At the end of the year, Facebook created ‘The Year in review’ for each account which could be published with the user’s consent. This review created a new set of pages under the url https://www.facebook.com/yearinreview/username thus creating additional page view potential from existing content. 

Earlier in November, Facebook also trialled ‘Couple Stories’ which can be seen by visiting www.facebook.com/us – if you are in a relationship (on Facebook) you will see the combined content of the two people. Again, this is taking existing content and creating new pages. 

The couples pages don’t stop there – by comparing usernames https://www.facebook.com/username1?and=username2 you can see not only the relationship but also a timeline of key events. Again, more page opportunities from existing content.

Why is Facebook doing this?

After stellar growth, the addition of new users will start to slow over time. As a key headline figure for some time, this will be mistaken as a sign of a troubled Facebook. By boosting the potential pages views from existing content, Facebook can start to boost new figures to promote – page views per person and time spent on site.

Back in the day, this used to be called ‘Stickiness’ – wanting to increase the value of a user on site to boost  page views and potential advertising opportunities. The same ‘horizontal’ expansion has been seen with Yahoo, MSN and Google over the past decade. All those business, and Facebook included start to move from rapid growth to increased dwell time by a combination of new pages to read and new services. When is the last time you heard of a growth figure from Google? 

The increased page views will benefit Facebook as advertisers will have more opportunities to gain relevant visibility which can over time boost ad revenue. 

So, with the advent of old content in a new fashion, will we see a rash of new likes for old content? How will that affect the size and influence of these accounts? Will ‘classic’ brands regain some cred? Only time will tell.

News last week from Deals United could combine the two, empowering brands to incentivize consumer actions in return for Facebook credits.

Credits Rewards enables online providers to use Facebook Credits as an incentive to make purchases, competitions, surveys and user registrations more attractive to customers. The promotion can be implemented in a multitude of ways, such as directly via Facebook, on company websites and through newsletters. Credits Rewards ensures the prompt delivery of Facebook Credits to the actual Facebook customer account.

This has strong implications for brands and for Facebook. incentivizing consumers will attract a certain audience which may not be the right audience. Secondly, how will an incentivized page be ranked against a non-incentivized pages.

No doubt further questions, and further opportunities will arise over time. Right now you can learn more about Deal United here.

Christopher Liversidge, QueryClick’s Managing Director suggests:

The ‘Gestures’ feature could really transform Facebook for users and developers, as it could open up so many possibilities for communicating with loved ones on the site. It would seem pretty logical that if developers can create buttons for specific actions, that a ‘dislike’ button could be within reach.

Whilst there is no official word on plans for the button, a new set of ratings could benefit consumers and brands by measuring a wider range of response than simply like or not.

The potential for additional ‘voting’ could also benefit brands through boosted engagement offering consumers more options than vote or not.

With Facebook connect already established on millions of websites, the potential extension of Facebook credits could pose a serious threat to PayPal and other payment systems.

The Future of Facebook?

The continued growth of the Facebook audience and the increasing breadth of its offering will be an important factor in the digital landscape of 2012.

Premium subscribers will read more of our predictions for Facebook in 2012 and how it will affect the digital landscape for brands. This report will be published in early December.

Click here to learn more about the briefings and how you can receive complimentary reports from our archive.

With the launch of Zynga Direct, the game maker aims to further decrease its reliance on Facebook as a source of audience and revenue. Last year’s launch of Facebook Credits and their 30% ‘cut’ impacted Zynga heavily dropping their profits by a reported 95%, or more than $20,000,000.

With the launch of Zynga Direct,the company  will be working to distance itself from Facebook reliance and claw back some of that lost income. The provision of credits is another opportunity to negate the 30% cut.

If successful this will decrease income for Facebook, although with an estimated $1 billion profit this year, it may not be hugely missed.

In other news, the first bank opened in Cityville last month.

CityVille players will be able to place the very first branded Capital One Bank in their city. FarmVille and The Pioneer Trail players will be able to interact with the goat from Capital One’s commercials, which is being introduced in both games as one of many in-game incentives. Each in-game promotion delivers a unique Capital One experience and directs players to Capital One’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/capitalone) to learn more about exclusive items.

Cityville is currently the most popular game on Facebook, followed closely by The Sims from Electronic Arts

This push is significant, not just for Facebook income but for the growing potential for the mobile device to become a mobile wallet. With Facebook credits available to spend on mobile devices the way is paved for wider collaboration with other site owners or fan page brands to sell directly to mobile through Facebook.

The Facebook launch, coupled with the public launch of the Google Wallet further points to the growing potential of mobile commerce growing beyond the handset.

However, in a significant blow to Facebook plans, Apple will not allow credits within App Store apps. The Facebook announcement earlier this week stated,

Today, we are extending Facebook Credits to support mobile web apps. Facebook Credits is a payment system that provides a safe, easy way for users to pay for your content. The same policies are also extended to mobile web apps, requiring all games to use Facebook Credits as their exclusive payment mechanism. By requiring games to use Credits on both mobile web and apps on Facebook, we offer our shared users a simple and consistent experience when buying virtual goods in games. Native iOS apps and mobile web apps that are running within a Facebook iOS app may not use Facebook Credits.

Still with mobile Android penetration achieving signifcant growth, it still leaves plenty of opportunities.

The Payment Potential for Mobiles

At present, mobile users are most likely to use credit/debit cards to purchase goods and services on their ‘phone. Of the payment providers currently PayPal extends is the larger provider in the UK and the USA.

How brands can harness NFC & the mobile wallet

Our Directors Briefing from May looked at the potential of Google’s Mobile wallet for brands. To receive complimentary copy, please follow this link.

Southwest Airlines is also the only airline fan page to achieve over 1m fans, with Air France in second place with only 672,000 fans.

For this list, we have grouped together airlines with multiple fan pages. brands such as Air France manage local territory pages such as Air France UK, USA and Switzerland. Additional pages are managed for Air France Music and Air France Elite.

About the Data

To ensure validity of data, we manually check all pages before including them in our BirdSong analysis. This is done to ensure we are monitoring the correct pages, not Wikiepdia links, fan pages or unofficial pages. Many brands still do not link their social presence to the homepage so there is a chance we have missed one or two. If we have, please let us know in the comments so we can add it in.

Every day BirdSong analyses 90 over different airline pages to deliver sector insight into the most active and engaging brands on Facebook. Each brand and page is assigned a sector for competitive insight across a wider range of pages than just comparison against one other page.

BirdSong is currently in closed testing and will be available soon. If you would like to know more, please either leave a comment, or leave your details here.