Mobile ads, particularly app install and direct response ads, have become a big business for Facebook and are likely to become a big business for Twitter very soon. Much of the focus has been on the app install business and how large that line of business can become. But I think Twitter and Facebook could head in different directions.
Tag: facebook
The Zynga Hate Has Gone Too Far. Maybe They Should Go Private.
I have been working in free-to-play games for the past 5 years and I have been reading a lot of articles describing Zynga’s recent announcement about a soft Q3 2012 on the back of a less than stellar Q2 2012. The public markets clearly don’t like Zynga’s stock – it’s down substantially since its IPO […]
Read More “The Zynga Hate Has Gone Too Far. Maybe They Should Go Private.”
3 Reasons It’s Hard to Get Mobile Group Photo Albums Right
I’ve been fascinated by many of the early attempts I’ve seen to create group photo albums. With the continued proliferation of smartphones, it seems like someone should have solved the problem of creating unified photo albums with photos taken from distributed devices. I had hopes that the original version of Color would fulfill that promise […]
Read More “3 Reasons It’s Hard to Get Mobile Group Photo Albums Right”
Keeping Track of People You Meet – The Unified Evergreen Address Book
I’ve had a few blog posts in the past about managing contact information and the various tools I’ve tried (you can read them here and here. I continue to look for a unified contact management system to keep track of the many people I meet. I’m looking for a unified system that can perform two […]
Read More “Keeping Track of People You Meet – The Unified Evergreen Address Book”
Revisiting Twitter as a Social Graph for Games
About 3 years ago I wrote a short post about why Twitter was probably not a good platform for game developers to target. This was in the early days of Spymaster and other games that tried to use the Twitter graph in many of the same ways that social game developers were using the Facebook […]
Why I Like Path
I was not particularly impressed with the first iteration of Path. I just couldn’t relate to the need to restrict photo sharing to a limited number of people. So I’ve been surprised how much I like Path 2.0. I written before about how my own social network usage is changing ( you can read those […]
Facebook Mobile and Discrete Apps for Core Services
I’ve been thinking a bit about how I use social networks and how it continues to evolve. Increasingly, I find myself wanting to consume Facebook’s myriad set of products and services as discrete applications, especially on mobile devices. The core Facebook UI is burdened with having to do a lot. It has to be able […]
Read More “Facebook Mobile and Discrete Apps for Core Services”
Apple, Facebook, and Google – When to Launch Platform Payments
I’ve been tracking the progress of Google’s In-App Purchases for awhile. It’s not just academic to me – we’re building Android games over at Bionic Panda Games and the development of that product is pretty important to us. Previously, I worked on the Facebook Platform, which went through its own process in launching Facebook Credits. […]
Read More “Apple, Facebook, and Google – When to Launch Platform Payments”
Are Facebook Credits and the Apple App Store on a Payments Collision Course?
Just a quick thought that’s been on my mind of late. I’m trying to figure out how two major changes I see in social and mobile games will be reconciled: 1. Many social games developers are gradually beginning to embrace deeper integrations of Facebook Credits into their on-Facebook social games. In a number of cases, […]
Read More “Are Facebook Credits and the Apple App Store on a Payments Collision Course?”
Is Zynga Running Out of People to Acquire on the Facebook Platform?
I’m knee-deep in last minute preparation for this week’s Social Gaming Summit. It should be great and I hope you’ll be there to join us. I was spending some time on AppData and was struck by something – I thought it warranted a quick blog post of my own. I was also inspired by something […]
Read More “Is Zynga Running Out of People to Acquire on the Facebook Platform?”