NBC's Chuck Season Premier Tonight, Did You RSVP on Facebook?

NBC has been running ads on Facebook to promote the upcoming season of Chuck - airing tonight at 9pm. The ad use Facebook's event units: you can RSVP to 'attend' the event. That RSVP then appears in your feed and, if popular enough, becomes viral. This format is not new and seems to be popular with media advertisers (used to feature new releases such as movies, DVDs, etc).

But, you will see below that, depending on your RSVP, you get the option to become a Fan on their Facebook page as well. Here is the Chuck ad:

If you RSVP "Maybe" or "No", your calendar updates accordingly:

But if you RSVP "Yes", you get a confirmation spot that allows you to invite friends and become a fan. Its a small tweak but makes the units more effective and social

8/12 Techmeme Headlines are Currently Mobile

I find myself talking more and more about "mobile". Entrepreneurs, friends or colleagues frequently ask what interests me; and undoubtedly, we spend a good chunk of that conversation on mobile. I find myself writing more and more about mobile. I have a mobile category on the blog - and it seems to be filling up the most quickly (thanks to my infatuation with the Google Nexus One).

I find my web habits shifting more and more to the mobile web... as it does for so many others. And it is clearly a trend that will continue as devices get stronger, faster and sexier. Take a look at Techmeme this morning and you will notice that the majority of the headlines are mobile related. In fact, eight of twelve headlines are mobile, from Palm to Google's Nexus One to Android and iPhone and so forth. Of course, this is a skewed week due to CES and Google's announcement - but these occurrences are becoming more regular than irregular.

I was at the Crunchies on Friday evening and was struck by:

- the number of companies for which mobile is a key role (from Facebook to Dropbox to Yelp to Animoto, etc) - the number of Google Nexus One phones in the crowd (amazing considering the device is days old) - the way the audience was tweeting and Facebook-ing the *entire* event via their phones - the focus - both in presentation but social discussion - on next-generation web usage (tablets, netbooks, Chrome, etc), which can be thought of as a large extension of the mobile web

Of course, if you are working in mobile or are interested in Polaris and Dogpatch Labs - I would love to chat!

Happy New Years from JibJab: Never a Year Like '09

Another great job by JibJab with their end-of-year celebration video: Never a Year Like '09.

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Worth noting, JibJab released the video first on Facebook via the JibJab Page to their ~90,000 fans:

"In 2009, Facebook enabled us to connect with fans in ways never possible before. As a thank you for being a JibJab fan, we want to offer you the first look at our 5th annual year in review video: "Never a Year Like '09". Thanks for all the support in 2009 and best wishes for a 2010 full of laughs!"

It is a nice reward (and incentive) for Facebook fans and it fosters great conversation (fans are dissecting interesting, hard-to-spot scenes in the video).

Facebook Increasing Awareness of 'Notes' in News Feed?

This is my last short Facebook post of the day... and it is also speculative as it is based on the fact that this is the first time I have seen behavior like this on my account. Facebook was the most visited site in the US over Christmas, and that size enables them to test different formats and features to various segments. Below is a screen shot of a Facebook "Note" from Alex Schultz. You will notice that the image is full size and fully integrated into the Facebook Feed. Normally, at least in my experience, notes appear with similar formatting as normal links: a small image on the left and the content blurb to the right. Here, the image is very large and the blurb is beneath. This could suggest that Facebook is working to put more effort and promotion behind the Notes product - either as an on-Facebook blogging-like tool and/or deeper integration for page owners. Either way, it certainly stands out and warrants attention for 'publishers'... who will race to get attention of their users. As an active Facebook user, Notes user and blogger, I certainly noticed it!

Facebook Promoting Public URLs and Sharing?

Facebook continues their push towards public content - both for personal and brand / page accounts - and, as we all know, it is a tight, challenging line to walk between private and public content... particularly considering:

1. Facebook started as an entirely closed, private network 2. Migrating from private to public is both technically and organizationally challenging: how to do share and find specific content in a commingled world? 3. Twitter has found success in an entirely public world I am not sure if this is a new feature, but it is the first time I have seen it: below a recently posted photograph, I have the following message and option:

The URL goes directly to the public page (see here) and the "share" functionality goes to an email. If this gains traction, or Facebook gets comfortable with it, you can imagine other activities like posting to Twitter.

You can tell that this is an early step in the direction: the formatting is not very bold and it is placed towards the bottom of the page (below comments). But it is a clear step in the public direction and is more prominent than including it with the share button (which you might not have otherwise noticed).

Living Proof Uses Facebook to Distribute 15,000 No Frizz Samples

This will be the first of a few short Facebook related posts - my apologies!

InsideFacebook has a nice write up the recent Living Proof sampling campaign they ran on Facebook.

Using Facebook's sampling ad unit and their Fan Page, Living Proof was able to distribute 15,000 samples of their No Frizz hair product in under 48 hours. During that same period, their Facebook fan base rose from 1,000 to over 7,000.

In addition to successfully pushing distribution and driving fans / discussion, Facebook enabled Living Proof to successful target a quality audience - both for the sampling and the fan base. 93% of Living Proof's Facebook audience is female and 88% are their fans are between 18-54:

"By not requiring Facebook users to become fans of the page to get the sample, they potentially hurt their overall numbers. But it seems that Living Proof was after quality over quantity in this instance, which is reflected in the extremely specific demographic targeted through Facebook ads — 88% of those exposed to the ads were females between 18 and 54 years old. Read more..."

Facebook: #1 Visited US Site on Christmas & Christmas Eve

According to Hitwise (ironically via their Twitter feed), Facebook was the #1 visited site in US on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This is the first time Facebook has been the most visited page.

Facebook's growth and audience diversity are obvious - but this is a telling sign that Facebook has matured beyond college audiences (who seasonally are not on-campus during late December) and into ubiquity. Over Christmas, my Facebook feed - like all others - featured best wishes, vacation photos, food updates, football analysis, etc.

A thank you to Facebook's Alex Schultz who posted this on his Facebook feed (where I found the tip!):

Facebook Friends and Twitter Followers

Mike Hirshland today has a blog post, "Friends or Followers", which describes the frequent conversation / debate around Facebook and Twitter:

In the course of our meeting [at Facebook] the Twitter question came up, and we divulged our bipolar personal usage patterns: Ryan is a total Facebook bigot and never uses Twitter, while I am an avid Twitter user, though I have been spending increasingly more time on Facebook. We spent a bunch of time discussing why this was so. For me the answer is simple: with the exception of a couple dozen folks who I follow because we are friends, for the most part I follow people on Twitter expressly because they have interesting updates and/or link to interesting content. As such, Twitter has entirely replaced my usage of Google Reader.

While the highest level discussion is whether you find yourself using Twitter or Facebook more often (there are few people who split time evenly between), there are several contributing factors that lead you into either Twitter or Facebook:

- What is your motive? for instance, brands, thinkers and socialites have totally different wants and experiences on each.

- What is your 'experience' on each? I would argue that Twitter is kinder to new users because of the one-way relationship; whereas Facebook can be a lonely place if your newsfeed is not vibrant. For more 'experienced' users, I would argue that Facebook is less noisy, easier to navigate and therefore more efficient from a consumption standpoint.

- Who are you following? This is Mike's point exactly: his feed is a mixture of peers, colleagues and friends... some of which are not "friends" (by the original Facebook definition). Again, Twitter's one-way relationship format allows for a mixture of personal and impersonal followings. That is more difficult on Facebook - though it is changing as user habits change (more public, network driven) and as Facebook enables the change.

Ultimately, as Mike puts it, I am "a total Facebook bigot and never uses Twitter" because: - my network is there (for the most part) - the network is generally easier to mange (I can 'handle' 1,250 friends but only 300 followings) - the experience is cleaner - the content from my feed is generally of higher quality - the conversations (comments, likes, emails) are as rich as the content... following a thread is easy and important - it is within a larger platform that provides other key values: email (I get a ton of email through Facebook), photos, search, etc

Not to say I do not think Twitter is important or powerful (it certainly is) ... just to say that, while Mike live on Twitter, I live on Facebook.