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Archive for the ‘Engagement’ Category

Deconstructing Facebook’s Open Graph for Virtual Goods

Posted April 23rd, 2010 by Reza

At Facebook’s F8 conference, they announced a number of striking new features that will change the way game developers can up their game to increase distribution. Here we take a look at the top few features that would be useful to increase monetization of virtual goods.

Like Button – get this Social plugin now

The Like Button provides the biggest bang for the buck for increasing visibility. Within a single line of HTML, the Like Button is a quick way for a developer to place a widget on a web page that will allow any end user to share a story on Facebook about that web page to his newsfeed. You can customize the content of the Like Button by adding meta-tags in the HTML that customize the description and title of the object. In the context of virtual goods, since this works at the page level, it’s best to describe have a page dedicated to a single virtual good. When the story gets published to the end user’s newsfeed it will contain the specific names of the properties of the virtual good, including the name, description and image. Games that are running off-Facebook using Facebook Connect can take advantage of these viral channels that draw attention to the item being sold. Previously, developers who wanted to accomplish the same thing would have to make more difficult calls to Facebook’s API servers.

Other Social Plugins

The Recommendations plugin would be useful for users to see what web pages are most liked. Just like the Like Button, this works best if each web page “object” was a single virtual good. The rest of the Social plugins range from being cute such as “Facepile”, to being practical with “Login with Faces”. There’s a lot of great potential here for future plugins that will take further advantage of the social graph.

Graph API

Facebook hasn’t wasted anytime in quickly deprecating the “Old Rest API” and replacing it with the Graph API. There are a number of gems bundled in this product, specifically (1) programmatic access to Analytics, (2) the use of JSON, and (3) the use of OAuth. For the first time, Facebook has allowed developers to programmatically retrieve data about an arbitrary web page that has been populated with events from Social Plugins. The types of “Insights” available are relatively limited at this time, but you can quickly gather basic stats about page views, users who shared pages, etc. With respect to virtual goods, some other metrics that are important include pricing, conversion, total revenue, cohort analysis, and many more around actual ecommerce behavior. These visual analytics are available through Social Gold’s virtual economy analytics and complement the analytics that Facebook provides.

What is innovative about these new APIs is not about the content they expose, but how simple it makes it for a developer to interact with Facebook programmatically. Previously, developers had to make more complex REST API calls to Facebook’s servers. The Graph API defines a nicely partitioned object name space that returns results in JSON format that makes it easy for Flash, JavaScript and backend servers to parse. It’s great to see Facebook promoting the standard OAuth standard first popularized by the Open Social consortium and also adopted by other identity providers such as Twitter @anywhere. We hope to see more innovations come out of Facebook in the coming months.

Posted in Analytics, Engagement, How To, Payments, Social Games, Tech, Virtual Goods | 1 Comment »

What can you learn from the success of Virtual Goods?

Posted February 9th, 2010 by Vikas

Yesterday, Chris O’Brien contemplated the growing success of virtual goods on PBS’s Idea Lab, noting that while he was first puzzled by the popularity of virtual goods he now sees the great potential they hold for redefining online business models. As virtual goods economies have continued to flourish in a time when monetization of online business is still elusive for many companies, more people are examining the value behind virtual objects. Some people who are unfamiliar with these economies question the value of virtual goods and wonder why users spend real-world money on intangible online gifts or objects within social games. Virtual goods are not simply about gifting cute or quirky icons. The real value of virtual goods is the emotion they deliver, the experience they create and the feelings they generate.

Virtual goods fuel experience economies online as consumers become deeply immersed within social games. Successful virtual goods economies have turned profits because they create a differentiated and fun experience for consumers. Virtual goods are of little value if the foundation of an absorbing consumer experience is missing. Why buy seeds for a virtual farm, for example, if there is no satisfaction or amusement in planting and nurturing them? However, social games that hook players and draw them into an engaging, entertaining virtual world create an environment where virtual goods have the ability to prosper. Virtual goods may enhance an in-game experience by heightening entertainment, offering the chance to improve performance or enhancing relationships with friends on social networks.

Chris discussed what news sites and content providers can learn from the success story of virtual goods in online games. First, it is more than obvious that users are willing to pay. So, the argument that people will not pay does not hold water. Second, the users will pay for a differentiated, unique experience. It is important to emphasize this: getting users to pay for content will be much harder than getting them to pay for the experience. News sites, as much as they want to monetize, should also focus on the experience they can create for their users. A common story we hear from many news sites is that they see a lot of one-page visitors: people visiting from Google news or MSN or elsewhere, follow a link, read an article and move on. It is critical for news sites to engage their audience. Money will follow the engaged experience.

It is important, then, to support a smooth purchase transaction or else the user experience will be disrupted. People are willing to pay for virtual goods as part of an enjoyable experience but if, for example, they must leave a Facebook game to purchase a new object, this is distracting and disrupts any efforts of engagement. Social Gold helps preserve a fun and deep gameplay experience for players by enabling in-game transactions, so purchasing virtual goods is quick and simple. It’s not the object itself that holds value but rather, the quality of the overall experience in which virtual goods function.

Tags: content, electronic payments, micropayments, Virtual Goods
Posted in Engagement, In-game, Payments, Social, Social Gold, Virtual Economy | Comments Off

Skinnable UI: Extend Your Brand And User Engagement

Posted October 23rd, 2009 by Vikas

We are excited to announce a new, self-serve feature that allows developers to create a customized look and feel for their in-game payments experience. Think of it as a way of creating customized skins on the fly that match and blend with the colors of your game. This, in turn, helps to extend your brand and to increase user engagement and conversion rate.

So, how does it work? Simple. All you do is share the hex code of your game’s primary highlight color, and we do the rest. We generate a color palette and gradient that matches and blends with your game’s look and feel, and you are ready to go.

Here is how you instantly customize the payments flow for your in-game payment.

Log into your Social Gold account to configure your in-game payments offer.

Edit your Account Settings

Choose the integration (offer) you want to edit (or create a new one). Next, go down to the advanced settings. Go to the customize highlight section and add the hex code of your game and hit enter. Hint: You can always change the hex color if you are not satisfied with your original choice.

Edit your integration settings

Set up the Primary Highlight Color

Save, and voilà! You have a a new, customized skin that matches and blends with the look and feel of your online game.

Colors to match your game

The new, customized in-game payment window appears in the context of your website/online game and blends in with the flow of the game. As much as we love our color schemes, they can sometimes appear jarring to the user playing your game, especially as they are about to open their wallets and send you money.

Why would you want to customize the in-game payments experience? There are three simple reasons. First, you can now control the look and feel of your website. Second, you can improve your conversion rate. Our initial tests have shown an improvement of around 10% across several applications. Third and most importantly, by deploying a natural, blended looking in-game payments experience, you provide your users with a natural way to pay without interrupting the flow of their game. The payment window appears in the context of the game and blends in with the flow of the game. This ensures that the user stays engaged in the game.

So, go ahead and give it a spin. Take control of your game and effectively increase user engagement, increase conversion rate, increase your revenue, and most importantly extend your brand. Skin your Social Gold in-game payments flow now!

Don’t forget to let us know what you think and ping us. We want to hear from you.

Posted in Engagement, In-game, Jambool, Payments, Social, Social Gold, Virtual Economy | Comments Off