Neal BhamrePrincipal Analyst, The Code Works Inc.

Sean ShannonPrincipal Engineer, The Code Works Inc.

How and When to Get on theHow and When to Get on theFacebook TrainFacebook Train

How and When to Get on the Facebook Train

Is the FB train arriving, departing or late leaving the station?

What does it take to get on board?Lessons LearnedResources

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Facebook Market OverviewSocial networking growthFacebook population breakdownFacebook demographics shiftFacebook application growth

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Social Networking Year over Year growth In general social networking is expanding at 25%

worldwide. The much larger existing base in North America makes such growth unlikely, but the sheer number of new registrants is astounding.

Source:comScore World Metrix

Unique Visitors (000) Age:15+

June 2007 June 2008 % Growth

Worldwide 464,437 580,510 25%

Asia Pac 162,738 200,555 23%

Europe 122,527 165,256 35%

N. America 120,848 131,255 9%

Latin America 40,098 53,248 33%

Middle East - Africa 18,226 30,197 66%

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Facebook is the pacesetter among SN sites Whilst there has been generally strong growth among all

social networking sites, Facebook’s growth has been by far the greatest – outpacing the growth of the Internet itself year over year

Source:comScore World Metrix

Unique Visitors (000) Age:15+

June 2007 June 2008 % Growth

Total Internet Audience 778,310 860,514 11%Social Networking 464,437 580,510 25%FACEBOOK.COM 52,167 132,105 153%MYSPACE.COM 114,147 117,582 3%HI5.COM 28,174 56,367 100%FRIENDSTER.COM 24,675 37,080 50%Orkut 24,120 34,028 41%BEBO.COM 18,200 24,017 32%Skyrock Network 17,638 21,041 19%

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Facebook Geographic Distribution Facebook is growing all over the world. Whilst, the

majority of users (new and old) are in the US and Canada, the pace of growth in Europe and Asia are an indicator of just how popular Facebook has become.

Source:comScore World Metrix

Unique Visitors (000) Age:15+

June 2007 June 2008 % Growth

FACEBOOK.COM 52,167 132,105 153%North America 35,698 49,248 38%Europe 8,751 35,263 303%Asia Pacific 3,712 20,712 458%Middle East - Africa 2,974 14,951 403%Latin America 1,033 11,931 1055%

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Facebook’s Demographic is Shifting During the past year, the traditional demographic at Facebook

has shifted dramatically in the US. Traditionally, Facebook targeted 18-25 year-old users. Whilst that group is still the largest demographic, the fastest growing segments is young to middle professionals (25-44 y.o.)

The 18-25 year old demographic will become less than half the US market for the first time by the end of this year (currently 51%)

Worldwide, the effect is less dramatic in that growth in the youth sector (13-25) is still the strongest due to new market penetrations outside of the US and Canada

The core 18-44 year old demographic (advertisers core market) is now 80% of the overall population

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Facebook Current Age Breakdown

Source: O’Reilly, Sept 08

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Facebook’s Applications The growth of available Facebook applications is also

astounding Since inception at least 7,000 applications have been

built This number is uncertain as the latest data is from June 08 Some applications have been built, deployed and removed and

are not included in the 7k

Over 100 new applications are made available each day 80% of users have use at least one application built on

the Facebook platform …but 87% of the traffic goes to 2% of the applications

Source: O’Reilly - Oct 07, Facebook - June 08

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Facebook’s Marketing Opportunities Advertising

Banner Ads Contextual/NewsFeed/Flyer Ads

Marketing Facebook Pages Sponsored Groups/Functions

Word of Mouth/Interaction Applications “Fans”

Intelligence Profiles and Network information Public Groups

Source: Facebook, June 08

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Facebook’s Advertising Facebook has gone heavy into advertising sales The effectiveness of these ads is questionable:

Very low click-through rates Poor targeting

Poor historic performance is at least in part due to their traditional demographic (which is changing)

The targeting system is largely self-service and allows users to make their own mistakes

…but questions remain in their audience tagging as it applies to advertising

Source: Facebook, June 08

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Targeting the Right Audience

Self-service “Choose Audience” tools can segment by:– 30 Countries,

States, Cities– Sex and Age Range– Keywords in Profile– Educational Status– Workplace Networks– Political Views– Relationship States

But there appear to be glitches in the system:– Ads for any goods or service including applications can

somehow be misdirected

Source: Facebook, June 08

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Some of this is in Flux

In response to these issues, Facebook is about to a new advertising program called “Engagement Advertising” which they announced in August, 2008

The goal of the program is take advantage of the social aspects of the system in promoting ads

Relies principally on word of mouth promotions: Leaving comments which the user’s network can read “Gifting” the ad to your network in order to receive some

benefit “Becoming a fan” of the underlying product or application

The goal is to fulfill the promise of the social network to their advertisers

Source: ComputerWorld, August 08

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Recruiting on FacebookTrendsDetailed examples

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Trends Facebook has long been a source of recruiting recent college

grads Ernst and Young were there in 2006 and has at least three different

locations running simultaneously Now, recruiters are targeting mid-career professionals as the

demographics have changed Individuals are taking advantage of the open network and its

tools to get themselves recruited The job boards are integrating their offerings with Facebook Companies that recruit similar individuals (e.g., “I’d hire all of

the Petroleum engineers I could find”) are creating and targeting networks of like-minded, like-educated members

Companies are using the system to keep in touch with former employees or prospective employees even as they avoid transactional “sales” to these potential candidates

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Example: Ernst and Young

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Example: Mid-Career

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Example: Managing My Career

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Example: CareerBuilder

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Example: Hewlett-Packard Alumni

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Example: CIA and MI6

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Facebook App Dev Process

Develop Facebook Killer Idea

Define Goals

DesignFacebookApp

Code, Test & Deploy

PublishWeekly

Market to Engage Users

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The Killer Idea What’s a great idea? Something that…

Harnesses the viral aspect of Facebook – wider candidate base Gets you a deeper knowledge of the candidate Generates a new stream of revenue

It also has to be compelling in its content and offering to attract users

It should be guided by strategy (e.g., overall operational strategies and goals)

“If you build it, they will come” doesn’t work. It needs to be effectively targeted and marketed.

Think of your first web sites (e.g., “brochure-ware”). Don’t make the same mistakes that firms did in the 90s – recognize that Facebook is an environment, not just a location

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Defining Goals Set your goals

Verbalize your goal• Can you explain it in a simple sentence?

Write down your goals. • Do they overlap?

• Are there dependencies?

• Are they consistent with company core values?

• Sketch out wireframes for reference, expect many edits Prioritize, Strategize

• If you had to choose, which would be the first goal to accomplish?

• Gain a large following, then herd them towards other goals

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Design Facebook Application

Review Facebook Basics Home Page, Profile Page, Lingo, Architecture

Get Started with Smiley ;)Hone Design

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Design Facebook Application:

Facebook Home Page

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Design Facebook Application:

Facebook Profile

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Design Facebook Application:

Facebook Lingo Home

News Feed Notifications Requests Chat Inbox

Applications Bookmarks Developer App

Profile Wall Info Block Updates

Developer Application Dev Wiki Dev Forum Dev Bugzilla

Platform FBML FBJS API FQL

Your Application Allocations About Page Callback URL Canvas

Messaging Inbox

Friends Write on their

wall Send a message Poke Invite

Misc For the social

glossary of terms check out http://budurl.com/zr72

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REST over http

Design Facebook Application:

Facebook Architecture (5000’ Level)

Browser Client

Facebook.com

My Apache / PHP Server

API

http request

http

HTML

FBML

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Design Facebook Application:

Get Started with Smiley

Smiley is a sample app that showcases functionality of the new FB platform. Here’s how to get started:

Sign-up as a FB Developer (any FB user can) http://developers.facebook.com/get_started.php?tab=tutorial

Download the FB Sample App Deploy to Your Public Server Create Application instance on Facebook Dev App Create Test Users Experiment with page interactivity, profile updates and

notifications to friends

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Design Facebook Application:

Hone Design

1. Map functionality and components to your goals

2. Identify application paths

3. Determine click “integration points”

4. Draft wireframes for your development & QA teams

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Code, Test & Deploy Identify Required SkillsDevelop Project PlanSource Team

Design Production Manager* Code Test Deploy Maintenance

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Code, Test & Deploy:

Identify Required Skills Languages, Frameworks, Platforms, IDEs

HTML / FBML Javascript / FBJS PHP, Ruby, Java, more…, Apache, MySQL, Linux .Net, C# 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2005+, IIS,

Windows Server 2008 AJAX

Industry Knowledge Multi-threading Large Scale Architecture Search Engine Optimization Search Marketing

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Code, Test & Deploy:

Develop Project Plan

Design – coming up with a good idea is the hardest part

Chunk the plan, A-B StrategiesDevelopment time: 2-12 weeks, $2k -

$100kMarketing & promotions costs: $1k-$40kOngoing development and marketing

costs

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Code, Test & Deploy:

Sourcing Internal – train-up an existing resource Internal – new hires Internal + Consultants Internal + offshoreConsiderations

Time to production Phase of development Design Marketing Maintenance Cycle

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Code, Test & Deploy:

Resources1. Jesse Stay’s book "FBML Essentials“ and blog

http://staynalive.comwww.oreilly.com 30% off! coupon code: FM3DSApplies to FBML Essentials book or PDF

2. Facebook Developer Forums & Wiki http://developers.facebook.com

3. Codeplex Facebook Developer Toolkit http://www.codeplex.com/FacebookToolkit

4. Facebook Developer Garage Silicon Valley - affiliated with SCVWB, can also find them on Facebook

5. Blogroll:1. Seanconnect.com – developer blog Mashable.com - Social networking news Techcrunch - http://www.techcrunch.com/ Silicon Valley WebBuilder (SVWB) -

http://www.svwebbuilder.com Bar Camp - http://barcamp.org/SvwbBarCamp

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Weekly Cycle

Gather site metrics

Analyze data & identify potential

tweaks

Make changes &

test

Deploy latest

feature set

Decide changes

Repeat Cycle

Weekly or Daily

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Sample Metrics Google Analytics

Visits Page Visits Bounce Rate New Visits Global Reach

Internal Analysis Click Path Effectiveness (A/B testing) Forum Participation Virality Goal Attainment

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Bottlenotes “Social Wine Club” Borrows from .com site Enhances social feature

set Invites Toast! Share Wines Comments Messaging

• Ratings• My Cellar

.Net 2.0 MSSQL 2000

Shared data with existing web site

Data integration with third party providers

In-house design + Consultants

Some offshore help

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Bottlenotes

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Facebook Marketing AgenciesFacebook AdsUltra-popular Apps Feed Users To Yours

RockYou! (.50 /user)• http://www.rockyou.com • http://www.facebookobserver.com/facebook-advertising/rockyou-

selling-facebook-users-for-50/

Adonomics• http://www.adonomics.com

Slide• http://www.slide.com

Internal Product Placement

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FB App Lessons Learned1. Follow Facebook App Guiding Principles

2. Mirror the Facebook culture and conventions

3. Pay attention to user experience design, including performance issues (e.g. too many roundtrips, time outs)

4. Don’t build the whole app in one shot, start small and add new functionality weekly

5. Request FB app directory listing asap – can take weeks/months

6. Leverage built-in tools to promote your applications

7. Be vigilant about embedding measurements into functionality

8. Tweak the app weekly based on what’s working and what’s not

9. Take emotion out of your analysis

10.Focus on getting quality users not quantity – expect this to be an ongoing effort and budget for it

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The Latest Facebook News Recent developments:

The New Platform• Larger canvas (now 800 pixels)

• Fewer layout issues

• More functionality (more FB tags) Facebook Connect (Beta started Summer 2008)

• Single Sign On (your FB users need only one login)

• App can reach in and update the user’s profile

• Access FB without having to be in FB

Rumors: May not always be FREE to publish FB apps

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Facebook Takes Over the World The Facebook O/S? Email Replacement? Facebook Connect

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Comments and Q&A

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Contact Information

Neal Bhamreneal.bhamre@thecodeworksinc.com

415.377.7246

Sean Shannonsean.shannon@thecodeworksinc.com

408.993.1770 ext.123

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