Want to scale a system which can handle over 300 million monthly users, approximately half of which are logging in daily? It’s not an easy task however Facebook has managed to pull off an impressive feat but as many users are noticing: not everything is working as it should. The primary problems exist for the minority, yet rapidly growing population, of hyper-connected individuals who have thousands of contacts. So what’s going wrong?
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There are two primary types of online advertising: direct sales marketing and branded ad campaigns. Direct sales models like online affiliate marketing or email marketing have already been proven. However large brands have only begun spending billions of dollars online, because there have been very few ways to monitor the effectiveness of campaigns. Let’s say that you set up a Facebook application which millions of users interacted with. How do you then measure the ROI of that program once it’s complete? Given that large companies spend hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars on advertising everywhere, it’s difficult to track the impact of a single advertising program on a user’s awareness of a product or service. That could all change with Facebook’s announcement tomorrow.
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Over the weekend I wrote about the “massive protests” taking place in Zynga’s virtual world YoVille. I kind of poked at the protesters in the article because they are the vocal minority. When you’re in the midst of a protest it appears as if everybody is protesting. The new changes were controversial for those users who had spent time and money on the game over the past year or two. The main issue was that users are now forced to return to the game on a timed basis in order to earn revenue. I’m still not convinced it’s an unfair adjustment.
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Tomorrow afternoon Facebook will make a special announcement at Ad Week NYC and they’ve been promoting the announcement heavily via the Facebook Marketing solutions page. Apparently the live stream will be posted on the page and while no details have been provided regarding the announcement, it sounds as though a new advertising product will be launched or upgrades to the existing ones will be rolled out.
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Earlier this month Tweetdeck announced that they would begin integrating the full Facebook stream into their widely used desktop application. The new version of the application has now gone live and you can view your entire news feed and then implement filters which limit the content to status updates, wall posts, photos, videos, and custom groups of friends. That means your Facebook feed will now sit right next to your Twitter feed … talk about content overload!
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This is Day 30 of the 30 Days to 3,000 Fans program. You can learn more about the program here.
There’s an old proverb which says “He who fails to plan, plans to fail” and while there are people that will debate the importance of planning, mapping out a guide for the next month will make things a lot easier. What blog posts will you be writing? What content will be most effective to drive new fans to your Facebook? What steps will you take to promote your Facebook Page? While we’ve listed 29 techniques to boost your fan base, have you really taken advantage of all the suggestions we’ve made?
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Facebook recently surpassed 300 million registered users, meaning it’s becoming increasingly vital to your online and offline social graph. Whether you use Facebook primarily for your personal life, business purposes or both, this list of tips will help you gauge how well you’re already using Facebook’s tools and perhaps offer advice on how to make a little better use of them.
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This week was yet another big week for Facebook with the company reaching new milestones, employees leaving, and the official launch of status tagging. I’m also proud to introduce a new feature of our weekly roundup: a stop motion video produced by my sister, Megan O’Neill. This new addition is a complete experiment so let us know your thoughts on the new weekly video!
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YoVille, one of the largest virtual worlds on Facebook, recently experienced a relatively large protest against a major change yesterday which modified the way users can earn virtual currency. Previously, users entered a widget factory from where they could earn coins. While users can still earn coins there is a new process in which users must spend money to make money (as is typical in the real world). A number of users are furious and in the past few hours I’ve received numerous users frustrated with the change.
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This week two of the largest social gaming developers, Playfish and Playdom, announced that they are opening offices in San Francisco. Is this part of the massive Silicon Valley “revival” that the BBC described yesterday? I doubt it but it’s clear that no matter where the social gaming companies are hiring from, San Francisco and the bay area in general, are important for any growing internet startup.
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