Tag: Facebook

Facebook To Add Games To Messenger App and Commercialize WhatsApp

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Verge

Facebook has confirmed that it is in talks with developers about creating native mobile games for its newly expanded Messenger platform, which was unveiled last month at its F8 developer conference. Few details have surfaced besides the confirmation, but it is clear that these new games will be downloadable as in-app purchases from Messenger’s third-party add-on store, which has been populated with chat enhancers like stickers and gifs so far.

Besides gaming, the social media giant already launched a “Businesses for Messenger” initiative to allow businesses to talk with their consumers directly on the Messenger app. Similarly, Facebook is now also looking to make WhatsApp, the other chat app it owns, more brand-friendly. According to Bloomberg, the company is looking into ways to bring the business-to-consumer communication model to WhatsApp.

Taken together, this points to Facebook’s ambitious plan in turning the two massively popular messaging apps it owns into well-rounded media platform that supports its mobile ecosystem. Just last week, messaging app Tango launched in-app ecommerce store in a similar attempt to broaden its reach, but it is obvious that Facebook has a far more advantageous position to capture more attention and leverage that into building out its messaging platforms.

Here Comes “The Internet By Facebook”

Posted on by Lab Team

Last week, we reported on Facebook’s Instant Articles, the newest product in its relentless chase after digital publishers. Now officially launched, it serves as a mobile-only content initiative, designed to get partnered publishers to get their content hosted natively on Facebook’s servers so as to eliminate the long wait for in-app browser to open. Among the first batch of publishers signed on are prestigious news outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, BBC News and BuzzFeed, all seemingly eager to try out the glossy, mobile-friendly new format and speed this new feature brings.

In related news, Facebook started to test its own in-app, in-house search engine earlier last week. Selected users have discovered a new feature that allows them to easily search and add links that are already shared on Facebook, directly to their posts and comments. Although not necessarily trying to take over Google’s business, this new development, combined with the launch of Instant Articles, all point to Facebook’s ambitious plan to turn its social network platform into a closed-off mobile ecosystem for digital content. In fact, Facebook is on track to pass Google in incremental ad dollars, according to a Morgan Stanley analyst.

If such trend continues, we might soon be seeing a version of The Internet, as presented by Facebook. Therefore, it is important for media owners and brands alike to at least to try out Facebook’s offerings first to see if its platform works for their specific purposes.

Update 5/15/2014: Smaller publications, including local news sources, will reportedly have an opportunity to try Instant Articles for themselves soon.

Get Ready For Consumer VR: Oculus Headset To Ship In Early 2016

Posted on by Lab Team

After months of speculations, Facebook-owned VR company Oculus finally confirmed the release date of the first commercial model of its virtual reality headset. “Extremely excited to announce that the Oculus Rift will be shipping Q1 2016! We can’t wait to get it in your hands,” tweeted Nate Mitchell, vice president of product at Oculus VR, earlier today.

Although no further details on pricing or content partners have been made available as of yet, the announcement mentions that the first commercial models will be focused on gaming and entertainment with more use cases to come later, heralding a boost in consumer-facing VR technologies soon beyond just at-event experience and activations. We expect VR to be a niche market in 2016 in the same way that smartphones were a niche market in 2007, therefore it’d be wise for brands to prepare a VR strategy to stay ahead of the curve.

We here at the Lab are always looking out for new developments in the VR space, and currently we have two VR headsets—an Oculus Rift and a Samsung Gear—ready for demo in the Lab. Our staff got to demo the new Crescent Bay prototype at CES this year and can help explain the differences between what developers have their hands on now and what will be released in less than a year.

Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood. So come by the Lab and get a VR demo to see just how engaging it can be, and understand why consumers would be excited by this technology.

 

Facebook To Supercharge Targeted Ads With IBM Partnership

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: Wired

Today, Facebook and IBM announced a new partnership that will see Facebook’s existing ad targeting technology integrated into IBM’s line of retail tools and services. By combining retail data, both online and offline, with Facebook’s user data, the two companies hope to create effectively personalized marketing campaigns that don’t rely on cookies.

The news came just on heels of Facebook’s new deal with Nokia’s Here, as the social media giant doubles down on data-driven ad targeting. With this partnership, new tools would allow targeted ads to be placed directly into individual user’s Facebook feed, while also enabling marketers to go after specific behavioral segments, such as runners, foodies, and new parents. It is clear that Facebook is determined to keep up its momentum in offline attribution through these new partnerships and solidify its leadership in mobile ads in general.

 

Facebook Strikes Deal With Nokia’s Here For Better Mobile Map

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Facebook has quietly inked a deal with Nokia to use its Here mapping division to power location services on Facebook’s mobile website. The company is also running a test with Here data in its proprietary apps like Instagram and Messenger.

Facebook has long been trying to improve its location services, acquiring companies like Glancee, TagTile, and Gowalla to buff up its location technology and talent pool. With this new deal, the social media giant not only can provide users with a more uniform mobile experience and more accuracy in Facebook Places and Instagram venue tagging, but also potentially scale up its online-offline attributions with the superior mapping data that Here promises with more details and accuracy in converting geo-data to actual venues.

From partnerships with Datalogix for POS data, offering retailers in-store WiFi with Cisco, and now the deal with Here, Facebook is making great strides in attacking what marketers have said is their biggest challenge with digital attribution: matching online campaigns to offline conversion.

Why Facebook Is Chasing After Online Publishers

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Wall Street Journal

In order to attract and retain more users, Facebook has been quite ambitious in terms of building its social network into a content platform. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 48% of respondents said they recently read news about politics and government on Facebook. So it came as little surprise when Facebook announce a new initiative, dubbed Instant Articles, earlier today to increase its appeal to digital publishers.

As part of the content initiative, Facebook is offering to let publishers keep all the revenue from certain ads, which is clearly aimed to lure them into distributing content through its social network. Although concerns over access to reader data and user experience control have already been voiced, Facebook is reportedly finalizing the details with its launch partners, which includes BuzzFeed, The New York Times, National Geographic and other major publishers.

 

 

Facebook To Prioritize Real People’s Posts Over Brands

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Facebook introduced an update to its news feed algorithm that will prioritize posts from real people over those by brand pages and publishers. For some brands, reach stats and click-through rates on Facebook reportedly went down almost immediately after the changes were implemented on Tuesday; however, it is still too early to tell exactly how much impact this new tweak will impact brands’ efforts on Facebook in the long term. As competition for limited attention grows, brands have to work harder to produce entertaining quality content that people want to see in their feed.

Leading Tech Companies To Test Commercial Drones

Posted on by Lab Team

Recent announcements from Google, Amazon, and Facebook demonstrate the companies’ paths towards drone adoption:

  • Amazon’s plan to deliver shipments got a bit closer to reality last Thursday, as federal regulators granted the ecommerce behemoth approval, albeit with many restrictions, to test its unmanned aircraft.
  • Facebook will be testing its solar-powered laser-equipped drones this summer, as part of its internet.org project that aims to beam Internet access to remote areas or third-world countries that lacks the infrastructure.
  • Google was reportedly testing its delivery drone aboard last year, but recent reports claim Google is pushing to launch a fleet of high-altitude atmospheric satellite drones within months to provide Internet connectivity, similar to what Facebook is doing.

Top Five Takeaways From Facebook’s F8 Conference 2015

Posted on by Lab Team

With more than 30 million apps and sites currently on Facebook’s platform, Facebook is much more than just a social network. At their big F8 Developer Conference today, Facebook made some major announcements that uncovered their detailed plan for building out its platforms, as well as helping developers and publishers alike connect with users and monetize their content.

Messenger App To Become A Platform And Disrupt Ecommerce

As we reported earlier this week, Facebook is expanding its Messenger app into a full-fledged media platform by allowing integration with third-party apps and content. More importantly, it is also looking to disrupt ecommerce with a new mobile shopping experience. Equipped with real-time shipping notifications and enhanced receipts, the new Messenger Platform promises to connect shoppers to businesses by integrating all disconnected emails generated through online shopping into one cohesive chat thread for easier access and tracking.

New Parse SDK To Connect The Internet of Things 

Parse, a mobile development platform that Facebook acquired 2 years ago, is coming out with a new SDK that will make it easier for developers to create apps to connect a variety of connected devices. One demo featured a garage door opener build on Parse’s new platform. This puts Facebook directly in competition with Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Nest Platform, as well as a handful of other IoT platforms.

Mining Insights From App-Generated Data

Mobile apps generate tons of untapped data all day, and Facebook is looking to make better use of them with a new Facebook Analytics for Apps. Essentially a “Google Analytics” for mobile apps, it will help developers and content owners alike gain valuable insights into engagement or conversion rates of Facebook-powered apps.

Bringing New Video Experiences Into Social

Besides a new video plug-in tool that allows easy embedding of Facebook videos on other sites, Facebook is also looking to integrate its new Spherical Videos, which let viewers move around in a 360-degree view, right into the News Feed, laying the groundwork for virtual reality video in your social stream.

New Ways Of Monetization Glue The Platform Together 

To help publishers better monetize their content, Facebook unveiled an upgrade of its video ad platform Live Rail that will add support for mobile display ads—especially native ads, Facebook’s Audience Network—while also improving content targeting using Facebook’s anonymized data. Moreover, the previously mentioned deep integration of content and apps on Facebook Platform will undoubtedly bring in ample opportunities for monetization.

 

 

Why Facebook Wants To Host Content For News Publishers

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Verge

Following yesterday’s announcement of opening up its Messenger app, Facebook continues to expand its reach into web content. The social media giant is reportedly in talks with several renowned publications, including Buzzfeed, National Geographic, and The New York Times, to post their content directly onto the site, with the ad-revenue from such Facebook-hosted content shared with original publishers. While this could result in better distribution and easier access, it remains to be seen whether publishers would be willing to give up control over their original content.