The Facebook Developer Garage held on Monday 21st June at the Barbican centre was probably the best one I have attended so far as Mark Zuckerberg and other senior figures from Facebook were present to give more information on where Facebook is heading and what their plans are for Europe.
So here is a list of the information we got throughout day:
Figures:
70% of Facebook users are not in the US, so Facebook has to start a real global push.
200 million gamers on Facebook playing 4 games on average per month
Now 26 million UK users (the UK is the second biggest market for Facebook)
300,00 websites have implemented the like button (50% are European websites)
More than 1 billion pieces of content are ‘liked’ every day
Social Gaming:
- Facebook is the biggest gaming platform worldwide and had just launched the beginning of a revolution. As the CEO of Playfish said, we have only scratched the surface of social gaming.
- Social gaming breaks down access barriers to the games people play, requiring nothing that a user doesn’t already have (e.g. Facebook account, mobile phone, and computer) - as opposed to a console: PS3/XBOX/Wii.
- Facebook credits simplify micro-transactions, and there’s a social element too. Credits build trust so that when a user sees a payment request from an app they can see the friends that have trusted the service before.
- Facebook credits are a key to profitability for the company. As Facebook takes a commission of 30% on any given transaction, it represents a strong revenue stream for the company.
Recommendations Features (Social Plugins):
- Implement Amazon style recommendations on your website. The Recommendation Facebook social plugins offers new opportunities for brands to personalise the content of their website: it applies the Facebook engine to your website content (what everyone likes + what your friends like + what you liked before).
How Facebook Works as a Company:
- First the great idea, then the monetisation plan. The company focuses on a great idea and monetisation will follow if it works, Facebook (even in its leaner days) didn’t think about monetisation until the idea had developed and succeeded on its own merits.
- Facebook still perceives itself as a start up. Mark Zuckerberg kept saying that this was the beginning of the journey. And even when describing his company, he insisted they were still small, with a team of 30 engineers taking care of the platform and only one guy in charge of the chat function (which is the 2nd or 3rd biggest in the world).
Facebook in Europe:
- Europe is a key territory for Facebook’s future expansion. As there are 140 millions Facebook users in Europe, it has become a market as vital as the US for the company. And as the penetration rate is lower, in the long run, Europe will overcome the US in terms of users. So by investing in Europe, it looks like Facebook plans to generate more revenue from here too.
- Facebook is going to extend its European presence to strengthen its relationship with developers and agencies. It means more support for developers in Europe with engineers available on European time zones. This also involves more Facebook Developer Garages organised all over Europe.
Location Feature:
- “Coming soon” was Mark Zuckerberg’s comment when the question was raised.
‘Liked’ by Everyone:
- Everyone within the Nudge team liked Mark Zuckerberg. He is a lot more down to earth than he appears when he does public speaking.
What I found extremely interesting throughout the day was how Facebook CEOs insisted that what they have achieved so far it is just the beginning of the journey. So expect Facebook to become the social network of choice for 1 billion users, have one of the most demanded (virtual) currencies on the planet and be implemented on every website. Get used to it: Facebook will be the web.
