Joe Cincotta: Thoughts and such…

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Nerdism for the masses.

November 17, 2011 • 10:09 am 0

Pixolut launch Lite Engine 2.2

We’ve just pushed Lite Engine 2.2 live, with some great updates that will allow you to further customize your campaigns.

 

With the changes we’re implementing we’re improving the user experience, expanding the features and now giving you the opportunity to track the performance of your campaign better.

 

Lite Engine is our platform that lets you create branded content and interactive campaigns for Facebook. From exclusive fan content to promotions to custom applications – Lite Engine gives you the tools to create a custom experience suited to your exact needs. If you do want more info on the platform, please contact us

 

So on top of all the cool stuff you’re already used to, we’ve added a few nifty things:

  1. Customizing your newsfeed: Lite Engine generates a newsfeed once an entry has been successfully submitted, and in this 2.2 version you now have to opportunity to customize all levels of the newsfeed (so the title, caption, copy and visual). Absolutely tailored and therefore more engaging messaging and images.
  2. Custom Tracking: in addition to the standard reports that are already part of the Lite Engine platform (Hits to the tab, Completed form, Shared in newsfeed and Referred entry), we’ve now created the opportunity for Custom Tracking. This means you can define and track your own interactions in the applications. Great to be able to track certain actions that users take in competitions and/ games.
  3. Referral entries is another functionality we added, allowing you to reward participants in your campaigns with an extra entry in the competition if their friends enter. This mechanic is a great incentive for participants to share the competition with their friends, and will increase your participation rates. Of course this mechanic is only suitable for games of chance (ie sweepstakes) and not games of skill (ie 25 words)
  4. Email confirmations; you can now send email confirmation when entries are submitted which is a great way to follow up with extra, more detailed marketing content.
  5. Gallery options; this option can now be turned off (if desired), so that the gallery in a photo upload campaign is no longer visible.

 

Lite Engine 2.2 features are available today to customers that have beta access or have requested Pixolut to develop the skins. The SDK will be available for all subscribers to download on Monday, November 21.

 

If you want to know more about Lite Engine, this 2.2 update or what we’ve been up to, please get in touch:

Facebook: facebook.com/pixolut

Twitter: @Pixolut

Phone +61 2 8517 5080

 

Filed under: Facebook, pixolut

March 25, 2011 • 2:39 pm 0

Facebook Platform Updates Q&A for iFrame Tabs

After a few conversations recently I thought it may be a good idea to post this little snip from the Facebook team and point out a few true/false kind of comments that we have seen lately.

New policies for custom apps on Pages
Two new policies for custom apps have been added to the Facebook Platform Policies. To summarize the changes: apps on Pages cannot auto-play without people interacting with the app, and users must grant explicit permission for you to use analytics beyond those of your individual Page in order to customize their experience. See sections 1.7.a and 1.7.b for the full language of the new policies.

Question: “So we can now auto play YouTube videos on our tab!”
Answer: Technically you can – but it is against the Facebook Platform Policies. This also means, auto running Javascript etc. I would expect that this is going to be difficult to police, however there will invariably be some kinds of monitoring solution from the Facebook developers on its way.

Question: “Can we add page tracking to tabs?”
Answer: Hmm…actually, it would seem yes – as long as you don’t alter the experience for the end user based on the tracking. This would mean that you should be able to start using DoubleClick, Google Analytics and other tracking tags in your iFrames that appear on tabs without any problem. I am currently seeking clarification on this point with the Facebook folks in the US, however at present it would seem that 3rd party tracking is fine as long as it does not affect the user experience in any way.

Question: “Can we use our website functionality in the tab and detect our own customers?”
Answer: Not until the user has provided permissions to the application. If you are altering the experience for a user based on Cookies in the domain of the iFrame itself like this (ie: knowing if the user was YOUR customer from YOUR website) then it is against the FBPP’s

Question: “So, we are not allowed to fan gate content anymore since there is no FBML?”
Answer: Hell no! You can – but the way it is done is completely different. With the removal of the FBML tabs, there is now changes to the way iFrames work. Canvas and Tab iFrames are now very similar and use a common ‘POST’ mechanism to deliver context to the iFrame application. This means that your developers need to understand the new mechanism to fan gate the content. And, NO, it does not require permissions now to fan gate content either!

Filed under: Facebook, Industry Opinion, pixolut

March 23, 2011 • 11:39 pm 0

Weekly Update: Artificial Indicators and Social Relevance

On Artificial Indicators and Social Relevance

My sister and her family live in Tokyo. Last week was scary – and to be honest it still is with all of the after effects of this disaster. Thankfully, she is safe. She is still coming to terms with the impact – the enormity of the situation. She is not the only one. Many people around the globe are looking for ways to ‘get it’ – to try and comprehend the magnitude of this disaster. Not long after this grave event, the New York Times posted a page that let people see the before and after of satellite views depicting different areas affected by the quake or the subsequent tsunami: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html – I used this tool and started to comprehend a few things about the dire situation this part of the country is now in.

These tools for ‘visualisation’ are becoming the norm – ways of seeing the world of data around us that we cannot otherwise comprehend. It might sound strange, but it seems that in a way we have become obsolete. Our minds are fed the complexity and enormity of world events, technology, huge numbers of people’s points of view – yet we are not capable of processing it. Information overload is the catch cry of the new millennium – and it’s true. We have created an ecosystem of media and information platforms we are not naturally capable of comprehending.

The problem with this is that we lose track. We rely heavily on artificial indicators to help us find our way around this unrelenting tide of information that is simply beyond our comprehension.

Take the example of Angry Birds in the App Store… It became a self fulfilling prophecy – it was very popular, because it was a great game – however – because it came early to the app store and the App Store’s minimal number of artificial indicators (Most Popular) created a ‘feedback cycle’ that propelled it to stratospheric heights. Bob Warfield has nailed it several times with his article here:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/efficient-marketing-means-doing-something-different/

Now – if you took a moment to digress and read Bob’s article, you will start to understand where I am going with this:

If you don’t fall in to a category on the platform you have chosen to market on – You Are Lost.

As an advertiser then, there must be a few ways to deal with this issue of being Lost:

1. Game the system – timing to market and optimisation on the system itself – be it Twitter followers, Google page rank, Facebook Likes.

2. Increased relevance – stand out as a beacon in the tide of noise with clarity and depth. Relevant, meaningful content can never be ignored as a robust tool.

3. On-platform optimised and targeted media – this is a form of ‘artificial indicator’ that the platform provides to target your message directly.

When all three are used in synergy – something special happens! You start to get found – and the more you get found, the more you get found – simply due to the nature of the feedback loop style of artificial indicators. Look at Page Rank, Edge Rank, Popularity, Followers, Likes – all of these are artificial indicators we rely on to guide our decisions en-masse when using our digital platforms of choice.

Anyway, I hope you subscribe to Bob’s blog – absolutely worth reading regularly.

In other news since our last update… well – feels like the whole universe has changed since the introduction of iFrames on tabs.

An interesting article from the Facebook Developer Blog on using OpenGraph to find what movies your friends like

http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/481

A great eBook for non-profits is available here called “The Goodness Engine” for some ideas around digital strategy with NFPs

http://www.deepfocus.net/hackathon/#ebook

“In an experiment, 41% of Facebook users were willing to divulge highly personal information to a complete stranger. This according to IT security firm Sophos, which invited 200 randomly selected Facebookers to befriend a bogus Facebook user named ‘Freddi Staur’ (an anagram of ‘ID Fraudster’). Of those queried, 87 responded to the invitation, among them 82 people whose profiles included personal information such as their email address, date of birth, address or phone number.”

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070814/facebook-privacy/

Finally, a GREAT piece on the emerging landscape of social commerce

http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/emerging-trends-in-social-commerce

Filed under: Facebook, Industry Opinion, pixolut

January 26, 2011 • 10:38 am 1

Facebook focus on Mobile and what that means for Social App developers

By Joe Cincotta

San Francisco is hosting the 2011 Inside Social Apps conference and the CTO of Facebook, Bret Taylor sat down and spoke about what the year holds in store for the Facebook platform.

Inside Facebook have great in-depth coverage of the interview here

The key takeaway from the interview is that “Mobile is the primary focus for [the Facebook] platform this year.” – This means that the many disparate platforms that currently exist for using Facebook on PC browsers and mobile devices and browsers will start to be aligned in functionality and capabilities.

I have been saying that this would happen for the past year… The impact of this focus on mobile will see changes to the way mobile devices deliver the Facebook experience to allow the use of Facebook Social Apps on these devices as well as Newsfeed and Notification integration with Facebook apps.

“One way Facebook will be tackling the problem is HTML5, which will make it easier for engineers to quickly iterate and release features to a broad set of users without having to go through an approval process.”

The most interesting thing about this conversation with Taylor was his point about HTML5; it is becoming the de-facto standard for developing applications that ties together the next generation of computing platform (Tablets and Phones) with the last (Desktop).

As we have all seen the proliferation of ‘smart’ mobile devices in both phone and tablet form factors appear over the last 12 months – we find the common thread between them all is the web; more specifically Webkit and it’s support for the emerging HTML5 standards.

This common thread of HTML5 connecting all the desktop operating systems and the mobile operating systems (and form factors as well as input models like touch versus mouse) allows developers to move from writing code for completely different platforms to simply creating front-end variants of their code using one technology and one service delivery mechanism.

With regards to Facebook, my expectation is that this will mean changes to the way we make apps – possibly adding the idea of a “mobile canvas” on top of the current “tab” and “canvas” app contexts to allow Facebook to continue to control the environment developers work within.

Also, expect to see the Facebook advertising formats extend on to these new platforms – again, most likely to appear on the “mobile app canvas” space. Consider the fact that there is no advertising in any of the many Facebook mobile platforms at the moment – which means a huge lost revenue opportunity for Facebook every second they are not owning that space.

Filed under: Facebook, Industry Opinion, pixolut, , ,

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