Facebook Platform Faces Rough Road Ahead, Despite Successes
The Facebook developer community is thriving but faces a good deal of uncertainty about its future. That was the general message from a session held at the Web 2.0 Expo today called “The Facebook Platform: Finding Success in the Facebook Economy.”
The session started off with a disagreement over how much money developers are actually making through Facebook. Naval Ravikant from Venturehacks estimated that over $100M would be made in 2008, whereas Joyce Park of Renkoo and Matt Sanchez of VideoEgg predicted revenues as low as $10-35M this year.
All panelists agreed, however, that CPM rates on Facebook are miserably low, perhaps averaging 15 cents. Developers have begun experimenting with other sources of revenue, such as the sale of virtual goods and premium services, but advertising still generates more than 80% of the platform’s revenue.
The panelists also agreed that Facebook’s recent moves to block viral distribution channels have made life harder for the developers of low engagement apps such as Slide’s FunWall. These apps suffer most because they depend on Facebook’s viral channels for their adoption, having given users little reason to invite their friends proactively.
In the long run, more engaging apps such as Scrabulous are set to do better not only because they attract more dedicated users, but because they provide better opportunities for direct monetization, even if their CPMs are also quite low. Ravikant made a point to say that travel, dating, book, and game-related apps have the brightest futures whereas “everyone else is kinda screwed”.
Despite the shift away from low engagement apps, the platform will remain the most attractive economically for independent developers. Small teams can crank out applications within days and earn decent paychecks, but large companies only have a handful of opportunities to make worthwhile returns on their investments. Ravikant made a point to discourage multi-million dollar investments in Facebook app developers, citing the difficulties associated with monetizing and maintaining a strong user-base. The sense I got, however, was that independent developers will also face hard times, since traditionally they don’t deploy high engagement apps.
The consensus from the panel was that Facebook needs to continue building a strong infrastructure for its developers. Park even suggested that Facebook roll back some of its restrictions on viral distribution since they were hurting growth of many legitimate applications (the distribution mechanisms were the main reason developers came to the platform in the first place).
She also wants Facebook to enforce its policies more clearly and fairly, since there are currently too many incentives to cheat. None of the panelists, however, were concerned that Facebook itself would trample many 3rd party apps with its own feature additions, since Facebook has the mindset of a platform provider, not an app developer.
Ravikant particularly looked forward to Facebook providing a good micro-payment system since it will spur innovation in monetization strategies, which could in turn inform how Facebook itself does business. Providing developers with better ways to make money is perhaps the most important thing Facebook can do now, especially if it continues to restrict how quickly its applications can grow.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Get Blown On Facebook
What is it with college kids and online video challenges? There are plenty of startups catering to this strange video niche/fetish. IBeatYou and Strutta (read our review) have dedicated their entire Websites to this activity. And now Blowtorch Entertainment, the independent movie studio that raised $50 million last November, is getting in on the action with a Facebook app called Get Blown.
Blowtorch makes feature-length independent films, and is shooting one right now in Philadelphia with Luke Wilson called Tenured. But it also tries to engage with its potential college audience online through its Website, and now on Facebook. For instance, anyone can create their own short videos and the best ones get re-shot with professional actors by Blowtorch and will be shown before its main features in theaters across the country. Now with Get Blown, the idea is to get this audience to issue video challenges to each other. Right now, it is only a Facebook app, but Bebo and mobile versions are coming soon.
The barriers to participate here are really low. You don’t have to shoot your own scripted video. All you need to do is come up with a challenge, or join one, such as finding the best human beatbox video on YouTube, the worst male dance, or coming up with the cheesiest pick-up line. You can film yourself doing this, or simply find examples already out there on the Web and load them up into each challenge, where they can then be voted on and spread virally. Here’s an example of one that the company came up with for finding photos of the lamest tattoos:
Zach Challenge: Lamest Tattoo from George Johnson on Vimeo.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Facebook Finishes Chat Integration, Makes This Blogger’s Life Miserable
I made the mistake of leaving Facebook open on my desktop as I stepped out for the evening on Tuesday night. I returned to a complete mess of Facebook Chat messages. Some users got access to Facebook Chat as early as April 6.
Others trickled in over the following two weeks. But in the last hour a mass of users (all the rest, as far as I can tell) is reporting seeing it for the first time.
I have a policy of accepting all friend requests on Facebook (although I am quickly reaching the 5,000 friend limit). Apparently a significant number of my friends decided to test Facebook Chat as it went live with yours truly. I’m trying to respond to the messages, but a response seems to lead inevitably to a conversation, and having 25 of those at once is a little challenging. Meanwhile, eight more pop in.
Settle down, Facebook friends, and don’t be offended if I’m not jumping right in to the conversation. Except the guy who said his dad is an investment banker for Yahoo - please keep sending those messages.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Facebook Publishes “Insider’s Guide To Viral Marketingâ€
Facebook messaged the 4,600 fans of the FacebookPages Page with helpful hints on how to make your presence on Facebook go viral (by messaging all of your fans, for example). A key piece of advice? Use Facebook Ads:
Many businesses, from leading global brands to favorite local bands, are enjoying tremendous impact using Facebook Pages for free viral marketing. Check out some key strategies from the most successful businesses on Pages:
1) Regularly adding engaging and useful content
2) Letting fans participate in the conversation
3) Expanding their distribution with Facebook AdsWe’ve collected some of these winning strategies—along with the nuts of bolts of how to create and manage a Page—into an Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing
The pdf (embeded below) was sent to everyone via a box.net URL. Box say they were unaware Facebook would use them for distribution of the document.
Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing - Get more documents
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Facebook Rewords Mini-Feed Notification
Facebook has reworded the notification that appears when a user hits the ‘x’ associated with stories in their Mini-Feed. The dialog box now simply reads, “Hiding will remove the story from your Mini-Feed.”
The change comes in response to a story we ran earlier this week that described the misleading nature of the old dialog box. Previously, the box stated that by removing a story, users would “prevent anyone from seeing it”. Most people assumed this applied both to the Mini-Feed tied to their profile and to the stories that would be sent to their friends, but this was not the case.
This change is clearly a quick fix on Facebook’s part, and it does little to alleviate the real issue at hand. The new notification box might be less misleading, but Facebook users are still left without a way to control which stories are being sent to their friends.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Facebook Rewords Mini-Feed Notification, Privacy Issue Remains
Facebook has reworded the notification that appears when a user hits the ‘x’ associated with stories in their Mini-Feed. The dialog box now simply reads, “Hiding will remove the story from your Mini-Feed.”
The change comes four days after we reported on the misleading nature of the old dialog box. Previously, the box stated that by removing a story, users would “prevent anyone from seeing it”. Most people assumed this applied both to the Mini-Feed tied to their profile and to the stories that would be sent to their friends, but this was not the case.
This change is clearly a quick fix on Facebook’s part, and it does little to alleviate the real issue at hand. The new notification box may be less misleading, but Facebook users are still left without a way to control which stories are being sent to their friends.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
First Facebook Beacon Lawsuit Hits Blockbuster
As if Blockbuster didn’t have enough problems trying to justify its existence by making an ill-conceived buyout offer for Circuit City. Now, it is being sued for privacy violations related to its Beacon ads on Facebook. And, no, the plaintiff is not Michael, although he did once point out that the way Blockbuster used the names and images of Facebook members without permission to hawk its service could be a violation of their privacy rights. It could also be a violation of the Videotape Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits video stores from sharing customer rental information without written consent. The plaintiff is a woman in Texas, who is suing under that law and seeking class-action status.
It is not clear whether other Beacon partners are at legal risk, since the law in question only applies to video rental businesses. But there are other privacy laws that could be brought into play as well. Regardless, lawsuits like this could revive last year’s Beacon backlash that seems to have died away.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Facebook Opens Up Mini-Feed To 3rd Party Services
As we predicted in February, Facebook has opened up the Mini-Feed so users can import updates from other web services, starting with Flickr, Picassa, Yelp and Delicious.
According to a company blog post, users just need to click an import link at the top of their mini-feed to import data from other services. Imported updates will show up not only in the mini-feed on your profile but the News Feeds of your friends as well. Digg and other services are expected to be added soon as well.
While this new feature is a direct threat to FriendFeed and others that aggregate social networking activity from across the web, Facebook isn’t making it easy to access the aggregated information outside of its site. There are still no RSS feeds for the Mini-Feed and News Feed, despite feeds for other data like updates.
It would sound reasonable for Facebook to claim it can’t open this information up because of privacy concerns (who knows where your life will be broadcasted if available via RSS). But FriendFeed has already gotten around this by adding a special token to its RSS feeds.
This isn’t technically the first time the Facebook activity feeds have been opened up to 3rd party services. The infamous Beacon project also allows web services to import updates, but that takes the initiative of these other companies themselves. With this new feature, services like Flickr don’t have to opt into sharing data on Facebook - consumers are left with making that choice themselves.
News Feed recently made headlines for a privacy issue that distributed user stories that they had not approved. As far as we know, the issue has not been resolved.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Facebook Newsfeed Reports on You Behind Your Back
The Facebook Newsfeed is a strange beast. Upon its release, it was met with an extremely negative reception as members protested their new ‘auto-stalker’, but it has slowly gained acceptance as users learned they could control which stories were sent to the News Feed. Users need only click a small ‘x’ in their own personal ‘mini-feed’, and any stories they don’t want shared will be withheld from their friends’ feeds.
At least, that’s what most people think. Unfortunately, clicking that ‘x’ doesn’t remove your story from the newsfeed sent to your friends - it only removes it from your own profile. This discrepancy has been a rising source of concern for many Facebook users and developers who have unwittingly informed their friends of activites they had ostensibly made private.
Much of the problem stems from what seems to be a poorly worded notification box that appears when a user deletes a story from their own profile. Upon clicking the ‘x’ next a story, a dialog appears that says, “Hiding will remove the story from your Mini-Feed and prevent anyone from seeing it.” The statement seems to indicate that the item is permanently hidden from everyone’s view, but this isn’t the case. It might not show up on your profile, but your friends will still know about it, complements of their News Feed homepage.
The issue was first raised in a Facebook developer forum last January, and has since led to a number of concerned threads, bug reports, and Facebook groups. A poll created (and paid for) by one developer resulted in a an 85% disapproval rate for this ‘feature’. The developers have known about it for months (at least), yet it subsists.
In order to truly keep these notifications away from your friends, you must go into each application’s privacy settings and remove its permission to publish stories to your News Feed. The feature can also be disabled during application installation by unchecking the box that says “Publish stories in my News Feed and Mini-Feed”. Most Facebook users never bother with these options, as they assume that by manipulating their own Mini-Feeds, they are in control of their News Feeds as well.
We’ve contacted Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly for comment.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Facebook News Feed Reports on You Behind Your Back
The Facebook News Feed is a strange beast. Upon its release, it was met with an extremely negative reception as members protested their new ‘auto-stalker’, but it has slowly gained acceptance as users learned they could control which stories were sent to the News Feed. Users need only click a small ‘x’ in their own personal ‘mini-feed’, and any stories they don’t want shared will be withheld from their friends’ feeds.
At least, that’s what most people think. Unfortunately, clicking that ‘x’ doesn’t remove your story from the newsfeed sent to your friends - it only removes it from your own profile. This discrepancy has been a rising source of concern for many Facebook users and developers who have unwittingly informed their friends of activites they had ostensibly made private.
Much of the problem stems from what seems to be a poorly worded notification box that appears when a user deletes a story from their own profile. Upon clicking the ‘x’ next a story, a dialog appears that says, “Hiding will remove the story from your Mini-Feed and prevent anyone from seeing it.” The statement seems to indicate that the item is permanently hidden from everyone’s view, but this isn’t the case. It might not show up on your profile, but your friends will still know about it, complements of their News Feed homepage.
The issue was first raised in a Facebook developer forum last January, and has since led to a number of concerned threads, bug reports, and Facebook groups. A poll created (and paid for) by one developer resulted in a an 85% disapproval rate for this ‘feature’. The developers have known about it for months (at least), yet it subsists.
In order to truly keep these notifications away from your friends, you must go into each application’s privacy settings and remove its permission to publish stories to your News Feed. The feature can also be disabled during application installation by unchecking the box that says “Publish stories in my News Feed and Mini-Feed”. Most Facebook users never bother with these options, as they assume that by manipulating their own Mini-Feeds, they are in control of their News Feeds as well.
We’ve contacted Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly for comment.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0