Good session today on social media and content.
Here are a few highlights:
- Facebook is creating mobile apps in partnership with handset manufacturers and carriers, not just the iPhone because of country/geographic need. For example, the blackberry app is huge in Indonesia. Each one requires customization due to unique requirements.
- Mark Pincus and Shirven Pishevar had some product suggestions for Henri Moissiniac from Facebook that include adding a “games” tab.
- Zynga – 17 million daily uniques and ~60 million monthlies. If I heard it correctly, 50% of their app users are using FBConnect and those that do have higher engagement. They hacked the original FBConnect, prior to the mobile version’s release to enable FBConnect for their mobile apps.
- Interesting Apple iTunes micro-transaction restriction only allows micro-transactions within paid apps. This means that “free-to-play” isn’t as possible on iPhone. Currently Zynga has to create multiple versions of the same app for different prices/features.
- Great question came up of whether Apple would ever allow its billing platform to be accessed outside of the iTunes store. Facebook is more focused on this opportunity, and possibly better suited.
- On the question of longevity, the panel unanimously agreed that this is far from a fad and will continue, unlike ringtones and wallpaper on mobile phones.
- Offers on mobile aren’t working – Zynga tested and “threw them out”
- Shervin sees games as pleasant distractions that are sought out enjoyment, like a Pixar movie.
- Mark believes that people will only discover games if enticed by social relationships to try them out because of the busy nature of our lives
- David Marcus – Frictionless nature of mobile payments work well for impulse purchases.
- The #1 position in the iTunes app store is worth 30-40,000 downloads a day – Shervin
- A lot of focus was given to Facebook and iPhone as the platforms of choice. Mark put this as, “Fishing where the fish are.”
Overall, the explosion of these mobile games leveraging social connections is bringing in gamers (new and old) and creating additional opportunities to monetize beyond the download. It’s an easy prediction that Apple will change the rule that in-app billing can only occur for paid apps; it’s just a matter of when. Where we’re going to move is to a connected gaming experience across devices leveraging the social network. Many of us who weren’t prior, will be playing synchronous and asynchronous games with friends and family as a way to blow off steam and “connect.”
