This week’s headlines from across Inside Network

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 05-02-2012-05-2008

0

A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you from Jan. 30 to Feb. 4.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods. 

Monday, Jan. 30

Tuesday, Jan. 31

Wednesday, Feb. 1

Thursday, Feb. 2

Friday, Feb. 3

Saturday, Feb. 4

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Monday, Jan. 30

Tuesday, Jan. 31

Wednesday, Feb. 1

Thursday, Feb. 2

Friday, Feb. 3

Saturday, Feb. 4

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, Jan. 30

Tuesday, Jan. 31

Wednesday, Feb. 1

Thursday, Feb. 2

Friday, Feb. 3

Saturday, Feb. 4


Read More

New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: Spooky Cool Labs, GREE, Plumbee and more

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 04-02-2012-05-2008

0

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities across social and mobile application platforms.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Plumbee, GREE International, Inc., Tapjoy, LolGames, 6 Waves/Lolapps, Funcom Games Canada, Addmired, Identified, Spooky Cool Labs, King.com, Mobile Deluxe,  Game Show Network, IMVU, Stealth Mobile Startup, XMG Studio and FashionPlaytes, Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

Stealth Mobile Startup

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

Read More

Facebook hires marketing exec to boost brand image

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 04-02-2012-05-2008

0

Facebook hired former Levi’s CMO Rebecca Van Dyck to lead its global marketing efforts, according to Ad Age.

Van Dyck, who worked at Apple and Wieden+Kennedy before Levi’s, will bring important branding experience to Facebook. An initial public offering this year will put more pressure on the company to improve its image. Although it has in eight years become one of the most well-known brands in the world, it ranks among the lowest in consumer satisfaction. With Google heavily promoting an alternative social network, Facebook will need to be strategic in coming years.

Facebook significantly increased its marketing and advertising efforts in 2011. It spent $28 million in advertising last year — up from $8 million in 2010, according to IPO documents. The social network runs Google AdWords and Facebook ad campaigns. (We have reached out to Facebook to clarify how its house ads are billed.) The company has recently formed a number of partnerships with media companies like NBC, the New York Times, USA Today and Politico to build its brand.

Facebook mentioned in its IPO filing that unfavorable press coverage could negatively affect its business. This is true for any company, but it is notable that Facebook included it in the risk factors section of its prospectus. Google and LinkedIn did not.

Google ran a number of television commercials last year promoting its social network and other products. Facebook could follow suit, but since CEO Mark Zuckerberg is known to be skeptical of traditional advertising, the company could be looking to try other types of campaigns.

Van Dyck was recently involved in Levi’s “Go Forth” initiative, in which the company donated more than $1 million to renovate a community center and aid an urban farming program in Braddock, Pa. Facebook was likely most interested in Van Dyck’s experience with Apple where she worked for seven years and helped with launches of the iPhone, iPad, iPod and iTunes.

Image credit: Rebecca Van Dyck’s LinkedIn profile

Read More

Facebook roundup: Politics, Super Bowl ads, more

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 03-02-2012-05-2008

0

Facebook polls appear in Times Square – Facebook and ad agency R/GA partnered to produce a political polling app, 2012 Matters: What Matters Most. Users can indicate which issues are most important to them and have their answers appear on the Nasdaq digital billboard in Times Square.

Facebook, USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter - Involver is powering Facebook and USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter on Facebook.com/sports and other pages. The app allows users to see, rate and share Super Bowl ads before, during and after the game via web or mobile.

Most users get big social return from Facebook – A study from the Pew Research Internet Project found that most users receive more social feedback than they put into the platform. This is due to the fact that there’s a small percentage of power users that is extremely active in liking, commenting and providing other social feedback on the site.

Bday Gift Finder uses data to find gifts – Bday’s Bday Gift Finder is an app that allows users to find the right gifts for friends by utilizing user data to settle on the most appropriate gift card. The app analyzes Likes and the sentiment attached to those Likes. Bday recently received $2 million in Series A funding.


Read More

Join Us at Inside Social Apps Next Week

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 03-02-2012-05-2008

0

February 8 – 9, 2012 | San Francisco

 

 

Inside Social Apps 2012 is coming next Wednesday and Thursday!

Pre-registration passes are $599 until February 7, and will be $799 at the door.

Register Here

Join us as we host the industry’s leading developers for two days of panels, discussions, and networking around the social and mobile app ecosystem.

How do developers in the industry view today’s top challenges in social and mobile apps and games? Which platforms will see the most growth in 2012, and what are the key opportunities ahead? We’ve recently finalized our event agenda that looks at this industry’s biggest questions from the perspectives of those who are shaping it every day. View the full agenda here.

Better yet, save your spot and register now.

Who’s Speaking?

We’re excited to present the following 44 confirmed speakers at Inside Social Apps 2012:

Carl Sjogreen
Director of Product Management, Facebook		 Cory Ondrejka
Director of Engineering, Facebook
Russ Heddleston
Product Manager, Facebook		 David Glazer
Engineering Director, Google+
Carla Bourque
SVP, Buddy Media		 Simon Mansell
CEO, TBG Digital
Clara Shih
Founder and CEO, Hearsay Labs		 Mike Ouye
Founder and CEO, Red Robot Labs
John Spinale
Senior Vice President, Social Games, Disney Interactive Media Group		 Barry Cottle
Executive Vice President, EA Interactive
Daniel Terry
Co-founder & CEO, Pocket Gems		 Perry Tam
CEO, Storm8
Jens Begemann
Founder and CEO, wooga		 Lee Linden
Founder, Karma Science
Charles Hudson
Co-founder and CEO, Bionic Panda Games		 John Earner
GM European Studios, EA / Playfish
Paul Bettner
GM, Zynga With Friends		 Kevin Chou
Co-founder and CEO, Kabam
Suleman Ali
Co-founder and CEO, TinyCo		 Will Harbin
Chairman and CEO, Kixeye
Mario Schlosser
Chief Scientist, Vostu		 Jeff Tseng
CEO and Co-Founder, Kontagent
Dennis Ryan
EVP Worldwide Publishing, PopCap		 Eric Goldberg
Managing Director, Crossover Technologies
Haining Wang
CEO, Happy Elements		 Sho Masuda
VP Marketing, Social Games, GREE
Clay Kellogg
Head of App Dev. Sales, AdMob		 Terry Angelos
Co-Founder and CPO, TrialPay
David Katz
VP of Digital Media, Starz		 Suchit Dash
Co-founder and VP of Product, Ifeelgoods
Atul Bagga
Senior Analyst – Video Games & China Internet, Lazard Capital Markets		 Peter Farago
VP Marketing, Flurry
Anil Dharni
Co-founder, Funzio; Founder, Storm8		 Mike Sego
CEO, Gaia Interactive
Tim Chang
Managing Director, Mayfield Fund		 Micah Adler
Founder & CEO, Fiksu
Arjun Sethi
CEO, 6waves Lolapps		 Brenda Garno
COO & Game Designer, Loot Drop
Bill Jackson
Creative Director, CastleVille, Zynga		 Hussein Fazal
CEO & Co-founder, AdParlor
Mihir Shah
President & CEO, TapJoy		 Lisa Marino
CEO, RockYou
Rick Thompson
Co-Founder, Playdom, and Investor		 Riz Virk
Co-founder and CEO, Gameview Studios

Registration

Previous Inside Social Apps conferences have sold out in advance of event day, so we strongly encourage you to register now.

Pre-registration passes are $599 until February 7, and will be $799 at the door. Register Now

About Inside Social Apps

Inside Social Apps 2012 will explore new opportunities, as well as emerging risks, in the development, distribution and monetization of social and mobile applications. Inside Social Apps 2012 will span February 8 – 9, and will bring together the world’s leading social and mobile developers and investors for critical discussion and analysis.

Social applications first made their splash in the US in 2007, and have now evolved into a global media ecosystem. Today’s social and mobile apps comprise a profitable multi-billion dollar industry, characterized by vibrant investment activity and newly emerging opportunities on mobile platforms.

Inside Social Apps is Inside Network’s content-focused conference series that investigates the latest trends and challenges for social and mobile applications and the companies that bring them to market.

Past Inside Social Apps events have seen sold out before conference day, so we strongly encourage you to register early.

Registration

Pre-registration passes are $599 until February 7, and will be $799 at the door. If you’re doing business in social and mobile apps, we strongly encourage you to register now.

From all of us at Inside Network, we look forward to seeing you on February 8 and 9 in San Francisco!

Read More

Mobile usage pushes Facebook engagement to new heights

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 03-02-2012-05-2008

0

A greater percentage of Facebook’s monthly active users became daily active users in recent years as consumers switched to smartphones, according to an analysis of the company’s filing for an initial public offering.

DAU as a percentage of MAU is an important metric to judge “stickiness.” If the company were gaining millions of new users but not maintaining a steady DAU over MAU, it would suggest those users were not finding reasons to return as frequently. In Facebook’s case, the ratio of monthly users returning daily has increased from 44 percent to 57 percent since June 2009. This supports the idea that the social network not only grew in volume but became more engaging. In its IPO prospectus, the company attributes much of this growth to mobile usage.

DAU over MAU grew at its fastest rate between June 30 and Dec. 31, 2009, as smartphone growth took off in the U.S. and Europe. Apple released the iPhone 3GS and Palm released the Pre in June 2009. Motorola introduced the first Droid in October of that year. As millions of consumers purchased smartphones and added Facebook apps, daily engagement accelerated. That period saw faster DAU growth in the U.S. and Europe than it did in Asia and the rest of the world.

The DAU/MAU ratio is not increasing as drastically as it had been, but it continues to grow. DAU as a percentage of MAU increased from 54 percent in December 2010 to 57 percent in December 2011. We can expect this number to keep improving as more users connect to Facebook through mobile apps. Another factor that could encourage more users to engage daily is Open Graph. As more apps and websites integrate Facebook, the social network can increase daily active users without those users visiting the site directly.

It’s unclear how high the percentage will go, but at some point, DAU over MAU will hit a threshold. Investors should keep an eye on this metric to gauge how well Facebook is growing and maintaining interest among its new and existing users.

Read More

Tabs, Windows, Shufflr, Phrases, Identified, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 03-02-2012-05-2008

0

Tabs, tabs, tabs dominated our list of emerging Facebook apps by monthly active users this week. A variety of page tab apps made up most of the list, then there were games, Shufflr, Phrases and Identified integrations. The apps grew from between 150,000 and 540,000 MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook. We define emerging applications as those that ended with between 100,000 and 1 million MAU in the past week.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain,%
1.   Static HTML… [Seventh Tab] 850,000 +540,000 + 174%
2.   Static HTML… [Twelfth Tab] 680,000 +540,000 + 386%
3.   Static HTML… [Eleventh Tab] 650,000 +520,000 + 400%
4.   Static HTML… [Tenth Tab] 640,000 +490,000 + 327%
5.   Windows Live Mail 338,873 +338,873 N/A
6.   Monster Fusion 490,000 +320,000 + 188%
7.   Tab Builder: Gift 350,000 +310,000 + 775%
8.   Woobox Custom Tab | Arrow #2 520,000 +310,000 + 148%
9.   Polls 293,369 +293,369 N/A
10.   Static HTML… [Eighth Tab] 510,000 +280,000 + 122%
11.   Shufflr 800,000 +230,000 + 40%
12.   Woobox Custom Tab | Arrow #4 290,000 +230,000 + 383%
13.   Candy Dash 990,000 +210,000 + 27%
14.   Static HTML… [Sixth Tab] 640,000 +210,000 + 49%
15.   Playboy’s Barmate Tab 320,000 +200,000 + 167%
16.   Lucky Cruise 310,000 +180,000 + 138%
17.   Phrases new 800,000 +160,000 + 25%
18.   RISK: Factions 780,000 +160,000 + 26%
19.   Woobox Custom Tab | Arrow #5 370,000 +160,000 + 76%
20.   Identified 700,000 +150,000 + 27%

Static HTML… [Seventh Tab] grew by 540,000 MAU and several other page tab apps made the list, down to Polls with 293,400 MAU and then Woobox Custom Tab | Arrow #5 160,000 MAU.

Other apps that made the list included Windows Live Mail with 338,900 MAU, daily video post Shufflr with 230,000 MAU, Phrases new (not available in the U.S.) with 160,000 MAU and Identified with 150,000 MAU. Then there were games: Monster Fusion grew the most with 320,000 MAU, Candy Dash with 210,000 MAU, Lucky Cruise with 180,000 MAU and RISK: Factions with 160,000 MAU.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned next week for our look at the top weekly gainers by monthly active users on Monday, the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

Read More

Free The Slaves: Escape From Debt, Save Your Future

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 03-02-2012-05-2008

0

The following is a guest post by Oded Gendler. Oded is an online marketer and entrepreneur from Israel. He is the brains and bravado behind the NO B.S.™ Moneymachinefactory.org blog. Follow him on twitter for a dose of ranting and philosophical yadayada @therealoded

From the moment you enter grade school, you are told and indoctrinated: study hard, get good grades, go to a good college or university. Plunge into debt of 50k-100k and spend the next 4 years (at least) in getting a degree. Then of course, comes the internship which you wont get paid for. But it’s all OK! After all that, the fun really begins, because, finally, it’s payback time for all your hard work! You get a job and start at a whopping annual salary of (drum roll please)… 50k, if you are lucky.

I hear people who tried affiliate marketing for 2 weeks invested $500 and decided there is NO WAY to make money from it. I use the term “invested” because even if you lost all your $500 and didn’t make a dime, it was an investment in your education of online marketing. An investment not much different than the tuition you paid for your college degree. The fact a bonafide professor didn’t force feed you rehashed material from the syllabus doesn’t mean your education process is worth less.

In reality, you actually applied yourself and your mind doing the fabulous act of auto-deduction. You learned by yourself! Isn’t that true learning, perhaps even more valuable then the more docile, passive act of being “taught”?

Let me go back to the prevailing status quo and paradigm of what a middle class person should go through. So you’ve got a job. Now it’s time to buy a house and own your first asset. How will you do that, with your past college debt, and a job that by now pays you around 70k per year? The answer? More debt of course. Debt which is of course owned and controlled by the ruling faction – as represented here by the banks.

You are actually bred and indoctrinated into slavery. Modern day slavery. In a modern person’s mind, slavery means black people picking cotton in the plantations. But in reality, modern slavery means “owning” debt (of course you don’t own the debt, the bank owns it, and thus the debt owns you). You actually enslave your future income and salary to the bank. Thus, although you are not whipped by the splintered whip of the taskmaster on a daily basis, you are whipped by the thorn of debt instead. Debt which you must accumulate in order to acquire assets.

Maybe one day you’ll think about quitting your job, wanting to finally realize your old dream of becoming an artist? Maybe you wont even have a choice and you’ll get sacked? Results – lose your house, lifestyle and maybe even your family (will your wife want to stay with a person who cannot provide for her and her children? I’m writing from a male perspective so for all you ladies reading it out there, do consider).

In the US alone there were almost 1.6 million bankruptcy filings in 2010, an increase of 7.4 percent from 2009. There were more people who filed for bankruptcy in 2011 than people diagnosed with cancer, suffering a heart attack or graduating from college. An interesting read regarding these findings is Elizabeth Warren’s book – “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke”.

The situation isn’t much brighter in the UK either. The Guardian has just published a report by a leading thinktank group stating that middle class families are “unlikely to see their earnings return to pre-recession levels until at least 2020″… but it predicts that the income of the wealthy will continue to rise over the same period.

The odds are absurdly weighted against working class families and in favor of the wealthy. Mitt Romney’s recently published tax returns shows that the Republican candidate income between 2010 and 2011 was 42.6 million dollars. The tax rate Romney paid was 13.9% or 6.2 million dollars (recent Time’s article even states Romney overpaid his taxes by about 44k). How could that be? Yahoo finance explains “The GOP frontrunner acknowledged his federal tax rate is 15%, thanks to a loophole called “carried interest” that helps the GOP frontrunner pay a rate similar to a family earning $50,000”.

With the current trend of affairs, the state will not be able to take care of you when you are old and grey, when you have lost your ability to provide for yourself. What you have in your bank savings (or hiding under your bed mattress) is what you’ll have to maintain you for the rest of your natural life. It’s doubtful even if you’ll have a proper pension. And even if you do, it will most likely not be enough.

Sounds pretty grim right? NO! Your financial future and freedom depends on you. This entire article (as absurd as it may sound) was written in order to inspire you to take action, in order to make you understand reality.

In the past, the choices were much clearer, much simpler. They were black and white. By choosing the life of an employee with all its benefits and comfort, you would receive a monthly salary, paid vacation, dental or health insurance, steady hours and more. In other words stability.

The downside – you’ll never be able to buy that Bugatti, the 10 bedroom beach front house, or staying at the Ty Warner penthouse at the Four Seasons NY. On the contrary, you could have chosen the path of an entrepreneur, risk all you’ve got in terms of time and money. No steady income or insurance. Work 20 hours a day and still end the year broke. Invest years of your life and end with nothing or a mansion. I deliberately choose to portray the two options as extremes.

Today, I believe that, having that option or choice between an employee or an entrepreneur is slowly drawing to an end. Choosing to be an employee might cost you dearly when you reach the end of your working cycle. Your 401k savings will not be enough to maintain your standard of living. The world is slowly reverting to the days of the filthy rich and the filthy poor. The erosion of the middle class and social security is something we cannot deny.

Yes, the world might end by 2012, but just in case it wont. I suggest getting ready for the fact you might live until you are 80+ and perhaps start thinking about your financial status.

Finch: Definitely some very important points to consider. Personally, I don’t think employment and entrepreneurism have to be mutually exclusive. I think it’s possible to balance a job that you love, which may involve working for ‘The Man’, with good investments that take care of your future. Not every kid dreams of running his own business, but every kid should grow up with a solid education in how money works. Thanks for the post, Oded.

Recommended This Week

Read More

Facebook likely to reject traditional mobile ad types in quest to monetize

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 02-02-2012-05-2008

0

With mobile growth outpacing overall monthly active user growth, Facebook knows how critical it will be to monetize its mobile users. But for the company that has long shunned traditional types of advertising, the solution is not as simple as putting banners in its mobile apps.

More than 425 million users accessed Facebook from mobile devices in December 2011 — up 21 percent since September 2011, and 70 percent since March 2011. In its filing for an initial public offering, the company acknowledged business will suffer if it cannot monetize this space. The global mobile advertising market was $1.5 billion in 2010 and is expected to grow to $17.6 billion in 2015, according to the filing.

Here we break down the social network’s options for mobile advertising.

Sponsored Stories – Most Likely
Sponsored Stories promote users’ interactions with pages, whether it’s liking a page, liking a particular post, checking into a place or using an app. This is the most probable way Facebook will bring advertising to the mobile experience, and the company even mentioned it in its filing for an initial public offering. Because Sponsored Stories require a person’s friend to validate a piece of content by interacting with it in some way before it is shown as an ad, Facebook is not giving companies a direct ticket into the News Feed. The social network has already added Sponsored Stories to Ticker and is in the early stages of testing them in News Feed. The lack of negative feedback from users could lead Facebook to bring Sponsored Stories to mobile without backlash sometime this year. We detailed what mobile Sponsored Stories might mean for advertisers here.

Mobile Ad Network – Likely
Facebook could eventually develop something similar to Google AdSense and AdMob, which allows websites and mobile apps to display ads that are targeted based on information Google has collected. This would be the most ambitious approach both technically and in terms of how it could expand Facebook’s business. This could be years away, but seems like an obvious direction for the company to achieve its full revenue potential.

Page Post Ads - Less Likely
Currently page owners can use Marketplace to promote their posts as an ad unit on the right hand side of the site. Facebook could introduce sponsored page posts into the mobile News Feed, but it might not want to allow companies to pay their way directly into people’s streams. Twitter does this, however, and it does not seem to have a significant negative effect.

Check-in Deals – Possible But Not Likely
Since being released in November 2010, check-in deals have been a free, self-serve option for businesses to offer deals to customers who indicate to their friends that they visited a place. While it is possible for Facebook to charge to feature deals, it is unlikely the company would implement a fee for something that was formerly free. Check-in deals have not been a runaway success, so it would be difficult to convince businesses to pay for something they didn’t take advantage of at no cost.

Location-Based Push Advertising – Unlikely 
Advertisers would be more interested in a location-based solution that pushed messages out to users, particularly since Facebook’s demographic and interest data would provide a new layer of targeting beyond location. Location-based push advertising is typically opt-in, and it would be very controversial for Facebook not to do the same. Perhaps by liking a page and opting in to location-based push notifications, users could receive messages and deals on their phones based on where they were. Users, however, might be wary of letting Facebook track their location at all times.

Mobile Banner Ads – Very Unlikely
Facebook has never given ads much real estate on the site. Even now with up to seven ads on the right hand side of the page, sponsored content gets a small percentage of screen space. We do not envision Facebook giving up room to banner-style ads in its mobile experience. If the company did, these ads would likely have a strict format with text and perhaps a small thumbnail, as Facebook requires for its online display ads.

Interstitial Ads - Very Unlikely
Interstitial ads pop up between actions and typically require users to wait a certain amount of time before moving onto what they had been doing within an app. While popular in many free apps, it would be highly out of character for Facebook to compromise user experience in this way. This is by far the most unlikely, if not unimaginable, option for Facebook to employ.

Read More

Facebook brings back games discovery module

Posted by admin | Posted in Internet Marketing | Posted on 02-02-2012-05-2008

0

Some users are once again seeing the “Discover New Games” module in the right sidebar of Facebook.

The Discover New Games module highlights games a user’s friend is playing or that are otherwise popular. This time around it includes a larger game thumbnail instead of their friends’ profile pictures as we saw in March 2011. The module still includes the prominent “Play Now” call to action.

This is an additional way the social network is trying to please game developers and help them gain users after a period in 2010 when they cut off several viral channels. In a developer blog post on Monday, Facebook announced a few new ways it is promoting games on the platform, including a games-only activity feed and aggregate News Feed stories.

Although we’ve seen the company recently identifying games by genre to encourage users to click over to them, it has not done so in the latest version of the Discover New Games module.

 

Read More
Previous