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应用开发者进军Facebook的7大步骤

发布时间:2011-05-30 10:22:05 Tags:,,

作者:Dave McClure

2007年,对于旧金山海湾的怀旧嬉皮士来说是1967年著名的爱之夏嬉皮士运动的40周年纪念日;然而对于硅谷的各大开发者,企业和风险投资商来说,2007年则可以称为“Facebook之夏”。

撇开当今日新月异的高科技不说,我们很难忽视日益扩大的Facebook的规模以及它对那些新型网络公司和传统企业所带来的影响。每天有超过一半Facebook用户平均会花费20分钟的时间在这个网站逗留,且这个网站每个月的综合浏览量更是高达5400亿次(游戏邦注:本文发布于2007年,所有数据均以当时为准)。

在短短几个月时间里,Facebook就已经成为网络上最出名且最有效的用户获取渠道,先后打败搜索引擎优化和搜索引擎营销,成为新兴公司优先考虑的营销策略。Facebook上拥有100多万名用户的应用超过了60个,有40多个应用至少拥有10万名日常用户。

2004年春天,Facebook作为一大创新平台出现在世人面前;2007年夏天,已经拥有上百万用户的Facebook平台上连续出现了无数新型应用。那时候每个人(包括谷歌和微软)都在疑惑:“这些进入Facebook的公司到底有何锦囊妙计呢?”

facebook(from cani2u.com)

facebook(from cani2u.com)

在Facebook上创建社交模式的7大步骤

从个人角度来讲,我很沉迷Facebook,特别是Facebook这个平台和它的好友动态功能更是让我极度着迷。在过去,每天我都会花费大把时间在Facebook上与好友沟通交流,后来我便与BJ Fogg教授在斯坦福大学教学生如何制作Facebook应用。我将在这篇文章里详细分析开发者应该如何利用Facebook谋利,以及Facebook与其他社交网站的不同之处。

希望开发者进军Facebook的以下7大步骤,能够帮助初创公司,企业,产品或服务提高自身知名度:

1.绘制属社交图谱:建立自己的用户资料和隐私权限

使用Facebook之前,每个用户都必须填写自己的用户资料,设立隐私权限并添加好友。Facebook上的用户资料都是用户自己填写的虚拟资料,是用户在Facebook隐私设置基础上所制定的,用户可以自行决定公开多少自己的资料,也可以决定只对朋友公开或者只对自己公开。这些资料包括用户注释,照片,视频,状态更新,婚姻状况,住址,联系方式以及留言内容等。举个例子(如下图):我在自己的Facebook上设置完全公开大部分信息,但是电话号码和通讯地址我却只向好友公开。

Privacy setting for your profile

Privacy setting for your profile

用户的资料能够体现用户所使用的应用。刚开始Facebook的用户资料功能很不完善,完全不能与MySpace的色彩鲜艳且较为随性的用户资料相匹敌。但是自从引进了新的应用功能后,Facebook的用户资料完全可以与MySpace一较高下了。Facebook上的用户资料虽然看起来有点混乱,但是却有着非常合理的组织结构,即每一款应用程序中都有一个适当的空间用来展示用户资料。Facebook把用户各种各样的信息汇集在这个小小的空间里,并合理排序使其清晰明了且容易改动。事实上,Facebook平台上的很多功能可以说是其他网络服务的简化版(游戏邦注:Facebook的记录就像blog,Facebook的状态更新就像twitter,Facebook的分享就像del.icio.us等)。最后,用户在Facebook上的好友名录也能够帮助他们定位与所属社区的其他玩家的关系。Facebook用户的社交图谱即代表他们与朋友间的联系,通过这种关系属性,用户们能够更好地定义好友们。Facebook上的每一个数据元素都能帮助用户进行沟通并传播信息。

2.网络,小组和事件中的关系圈

除了自定义的社交图谱关系,用户在其所参与的网络,小组和事件中也有一系列不同的关系圈。网络关系圈中的好友都是一些来自于普通工作场所,不同地区甚至是学校的用户。他们的好友关系都是得到Facebook的认证和批准的,因为他们需要通过邮箱地址才能申请加入这个关系圈。小组关系圈的情况和网络关系圈类似,除此之外那些用户自定义的好友和成员也能被选择或挑选加入这个关系圈。事件关系圈却有别于前两个关系圈。事件关系圈拥有特点的时间和地理位置限制,并欢迎那些通过回复并希望加入的用户进入这个关系圈。

networks,groups & events

networks,groups & events

上述的3种关系圈都包含有网站链接,内容,邮件列表,日历,推广墙,论坛讨论以及其他能给用户带来方便的综合功能。也许它们不像YahooGroups,Eventbrite或者WordPress blog等拥有一些“不必要的附属部件”,但是因为各种原因,这些应用都取得了很好的成效。而且,Facebook已经在平台上绑定了这些应用,使得每一个用户都能使用自如了。一旦用户加入一个网络,小组或事件关系圈时,他的社交图谱将得到扩展,并与这些关系圈中的原本用户产生了交集。随后用户不仅能与这些关系圈的其他用户进行沟通交流,也能够得到该关系圈里其他用户的更多关注了。它们不仅能发信息给关系圈中的好友,也能从好友状态更新中了解到他们的动态。像Orkut和Tribe等网站也曾经使用过这种功能,因为在Facebook上建立起了用户的进一步交流体系,且实现了这种交流的简易化,所以Facebook才能成为如此强大的一种交流工具。

3.好友状态更新有助于推动社交活动

Facebook上多种多样的功能中,我最喜欢好友动态这一功能,因为这是一种最简单但却最有效的交流信息方式。当这种功能刚出现时,很多用户认为个人隐私会遭到泄露而对此骂声连连。但是后来人们学会了如何控制自己的隐私设置,并发现好友动态这一功能能够帮助他们更好地了解好友的动态。好友状态更新包括新照片,新视频,新评论,好友参加了什么事件,好友贴出了什么公告以及好友赠送了礼物给什么人等内容,可以说,好友动态就像是一张个人报纸,能够展现好友的各种社交活动,而且这些社交活动还能够在整个关系圈与所有好友共同分享。

social activity stream

social activity stream

当用户在Facebook平台上添加了任何信息,做出了任何评论,提交了任何内容或进行了任何社交活动时,他的社交图谱中的好友将能在自己的好友动态更新中看到这些内容。用户可以在动态提交前进行确认,同时也能删除或隐藏一些信息而不在好友动态中出现。为什么这个功能会如此让人惊喜呢?因为它本身并不什么是新技术的产物,可以说它只是一个新奇的功能罢了,而且通过好友动态公开人类行为着实是件有趣的事。有时候我登陆Facebook也只是单纯地想看看好友的动态更新。

4.内容分享——添加新的内容或媒体与好友分享

好友动态这一功能出现后,用户就应该考虑他们该如何更好地在这个界面传播内容和媒体了。通过点击链接或分享按钮(不论是在Facebook平台上还是火狐浏览器的Facebook工具栏上,亦或是IE浏览器的分享按钮),用户能够简单地向特定用户或者非公开地通过好友动态发表一些内容。随后,Facebook会通过使用好友动态优化(NFO)这一功能判断出这些内容的发表时间和发表对象。这种方法与谷歌所使用搜索引擎优化(SEO)筛选内容和链接的方式类似。用户可以在“people-tag”栏中选定好友,使其能够接受到通知,并打开查看该用户所更新的内容,包括注释,照片和视频。通过“people-tag”选定好友能够在用户更新后第一时间让好友知晓,并因此能够得到好友的相关评述。虽然这种方法有时候会被当成是垃圾邮件,但这真的可以算是引起好友注意的好方法呢。

share your content

share your content

最后,我还想提到的一点是,当我在URL框粘贴了一个链接时,Facebook会自动对这个链接进行搜索,并让我自己挑选出最符合这一链接的图片。这虽然是个简单的功能,但是却能帮助用户把相关链接做的更有趣且更让人明白。

5.未来的应用程序:Facebook平台,API和应用程序

当谈及Facebook的转变时总少不了Facebook平台,API和应用程序的话题。自从Facebook这个平台上线以来,它一直为整个网络提供一个有趣且充满创新的应用环境。正如上述所提到的,已经有好几百家新兴公司在Facebook平台上推出上千种应用,其中更不乏一些知名的大公司。虽然并非每一款应用都能够大获成功,但这其中确实出现了一些早期成就令人侧目的典型,其中包括Slide.com, RockYou, SocialMedia, iLike, Flixster, HotOrNot和Renkoo等公司。这些公司通过在Facebook上发行应用并通过病毒式传播而进行营销,吸引了无数的用户。大多数成功的案例都是建立在Facebook较早前的应用邀请和安装请求功能的基础上,尽管现在Facebook对发布于该平台上的应用限制有所加强,但是仍有无数的应用开发公司涌向这个平台。

Facebook Platform Anatomy diagram

Facebook Platform Anatomy diagram

从以上的Facebook平台解析图中我们可以看出,这些应用程序所处的这个大环境正日益发生变化,并逐渐成熟起来。Facebook在测量其平台上的应用程序上发生了重大变化,最初的测量方法是关注应用程序的用户总数,而现在则更关注于那些以日活跃用户为准的用户粘性。除了测量方式的改变,Facebook API也发生了显著的变化,但是这种变化却使得那些一直致力于研究编码的开发者产生了许多不满情绪。Facebook平台上的这些变化可以说都是为了用户而做出的改变,通过这样做不仅能够淘汰很多贫乏无趣的应用,同时也能帮助推动用户进行更多原本不愿意进行的行动,包括邀请好友使用应用,或主动发告示或信息给好友等。这些变化将能够为广大用户提供一个充满各种功能的安全且又有活力的生态圈,但其副作用在于它让Facebook平台的游戏规则变得更加难以预测,甚至有可能每周都出现变更。

绝大多数应用开发商认为这个领域里的机遇远远大于风险,而且虽然谷歌,LinkedIn,MySpace等其它网站也可能将出现新的社交平台和社交API,Facebook仍然主导着这个领域,仍然是绝大多数应用开发者最中意的一个平台。刚开始大家都不对Facebook抱有信心,因为当比起那些拥有大量应用开发者和平台支持的互联网巨头公司(例如谷歌,微软和雅虎等),Facebook只是这个领域的一个新手,没有理由取得成功。而且在那时候,作为一个社交网络平台并制造社交API和产品,Facebook并未有任何知名度。而现在,当整个网络领域都在看好社交应用和社交图谱的巨大潜力时,Facebook随即成为发展最为迅速且最有竞争力的平台和API。

6.盈利解决方案:广告网络的推广渠道

当开发者带着自己的应用程序经过激烈竞争后进入社交图谱时,广告网络公司也在彼此竞争着,想从这些开发者身上谋取利益。比起通过传统的“非Facebook”品牌企业身上获取利益,绝大多数广告网络公司更倾向于通过传播这个平台上的最新应用而创收。也就是说在Facebook这个平台上,新型广告网络公司和Facebook本身都有大量的广告创收机遇。

以下是Facebook平台上三大不同类型的广告服务供应商:

·交叉推广应用的开发商

·帮助发行商推广应用的交叉推广服务供应商

·帮助非Facebook广告商获取Facebook用户的广告公司

第一种类型的广告主是应用开发商,主要通过交叉推广途径推销自己的应用程序。RockYou, Slide和Social Media都是属于这种类型的广告主。

第二种类型则属于交叉推广服务供应商,通过收取一定费用,帮助应用发行商更好地推广其应用程序,这类公司包括Cubics, fbExchange和Social Media等。

第三类广告公司可以为那些希望获得Facebook用户,但同时又不想采用Facebook广告解决方案的非Facebook广告主提供服务。一些交叉推广服务供应商也接收这种业务,例如Lookery和VideoEgg(它主要发挥视频网站的功能)。

在针对非Facebook领域的广告吸金军备赛中,这些网络广告公司面临的共同劲敌正是Facebook本身。众所周知,Facebook想要推出更大规模的广告服务,即使很多广告公司看准了这个平台上潜伏的巨大机遇,信心满满地进军Facebook准备迎接各种挑战,但是仍有很多人对于Facebook到底会采取何种措施,以处理它和第三方广告公司之间的关系而充满好奇。

sponsored stories

sponsored stories

最后,第三方广告商能够借助Facebook这个平台,并通过与微软的合作瞄准Facebook平台的目标用户。首先,微软数字广告解决方案中也有一些关于Facebook平台的用户数据。在Facebook Marketplace中则提供了Flyers、Sponsored Groups和Sponsored Listings等广告服务选项,但是最有效的机制当数Sponsored Stories(它体现在好友状态功能中)。Facebook曾经使用过一种广告模式,即在原先备受争议的新闻供应中插入广告内容,Facebook未来也很有可能再次使用这种功能。如果某天Facebook上出现了类似于谷歌“AdWords”的服务时,不要感到惊讶,因为这标志着该平台的自助式Sponsored Stories界面也即将面世。这种服务能否盈利将在很大程度上影响Facebook未来的营收。

当然还有另一种进军Facebook的选择,例如很多品牌公司都正在创建自己的应用,以利用Facebook收获用户粘性,而不只是获得印象分而已。尽管采用这种方式的企业目前收获的成效不尽相同,但毫无疑问他们的基础相当强大,正如过去十年的许多大公司通过建立自己的网站和电子商务服务,追赶那些快速发展着的创业公司一样,最近又开始提高自己的SEM和SEO技巧,现在又投身于Facebook平台,研究如何开发出色的Facebook应用以获取目标用户。尽管这种方式刚刚起步,但依托丰富的用户资料和社交化的应用平台,Facebook为各种公司提供了惊人的广告机遇。

7.提供虚拟礼物,积分和货币

我曾经写过一篇关于虚拟商品及其潜在商机的文章。而且从那以后在Facebook上也出现了很多关于虚拟货币的应用体验,但是它们中的绝大部分却不了而终:如果这些虚拟货币能够得到有效运用,将能帮助应用增强用户粘性。

一个强大的虚拟经济标志着一个粘性极高的用户基础。用户对商品的态度和购买意愿与用户粘性直接相关。也就是说,如果你的产品能够让玩家有身临其境的感受而不是作为一个无所事事的旁观者,他们将会更乐意掏钱。

一个完善的虚拟货币系统能够有效地提高用户粘性,并培养更有价值的社交联系。我所说的“有价值”的社交联系是指能够从用户基础中获取更多的网络效应和剩余价值的内容。虚拟货币并不仅意味着开发商能够以零成本模式从用户手中赚取利润,而且能够体现用户社区的核心价值,培养有助于增加应用价值的用户行为模式。排行榜也是吸引用户关注的一个好方法。(下图即Digg旗下一个游戏社区的排行榜),虚拟货币可以作为体现社区内外共享价值的有效方法。而开发者作为社区的用户流量“主管”,能够在其中恰当的地方设置Yield,One Way和Exit等标志以吸引更多的社区用户流量。

virtual gifts

virtual gifts

虚拟商品主要有3种不同种类,包括装饰性,功能性和行为性。装饰性商品主要是一些帮助用户展现自我的商品。功能性商品则是那些能够促进用户体验的商品,例如《魔兽世界》中的盔甲能使用户更具战斗力。行为性商品指的是那些能够让用户进行社交活动的图标,例如虚拟礼物,这种类型的虚拟商品可以说是如今Facebook上最流行的一种商品。

Facebook上的10大应用中的X Me和SuperPoke!就是很好的交流工具。如图所示的X Me屏幕截图中,每一个图像,包括“爱心”,“拳头”或者“吻”都是用户进行社交的特殊标识。尽管这种图像不带任何目的性,但是用户通过使用这些图像能更好地了解如何使用虚拟产品。我认为这些应用程序将会成为虚拟货币系统大施拳脚的广阔平台。例如支持用户使用自定义图像来表达自定义动作,将有助于人们创造出更多新型且罕见的虚拟物品。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Seven Steps to Graphing Your Facebook Strategy

This guest post is written by Dave McClure: startup advisor, angel investor, PayPal alumnus, and Master of 500 Hats. Dave is organizing next week’s Graphing Social Patterns conference on Facebook, covering many of the topics and companies mentioned below. He’s also a rookie instructor for a new Stanford class on Facebook apps, and an unapologetic Facebook Fanboy and social networking addict. Sections on virtual currency and ad networks contributed by Susan Wu, Charles River Ventures and Sundeep Ahuja, AppFuel.

For nostalgic hippies in the SF bay area, this was the 40th anniversary of 1967′s famous Summer of Love. But for every Silicon Valley developer, entrepreneur, and VC who has a pulse it’s been the Summer of Facebook.

While it’s easy to put aside geeky exuberance over the latest insanely great technology, it’s impossible to ignore the growing size and scope of Facebook, and the impact it’s having on internet startups and traditional businesses alike. Over half of Facebook’s 43 million users visit every day, spend an average of 20 minutes on the site, and view over 54 billion total page views per month.

In a few short months Facebook has quickly become one of the most impressive user acquisition channels on the web, rivaling SEO & SEM strategies for priority with new startups. Over 60 Facebook applications have more than 1 million total users, and over 40 have at least 100,000 daily users.

With the groundbreaking launch of the Facebook Platform this past spring, and the subsequent runaway growth of Facebook Apps adopted by millions of users this summer, the question on everyone’s lips (including Google and Microsoft) has been: “So what’s your Facebook strategy?”. If you’re still scrambling to figure out yours, read on.

Seven Steps to Graphing Social Patterns on Facebook

Personally I’ve become addicted to Facebook, and in particular with the Facebook Platform and the News Feed. I’ve spent hours upon hours experimenting with new ways it provides to connect and communicate, and recently began teaching a class at Stanford with Professor BJ Fogg on how to build Facebook apps. In this article i’ll explain how to use Facebook to make a big impact on your business, and why it’s substantially different than any other social network that’s come before.

Here are seven major aspects of Facebook you can use to increase the visibility of your startup, business, product or service:

1. Set Up Your Graph: Profiles & Privacy

2. Make Connections: Networks, Groups & Events

3. The Need for Feed: Your [Shared] Social Activity Stream

4. Share Your Content: Share & People-Tag Your Stories & Media

5. App to the Future: The Facebook Platform, APIs, & Applications

6. Pay to Play: Ad Networks, Sponsored Stories, & Paid Distribution

7. Show Me The Bunny: Gifts, Points, & Virtual Currency

I’ll explore each of these items in more detail after the jump. For developers and marketers interested in learning more, we’ll be covering these topics in depth next week in San Jose at Graphing Social Patterns, a conference on the business and technology of Facebook and social networking.

I. Set Up Your Graph: Profiles & Privacy

It all begins with your Facebook profile, your privacy settings, and a few friends. Your profile is the virtual depiction of YOU on Facebook — depending on how you customize your Facebook privacy settings, you can display as much or as little of yourself as you care to the entire world, just to your friends, or to no one at all. This includes your notes, photos, videos, your one-liner profile status, your relationship status, your location & contact information, the messages left on your wall, etc. See an example below — currently I expose most info to everyone in my network, however I only share my phone and IM info with my friends:

Your profile also includes visual representations of your apps. Up until a few months ago, Facebook profiles stood in stark, locked-down contrast to the technicolor, anything-goes world of MySpace profiles. But with the introduction of Facebook apps, you now have the ability to make just as much of a mess of your profile on Facebook as on MySpace (ok, well almost). At least with Facebook you have a structured mess — each app has its own clearly defined profile real estate. What’s really going on under the covers is that Facebook has aggregated a wide variety of data into one simple page that’s [usually] easy to digest & manipulate. In fact, several Facebook profile features appear to be simplified versions of other internet services (FB note = blog, FB status update = twitter, FB share = del.icio.us, etc). That’s really helpful for n00bs like Ted Stevens and me. Finally, the list of friends you collect on Facebook defines your relationship with the rest of the community. Your social graph is the collection of nodes and connections representing all your friends, along with relationship attributes that define them. Each of these data elements are the inputs Facebook uses to grok, matrix, and distribute the river of information called the Feed (more on this later).

II. Make Connections: Networks, Groups & Events

In addition to your personally-defined set of social graph connections, you also have a set of connections defined by your participation in Networks, Groups, and Events. A Network is a group of people that are part of a common workplace, geographical location, or a school. This is a formal affiliation as defined or approved by Facebook, and typically you need to have an email address to participate (except for geographical groups). A Group is a collection of people similar to a Network, except it’s user-defined and members can be selected, invited, or simply join to participate.

An Event is a time- and or location-specific occurance, that also may have a collection of associated individuals who have RSVP’d to attend (or not). [note: there may also be a new 'Friend Groups' container coming soon from Facebook... watch this space].

All three of these Facebook ‘container’ apps for collections of people have associated URLs, content, mailing lists, calendars, walls, discussion boards, and other types of neatly integrated functionality. While they may not have all the bells and whistles available with other tools like YahooGroups or Eventbrite or a WordPress blog, for most basic purposes they work pretty well.

Furthermore, since they’re already integrated with Facebook, everyone can become a user without much friction or hassle.Once you join a network, group, or event, your social graph expands to connect with all the members therein. Your ability to connect, contact, and be contacted is now extended through the community participating in these collections. You can easily message or post to members of these communities, and you also have visibility into their Feed… as do they with you. While other social networks such as Orkut and Tribe (and YahooGroups) have provided similar functionality in the past, the simplicity and ease with which these sub-communities can be established within Facebook are what make it such a powerful tool for communication.

III. The Need for Feed: Your [Shared] Social Activity Stream

Of all the feature innovations Facebook has introduced, News Feed (& Mini-Feed) is for me perhaps the most impressive — because it’s a very simple yet elegant way to share information. A year ago when these features were first introduced, most of the noise that ensued was due to the initial user revolt that occurred with the display of what users presumed was (previously) private information. However, after the storm subsided and people began to learn to control their privacy settings, they’ve discovered News Feed is a pretty cool way to stay updated on what your friends are doing. It contains information on new photos, new videos, wall comments, events people are attending, links they’ve posted, gifts they’ve given… in short, it’s a personal newspaper on all the social activities you and your friends are part of. Simply put: it’s the collective stream of our shared social activity.

As you add information, make comments, submit content, or perform other activities in the Facebook environment, these actions are recorded in your Mini-Feed, and are contributed to the overall Feed for the community represented by your social graph. Note if you wish to control information being submitted to the feed, check your Mini-Feed for what news items have been submitted… you can delete or hide certain stories to limit external News Feed visibility.Why is the Feed so amazing? Because it isn’t really the technology that’s novel… rather it’s the change in human behavior brought about by the Feed that is so new and interesting. These days it’s common for me to login to Facebook just to see the updates on News Feed activity. When technology changes behavior, that’s when you know you’ve made a real breakthrough.

IV. Share Your Content: Share & People-Tag Your Stories & Media

Once the News Feed construct is established, it’s interesting to consider how you can use it to distribute stories and content and media. By using the Post a Link or Share button (either inside Facebook, or on the Facebook toolbar for Firefox, or from the Share button for Internet Explorer), it’s easy to post something either as a message to specific users, or to no one in particular via the Feed. Facebook then uses a proprietary News Feed Optimization (NFO) algorithm to determine when and to whom those news items are shown, similar in concept to how Google interprets and prioritizes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for search content and links.One way in particular to make sure content is made visible to others is to ‘people-tag’ various types of content, by referencing individuals within your social network in notes, photos, and videos. This likely increases the prioritization of feed content for the individuals tagged, and also initiates a message to them that they’ve been tagged. Although these actions can certainly be abused in a spam-like way, it can also be a fun and interesting way to get people’s attention.

Lastly, one thing I love about the post a link feature is the way Facebook automagically recognizes when I post a link or reference a URL, and then picks up that URL and searches for any embedded images to display, letting me scroll to select the one I think is the best picture / most relevant. This is a very simple feature, but provides such great utility in making link content more interesting / more visible.

V. App to the Future: The Facebook Platform, APIs, & Applications

Certainly no Facebook conversation would be complete without a discussion of the Facebook Platform and the APIs & apps that bring them together. With the launch of Platform in May, Facebook has arguably delivered the most exciting and innovative application development environment on the web today. As mentioned above, there are already hundreds of startups building Facebook apps, and a few larger brand name companies as well, with thousands of apps shipped live in just a few short months. While not every app has been a home run, there are certainly several examples of early success from companies such as Slide.com, RockYou, SocialMedia, iLike, Flixster, HotOrNot, Renkoo, and others. These companies acquired millions of users by creating and marketing Facebook apps that spread virally through the Facebook user community via invites, notifications, the profile & the feed. And while some of these success stories took advantage of lenient initial standards for app invites and install requests, even after Facebook stiffened the rules new apps have continued to launch that demonstrate explosive growth and large user adoption.

Facebook Platform Anatomy diagram courtesy of Yee LeeHowever, the environment in which these apps live is maturing and changing rapidly. Facebook has already made a significant change in how it measures apps, moving from an initial set of metrics that focused on the total of app users, to more recently emphasizing active daily user ’s that prioritize user engagement over total reach (an excellent move in my opinion). In addition to changes in measurement, there have been notable changes to Facebook APIs that have resulted in some amount of grumbling from developers who have worked hard on code that has been quickly deprecated. Most of these changes have been made for the benefit of users, in order to reduce overly spammy apps that attempt to generate massive app invites, notifications, and messages, or trick users into taking actions they may not have intended. While these changes may result in a safer and more vibrant ecosystem with lots of new features, the downside has been an occasionally unpredictable and sometimes unstable playing field with rules that have changed on a weekly basis.

Still most app developers seem to believe the opportunities outweigh the risks, and while it appears new social platforms and social APIs are coming soon from Google, LinkedIn, MySpace, & others, Facebook continues to dominate the focus and conversation of most developers and their efforts. At the moment it is Facebook’s game to lose. This is quite an astonishing accomplishment given the relative newcomer status of Facebook compared to other internet titans Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, all of whom have large developer followings and platform offerings. At the moment, none except Facebook have captured lightning in a bottle by combining a rich web development environment with a social networking platform to produce socially-aware apps and objects. But you can bet the entire IntraWeb now recognizes the potential of social applications and the social graph, and they are all gunning for Facebook with competitive platforms and APIs as fast as they can.

VI. Pay to Play: Ad Networks, Sponsored Stories, & Paid Distribution

As developers compete to access the social graph via apps, advertising networks compete to access the pocketbooks of those same developers. At the moment most of these ad networks’ initial adoption appears to be coming primarily from new apps who want distribution and are willing to pay for it, rather than traditional ‘off-Facebook’ brand businesses. That said, the promise of larger advertising dollars on Facebook remains a huge brass ring for both emerging ad networks on Facebook as well as Facebook itself.

There are three main categories of ad networks operating on Facebook:

* app factories that cross-promote applications

* cross-promotion networks allowing publishers to pay to promote apps (or get paid to promote other apps)

* companies enabling off-Facebook advertisers to reach Facebook users

The first category of networks are the application factories that cross-promote their own apps, with RockYou, Slide, and Social Media being the biggest. The second category are cross-promotion networks giving publishers a way to promote their applications while getting paid to promote other applications; these include Cubics, fbExchange, and (again) Social Media. Yet a third category of networks is offering an alternative to off-Facebook advertisers that want access to Facebook users, but don’t want to use Facebook’s own advertising solutions. A few of the cross-promotion networks do this, as do Lookery and VideoEgg (primarily a video network).

In bringing off-Facebook dollars to the platform these networks are up against a rather formidable competitor: Facebook itself. It’s no secret that Facebook intends to iterate its advertising offering in a big way, and MySpace recently made headlines for doing the same. It’s anyone’s guess how Facebook will choose to deal with third-party ad networks, though most of them say they’re willing to risk the competition due to the size of the opportunity in front of them.

Finally, third-party advertisers can also target Facebook users through Facebook itself, and via their partnership with Microsoft. For starters there’s Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, which has some interesting Facebook demographic stats. There are also Flyers, Sponsored Groups, and Sponsored Listings in the Facebook Marketplace. However, the most powerful mechanism is Sponsored Stories, which show up in users’ News Feeds. Facebook introduced a whole new advertising paradigm by inserting stories into the originally-controversial newsfeed, and will likely be iterating on the potential for this feature in the future. In fact, don’t be surprised if Facebook’s ‘AdWords’ equivalent — a self-service Sponsored Stories interface — is coming next. The adoption and monetization of this future service is probably where a significant amount of Facebook’s future revenue will come from… or not.

As a second approach to Facebook, some notable brands are building their own apps hoping to use the platform for engagement rather than impressions. Though success to date has been varied, the premise is powerful; just as big brands have spent the last decade catching up with startups by building their own websites and e-commerce services, and more recently working on SEM & SEO techniques, they are now investigating how to develop Facebook applications to reach their target customers. It’s still early, but by combining rich user profiles and a social application platform, Facebook is setting up an incredible advertising opportunity.

VII. Show Me The Bunny: Gifts, Points, & Virtual Currency

Not too long ago, I wrote a TechCrunch article on virtual goods and their potential to become the next big business model. Since then, there have been innumerable experiments with virtual currency apps on Facebook, but most of them are still missing the big picture: used effectively, virtual currency can greatly enhance user engagement.

A robust virtual economy is a good sign that you have a highly engaged user base. Virtual goods are pretty much meaningless without context; there is direct correlation between the engagement level a user feels with your product and their willingness to purchase virtual goods. Thus, if you help your users feel more like citizens rather than just bystanders, they are much more likely to participate in your virtual economy.

Yet the converse is also true: a well implemented virtual currency system can greatly increase user engagement and foster valuable types of social interaction. By “valuable” I mean social interaction that catalyzes network effects and results in residual value from your user base. Virtual currency isn’t just a zero-marginal-cost way of extracting more money from your users — it’s also a primary means of exposing your community’s core values and encouraging behavioral patterns that increase the value of your app. Much the same way that a leaderboard has a way of focusing users attention towards certain metrics (ex: Digg below left is essentially a community driven by leaderboards), virtual currency can be used as an efficient way of signaling a community’s implicit and explicit shared values. Then you, as the community traffic cop, can put down the right Yield, One Way, and Exit signs in the right places to generate the most optimal community traffic flow.

There are 3 major types of virtual goods: decorative, functional, and behavioral. Decorative goods are those primarily geared towards self expression. Functional goods are those that meaningfully alter your user experience. For example, a suit of armor in World of Warcraft that confers a special advantage to you would be a functional virtual good. Behavioral virtual goods are graphical icons that capture some sort of social interaction. This is the type that is most prevalent on Facebook today. Virtual gifts are the best known example of this category of virtual good.

Two of the top 10 Facebook apps, X Me and SuperPoke!, are essentially just interaction tools. In the X Me screenshot above right, each of the icons – whether it be Love, Punch, or Kiss – is an encapsulation of a specific social interaction. Though it may not be purposeful, these types of casual apps are training users to understand how to interact with virtual goods. I can easily see how these apps become platforms that launch broader virtual currency systems. For example, expanding this app to allow users to attach custom graphics to their custom actions would create a new, rare class of virtual objects.(source:techcrunch


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