TechCrunch
New Calls To Action In Facebook's Mobile App Ads Can Help Publishers Reconnect With Users
The purpose of Facebook’s Mobile App Ads seems pretty clear — they’re supposed to drive installations, right? Well, in a new blog post, the company says its ads can now help with what comes afterward, namely, keeping users engaged and active (and in some cases encouraging them to spend money).
To illustrate the challenge on the mobile side, Facebook cites a Localytics study that found that 66 percent of app users will only open an app between 1 and 10 times.
The idea of re-engaging users is a familiar one in online marketing. For mobile apps with ads on Facebook, that can now take form of targeting users who have already installed the app and then presenting them with custom calls to action. The options include general actions like “Use App” and more specific ones such as “Shop Now,” “Book Now,” or “Listen Now.” Behind the scenes, an advertiser can deep link to a specific area in the app itself.
To illustrate how different advertisers could take advantage of the new options, Facebook offers the following examples:
- A retail app wants to drive existing users into a current sale or promotion
- A game wants to bring existing players to updated levels
- A music app wants to bring listeners to a new playlist
- A travel app wants to promote discounted fares and getaways
A Facebook spokesperson noted that the new calls to action should make the ads more tailorable to apps beyond gaming (as suggested by examples above). They also said this won’t change the way the company charges for the ads.
According to the blog post, Mobile App Ads (which launched about a year ago) have driven more than 145 million installs this year for advertisers including Target, eBay, HotelTonight, and Kabam. And mobile ads, of course, have become a major driver of Facebook’s growth.
Be Still My Beating Heart, This Might Be Logitech's Gamepad For The iPhone
A leaked image of what appears to be Logitech’s gamepad for the iPhone has hit the Twitter wire today, via the @evleaks account. The account has been known to reliably tweet images of upcoming products from a variety of mobile companies including Samsung, Nokia and others.
The gamepad looks a lot like the leaked prototype from earlier this year and images that were shown during presentations to Apple’s WWDC developer attendees back in June. The pad has four physical buttons on the right, what appears to be two bumper buttons on the top and a d-pad on the left.
Apple added support for gamepads with its iOS 7 update, but the gamepads themselves have yet to materialize. Logitech also teased the controllers last month with an image of empty hands and an iPhone.
There were three types of controllers mentioned during Apple’s presentations including two types of ‘case controllers’ and a standalone unit that communicates with the iPhone via Bluetooth. Any one of those controllers would offer more precise tactile control over platformers, shooters and any number of other game types that don’t do so well with touch screens.
Two of the possible designs that Apple showed off included dual thumbsticks, but it doesn’t appear that this design includes those. Logitech is an MFi (Made for iPod) member, so this would likely be produced under that partner program.
Previously, accessory makers had to rely on very poor Bluetooth keyboard hacks to simulate the button inputs of a gamepad. The new integration will allow not only physical connection via the Lightning port but also more precise button mapping and better response times.
The addition of gamepad support comes at an interesting time for Apple, as gaming revenues for Android and iOS begin to rival those from established giants like Nintendo. If these take off — especially if they do integrate analog sticks — it could spell real trouble for the powerhouse portable business represented by offerings like the Nintendo DS line.
Image Credit: Marco Crocoli/ Flickr CC
The Best From Glenn Greenwald's AMA: The British Gov Lied, The NSA's Vision, And What's Coming Next
Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald took to Reddit today to answer questions regarding the NSA, Edward Snowden, and his current work breaking news concerning both.
The open-source interview is worth reading, but you are at work, so allow me to act as your guide. I have rephrased the questions asked for clarity.
Are more groundbreaking leaks coming?
There are definitely huge new stories to come: many more. I’ve said that from the start every time I was asked and I think people see by now that it’s true. In fact, as Janine said the other day, the documents and newsworthy revelations are so massive that no one news organization can possibly process them all.
With such a remote staff, how do you keep your work secret and safe from the very surveillance that you are exposing?
We use highly advanced means of encryption. Remember, the only ones whose op sec has proven horrible and who has lost control of huge numbers of documents is the NSA and GCHQ. We have lost control of nothing. All of the documents we have remain secure.
The British claimed to have cracked the confiscated computer of your partner David Miranda. Is that true?
They outright lied when they said he was carrying a password that allowed access to the documents. Indeed, on the same day they told that lie (to a gullible media that mindlessly repeated it as fact, as usual), the filed a separate affidavit saying it was urgent for them to keep possession of what they took from David because what he was carrying was “heavily encrypted” and they were able to only “reconstruct” 75 documents. Obviously, if he had a password that enabled access to the documents, then they would have been able to access them.
He did not, and thus they could not.
A comment on what mass surveillance means for free society:
A major reason why those in power always try to use surveillance is because surveillance = power. The more you know about someone, the more you can control and manipulate them in all sorts of ways. That is one reason a Surveillance State is so menacing to basic political liberties.
Have the documents proven that the government has broken the law?
I think there already are things clearly showing the government broke the law, including (but not only) the Constitution, but there is much more to come on that score.
Glenn Greenwald speaks with noted activist and polemicist Noam Chomsky and broadcast journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.
In my view, the two most overlooked stories we’ve published are the one you reference (about the secret presidential directive signed by Obama to prepare for offensive cyber operations: essentially the militarization of the internet) and the document we recently published showing NSA gives unminimized commuincations [sic] of US persons to Israel with very few binding safeguards. [Emphasis original]
What is the goal of the NSA?
I think the public – not just in the US but worldwide – now has a basic idea of the objective of the NSA: to eliminate privacy worldwide, literally, by ensuring that every human electronic communication is subject to being collected, stored, analyzed and monitored by the NSA and its allies (UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia).
On Democrats:
When I first began writing in 2005, I was focused primarily on the Bush NSA program, and I was able to build a large readership quickly because so many Democrats, progressives, liberal bloggers, etc, were so supportive of the work I was doing. That continued to be true through 2008.
Now, a mere four later, Democrats have become the most vehement defenders of the NSA and the most vicious attackers of my work on the NSA – often, some of the very same people cheering so loudly in 2006 and 2007 are the ones protesting most loudly and viciously now.
Gee, I wonder what changed? In the answer lies all you need to know about the Democratic Party.
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That is a taste. If you have time over lunch or a cocktail, I recommend the full suite of Greenwald’s answers. I also recommend checking out the Guardian’s page on its Snowden coverage and following Greenwald, colleague Janine Gibson, and the Guardian on Twitter.
While the mass media and political organs of this country are focused on a government shutdown and a dollar fight, the NSA machinations roll on. Given the extent of current and past NSA revelations, we can only imagine what is coming next. That said, Greenwald has supported his claims about upcoming document releases by releasing documents and breaking ground. I don’t see a reason to doubt that he will continue to publish. I’m not privy in any sense to what Greenwald has coming next, but will continue to cover what he breaks to the best of my ability. More as it comes.
Image Credits: Glenn Greenwald and Eden, Janine and Jim
Keen On… Why MessageMe Might Be The Future Of Real-Time Communications
Ali Rosenthal joined Facebook back in early 2006, when it was a 50 person startup with 4 million users and she quit at the end of 2011 when it employed 3,500 people and was closing in on a billion users. As a member of Facebook’s founding business team, she helped pioneer their mobile business, growing their mobile base from 100,000 to 250 million and leaving as the company’s head of mobile business development. But after a year as the Executive-in-Residence at Greylock, Rosenthal is back at a small startup. In July, she became the COO at MessageMe, the 17 person real-time mobile communications platform which raised a Series A round of $10 million in May.
So why MessageMe? I asked her. Why would a heavy hitter like Ali Rosenthal join a little start-up?
I “bet on people”, she told me – reeling off a list of names at MessageMe including co-founders Alex Chee and Arjun Sethi. And, of course, it’s the product too. MessageMe is what Rosenthal calls a “multi-model messaging” system, built for “speed”, and designed to “mimic” real conversation. In contrast with Facebook, which she describes as a “web product”, Rosenthal sees MessageMe – which has been designed specifically for smartphones – as the future of real-time rich communications.
As an accomplished athlete, Rosenthal knows all about the importance of timing. She made a smart choice in 2006 when she joined Facebook. And I suspect that her decision to join MessageMe might well also look remarkably prescient in a few years time.
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