Thanks to Facebook’s integration with OpenTable, which has access to about 20,000 U.S. dining establishments, you’ll soon be able to make reservations on the go through Facebook later this week. The service will be available on Facebook’s mobile site and newly updated apps for iOS and Android. Because the service is so mobile-based, there are a few device-specific advantages, like the ability to use Facebook’s “Nearby Places” function to find restaurants around you. Facebook claims that its integration is much more seamless than OpenTable’s other partners, Yelp and Google Maps, and wants to bake in deep, cross-platform compatibility. We’ll find out just how successful they are later this week.
Tag: Facebook
Graph Search Available To All U.S. English Users
Facebook’s Graph Search, the tool that enables plan-language search across information shared by friends or anyone on the social network is now available to anybody who uses U.S. English as their default language. It’s a useful tool, and as more people use it it will only increase in its applications, as new meaningful searches turn up new information across different parts of the network. However, privacy will become a much larger concern, as now nearly everything on Facebook can be looked up with a simple click of a button.
Are Facebook Video Ads Comparable To TV?
The advertising world has been buzzing around recent news that Facebook will likely be launching video ads this fall. There are a few items that have sparked the most conversation, but none more than the $2.5 million price tag for a daylong run of 15 second video spots integrated into the newsfeed. That cost and the way Facebook is packaging the offering looks more like a major TV buy (think Superbowl) than anything found in the digital arena. In fact, it seems that Facebook is embracing the comparison to primetime and has even collaborated with Nielsen to release a FB-commissioned study to compare reach of Facebook to TV. According to the report Facebook has reach that is comparable or even greater than the four TV broadcast networks during the day. For example, the 25-34 age segment on Facebook has an incremental 41% reach to the networks during the day.
That said, Facebook’s ad formats will vary dramatically from TV and even most online video. They will appear within news feeds, muted and can expand and activate audio when clicked (in the same fashion as Instagram Video). Targeting also varies significantly from TV as FB video will be able to target by age and gender. Based on initial numbers, Facebook video generates greater engagement than any other form of post, but will that translate to paid media?
Mentos Captures Facebook Activity As News Broadcast
Mentos is launching personalized news bulletins that make Facebook activity entertaining and engaging enough to be broadcast on a news network. Integrated into their “Stay Fresh” campaign, the “Fresh News” is generated through an app by the same name, and streams for 24-hours to serve up a constant stream of humorous news reports by pulling in media updates from Facebook and affiliated social media accounts. Two news anchors present satirical news highlighting a user’s recent updates, emphasizing how “fresh” the subject may – or may not – be.
Slingbox Update Lets Facebook Friends Watch Cable In A Browser
If you’ve got the Internet bandwith to spare, there’s no longer a reason to keep TV feeds to yourself. Slingbox 350 and 500 media streamers now have the ability to integrate Facebook into their live TV streams. Slingbox works by turning your TV into an Internet Stream that you can tap into on any device, anywhere, and now that stream can extend to friends on Facebook – with one important caveat: Facebook friends can only connect to your stream when you’re not using it; just one connection is allowed at a time. You can invite friends on the social network presently, but you can interrupt their stream at any point to reclaim control. This represents another big step forward in social TV; expect to see more of this in the near future.
Facebook’s New Users Come From Feature Phones
Facebook released some new statistics about its mobile usage, and revealed that it now has 100 million monthly active users who access Facebook’s app on feature phones – showing particularly large growth among users in countries like India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Though Facebook is at over 1 billion active users around the world, the company is looking to expand its global profile, and in positioning itself as a viable product for feature phones, Facebook has access to nearly all of the 418.6 million handsets shipped during the first quarter of 2013. Facebook presently runs on over 3,000 different types of feature phones, so the data isn’t surprising, but it puts Facebook in the unique position of ensuring that the next global generation are already Facebook users, irrespective of the phone they own.
Soldsie Exceeds $10M In Transactions
Soldsie, a company that processes payments on top of Facebook comments, announced that it has processed more than $10 Million in transactions, and will be expanding into several foreign markets. The service allows you to buy things in the Facebook comments section, and allow companies to grab buyer’s attention in the moment. With several companies mounting challanges to the traditional buyers model, Soldsie seems to have figured out an effective method of transitioning social media engagement into dollars.
Instagram Launches Video Embedding For All Websites
Instagram announced that its new video services is now embeddable on websites. Instagram’s protocols are similar to YouTube’s, as you can click share below the video that gives you an HTML code that you can copy and paste into your website. The embedded photo or video appears with your Instagram username, and clicking on that username takes the user to the Instagram webpage. The update should help the spread of Instagram’s video app, that is keeping pace with Twitter’s Vine.
Facebook Rolls Out Graph Search To Public Today
If you’re not one of the beta-testers for Facebook’s graph search, you’ll be able to add it to your profile today. Over the next few weeks, the new search tool will be made available to several hundres of millions of users after the six month testing period that began in January. The tool is designed to provide answers to specific, targeted questions via information Facebook has on record about you and your friends – such as “friends who like Movies” who can then provide recommendations for films. Graph Search hits right at the heart of the Facebook privacy debate, as it makes clear just how much information Facebook can dig up on individual users to help answer Graph Search queries. It’s also an important tool to help facilitate demand-fulfillment ads, but as yet the company has taken a relatively conservative route to Graph Search Monetization.
Report: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter Drive As Much In-Store Purchase As Digital
According to a new report by Vision Critical, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter drive as much in-store purchasing as online purchasing, but affect purchasing behavior in different ways. The research gathered 5,900 responses to online surveys to determine how social media influences a consumer’s path to purchase. Facebook was best for motivating customers to make purchases offline and online, while those who purchased after viewing on Pinterest hadn’t thought of making that purchase until viewing the item on the network. Ultimately, technology items – after being recommended to users – are most frequently purchased directly as a result of a recommendation from a friend or social network.
