?
I guess you can. I never had to outside of search engines. Plus, you should get some form of advertising from the company you sign up with. People tell me that the Internet Link Exchange is good for some free advertising. The only problem with that is that they want to post a banner, which takes away from space you, may sell in the future and also makes it appear that you have banners already and might not need advertising.
I'm just a big believer in "build a better mousetrap and they will come." Just make a point of registering all your pages so you are fairly easy to find when someone goes looking for what you offer.
Click Here to learn how to register your pages!
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How Many Advertisers Should Go On One Page?
That depends on you, your advertisers, and the size of their banners. Some advertisers want to be the only one on the page and will write that right into a contract. Other advertisers will allow themselves to be around other banners if they themselves are at the top or close to the top. My limit was four when I had the old format of one long page linking everything; two at the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom. I offered special prices to the one at the bottom.
Now that I use a program to rotate my banners for me, I only go with just a few per page.
Notice on this page, too, that ad banners are different sizes. Smaller banners allow for more per page with less intrusion.
If you do start selling ad space on your site, let me suggest that you also purchase a program that posts banners to pages on the fly. If you assign specific ad banners to specific pages, it tends to make the site look static. The CentralAd program I use can do that for you.
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Final Thoughts
It is my opinion that undertaking advertising is more than a hobby on the side. You must look at this as a small business. Not only must you offer something nice to attract people, but you need to continually update and add to what you offer. You need to keep balance sheets for tax purposes. It's hard to hide that you're making money on the WWW since everyone can see it.
Most important of all, ask yourself the question: "What do you have that people want?" The purpose should be providing something people will come to see. The advertising will come easily after that.
Finally, I can give no better thought-provoking information than this: This site was up and running for a year and five months before I made a penny in profit. Now that it is getting established, I am making enough for the site to pay for itself, and a dinner out with my wife once a week ...and that's about it.
May you become rich! I'm certainly not... not yet anyway.
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