Facebook Gets Mobile

Facebook has been in the news a lot recently. The company announced plans on 1^st February for an IPO that values it at between $75 billion and $100 billion. This seems like a crazy price until it is noted that the social network is closing in on one billion users – that’s almost 15% of the entire world’s population.

Last year Facebook generated $3.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in net profits. This makes the price tag look expensive but not as wildly as at first glance. Other technology companies are also very highly valued - Google’s market capitalisation is $190 billion, Microsoft’s $250 billion and Apple’s $425 billion.

To please investors going forward, the company must solve the mobile conundrum. Mobile is hugely important to the business. According to recent figures just over half of the company’s monthly active users are mobile.

Nearly all of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising; virtually none of those ads are served to mobile users, either in Facebook apps or on the company’s mobile web site.

In addition the parts of the world where Facebook is still growing in total users (for example high population areas such as Brazil and India) are adopting mobile computers faster than they’ve adopted PCs.

However, the smaller space on a mobile screen and the relationship people have with their Facebook friends has meant that advertising in this space poses problems. How best to provide the undoubted reach that Facebook can offer without intruding on a space that has been ad free? How can marketeers harness the data that Facebook has on its members, without stoking existing fears around online privacy?

To try to answer some of these questions, Facebook has started discussing plans about introducing "featured stories" ads, based on the sponsored story format, into users' timelines on mobile devices from March. Earlier this year Facebook had paved the way for mobile advertising, by rolling out "featured stories" within users' news feeds for the first time.

Featured stories are perfectly tailored for display in mobile apps or browsers; no intrusive pop-ups, no annoying video, — just updates given premium space inside a user’s feed for a price. This is very similar to the Twitter’s advertising model with promoted tweets on its site and in its mobile and desktop apps.

Given the volume of user data Facebook hold, these ads have the potential to be more personalised and better targeted than any other mobile ad platform we’ve seen to date.

Using Social Media to Capitalise on TV

Last week our Media Director Elliot Parkus wrote an article for MediaTel discussing his views on how best to harness the power of appointment to view TV shows with social media.

For those that missed it, the piece is available here;

http://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2011/10/26/tv-is-alive-a-kicking-you-just-need-to-join-the-conversation/

Facebook Unveils New More Interactive Advertising Formats

Following on from our post below about Twitter’s moves to introduce advertising, Facebook have also been looking at their advertising model. We believe that Facebook’s route is closer to the correct answer in this area, being involving and encouraging a dialogue with consumers rather than just viewing them as passive receivers of information.

Facebook’s new sponsored story ad unit is called ‘Comment’, closely reflecting the interface users are familiar with from the main Facebook page. It will consist of a display ad that poses a question beneath and invites users to give their opinion or participate in a conversation. If users leave a comment, it can become visible to their friends as both a Sponsored Story and as a news feed story.

The Comment Ad is the result of Facebook’s “Ad Expo” last year, which invited advertising agencies to submit ideas for advertising designs to engage consumers in new, interactive ways.

The Museum of Me

Intel have launched a great personalised use of social media that is creating a lot of buzz and talkability for the company. A short video about the 'Museum of Me' project is below;

It works by taking your facebook information, including friends, pictures and locations and turning it into a personalised art exhibition. Apart from a few grumbles online regarding the random nature of the images being juxtaposed, this is fast gathering positive reaction and being shared at an amazing rate.

If you want to create your own museum, the link is here

Facebook's No3 advertiser is Microsoft search hjacker

Adage has detailed Facebook's growing advertising pool. Here's a chart of social networking's biggest ad sources..

Something that has caught the eye of many is Make-my-Baby.com, and well it might. Make-My-Baby.com is a spyware company that has gone from selling cell phone owners auto-recurring fees of $10-$20 each month, to peddling software that sets homepage and default search on browsers to Microsoft's Bing.

It is a site that allows you to put eyeglasses and mustaches on top of a funny looking baby's face. Hilarious. Well, that is what it seems to be….before you can do anything the site says you have to install "a browser plug-in to present an enhanced experience." If you do so, according to the fine print, your browser's default search and home page will be switched to Bing. Once you do so, the affiliate company behind the toolbar, called Zugo, will capture a slice of the revenue whenever you click on a search ad.

At best, Facebook is showing billions (literally) of spyware ads that trick users into installing browser-hijacking software.

Facebook Creativity

The new, updated Facebook gives the opportunity to get creative with pictures. It gives the option to create a clever presentation creating 'one' photo. Here are some examples;

All that's left now is to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all at AdConnection. We look forward to seeing you in 2011.

Facebook launches 'Gmail Killer'

Facebook is preparing to launch a web-based email client that has been described as a “Gmail killer”. The rumours are that this will be launched on Monday alongside personal @facebook.com email addresses.

As reported here previously, Facebook have recently launched its 'places' product to capitalise on the success of location based services, and with their ability to understand who your friends are a launch into the email market will directly target Gmail and its recent priority inbox product.

Facebook Places

Facebook yesterday finally launched its long awaited first steps into the location sharing market with the introduction of its Places feature. It is currently only available in the US, but the UK is expected to be brought online soon. Is this the death knell for the existing players, such as Foursquare and Gowalla? Time will tell. Those companies were present at the launch and are putting a positive spin on the news, gambling that Facebook will help bring location sharing into the mainstream.