Luke Janssen

Jumping off stuff

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Farmville

September 4, 2009 at 3:41 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: , ,

It used to be the ‘what cupcake flavor are you’ quizzes that pissed me off, but it was soon replaced with my Facebook wall being filled with the latest updates from people’s virtual farms. Brad has bought 10 more chickens!

Then I saw this article in the telegraph about it being the most popular Facebook app out there. There is a top 10 list (below) which is interesting. With that many daily users these apps get more attention than most media companies…

1. Farmville, 13.4 million daily users

2. Farm Town, 6.0 million daily users

3. Mafia Wars, 5.8 million daily users

4. Facebook for iPhone, 5.7 million daily users

5. Facebook for BlackBerry, 5.2 million daily users

6. Pet Society, 4.4 million daily users

7. Texas HoldEm Poker, 3.8 million daily users

8. Restaurant City, 3.7 million daily users

9. Facebook Mobile, 2.7 million daily users

10. YoVille, 2.6 million daily users

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Contextual advertising on Facebook

November 3, 2008 at 7:36 pm · Filed under Observations and Ramblings, Work Related Stuff and tagged: , ,

I am not one to click on ads and buy things, but I did buy a Maori fish hook for ’safe passage over water’; I know it is kind of touristy, but I did like the design and I lived next door to NZ for 7 years so I am allowed!

I got it from wanderer imports. Then I got chating to Sean West there about how successful he has found Facebook advertising. He was very impressed with the amount of targeting that is possible, and pays on a CPC basis which is great as it is direct sales not branding.

From my experience the advertising was relevant to me, and non intrusive (unlike those twats promoting “boatbook.com”, who I mean to complain about but never get round to it). The price was fine and the website it went through to was simple and effective, and paypal is easy to I went and paid my $20 for it. Yes I could probably have got it cheaper when I go back to Australia, but I can’t be assed and bought it on a whim.

So all in all a pretty good solution for Wanderer imports (unless it arrives and is crap in which case I’ll amend this…. but you can’t really go wrong with a bone fish hook can you?)

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Facebook Shmacebook

October 17, 2008 at 11:42 am · Filed under TigerSpike Innovation Lab, Work Related Stuff and tagged: , , ,

I just read a cool piece of research from Ogilvy comparing Facebook and other social networking sites in Asia.

The key thing was that Facebook is not number 1 in most Asian markets. The reasons for this (in short, but I suggest you go read the research HERE, which is also quite succinct) are:

  • Language: Friendster is killing Facebook in Malaysia and Indonesia. Largely because Friendster has Malay / Bahasa Indonesia (which are pretty much the same language – and a beautiful one, I encourage anyone to learn it. Its not too hard. There are no tenses and often to pluralize a noun you just say it twice! :)
  • Customization: Philippines accounts for almost 40% of all Friendster traffic. Filipinas send more SMSs than anyone in the world (SMS started off free there and is still pretty cheap), and Friendster has a good mobile site and good SMS link ups which most importantly, Friendster tailored to them specifically to that market… clever old Friendster (crap name though)
  • Site weight & Broadband usage: India (Orkut) with low broadband means that Facebook is too heavy so they use the lighter Orkut. I am not sure I buy this.
  • Inferiority: Japan (Mixi) and Korea (Cyworld) are examples. Each of their mobile sites blow Facebook’s out of the water (and Facebook’s mobile site and iPhone App are excellent in my opinion). Plus Japanese and Korean are just different. You can’t rope them in with the rest of Asia.

I grew up in a few places, and travelled a lot. I agree with my man in Singapore most of the reasons, but one of the main reasons is that you join what your friends join, and sometimes if one site takes off, then that one tips over the tipping point and wins and not the other one. I reckon Orkut just took off. You don’t want to be sitting alone at Susan Facebook’s party when everyone else is getting down with Deepak Orkut!

And now a question: Why is Philippines spelt with a PH, and Filipino spelt with an F?  Someone call someone.

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