Following our posts last month on Facebook’s 2008 international growth by country and trends in 2008 social networking growth, comScore released additional data today on year-over-year social networking growth since June of 2007. Here are the highlights:
- Social networking continues to explode worldwide
- Facebook and hi5 are leading the international growth
- Facebook is growing everywhere
Facebook launched a new kind of ad unit today that has the potential to drive much more engagement than 
any ad product on the site ever before has: embedded multimedia with comments visible to users’ entire friend list.
Facebook has created new home page advertising inventory with its upcoming redesign. However, this is the first time we’ve seen Facebook fill the sponsored home page slot with this kind of unit. The behavior:
1. Clicking on the ad image opens a video player in-line
2. Comments on the video are visible to your entire friend list.
The comments around the ad dramatically increase engagement with the unit, as the highly visible comments provide an opportunity for users to simultaneously draw attention to the ad by drawing attention to themselves. While this could backfire if comments degrading the advertiser are abundant (I saw a few “LAME!” comments about Tropic Thunder today), the ad comments powerfully take advantage of Facebook’s social dynamics to draw attention to an ad in a way that is impossible without the social graph. When is the last time you heard 9 friends talk about an online ad in the same day?
Ad comments are an interesting step forward in the evolution of “Social Ads.” While this kind of ad may not work as well outside of a few advertiser verticals, I expect that early advertisers will be pleased with its performance.
Friendster, which has risen to become the largest social network in Asia after its precipitous fall in North America years ago, is today announcing support for OpenSocial 0.7 as part of the Friendster Developer Program.
The Friendster app platform actually launched in late 2007 - it was the second social network to launch a platform after Facebook. Since then, thousands of developers have joined the Friendster Developer Program and about 500 apps have been released on the Friendster platform. Friendster told us today that 10 million unique users have installed at least 1 application so far, and half a million apps are installed every day. Of those who have installed applications, the average is between 2-3 apps installed per person.
Friendster’s Jeff Roberto says that the company will continue to support existing APIs as it adds OpenSocial support. “We plan to support both. This is really an extension of the Friendster Developer Program to developers of OpenSocial applications, who should now be able to run their apps on Friendster out of the box. We’re the only place that app developers can reach 55 million unique users in Asia on a single social network. And we have very low overlap with other social networks.”
Friendster’s platform as an open revenue model, meaning developers are free to monetize their apps however they like. One unique aspect to monetizing on the Friendster platform is that ads on the profile page are permitted - unlike other social networks.
“Friendster’s launch is another major milestone in the adoption and deployment of OpenSocial throughout the social web and around the world. We’re particularly excited that OpenSocial is helping Friendster bring new social applications to users in Asia, and we look forward to seeing users embrace these apps,” said David Glazer, director of engineering at Google.
Roberto says that while the company is not ready to announce specific dates yet, Friendster does plan on supporting the OpenSocial 0.8 spec. OpenSocial 0.8 adds REST API support - like the Facebook Platform does - something OpenSocial developers have been clamoring for for months.
Hey Rodney, I can appreciate the slide. But just on the surface, the one thing that I can’t quiet understand is how affective those can be when Facebook is a closed system. When I say closed, i mean you really can’t engage all 13 of those marketing points unless you have a Facebook account.
You did mention that some of the features are available through applications, and I think within the last few days, Facebook is going to make it even easier to access Facebook users without actually using Facebook.
Pages was the one I was expecting to see, since it’s really the best, and currently the only, real way you can engage the outside world about your product or service.
I’d love to see some follow up to this on your suggestions for making these 13 points a reality?
Google really really really wants to be a social network; or at least try to get into the middle of the space.
Google’s first attempt: Vaporware OpenSocial. Launched with much fanfare it hs proven a point of frustration and disappointment to the application developer community (it’s target audience).
Google’s second attempt. Google Profiles: Weak. In what
If you decide to set up a Google Profile. Be aware of where your data just might end up being visible online. Like Google Maps for example. While I can see the advantages of this data being shared; I wonder if the users are aware of the consequences of this data being brought to the
MySpace announced today that its own developer platform is coming on Feb. 5. It’s now taking applications for developers to hoping to get in at the ground level:
The MySpace Developer Site is coming soon!
The MySpace Developer site will empower you to:
* Learn & Play with the MySpace Developer Platform and
Google announced today in conjunction with Yahoo! and MySpace, the formation of the OpenSocial Foundation, a non-profit entity, “dedicated to the sustainable and open development of the OpenSocial initiative and related intellectual property.” It’s a shrewd move by the three that leaves Facebook in an even lonelier place inside its walled garden.
In its prospectus,
The Google Social Graph API lets you make interesting connections. Bringing those connections to the surface is quickly becoming increasingly important for business and social applications.
This is going to be a trend for the foreseeable future. Users want to see their social graph; it makes the applications more useful and engaging.
With the Google Social
Google Campfire Monday: Launching Google Friend Connect? We have been hearing some rumblings that Google has some big announcement around a product set of API’s for use with Open Social that is supposedly called “Friend Connect”. In theory it might allow Google Open Social developers to have access to profile information and allow those data
Google will officially announce a preview release of Google Friend Connect in about an hour. I will be on the conference call to learn as much as possible as to how Google Friend Connect will work.
Here is what we know for sure at this point:
The Friend Connect service will help website owners grow engagement by
I was at the Google campfire event tonight for the launch of Google Friend Connect. At first pass there is a LOT to like about this. Social media is going even more mainstream and will start to live outside of “traditional” social networking sites.
Now connections can be effectively “portable” to any site that
This is great news for Google’s Open Social. The Open Social movement continues to increase. AOL purchased social media site BEBO for $850 Million in March. This was a big move into social media by AOL and many developers were wondering if the site would join the growing party on Google’s Open Social standard.
Bebo
Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Digg, Flickr, Wikipedia and StumbleUpon have become household names and are visited by millions of Internet users, young and old each day. Is your brand being talked about on any of these networks? Is someone influencing your loyal customers to switch while you are missing in action? Are you losing out on the opportunity to interact with millions of new customers?
Our social network marketing service is designed to bring your business to where it matters - the latest news sharing site or the hot new mobile network favoured by all teenagers. (We know, keeping up can be a full-time job in itself… that’s what we’re here for!!)
You may want to try social networking if…
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What happens when we help you socialise?
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* Our friends Digg you
o Their friends Digg you
+ Our friends’ friends’ friends Digg you
# … you get the drift??!
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* And traffic to your site goes like this:
Michael Arrington at TechCrunch first broke news about Facebook turning into an open source platform, and the possibility that this could be happening within the next few days. Facebook confirmed this soon after.
The modified Facebook platform is called ‘Facebook Connect’. Once the platform is launched, all social networks will become compatible with Facebook; that is to say, it will be possible to run Facebook applications on other social networks with Facebook acting as the central hub.
AOL-owned Bebo already has a tie-up with Facebook for accessing the site. If the open source project comes through as expected, other social networks will be able to run Facebook applications, without having to ink individual deals. They will be able to map the APIs from Facebook, using FBML (FaceBook Mark-up Language), FQL (the query language), FJS (their JavaScript Library), and the Facebook API.
Putting it simply, users of Facebook Connect will be able to interlink with any partnering website, at any stage. Users will be able to carry their real identity - name, profile picture and other basic information - to all websites. Users will also be able to take their friends from Facebook to any site they wish.
Facebook promises that user information will be protected and be kept up-to-date at all times. In their own words:
“As a user moves around the open Web, their privacy settings will follow, ensuring that users’ information and privacy rules are always up-to-date. For example, if a user changes their profile picture, or removes a friend connection, this will be automatically updated in the external website.“
Reporters on ZDNet as well as TechCrunch see the move by Facebook as direct competition to and an improvement on Google’s OpenSocial. If Facebook follows the same route as OpenSocial, it will be possible for other networks to modify Facebook applications and use them on their own platforms. However, getting these applications on the official Facebook platform, would require prior sanction by Facebook.
Google, MySpace and Yahoo! have all supported OpenSocial, thus cutting off Facebook to a large extent. This did not matter to Facebook while its user volumes were sky-rcoketing. However, now that their user numbers have already started declining in the USA, they will need to take some bold steps to maintain their position among other social networks.
Techcrunch has sniffed out details on Google’s new social network project, named OpenSocial (set to go live Thur US). OpenSocial is not a social network itself, rather it is a set of three common APIs that allow developers to access the following core functions and information at social networks:
* Profile Information (user data)
* Friends Information (social graph)
* Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)
These are 3 fairly generic API calls - specialized data will remain the responsibility of the “hosts”, which currently include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle. Developers already signed up include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide - who you will recognize as being ‘power developers’ on Facebook.
Image via Techcrunch
What this means
Simply put, Google has created a distributed social network framework that will end up competing with Facebook and MySpace (and Bebo in markets like the UK). It is kind of a ‘third place’ of social networks - and it is a huge boost to the less populous or more specialized social networks such as Ning, Hi5 and our old friend Friendster.
For developers there are lots of benefits. They can build an app that easily works across all the OpenSocial partners. And they can use normal HTML, Javascript and Flash - instead of the proprietary languages Facebook forces developers to use.
It’s not entirely clear yet what the benefits will be to users. I assume there will be some interoperability - e.g. when a user joins up to a Ning social network, there may be hooks into their Friendster profile and data. Will this be the full ‘export’ functionality that industry people like Marc Canter have been crying out for? It remains to be seen. I think it’s fair to assume there won’t be an export function from OpenSocial to Facebook or MySpace, at this point anyway. I’d love to be proven wrong though.
With the limited details released so far, it seems that this is another example of Google creating a distributed system (think Adsense, search). It plays to their strengths and is certainly aimed at challenging Facebook and MySpace. For a start, they’ve already got on board all the main developers that Facebook has (iLike, Slide, et al). And while Google doesn’t ‘own’ the Third Place, powerful social networks like Hi5 and Friendster have signed up - and so Google has become the platform for those social networks.
It’s Facebook vs MySpace vs The Rest - and The Rest is now operating under a Google framework.
GHENT, Belgium, May 29 /PRNewswire/ — Netlog, Europe’s leading social networking platform, today announced at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco that it has joined Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Starting today, social networking applications developed using the OpenSocial standards can be made available to Netlog’s 35 million users across Europe.
Netlog expects to play an important role in evangelizing the OpenSocial standard throughout Europe this summer. While most applications will initially be developed in English, the social networking site intends to put a lot of effort in localisation. The majority of Netlog’s members use the website in their native language, which is one of the platform’s key strengths. To build on this momentum, Netlog will actively help developers to localise their applications in various European languages.
In order to maintain the high quality standards its users have come to expect, Netlog won’t automatically allow all OpenSocial applications on the platform. New applications will have to pass a quality check before they are placed on a whitelist that users have access to. In addition, to avoid the so-called application spam that plagues other networks, Netlog users won’t be able to send applications to their contacts. Thus, users will remain fully in control of their profile and the applications on it.
“Developers can now easily tap into the Netlog audience of 35 million users across Europe using a global open standard”, said Toon Coppens, Co-Founder and CTO of Netlog. “We are convinced OpenSocial is not only the best choice for developers and application providers, but also for our users who will have access to a white listed range of the most useful applications.”
Netlog also believes that joining OpenSocial will make its platform more compelling for advertisers. “The development of quality applications, in combination with advertising and Netlog’s unique credit eco-system, offers an unprecedented opportunity for companies to engage directly with their customers”, Coppens continued.
The social networking site particularly expects an interest in applications that focus on communication, music, video and sharing photos, themes that are very popular among its users.
“We’re really happy that Netlog supports OpenSocial, and that Netlog users will now be able to take advantage of OpenSocial applications,” said Eric Tholome, Group Product Manager at Google. “OpenSocial is all about helping the internet become more social. Netlog’s participation is a great step in that direction.”
OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces for developing applications that can be deployed across multiple social networking platforms. The specifications have originally been developed by Google and were released to the market in November 2007.
For more information on Netlog’s support for OpenSocial, please visit http://en.netlog.com/go/developer.
About Netlog
Netlog is the leading European social network platform with a pan-European and local dimension. It is currently available in over 25 countries and 19 languages. Over 35 million youngsters are member of Netlog across Europe and generate over 4.5 billion page views per month throughout all countries. Netlog Nv is based in Ghent, Belgium and has 45 employees throughout Europe. Early 2007, Index Ventures and Atomico (Kazaa, Skype,Joost) invested in Netlog.
Netlog received the Red Herring Europe 100 award, the award ‘Site of the Year’ in 5 countries (Spain, France, UK, Germany and Italy) and Mashable Open web award for “Mainstream and large Social Networks” begin 2008.
OpenSocial, Google’s developer environment for social networks, is a step forward, but real value depends on who joins up.
The announcement of Google’s new OpenSocial API has generated a blizzard of commentary around the blogosphere. Yesterday Mike argued that it was a smart move on Google’s part because it creates a broader web platform that will be more attractive than any one social network could be by itself. However, the various news reports I’ve read suggest that OpenSocial is missing probably the most important element of a social networking site: the networking. Most people don’t join Facebook because they want to use the latest Facebook widget. They join because that’s where their friends are, and because it offers basic functionality like messages and photos. Widgets are just icing on the cake.
The fundamental problem facing Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn and the other social-networking also-rans is that people don’t want to sign onto a dozen different social networking sites to keep up with all their friends. They want to sign up with a single site and see updates for all their friends in one place. As long as each social networking site is a walled garden, only allowing users to connect with other users on the same site, the largest sites will have a huge advantage because people will naturally gravitate to the site most of their friends use. On the other hand, if several sites found a way to interoperate, so that Friendster users could be friends with Orkut, MySpace, and LinkedIn users, less popular sites would be at a much smaller disadvantage.
Of course, achieving that sort of data sharing is much more difficult than simply agreeing on a common architecture for third-party widgets. Privacy would be a big concern, and it would be a lot of work to find a set of data formats that can gracefully accommodate the wide variety of information handled by different social networking sites. But achieving such interoperability would be a far more significant threat to Facebook than the features Google appears to be rolling out today. LiveJournal founder and Google employee Brad Fitzpatrick wrote in August about what an open social networking platform would look like. Let’s hope he’s hard at work making sure that OpenSocial 2.0 is focused on enabling the type of interoperability he describes in that essay.