What’s Facebook’s EdgeRank? In short, EdgeRank is to Facebook, what PageRank is to Google. If you’re managing a Facebook business page, you need to monitor your EdgeRank and determine which variables influence your page’s performance.

Facebook EdgeRank: What is it?

In simple terms, it’s the set of metrics Facebook uses to determine your page’s value.

Why is this important?

Your Facebook EdgeRank determines if your posts are shared with other pages/people that have ‘liked’ you.

What this means is that, even though someone has liked your page, if your posts have a low Facebook EdgeRank… it may not appear in their newsfeed, i.e. the stream of posts that appear on their page when logged in.

If you have a low Facebook EdgeRank, your posts, comments, and ‘likes’ don’t get shared upstream. It’s a bit like not appearing in Google’s search results.

Therefore, if you’ve noticed a drop in the traffic to your Facebook page, it’s probably because your Facebook EdgeRank has dropped.

Facebook EdgeRank: How to Improve it?

There are different tactics, but the following are worth examining:

• Third Party APIs – Reduce (or stop) direct feeds from third party APIs, such as Hootsuite. Research shows that this may have a negative impact on your EdgeRank.
• Embed Videos – Instead of linking to videos, embed the actual video on your page. If you don’t see the option for doing this, install a video plugin or drop me a line.
• Engagement – Instead of posting generic status updates (which have very low social interaction), look for ways to create a dialogue with others.
• Organic Likes – Avoid buying Likes (no, really don’t) and work at getting more Likes from like-minded Facebook users.
• Investment – Think long-term and invest in your page. Invest in tools, templates, and training courses that bring you up to speed faster with Facebook. TechCrunch doesn’t know everything
• Share Images – Words power Google. Images power Facebook. And videos are catching up! Find ways to source, share, and get comments on more images.

Remember, Facebook is all about being social. So, think social, community, and engage. If you’re using the same tactics on Facebook as you do on Google, you’ll get very little returns.

Over to you.

What affects your Facebook EdgeRank the most? What tactics do you use to monitor your page’s performance? And what mistakes do we need to avoid?

Creating your first Facebook ad?  Consider these points when setting up your first ad. Make sure to use the right dimensions when creating your Facebook ad, get the text and image ratio correct, and use compelling call to actions in the copy, otherwise you’re wasting your marketing budget.

Designing your Facebook Ad

In no order of priority, here are the guidelines you need to be aware of:

Character Limits

Your Facebook ad must include a title (the name of the ad) and body (i.e. the text).

• The title can be 25 characters max.
• The body can be 135 characters max.

Images in Facebook Ads

Every ad MUST have an image. However, your image can have text in it Or be all text. But if must technically be in an image format.

Image Size for Facebook Ads

The image can be 110 pixels wide and 80 pixels high (i.e. 110 x 80 px).

One suggestion is to keep an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 16:9.

Maximum File Size

The ads you upload to Facebook must be less than 5 megabytes.

Incorrectly Sized Images

If your image is larger or smaller than the correct dimensions, Facebook will resize your image accordingly.

Using Flash and Animated Gifs

Facebook does not support animated or flash images.

Girls in Facebook Ads

Using pretty girls to increase click-thrus does work but… if it’s not connected with what you’re selling, you’ll simply waste your budget very quickly. Use images that connect to your potential customers.

Best Practices Facebook Ads

Use a compelling image that:

• Draws attention to your product/service
• Does not confuse the viewer into clicking (after all you pay for every click)
• Is fast to load
• Has a clear call to action
• Uses words sparingly. Don’t clutter the image with words.

Facebook Ad Resources

• Webinar – Facebook Advertising Tips, Tricks & Techniques for Marketing Executives
• Facebook Advertising 101 – How To Create Facebook Ads That Work
• Killer Facebook Ads: Master Cutting-Edge Facebook Advertising Techniques
• Shoemoney System (includes Facebook Ad module)

Takeaway

Design your Facebook ads so that you the comply with Facebook’s best practices. Understand how Facebook uses ads and the way it funnels them thru the system. Ads typically peak after 24-36 hours and, unless getting very high clickthrus, will be removed from Facebook. So make sure your ads meet the correct guidelines first.

Any questions about creating a Facebook ad?

Add it in the comments so we can all share & learn.

How can I schedule status updates to Facebook? One of the limitations with Facebook is that you can’t schedule posts inside Facebook itself. But there is a workaround. Here’s how to schedule updates to your Facebook page so you can keep you page active while on vacation, business trips, or even when off the web.

How To Schedule Facebook Status Updates With Hootsuite

I use Hootsuite to manage both my Twitter and Facebook accounts. You can also use it to monitor your LinkedIn page and others Social Media sites, such as Foursquare.

To schedule blog posts, for example, to your Facebook page, do the following:

1. Open Hootsuite (it’s free to use and there is no download.)
2. Add Facebook to your Social Media accounts. This adds a new tab where you can see your Facebook status updates.
3. Enter a message in the text box, for example, a link to your new blog post.
4. Click Schedule and choose the date when you want it to be published.
5. Click Facebook from the tab. You can change the text if you wish and the image that goes with the blog post.
6. Click Ok.

This blog post, status update, or message will appear on Facebook later.

Note: you can select other Twitter accounts and send the same message (or blog post) to these accounts at the same time.

That’s it.

You can now schedule as many blog posts, messages or whatever to Facebook. Hootsuite has some other great tools in there. Let me know if you know of any others.

Should Your Kids use Facebook? It’s a pretty straightforward question and, for most parents, the answer is No. But, life is never that simple. This raises other issues: should kids have a mobile phone, or a Playstation, or big Macs? Here are some dos and don’ts.

Should Kids Be on Facebook?

The first point is that Facebook is, I believe, for over 18s. But, it’s a real world and under 18s get into pubs, bars, movies and so on.

Of course, this doesn’t make it right or justify shoddy monitoring.

Nor, does it abdicate responsibility from the store owners or Facebook.

Strictly speaking in an ideal world kids wouldn’t be on Facebook, right?

But, if they are not on Facebook, then where do they hang out online?

Why Kids Use Facebook

With the breakdown of the family unit and the tendency of kids to spend more time indoors – getting them out of the house is an issue now – it’s understandable that they want to connect online.

• Kids use Facebook to connect with each other. It’s a logical extension of texting each other, which paradoxically is another issue.
• Kids use Facebook to express themselves.
• Kids use Facebook to connect with distant friends.
• Kids use Facebook as they are more digital savvy. What’s an issue to you is the norm to them.
• Kids use Facebook to form groups (as they do offline) and share information with their inner circle.
• Kids use Facebook to demonstrate loyalty to each other. I’ll friend you but not him.

How Kids Abuse Facebook

But then there is the less pleasant side.

• Kids use Facebook to intimidate others – as they do offline.
• Kids use Facebook to exclude others – as they do offline.
• Kids use Facebook to isolate themselves – as they do offline.

The pattern here is that most of what happens is mirrored offline.

The difference is that the expression – eg likes v party invitation – has changed.

Kids on Facebook – Dos and Don’ts

I lived in the UK, USA, and China most of my adult life. My spectrum of friends is worldwide. Indeed I have more distant friends than local ones. Sound familiar?

And our kids are the same. Thus the attraction of Facebook when they want to connect.

But this still doesn’t explain how to manage Facebook when your kids want to use it. So, here’s what we did.

• Tell them that you will periodically check their Facebook page to make sure all is well. Don’t spy on them. Be honest and they will respect you more.
• Before they use Facebook explain how it works. Show them how you use Facebook’s security settings.
• Change their privacy settings so that only friends – and not friends of friends – can see their pictures, posts etc.
• Explain what to do if/when they start to get bullied, harassed etc.
• Remind them that not everyone will accept your friend request.
• Change the Facebook settings to Https so the connection is more secure and others can’t hack into it. See Privacy settings.
• Teach them how to create a strong password.

Like I said, the easy option would be to ban Facebook in the house. But this can backfire.

Conclusion

Studies have shown that discussing these issues – and other sensitive issues such as alcohol usage, drugs etc – is more productive than hiding and pretending that it will go away.

The challenge is to help your child navigate its way through life. Facebook is one of the many little journeys they will have to make.

The challenge for us is to show – not tell – the best ways to use these tools to enhance their life.

These are some ideas I quickly put together this Sunday morning before we head off to mass, so forgive the poor grammar in parts.

Please share your thoughts – and this blog post – with your friends.

Facebook’s new security features help control your privacy, especially if you log in on cybercafés, hotels or at airports. You can now force Facebook to logoff from a remote location and create one time passwords. These are easier to use than you’d think and, for me, give greater confidence when using Facebook on business trips. Here’s how it works.

How to Sign Out of Facebook Remotely

Facebook has added more security features to its social network. I’ll avoid the technical details and explain three ways to protect your privacy and stay more secure on Facebook.

1. One Time Passwords

Facebook has released one-time passwords to make it safer to use public computers in places like hotels, cafes or airports. If you have any concerns about security when accessing Facebook, they can text you a one-time password to use instead of your regular password.

To do this:

• Text “otp” to 32665 on your mobile phone
• Facebook will send you a password that can be used only once.
• It expires in 20 minutes.
• To access this feature, you’ll need a mobile phone number in your account.

2. Sign Out From Facebook Remotely

You now also sign out of Facebook from a remote location.  These session controls are ideal if you log into Facebook from a friend’s phone or computer and then forget to sign out.

To do this:

• Go to your Account Settings, you can check if you’re still logged in on other devices and remotely log out.
• Under the Account Security section of your Account Settings page you’ll see all of your active sessions, along with information about each session.
• If someone accesses your account without your permission, you can also shut down the unauthorized login before resetting your password and taking other steps to secure your account and computer.

3. Keep Secrets Secret!

When you log in to Facebook, it will regularly prompt you to keep their security information updated.

If you ever lose access to your account, having this information helps us verify who you are and get you back into your account quickly.

Tip: You don’t have to wait for us to prompt you; you can update your Facebook security setting here.

Want to Know Even More?

You can get more security tips and updates on the Facebook Security Page at www.facebook.com/security.

I’ve never had any issues (touch wood!) with Facebook and it’s security.

What’s the best trick you know to protect yourself online?

You can now use Facebook’s import feature to add your Flickr photos into Facebook. To do this from Flickr, follow the instructions below. To do it directly from Facebook, use the Import link at the top of your Mini-Feed. Right now, only a few sites—Flickr, Yelp, Picasa, and del.icio.us—are available for importing. Digg and other sites are scheduled. These posts will look just like any other Mini-Feed stories, and will hopefully increase your ability to share information with your friends. I prefer the Flickr to Facebook method as I’ve had issues with different Facebook apps. But, its up to you!

How to Import Flickr Photos into Facebook

Tip: You have to put in your full email account name that you use at Flickr.

Here’s how it works.

1. Login to Flickr and click http://flickr.com/account?tab=extend

2. Scroll down the page until you find this “Your Facebook account. Link your accounts to share your Flickr updates on Facebook. ”

3. Click Link the Accounts. This starts the import process.

4. In Facebook, click the Import button to import into Facebook

5 You then get confirmation that your Flickr and Facebook accounts are connected.

Once you’ve done that, your latest Flickr uploads will be added into your Facebook News Feed and Mini-Feed.

Does this work for you?  If not, let me know.

To quote Van Halen, ‘everybody wants some.’ And what you want is traffic. Why write a blog if no-one visits, right? I have 17 technical writers’ blogs in my Google Reader & RSS feeds. Most are fine but… if they used some of the following tactics, they’d get more traffic, comments, money and Nobel prizes. Well, three out of four, anyway.

How To Get More Traffic To Your Technical Writing Blog

Apply five of these tactics and your traffic will double. No kidding, it will!

How To Get More Traffic #1: Add Your Photos

Look at your favorite technical writing blogs. How many faces do you see? Why are they all hiding? I dunno. Stick your mugshot on the page so we can see what you look like! Go on! None of us are Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton (OMG! Paris Hilton rebuilds career as technical writer shock!), so add a pic. Don’t be shy. People like to read about people they know. If they can’t see you…

How To Get More Traffic #2: Video

I’m no spring chicken, so if I can do it, you can. All of these video were taken on a Canon powershot.

Videos let people hear you, see your expression, feel what you’re trying to say in ways that words cannot. Making videos is easier that you think. I use Camtasia 6 for all its sins. (read my frustrated Camtasia 6 review here.)

How To Get More Traffic #3: Social Media Outposts

Use Social Media for maximum impact. With web content publishing tools like Posterous you can get the message out to all these channels with almost no effort. Posterous lets you post once, publish everywhere. Try it.

• Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ivanwalsh
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh
• Business Week http://bx.businessweek.com/profile/ivan-walsh/iwalsh905/
• And also on Disqus, Flickr, LinkedIn, Delicious and Google Reader

How To Get More Traffic #4: Quizzes

We all get tired of checking for split infinitives and looking for typos, so lighten things up. Add quizzes to get people involved… and try to be a little different.

• Did you ever download software illegally?
• What’s your manager’s most annoying habit?
• Would you let your boss friend you on Facebook?
• Do you know any technical writing who can reverse park? (I was going to say Women but then turned on my brain! That was so close!)
• Do you know any men who ask for directions when lost? One for the girls, no doubt.

How To Get More Traffic #5: Comics

May not work for all sites but comics are a nice break from technical documents and other heavy reading. Why do you think they are so popular? Every serious newspaper has them, why not you?

How To Get More Traffic #6: Reviews

If they come to your site, it’s your opinion they are after. So, why don’t you give it?

#1 cardinal sin of most blogs is that they have no opinion!

Don’t be scared! I’m with you! Give your honest opinion (try not to rant or swear) and you’ll see people will respond very quickly.

#2 cardinal sin of most blogs… bland!

If your blog echoes the rest of the crowd, well, why should I come back? Stick your neck out, even a little. Some people were upset that I dissed Camtasia but y’know I’d be lying if I said it worked!

How To Get More Traffic #7: Trends

Pssst! Did you know that… everyone wants to be in the know. Keep your readers up to date. Use graphs, charts and diagrams. See Brain Solis and Information in Beautiful for inspiration.

How To Get More Traffic #8: Lists

It doesn’t have to stop at 10. Here are a few list of get started:

• 21 Left Handed Technical Writers
• 7 Reasons Why Adobe FrameMaker Sucks But You Still Need to Buy It
• 12 Honest Ways to Get a Pay Rise
• 5 Ways To Give An Honest Appraisal
• 28 Ways to Proofred a Technical Documant
• 1 Good Reason to Join the STC
• 18 Mistakes Technical Writers Make Before Breakfast
• 9 Ways to Evaluate a Help Authoring Tool

How To Get More Traffic #9: How-to guides

Ok, the technical stuff comes last. If you’re going to offer technical advice (and you should!) identify the problem, explain how to fix it, and then ask for questions or comments.

#3 cardinal sin of blogging is… blogger doesn’t interact with readers. Ask for comments. If you have a Facebook page, give them the link and connect there. Use Twitter? Create lists for technical writers and add them. Like these lists I created for technical writers and creativity.

• Adobe FrameMaker list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/adobeframemaker
• Creativity list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/creativity
• Technical writing software http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/technicalwritingsoftware

Share, share, share!

What ya think! Fire away below.

Ask. That’s it. If you want more Facebook fans, ask people to connect. But, here’s Catch 22. You have to ask in the right way. Asking strangers doesn’t work. Here’s how I do it.

Facebook: the Quickest Way To Get More Fans

I run twelve Facebook pages and this seems to work best. To get more followers:

1. Join groups – with less than 1000 members. More than this and you can’t make an impression.
   
2. Join fan pages – same as above. Choose niche or specialist subjects.
3. Contribute – add comments, photos and videos. Stand out from the crowd in a nice way. Don’t be weird!
4. Respond – to questions people have. Help others. Do this once a week minimum.
5. Suggest – quality links that you find that relate to the group.  Share, share, share.
6. Off Facebook – talk up your Facebook groups on your blog, LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanwalsh) and elsewhere.

Then Ask!

Here’s how you ask:

1. Open Notepad
2. Copy/paste your invite text. Don’t write it from scratch every time. Keep this on your desktop, so you don’t  have to go rooting around.
3. Choose someone you’ve helped, complimented etc (i.e. they’ll most likely know who you are)
4. Click Add as Friend
5. Click the Add a Personal Message link.
   
6. Personalize the message, “Hi David, this is Ivan from the Camtasia group, if you’d like to connect, that would be great. Ivan.”
7. Click Send Request.

And that’s it

How about you?

What do you do when you want to connect to someone on Facebook? What’s the worst mistake people make? Spelling your name wrong?

I’ve started to use my social networks more strategically rather than adopting a ‘shotgun approach’. In other words, I try to leverage each site by seeing the opportunities it offers and then using these. Recently, I’ve started to shift away from Facebook and moved to LinkedIn.

Ivan Walsh's Linkedin Profile page

5 Reasons You Should Leave Facebook and Join LinkedIn

What does LinkedIn offer that Facebook doesn’t? Here are five reasons to Leave Facebook and join LinkedIn instead.

1. Target Audience – the average age on Facebook is 20 something and female. It’s a great place to meet people, swap videos, and chat. But it’s not a business platform. LinkedIn’s average age is 41. Most everyone is a business professional trying to meet other business professionals. So, for me, this gives it a huge edge of Facebook.
2. Business Groups – LinkedIn is designed around business groups. You can join these and instantly connect with people with similar interest. On Facebook, there may be fan pages, but it’s often just that, fans! No real dialogue goes on.
3. Recommendations – you can build relationships with people on LinkedIn and once they know/trust/do business with you, will give you recommendations. These professional endorsements give you an element of credibility that you don’t get elsewhere. And while this can be abused (I recommend you if you recommend me) it does seem to work.
4. Integration with other platforms – you can connect to LinkedIn from multiple social media portals, such as BusinessWeek, AMEX Open Platform, and even from Facebook.
5. Knowledge Exchange – I’ve kept the best for last. The conversations I have on LinkedIn are with the best people in their fields. You can learn a huge amount just by listening. Ask questions and see what comes back. The quality is very high. And unlike other sites, the conversations rarely degenerate into slanging matches. You can also receive the comments by email every day or bundled into a single email every week.

I will highlight other business benefits in the coming weeks. These are the first that come to mind.

Your thoughts

What do you think of LinkedIn? How does it compare to other business sites you’ve used? What would you like to see changed in it? How could it be improved?

PS – You can view my profile here – http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanwalsh

If you have multiple Twitter accounts, want to schedule your tweets, want to see stats on your tweets, and want it all in a new user interface, then try Hootsuite. I used to use TweetDeck but have moved to Hootsuite as it offers better stats and integration with Facebook. Here are 10 tips to get the most out of this desktop twitter client.

1. How to add multiple Twitter accounts

To add multiple Twitter accounts (ie profiles), click Settings and then the Social Networks tab.

Enter your Twitter credentials and it will display in a new tab (usually to the right).

2. How to allow an Editor (e.g. friend) to access a Twitter profile?

Once you have added an editor to your account, click the Social Networks tab in Settings. Select the Twitter profiles an editor can have access to.

Click the box next to the editor(s) name in order to grant access to the Twitter profile.

3. How to monitor my brands?

Set up a search column or a keyword column.

Click Add Column and enter the keywords you want to track. This column is displayed to the right of the screen.

4. How to add tabs?

To add a tab, click the [+] Add Tab button next to your current tabs .

Name it and decide how often you’d like that tab to refresh.

Hootsuite gives you 20 tabs – should be enough!.

5. How to add columns to tabs?

Click Add Column and choose which type of feed you’d like to add.

6. How to configure column options?

The Profile Feed lets you add your Home feed, Mentions feed, Pending tweets, Sent tweets, and Favorite tweets.

7. How to use Keyword Tracking

Enter the keyword and then hit Add.

Hootsuite lets you create customized Twitter searches and perform searches like “from:username” or @username

8. How to change refresh frequency?

Click Edit Tab and select the frequency.

The default is 30 min.

9. How to change the user interface layout

You can drag and drop the tabs to change thee layout.You can also drag/drop the columns in each profile.10 How to create a List?

Create a new column and click Lists.

Enter an existing list or create a new one.

Here I’ve added a LinkedIn list. This let’s me see all the people I have ‘tagged’ as having useful links/info regarding LinkedIn.

Do you know any other good Hootsuite tricks? If you do, please add them below.

I’ve started a small experiment. I use RSS to monitor blogs, gather data, and share information. What I’ve now started to do is share ‘the best of the web’ using Google Reader. This lets you track web feeds and share those you think other readers would be interested in.

My shared Google Reader is here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/ivanawalsh

I’ve also made an aim to share no more than 5 links, sites, blogs per day. This should help avoid info overload for those who subscribe and increase the quality of the material.

Why am I doing this?

Louis Gray explains it much better than I ever could.

When I hit “share” in Google Reader, a few things happen.

   1. The item is added to my shared link blog.

   2. The item is available for comments within Google Reader for approved contacts.

   3. The items are shared on my FriendFeed, Facebook and Social media.

Louis Gray: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LouisgraycomLive/~3/Sx0m6McdWY0/why-and-where-we-share-distributing.html

This week on the Virtual Currency Report we cover in-game Virtual Goods, Testing Platform for Online Game Developers, why 99c for micro-transactions is a problem, Google Checkout Glitchs, Gift Stores in Facebook, Voice Mashups for World of Warcraft, How Virtual Gifts Generate Revenue, BillMyParents New Payment Options, $5 million Funding for Virtual Currency Developers, Who made 1 Billion in Transactions, and why Virtual Worlds May Act Like Developing Economies. Let’s get started.

Turbine Selects PlaySpan as In-game Virtual Goods Provider

Turbine and PlaySpan, a monetization solutions specialist for virtual worlds, are to develop a virtual goods marketplace for Dungeons and Dragons Online, a free-to-play (FTP) massively multiplayer online roleplaying game

PlaySpan’s microtransaction platform powers the new DDO Store that was recently introduced into the game. PlaySpan’s microtransaction platform enables gamers to stay in the game while shopping for wearables, weapons, potions, hirelings, and other helpful items in the integrated marketplace.

www.turbine.com & http://corp.playspan.com

Multivariate Testing Platform for Online Game Developers

Offerpal Media, the leader in virtual currency monetization, launched its self-serve Multivariate Testing platform.

This is designed to help online game developers increase revenues from their virtual goods and services, the platform provides a way to test, measure and optimize critical monetization variables including exchange rates, price points, user interface options and more.

The platform is available for free as part of Offerpal Media’s virtual currency payment platform.

1. The first release allows developers to test their exchange rate, or rate at which real dollars convert to virtual currencies.

2. Given the number of variables that go into determining the optimum exchange rate, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to identify through simple trial and error.

3. Experience shows that an exchange rate that is too low, for instance, might not create enough perceived value, while an overly high exchange rate could lead to an inflated economy.

4. The testing platform should provide a framework for testing variations in a developer’s exchange rate and optimizing the results accordingly.

“Finding the right exchange rate is one of the most crucial factors in monetizing games,” said Markus Weichselbaum, CEO of TheBroth, developers behind Facebook games Barn Buddy, Kickmania and PuzzleBee.

He adds that the platform takes the guesswork out of exchange rate testing by allowing you to pinpoint the exact rate that generates the highest Revenue Per User without inflating the economy.

www.offerpalmedia.com

Why 99c for micro-transactions is a problem

Jon Jordan (PocketGamer.biz) reports that “When it comes to micro-transactions, no one knows more about the market than Korean mobile publishers. All Korean mobile games – whether free-to-play or paid purchase – use the system to enable gamers to buy virtual items.

Indeed, many games generate more revenue from their micro-transactions that the initial purchase.

In an interview with Gamevil USA’s CEO Kyu C. Lee, he notes that “Western consumers will adopt micro-transactions. It was easier to educate Korean and Asian mobile gamers since micro-transactions were already extremely popular in terms of PC games. But if you consider all the free-to-play and social games launched in the West these days, it’s just a matter of time. This is a global trend.”

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Gamevil+news/feature.asp?c=15602

BillMyParents New Payment Options

BillMyParents is going live with AdventureQuest Worlds and gPotato. This launch with two significant youth gaming partners marks the beginning of the company`s multi-phased plan to quickly build a user base across multiple markets and establish BillMyParentsas the leading youth payment system.

The BillMyParents payment system works as follows:

1 Once a player has made their selection, BillMyParents sends an email notification to their parent, requesting approval of the purchase and completion of the transaction.

2 The parent then has the option to deny their child`s request or to use a built-in chat function to ask for more information before making a final decision.

3 To complete the transaction, the parent enters their payment information.

The whole process can be completed within minutes without the teen ever gaining access to sensitive credit card details or other personal information.

Google Checkout Glitch Raises Doubts about Online Payments

DigitalTransactions report that Google Inc. has fixed a weeks-old problem with its Google Checkout online-payments system that prevented merchants from processing recurring transactions, such as subscription fees.

While Google says the glitch affected “only a small number of merchants, other observers say this and outages experienced by other alternative payment services—such as PayPal Inc.—raise questions about their reliability in comparison to traditional card processors.”

The problem affected what Google calls “Google-handled” recurring payments, or those that have been set up by the merchant to be processed automatically, for example, on a monthly basis.

Google Checkout’s rates for payment processing were lower than PayPal’s until this spring, when the service increased its pricing and removed free processing to users of Google’s Adwords service.

http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2321

Gift Stores in Facebook newsfeeds

AdAge report that “as Facebook wades deeper into the e-commerce space with its payments system, a gift store that sells real items and retail stores on brand pages, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to enable shopping in what is arguably the site’s most valuable real-estate: the newsfeed.

It gives an example of how it might works:

1 You create a gift registry on Target.com or Macys.com, and by hitting a button you can share your registry with all your friends on Facebook.

2 They’ll see the notification in their newsfeed — “Karen has shared her gift registry” — and, without leaving the newsfeed, Karen’s friends can purchase off the registry.

3 Users could also compile wish lists on retailer sites (or e-commerce-enabled brand pages) that they share with their Facebook newsfeed.

4 Their friends will then have the option to pool their money to purchase items from that wishlist together.

A recent study by Ripple6 and The E-tailing group suggests 43% make purchases as a result of their social-networking surfing.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=138946

Voice Mashups for Facebook & World of Warcraft

Vivox have setup Vivox Labs, an initiative designed to capture and incubate new ideas around using Web Voice to create voice and web mashups.

The first two innovations to come out are Vivox Web Voice for Facebook, a way for friends and groups to talk on Facebook; and Puggable.com, a website for World of Warcraft players creating pick-up groups (PUGs) with voice chat, character data and boss tactics.

Vivox enables massive conversations to take place in online games, virtual worlds and communities. Now it’s bringing its voice capabilities to social web application developers and users with Web Voice.

Vivox Web Voice

1 Vivox Web Voice for Facebook combines the Vivox Network with the social environment of Facebook, making connecting with friends easier.

2 Users can have virtual reunions, play games or conduct meetings.

3. In addition to the core app, Vivox is working with developers to integrate custom voice capabilities into their applications.

Puggable

Puggable is a website that  supports pick up groups (PUGs) commonly formed in MMOs. Gamers often have to find similar geared players in certain roles to achieve game objectives.

Presently focused on the World of Warcraft community, Puggable assembles both character and instance data from the game so that players can easily build a complementary team.

Once the PUG is set, they can use Vivox voice right from their browser, making it easy and intuitive for players to communicate while playing together.

http://www.facebook.com/vivox

Virtual Gifts Generate Revenue for Social Networks

The mobile social network QEEP is now making virtual gifts available on mobile phones. It’s called “Mobile Virtual Gifting” and lets users buy and send small gifts as pictures to their friends.

The gifts can be paid for with q-points, the new QEEP currency, and cost anywhere from 2 US cents to 5 US dollars each. There are many different gifts to choose from; everything from a rose to a boquet of flowers, to a bottle of champagne.

In 2008 over 60 million gifts were bought and sent by Facebook users which can be considered a great success.

Qeep is produced and distributed by BLUE LION mobile GmbH, a privately held company founded in 2006 by former executives of T-Mobile International and Nintendo.

www.qeep.net

$5 million Funding for Virtual Currency Developers

Jambool Inc., a virtual currency provider, has raised $5 million in financing led by Madrona Venture Group.

Jambool has recently formed partnerships with RealGames, the games division of RealNetworks Inc. and distribution partners like Super Rewards.

“Virtual currency is critical to our go-forward strategy, so we considered every available option,” said Garrett Link, general manager of social games for RealGames

The platform enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, to provide an in-game payments experience to users.

ILD Teleservices Reports Billion Transactions Mark

Alternative payment provider ILD Teleservices announced that this July it achieved 1,000,000,000 transactions.

ILD provides Bill to Phone payment alternative that lets you purchase products and services online or over the phone by directly charging your phone bill, without disclosing personal financial data to each business.

Virtual Worlds May Act Like Developing Economies

Suzanne Wu asks, “How would a massive multiplayer game respond to an economic collapse?”

While prior research has looked at economic behavior on the individual level in virtual worlds, a new study is the first to calculate big-picture economic markers such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and inflation in an online setting.

“Our concern was whether the economic behaviors within a virtual world function in the same way that they would in the real world — where, it should be noted, currency is also largely representational,” said Dmitri Williams, assistant professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

Williams, co-author Edward Castronova (Indiana University) and a team including three other USC researchers were given unprecedented access to 314 million actual transactions from Sony Online Entertainment’s large-scale online role-playing game “EverQuest II.”

In the August issue of the journal New Media & Society, the researchers showed that while economic behavior in “EverQuest II” on the societal level follows what one would expect to see in the real world, the fluctuations are much more dramatic than normal.

http://uscnews.usc.edu/university/virtual_worlds_may_act_like_developing_economies.html

Reuters report that Asia’s social networking sites appear to have solved found lucrative ways to leverage profits from their online gamers. Asians spend an estimated $5 billion a year on virtual purchases via websites such as Qzone, Cyworld in South Korea and mobile-phone based network Gree in Japan, according to Plus Eight Star.

Georgina Prodhan and Tarmo Virki report that “Of the virtual sales in Asia, about 80 percent comes from the sale of such items as equipment for online games such as rods for GREE’s fishing game Tsuri Star 2. The rest comes from purchases for avatars on social networking sites.”

Such is the success of virtual sales on Asia’s social networking sites that the likes of Facebook are looking at the potential virtual money can generate.

Takeaways

To put this in perspective:

• Qzone’s Tencent Holdings made over $1 billion last year with just 13% coming from advertising revenue.
• In contrast, Facebook and Myspace depend on advertising to fund most of their revenue.
• Cultural issues. Gaming is popular among adults in Asia; in the West it mostly for kids.
• Status. Asian societies are very status conscious. No one wants to have an avatar with last year’s bling.
• Asia’s social networking sites are country specific but have very active user bases.

Stats

• Qzone had 228 million active user accounts for Q2 2009.
• Cyworld had 23 million unique visitors per month at the end of the Q1 2009.

Link

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/09/08/technology/tech-us-asia-socialnetworking.html

~~~

Doug Herman notes that while western social networking platforms like Facebook are considered distinct businesses from virtual worlds such as Second Life and There.com, in Asian, the two businesses are more integrated and provide leading social networking companies such as South Korea’s CyWorld, with very profitable revenue streams.
How does the Asian Virtual Goods Business Model work?

According Plus Eight Start, “Asians spend around US$5 billion a year on virtual goods purchases such as items to improve their capabilities in casual games and items to improve the look and status of their online avatars.”

The money represents around 80% of the total global market for virtual goods.

How does it differ from the west?

Two differences are 1)  that game players don’t have to spend much money or 2) pay a subscription fee upfront.

Doug highlights that instead, the Asian business model leverages “a large user base which views opportunities to improve their online “look”, experience or capabilities as worthy of a small investment especially when they view their online persona as a status proxy among their friends.”

“Social networking is just a way to get people together, but if you want revenue you have to sell them something. What [Asian social networking companies] found was that people were happy to pay for content related to emotion, status and entertainment. They  keep growing even though the economy’s bad because they keep making millions from [pennies] from millions and millions of people.”, Benjamin Joffe, Founder & CEO, Plus Eight Star.

Takeaways

1. Virtual goods sales in Asia is partly due to the lack of a sophisticated online ad market.

2. However, their alternative business model may be more instructive to Western social networking companies that struggle to develop a profitable revenue stream solely through advertising.

3. Recently Facebook has been developing their own virtual currency platform, dubbed ‘Facebook Credits‘.

4. Facebook already sells virtual goods and has implemented its own credits system to enable the purchases. Soon it may expand its system to push its virtual currency out to third party websites and application developers.

5. Asian teenagers also ‘rent’ virtual goods, such as skins, backgrounds and other items. This lets them bling up their web persona without paying the full amount. If they like the item, then they may but it.

Read more here: http://www.digitaleastasia.com/2009/09/14/will-the-asian-virtual-goods-business-model-gain-traction-in-the-west/

~~~

The popularity of micro-transaction (MTX) continues to gather pace with the news that Oberon Media Inc, one of the web’s leading multi-platform casual games company, moving into micro-payments.
[ad#adc-2]
This is part of its plan to engage in segments that deliver monetization for partners of its Game Center platform.

It will start with the launch of I-play’s Bubble Town: Party Planet.

The company will distribute free to play, MTX-enabled games across all its platforms including its Game Center partners, social networks, and iPhone.

Oberon will continue to integrate new virtual economies into its gaming franchises on multiple platforms and roll out scalable virtual commerce systems to Game Center partners.

What is it?

Bubble Town: Party Planet is an upgrade to the successful Bubble Town Facebook application, which has been played more than 120 million times.

The web version is the most played game on MSN Games.

Overall, the Bubble Town franchise has gained over 5 million unique players through PC download, mobile, iPhone, iPod touch Facebook and MySpace since it launched on PC in 2006.

It was initially launching as a Facebook application with a MTX virtual economy called BubbleBucks.

How BubbleBucks virtual currency works

This virtual currency will allow players to make in-game purchases on items including power ups, extra level packs, gifting and other activities such as the ability to pick up play after a level defeat.

BubbleBucks can be purchased online, or earned through in-game achievements such as high scores, skillful play and inviting friends to join in on the excitement.

You can join the Bubble Town: Party Planet Open Beta via Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/bubble_town_test/

Limited time offerPlayers who join the Bubble Town: Party Planet Open Beta will receive 2,000 free BubbleBucks.[ad#adc-2]

You can now buy flowers online from within Facebook thanks to a new offering from 188-Flowers.
1-800-Flowers.com has partnered with Alvenda to provide this web service.

This lets shoppers (from inside Facebook) buy product online by clicking the “shop” button. You can also browse items, add to the shopping cart, add a delivery date and send it out.

Payments are made with credit cards.

Facebook is testing its new Facebook Credits payment platform with select developers.

Bing provides great general search results, relevance, a big index and speed — all of the hallmarks of a good search engine.

However, because sorting through search results can often be time consuming, Bing organizes popular results in a different
way. 

It is designed to help you get the answers you’re looking for without having to guess the right way to phrase a search term.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12205

I had mixed success with this. Let me know what you think.

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

Facebook hosted a conference call on July 1 to introduce new privacy settings. It plans to offer new settings so you can share links, text, video and photographs with your friends, sub-set of their friends, or ‘everyone.’ At the moment, you can only share these with your friends.

The new changes will be rolled out over July.

Watch this quick presentation to learn some more.

Yesterday we looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength. What I’d like to cover today are the type of mistakes people make when creating passwords and how to avoid this. If you’re planning on opening a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this.

How to avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords:

1. Avoid sequences or word or repeated characters.

Examples of these are “12345678,” “778899″ “abcdefg,”

2. Letters on your keyboard that sit next to each other are also a mistake. For example, qwertqwert.  These are very weak passwords.

3. Avoid using look-alike substitutions of numbers and symbols.

This means that you don’t replace an ‘i’ with a ’1′ or an ‘a’ with ‘@’ as in “M1cr0$0ft” or “P@ssw0rd. These are too easy to guess.

However, these substitutions can be effective when combined with other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in upper and lowercase, to improve the strength of your password.

4. Avoid your login name.

5. Don’t use any part of your name, birthday, social security number.

6. Avoid words taken out of the dictionary.

7. Tools can guess passwords based on words in multiple dictionaries, including words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and substitutions.

8. Use multiple passwords

If any one of the computers or websites using your password is compromised, then all of your other information protected by that password will be compromised as well.

So, try to use different passwords for different systems.

9. Don’t store your password online.

I know this sounds obvious but, if others find your passwords stored online (or on a networked computer), they have access to all your information.

Takeaway tips:

• Long passwords are stronger than short ones.
• The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.
• Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.
• Strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.
• Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’ key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.
• Choose symbols unique to your language.
• Use the space bar in passwords.
• Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.
• The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

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