Dynamic, Branded Twitter Ad Units

Last week I wrote about a Nike Golf / Golfsmith social media campaign that rewarded Facebook fans with special giveaways and discounts. The following ad units appeared alongside that blog post. They appeared instantly - within seconds of publishing. It is the first time I have seen units like this - but am sure they have existed beforehand (unsure how long?). The ads feature the Twitter icon and and a "follow me on Twitter" badge for Golfsmith's official Twitter account. Their latest tweets are included and cycled through the banner.

The ability to render these ads contextually and dynamically - and within seconds of publishing - is impressive. And the context and fresh content make the ads.

The only critique: the Twitter follow button should be functional within the ad unit (it currently requires users to click and then follow).

Mad Men's New Season: Starring You with JibJab

The new season of Mad Men premiers on AMC July 25th...But why wait until then to get your Mad Men fill? JibJab's latest Starring You video features highlights of last season's Mad Men series and includes roles as Don Draper, Betty Draper, Joan Holloway, and Roger Sterling.

As with other JibJab videos, you can easily include photos from Facebook (either photos from your profile or from your friends') and can share via Facebook (the feed, wall, email, etc). Enjoy:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Zynga's Frontierville: 0.45 DAU / MAU (50% Better than #2 Farmville)

When Zynga launched Treasure Isle, I wrote about the economies of scale that enabled them to drive nearly 17,000,000 monthly active users in the game's first 18 days... staggering figures. Zynga's latest game, Frontierville, is now 19 days old, and also seeing meteoric growth. In their first 18 days, Frontierville has markedly fewer monthly actives than Treasure Isle did... but it is worth noting that virality on Facebook has gotten more challenging over the last few weeks (it is always a moving target). Whereas Treasure Isle had 17m monthly uniques, Frontierville has 12m:

12m uniques in a partial month is large by any measure ... in fact, it puts Frontierville at #20 on the largest Facebook games list (behind other Zynga properties like: Farmville #1, Texas Holdem Poker #2, Treasure Isle #3, Cafe World #4, Mafia Wars #7, Petville #13, Fishville #17):

Click for full size

The most impressive aspect of Frontierville's success is their DAU (daily active users)... a metric that better indicates engagement and retention than monthly uniques. Frontierville is #6 on Facebook by their DAU count (5.3m) and just behind Texas Holdem Poker, Cafe World and Treasure Isle (Farmville and Blackberry are #1 and #2 are orders of magnitude greater: ~20m and 10m respectively):

And when you compare the daily active users to the monthly active users (DAU / MAU) - you get a direct measurement of daily engagement with a game. The DAU / MAU metric is a critical factor as it defines engagement / retention ... and in turn helps drive virality (invites, feed posting, etc) and revenue (whether virtual goods, offers or ads).

And this is where Frontierville really shines: of any game, it has the highest DAU/MAU rate at 45%. To put that in perspective, Farmville is #2 and is 30%. Obviously Frontierville's rates are inflated because they are only 2/3rds through with the month - but even significant discounts over the next 10 days would result in leading rates.

Data and charts are from AppData - the best source for app metrics

Facebook's Open Graph Search Engine: The New SEO?

Strangely lost in last week’s iPhone 4 hype was Facebook's announcement of their “Open Graph Search Engine”. It is very young and therefore inelegant – but it is significant move that Google likely is worried about (at a time when Google is aiming to compete directly with Facebook) Facebook is beginning to index off-Facebook content within their search functionality… assuming it is Facebook “connected”. So just an entire industry emerged around Google SEO – publishers should undoubtedly be thinking about optimization within Facebook search.

And to Facebook, this is clearly is an effort to incent publishers to integrate Facebook on their core sites… and consequently: index the web, connect it to the Facebook social graph, and semantically AND socially unite the on / off Facebook experiences.

Powerful. Of course Facebook search is still a relatively small piece of Facebook’s experience – that will change over time. And this could be the acceleration point.

And for aggressive, forward thinking publishers – this marks a major opportunity… just like those early companies and individuals who dedicated resources to search optimization.

Nike Uses Facebook to Showcase Golfers' US Open Outfits

In advance of the US Open at Pebble Beach this Thursday - Sunday, Nike has taken to Facebook to reveal their sponsored golfer's daily outfits. Each golfer has a page within their "Athlete Apparel: 2010 US OPEN" photo album. it features outfits with specific information and product IDs (hat, shirt and pants) for each day of the open. Facebook fans are then able to comment, like and share. It is an interesting campaign by Nike - who rarely previews their player's gear so specifically and in such a social setting. It also strikes me a test to gauge fan interest on Facebook - if users indeed interact around the players and their outfits, Nike could build a Facebook application to enable in-app purchasing, exploration, etc of each product / outfit. Fans could share specific products and ensembles - and even outfit their favorite players and share with their networks.

Even if a test, it seems that users are actively engaging (despite relatively moderate volume). Tiger Woods' outfit, for example, has ~100 comments and 'likes' that are a mix of product feedback and interest:

Tiger Woods' US Open Outfits: Day by Day

All Nike Golfers US Open Outfits

Facebook Promoting Sneak Peeks, Advertising for Beta Testers

Facebook recently started taking applications for beta testers of their new questions products (TechCrunch coverage here). The application itself is interesting in that it is far more thorough than the standard name & email process. Facebook outlines the vision of the product and then asks for three sample questions and answers... and promises a response within 24 hours. They include guidelines and a sample question / answer: Also notable is that promotional 'ads' for applicants are now appearing in the right column of the Facebook homepage.

The ad encourages users to apply to become beta testers... and while the landing page is specifically geared towards the Q&A product, the ad creative doesn't mention it. Rather, the ad speaks of beta testing future "Facebook products". Considering the value of the ad's real estate (typically reserved for high impact activities: ads, birthdays, invites, requests, etc), you can expect that other products are in the works and beta testing plays a key role.

Frontierville.com: A Strange Redirect to Facebook App

Earlier this week Zynga launched their newest game Frontierville - it already has 1.3m monthly actives and 450k fans. While Frontierville's gameplay inherits many of the best practices of its siblings, its domain behavior doesn't. Zynga has made an effort to instill their own branding across the properties and place games at their own domain - like Farmville.com (screenshot at bottom). Frontierville.com however behaves differently. Rather than its own domain and embedded gameplay, it uses a frame to display the Facebook application page while maintaining the frontierville.com domain. The page itself is grayed out - but still active (showing your Facebook data and playing the Frontierville music). The page isn't actionable... but when clicked (anywhere) you are directed to the actual game and application page: http://apps.facebook.com/frontierville/

Here is Farmville.com:

Quick Hits: Dogpatch Labs, Living Proof, JibJab & StickyBits

A few Dogpatch Labs / Polaris related updates - which I typically try to bundle together!

1. Dogpatch Labs New York featured on CNN

CNN's recent piece "The next Silicon Valley? It may be New York" looks at the growing tech scene in New York and features Dogpatch Labs and our focus on "open-source entrepreneurship."

2. Living Proof unveils unique referral program

Living Proof, who just won three CEW Beauty Awards, launched a referral program that: 1. rewards recipients 20% of their purchase 2. and gives successful referrers a $48 gift card

3. StickBits 1.5 Launches

StickyBits has released a new version of their application and it features "official bits", threading, voting and more. iPhone users can download the newest app here and Android users can go here.

4. JibJab Launches World Cup themed videos

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Lightweight Product Progression - Facebook Events as an Example

User acquisition and customer lifecycle / progression is often measured with funnels and segmentation studies (interested in more? take a look at KissMetrics - a Polaris company). It is not a big stretch - but it is valuable to think about product similarly. A user's first interaction with a product (application, registration, form, etc) is critical... and one frequent failing is overload of information, interactions, requests, etc. There are several great examples of web products that progress as each user graduates through various steps / actions. For instance, registration commonly occurs with a big form: name, user ID, contact information, etc. Progressive registration can occur with just a user ID or Facebook Connect login. Additional information can collected as the user advances in the product's cycle.

Below is a good example from Facebook. Their events product is powerful and relatively complex as it has several fields, components of customization, friend invitations, etc. When Facebook moved event notifications to the upper right portion of the homepage, they created a mini-application and effectively created a progressive product flow:

It starts with a simple box and question: "what are you planning?"

Click into the box and only the most important fields expand: name, date, friends and location. This is an important lesson for user registration or profile building - collect only the essentials up front and enable expansion later.

Want to further customize your event? You can supplement what you already created: