In the last few months, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took his company public, got married and scored a nearly $ 6 million home loan at just over 1%. What could possibly top all that? How about approval of his very first patent request from way back in 2006 …
Source: MARK ZUCKERBERG OR FACEBOOK – Bing News
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A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you between July 16 and 21.
Inside Mobile Apps
Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods.
Monday, July 16
- Fish Tales evolves into Fantastic Fishies
- Zynga’s David Ko opens up about Zynga’s mobile publishing plans
Tuesday, July 17
- Crickler provides a new take on crosswords
- Autodesk acquires Socialcam for $ 60M
- Kiip raises $ 11 Million in Series B round of funding lead by Relay Ventures
- Appcelerator introduces private cloud services to court bigger developers, enterprise clients
- Diptic, Pyramid Run, Guess the Character! and more on this week’s top free iOS Apps
Wednesday, July 18
- Analytics company Apsalar moves into advertising with ApEngage, now reaches 225 million users
- InMobi confirms MMTG Labs acquisition
- Inside Network Job Board: nWay, 12 Gigs, GREE and more
- StartApp passes 150M downloads of its Android-only, bundled search software
- How Miniclip went from web portal to 100M mobile downloads
- Richard Garriott’s Ultimate RPG is spiritual successor to Ultima on mobile and social platforms
- Tiny Wings returns with new 2.0 update
Thursday, July 19
- Pocket raises $ 5M Series B to expand its ‘save for later’ services
- Germany’s Bigpoint closes mobile division, lays off 29
- New hires in mobile: Square, Gameloft and EA PopCap
- Armor Games’ latest challenges players to Follow the Rabbit
- Adfonic: Android overtakes iOS to become most popular platform for mobile advertisers
- Amazing Alex, Tiny Wings, Minecraft and more on this week’s top paid iOS apps
Friday, July 20
- CSR Racing, The Tribez, Fieldrunners 2 and more on this week’s top grossing iOS apps
- Google acquires popular third-party email client Sparrow
- GREE to open Vancouver studio, will focus on innovation, new concepts
- Facebook adds iOS and Mac development studio Acrylic to design team
- Deity Wars enters the card-battling fray
- Amazing Alex, Shadowgun and more on this week’s Android app charts
- Mobile app news roundup: mobile Mozilla, Apple fixes and Transformers heads to Mobage
Saturday, July 21
- Inside Network Job Board: nWay, 12 Gigs, Playsino and more
Inside Social Games
Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.
Monday, July 16
- SimCity Social tops this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
- Hotel Casino review
- Zynga’s David Ko opens up about Zynga’s mobile publishing plans
Tuesday, July 17
- Grace Brown review
Wednesday, July 18
- Applifier debuts Facebook-only video ad network for game trailers
- SongPop barely outpaces SimCity Social as this week’s fastest-growing Facebook game by DAU
- Inside Network Job Board: nWay, 12 Gigs, Playsino and more
- Crazy Penguin Wars review
- Richard Garriott: Mobile and social platforms represent “third grand era of computer games”
Thursday, July 19
- The Sims Social and Zynga Slingo are this week’s gainer and loser among July’s Top 25 Facebook games
- CastleVille lead designer founds new mobile studio, BonusXP
- Birdopolis review
- New hires in social games: Social Point, PlaySpace and Zynga
Friday, July 20
- GameDuell: Cross-platform players monetize 25% more than those on a single platform
- King’s Bounty lords over this week’s emerging Facebook games
- Hollywood Slots review
- Outernauts is now live on Facebook
- Social games news roundup: Zynga, Zynga and more Zynga
Saturday, July 21
- Inside Network Job Board: nWay, 12 Gigs, Big Viking Games and more
Inside Facebook
Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.
- Monday, July 16
- Less than 10 percent of traffic to Facebook pages comes from outside Facebook.com
- Facebook hires team behind mobile bookmarking service Spool
- New mobile ‘action links’ allow users to take specific actions in other apps without leaving Facebook
- Facebook creates duplicate page finder tool for admins to report unofficial pages
Tuesday, July 17
- Autodesk acquires No. 1 Facebook app Socialcam for $ 60M
- Extole creates new marketing apps that promote word of mouth using Open Graph
- Facebook brings activity log to mobile devices so users can delete stories and check privacy settings
- Viralheat launches free conversation management and publishing tool to serve small businesses and agencies
- Facebook platform industry hires: Conversocial, FreshBuzz, Nanigans, Shoutlet, TBG Digital and Wildfire
Wednesday, July 18
- Facebook ads in desktop and mobile News Feed outperform Twitter promoted accounts
Thursday, July 19
- Facebook bug leads Lululemon and more pages to post fake offers; other pages can’t create offers at all
- Facebook testing new Pinterest-inspired design for app stories in News Feed
- ShareThis brings social reader functionality to new sharing widget for publishers
- Xbox, EA Sports, Gamestop, and Lego among others in this week’s most talked about pages in games and toys
- SimCity Social, Spotify, SongPop, TripAdvisor, Instagram and more on this week’s top growing apps by DAU
- Facebook to introduce sponsored results in search typeahead
Friday, July 20
- Facebook adds iOS and Mac development studio Acrylic to design team
- Facebook hires: technology partners, analysts, platform operations, growth, more
- Facebook careers: natural language processing, privacy, media solutions, more
- Custom tabs, Ghosts of Mistwood, Jewel Kingdom, more on this week’s top 20 emerging Facebook apps by MAU
- Facebook roundup: stock price and customer satisfaction down, Washington to offer voter registration app, Zuckerberg visits Walmart HQ and more
Source: Inside Social Games
What is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg really like in his unguarded moments? Katherine Losse saw plenty during a nearly five-year career at the social network — including a stint as Zuckerberg’s ghostwriter. Her new book, “The Boy Kings …
Source: MARK ZUCKERBERG OR FACEBOOK – Bing News
A roundup of all the news Inside Network brought you between June 18 and 22.
Inside Mobile Apps
Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods.
Monday, June 18
- Mutually-assured destruction in WarGames: WOPR for iOS and Android
- Clones, rabid expectations and overhauls — NimbleBit on the development of Pocket Planes
- Flurry reports Windows Phone grew by 521% year-over-year as Microsoft gains steam on mobile
- Microsoft blends PCs and tablets with new Surface devices
- Emerging free iOS apps: Disney, Pocket Planes and Top Gear
Tuesday, June 19
- Playing dress-up with Style Me Girl
- Vungle takes its in-app video trailer service out of beta with a $ 1M developer fund
- Apsalar introduces Campaign Source Insights to measure the real financial performance of mobile app marketing
- Exclusive: Jordan Weisman on free-to-play games, working with Bungie, and his new game Strikefleet Omega
- Emerging top paid iOS apps: Temple Run: Brave, realMyst and Adventure Time
Wednesday, June 20
- Amazon simplifies revenue split from paid apps, drops two-tiered system
- Atari returns to its roots with Centipede Origins
- Microsoft looks to unite desktop, tablet and mobile with Windows Phone 8
- New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: High 5, King.com, Machine Zone and more
- iOS has China and Google Play has Brazil, but the U.S., the U.K. and Japan are where the money is
- Game Insight gets into mobile publishing, $ 3M to spend this summer
- Emerging top grossing iOS apps: Pocket Planes, Bento 4 for iPad and Magic 2013
Thursday, June 21
- Aeria Mobile brings its Japanese card-battle hit Monster Paradise stateside
- NaturalMotion raises $ 11M Series B to become a world leader in mobile gaming
- Chartboost brings on Google’s Kellogg to expand its network
- Android Developers can now respond directly to user reviews on Google Play
- New hires in mobile: AdColony, GREE and TinyCo
- Down on the farm again with Hay Day
- Emerging popular Android apps: GSN Casino, Temple Run: Brave and Jamie’s 20 minute meals
Friday, June 22
- Magic 2013 gets card-battling right
- Remedy: A paid iOS app can earn $ 1M without ever hitting the top 10
- Mobile app news roundup: Unity 4, Wooga drops HTML5 and 32 new iTunes stores
Saturday, June 23
- New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: High 5, King.com, Machine Zone and more
Inside Social Games
Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.
Monday, June 18
- Song Pop tops this week’s chart of fastest-growing Facebook games by MAU
- Dotfriends review
Tuesday, June 19
- Zynga gets in on the match-3 game with Ruby Blast
- Moonlight Online review
- Facebook reveals game subscriptions with monthly billing
Wednesday, June 20
- Bubble Safari once more on top of this week’s list of fastest-growing Facebook games by DAU
- New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: High 5, King.com, Machine Zone and more
- Ruby Blast review
- Arkadium study shows ‘social butterflies’ and core gamers spend more on social games
- Game Insight gets into mobile publishing, $ 3M to spend this summer
- Facebook updates payments terms to reflect addition of subscriptions, Credits phase out and more
Thursday, June 21
- Aeria Mobile brings its Japanese card-battle hit Monster Paradise stateside
- Roadhouse Interactive acquires The Embassy Interactive
- Bubble Raider review
- New hires in social gaming: Double Down Interactive, Kabam and Kixeye
- Cie Games’s Justin Choi says good data is key to Facebook game development success
Friday, June 22
- SimCity Social combines city-building, more customization, deeper player relationships
- Facebook Sponsored Stories now appear on Zynga.com
- Foreign language titles top this week’s list of emerging Facebook games
- Puzzle Chasers review
- Parallel Zombies focuses on cooperative, story-based location gameplay
- Social games news roundup: Turkey’s worth lots of money, Tencent buys into Epic Games and Wooga moves away from HTML5
Saturday, June 23
- New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: High 5, King.com, Machine Zone and more
Inside Facebook
Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.
Monday, June 18
- Facebook looking to introduce real-time location-based ads to monetize mobile market
- Facebook acquires facial recognition company Face.com
- Facebook launches portal page to help users follow Olympic Games and athletes
- Bubble Safari, Socialcam, Terra, TripAdvisor, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by MAU
- Facebook lets users know how many interest lists they’re featured on, but still no info for pages
Tuesday, June 19
- A Look at George Takei’s Tactics in Engaging a Social Media Following
- Facebook to launch subscription billing for apps, transition from Credits to local currency
- Early tests show mobile Sponsored Stories have higher CTR, lower CPCs than desktop
- New Facebook platform industry hires: HYFN, Identified, Shoutlet, Syncapse, Wildfire
Wednesday, June 20
- Facebook hides page content from logged-out users
- New this week on the Inside Network Job Board: High 5, King.com, Machine Zone and more
- Facebook gives Like button functionality to third-party mobile and web app buttons
- Facebook and Yahoo in talks to resolve patent dispute, court filing confirms
- Facebook updates payments terms to reflect addition of subscriptions, Credits phase out and more
Thursday, June 21
- ‘Facebook for Every Phone’ becomes first page to surpass 100M Likes
- Facebook must let users opt out of Sponsored Stories following lawsuit settlement
- Facebook brings cover photo design to ‘hover cards’ that appear when users mouse over page links
- 21 Questions, Daily Horoscope, Song Pop, Embassy Suites, more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU
- Facebook hires Apple UI design manager, among two dozen other positions this week
- Facebook career postings: commercial counsel, recruiting, engineering, more
Friday, June 22
- Unilever’s charitable app uses Timeline and subscription billing; Facebook agrees to take only 5 percent of transactions
- First hints of a Facebook ad network: Sponsored Stories appear on Zynga.com
- The best features of the Nike+ Timeline integration and how developers should apply them to their own apps
Source: Inside Social Games
Turkish game market likely worth $ 450 million — Research and analysis group Newzoo claims consumer spending on video games in Turkey will reach somewhere between $ 400 million and $ 500 million. It’s expected that social and massively multiplayer online games will be responsible for approximately 30 percent of this total.
Tencent buys into Epic Games — Develop is reporting Chinese Internet services giant Tencent has bought a minority stake in Epic Games, the developer known for series like Gears of War and Infinity Blade. Details of the deal were not released.
Wooga moves away from HTML5 development — Social game developer wooga announced on its official blog that it’s moving away from developing games in HTML5. Wooga launched Magic Land Island as an HTML5 experiment, but wooga says the game had fewer than 35,000 installs a day and only a 5 percent retention rate. Wooga also says that Magic Land Island has been re-branded as Pocket Island and is open sourcing the code.
GnomeTown arrives on iOS [Launch] — Disney Social Games’s popular Facebook title GnomeTown is now available on the Apple App Store. The mobile version of Gnome Town is like the original, with players growing crops, raising butterflies, and assembling an army of animals to help them explore the forest.
Unity details new engine — Unity’s finally ready to start sharing some details about its new game development engine. Aside from mobile-oriented improvements for the engine like real-time shadows, refined GPU profiling and skinned mesh instancing, the engine will also expand multiplatform publishing with an add-on for Adobe Flash Player.
Merlin game getting summoned to Facebook this fall — Popular BBC show Merlin is coming to Facebook as a social game. Merlin The Game will be developed by Bossa Studios, the company behind Monstermind. The game will launch this autumn to coincide with the start of the show’s fifth season and will start closed beta this summer at Comic-Con International in July.
A Bit Lucky reveals Solstice Arena — Developer A Bit Lucky’s next game is going to be called Solstice Arena, a multiplayer game for tablet, Mac and PC. Although the game has an official site and players can sign up to be a part of the beta, no other information has been revealed yet.
IGG releases another 3D MMORPG on Facebook [Launch] — A week after launching Moonlight Online, IGG has another 3D MMO coming out on Facebook: Age of Titans. Set in a fantasy world, players work with ancient gods to defeat the evil Titan Erebus. As with Moonlight Online, the game is currently only playable on Windows computers, but a Flash version of the game is coming within a couple of months.
‘The Dark Knight Rises’ gets Facebook game [Launch] — With “The Dark Knight Rises” hitting theaters next month, Warner Bros. is starting to kick the film’s social media engine into high gear. A tie-in game called The Fire Rises was supposed to launch on Facebook this week, though the title isn’t loading right now. Movie Viral reports The Fire Rises is a strategy game casting players as henchman trying to build their own criminal empire.
Da Vinci Diamonds comes to DoubleDown Casino — High 5 Games is gearing up to launch its own casino game later this year, but the developer is letting players get an idea of what to expect by launching slot game Da Vinci Diamonds in DoubleDown Casino.
Woman steals $ 10,000 to play Facebook game — A woman in Arlington, WA was arrested for using a company credit card to spend almost $ 10,000 while playing FrontierVille. She’s charged with first-degree theft.
Source: Inside Social Games
Facebook will soon support subscription billing for apps on its platform, according to a post on the company’s developer blog. The company will also phase out Credits in favor of a user’s local currency — dollars, pounds or yen, for example.
Subscriptions will launch to all developers in July, though Zynga and Kixeye are already testing the feature for their games. This change gives developers a way to charge users on a monthly basis, rather than relying on individual virtual goods purchases. The alternative model could help developers and Facebook better monetize. It could also be a start to getting non-game developers to try Facebook’s payment platform.
As our sister blog Inside Social Games explains, subscriptions could lead players to spend more in games and also makes Facebook a better option for developers of free-to-play browser-based massively multiplayer online role-playing games.
We’ve previously written about how the social network was likely to introduce subscriptions as a way to monetize non-game applications. Because Facebook Credits aren’t required for these apps, only a few developers use them. For example, some studios offer movie rentals for Facebook Credits. These companies might now consider testing a subscription model that gives users access to more movies or special features if they sign up for a multi-month package. Facebook subscriptions will also support free trial periods, which could incentive users to sign up.
Other businesses built on Facebook, such as professional networking app BranchOut or news apps like Washington Post Social Reader, might find uses for subscriptions, however the social network’s 30 percent fee is likely to turn off many developers. For companies like Spotify and Netflix, which have to pay huge licensing fees to rights-holders, losing 30 percent simply isn’t an option unless they significantly increased their prices. But at higher price points, consumers might not decide to subscribe at all. [Update 6/19/12 2:08 p.m. PT - A screenshot of a sample subscription settings page on Facebook's developer site includes Spotify, MOG and RunKeeper as sample apps using subscriptions. It's unclear whether these are simply examples or actual developers in the beta program.]
Although the 30 percent fee is standard for app platforms like Apple and Android, it is far more than what online payments systems like PayPal charge. PayPal takes a 2.9 percent fee plus a $ 0.30-fee for each transaction. Facebook acknowledged in a regulatory filing that it might reduce its fee, but for now the 30 percent seems to stand.
Facebook, though, is in a unique position to streamline payments and offer developers useful data about who’s paying for subscriptions. If businesses can automatically gather information they would otherwise have to ask users for through forms, Facebook’s payments platform would be more attractive. Ease of implementation, increasing conversions and providing useful reporting are all areas the social network will need to improve as it expands its payments business.
With the latest phase out of Credits and by now supporting pricing in local currency, Facebook can simplify the purchase experience and give developers more flexibility. Developers will be able to set more granular and consistent prices for non-U.S. users and price the same item differently on a market-by-market basis. This also eliminates any confusion that resulted from users trying to think about conversion rates for dollars, Credits and in-game currency. Facebook says it will convert any Credit balances into the equivalent amount of value in users’ local currency, which they can spend on in-app items in the same way they do today. People can still redeem gift cards and store unused balances in their account. Any apps or games that sell virtual items will be required to use local currency by the end of the year.
The company first introduced what it called “Pay with Facebook” in May 2009. That eventually got combined with the Credits program associated with virtual gifts that users could buy and post to each other’s profiles. In July 2011, Facebook made Credits mandatory for social games, leading payments and fees revenue to make up about 18 percent of the company’s revenue in its most recent quarter — up from a 13 percent in Q1 2011. Only 15 million users — fewer than 2 percent of total monthly active users — paid for virtual goods on the platform in 2011. Facebook has helped individual game developers who wanted to implement a recurring pay cycle in the past, but for the most part, subscriptions haven’t been an option until now.
Source: Inside Facebook
