“Dinner is ready!” and other thoughts about IAP

A funny tweet by Daniel Cook regarding IAP got me thinking that not all IAP is necessarily bad. In fact, I think there could be two ways to categorize In App Purchases. One is “while playing” and other is “while not playing”.

For example, if I’m playing Magic the Gathering with friends and suddenly a salesguy walks in… trying to sell me new cards, I would not appreciate that. It’s my turn and I’m thinking of spending mana here, and *pof* that guy wants me to buy new stuff? Not cool.

That’s “selling to me while I’m playing” which isn’t that nice.

Now, if that salesguy would set up his shoppe outside my friend’s home… and was standing there after I’ve finished playing. If he then would show that there’s additional content to be purchased easily, I would appreciate that.

That’s “selling to me (if I choose to listen) while not playing”, which is good. Also, I’m not talking about what sort of content is being sold. That’s a separate topic in itself.

The point is: not all IAP are evil as is, some can serve the customer.

Remember how it was when your mom told you to join the dinner table while you were intensively playing?

I don’t want IAP to be like that.

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“Around The Web” Feature on Facebook Pages Shows Foursquare, Other Location Links

Some Facebook Places Pages for local businesses and locations are now showing an “Around The Web” panel listing of links to corresponding venue pages of the sites of Facebook’s Places partners: Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, SCVNGR, and Booyah. These links could help businesses drive traffic and checkins to their other online presences.

Foursquare tells us its inclusion in Around The Web is not part of its official partnership with Facebook. Therefore the feature may simply be designed to provide useful information to Facebook users, rather than signaling a deepening of Facebook’s existing Places partnerships, or the fulfillment of terms of the original partnership announced a year ago.

Beneath the profile picture and navigation menu of some Places Pages that list a street address, such as San Francisco’s Bender’s Bar & Grill, there is a now an Around The Web panel. It displays links to any existing venue pages on other location services for the business or location represented by the Facebook Page.

If users click through their links, the third-party venue pages may show them public tips and photos, as well as if any Facebook friends have checked in there if the user has their Facebook account connected to the the site. Facebook Places Pages typically only show checkins, photos and other content from a user’s friends. The public data from these third-party sites could help users get a more accurate feel for a location, especially if they don’t have any friends who’ve checked in to the location before.

Around The Web will remind users to check in to the location on the service of their choice next time they’re nearby. The links may also help businesses attain more redemptions of deals they run to incentivize checkins on these third-party services.

We’ve reached out to Facebook several times over the last week regarding how admins can add the Around The Web panel to their Pages, but haven’t received a response. The Pages we’ve seen with “Around The Web” have all been unclaimed Places. Our test of adding a third-party venue page to the website field of a claimed Facebook Places Page did not cause the panel to appear. Facebook may only testing the feature with a small number of certain types of Pages, but may choose to roll it out further in the future.

When Facebook launched Places last August it announced partnerships with Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and Booyah. Users of these partnered services can opt to syndicate their checkins to Facebook. The presence of partner logos and links to their sites on Facebook Pages is a bit of a surprise though, as Facebook rarely links offsite except as part of news feed stories about content contributed by third-parties.

Foursquare says its inclusion in the feature “isn’t part of a formal agreement between our companies,” but may use data from it’s Venues Project API that is designed to help share info about locations between different websites.

Facebook’s willingness to include links to other location services on Page may mean it doesn’t consider them a threat to Places. This contrasts with how it perceives Google+, considering Facebook recently forbid game developers from linking to Google’s new social network.

[Thanks to Eti Suruzon for the tip]

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CityVille: Increase your payouts by placing UK items next to each other

by Brandy Shaul, Posted Aug 11th 2011 9:22PM

In order to encourage the development of "Little Britains" in CityVille, Zynga has decided to increase the amount of bonus payouts you receive from your UK themed items (you know, those items like the Loch Nessie or Sheepherder that were released over the past few weeks), but there's a catch: you need to be level 25 to access this bonus, and you must place these UK-themed items next to each other in the same small area.
Unfortunately, items like the Loch Nessie and Sheepherder (along with plenty of other UK-themed items) are no longer available in the game's store. This is an odd choice then, as it seems as though the increase in payouts has come way too late. Shouldn't the CityVille game team have increased the bonus when the items were still available in the store to encourage users to purchase them? Either way, keep this bonus in mind if you did choose to go on a small shopping spree while these items were available. Why not earn as many bonus points as possible if they're offered, right?

Hopefully, this is just the beginning of bonus boosts for like-themed items. Perhaps the new Tiki items will be given boosts as well? I know that would make my thought of splurging on some of them a lot more convincing, and I doubt I'm the only one. We'll keep an eye on things, and will let you know how things develop over the next few days and weeks.

[Via and Image Credit: Zynga]

Did you instinctively place your UK items in the same small area, or are you going to reorganize your town now that this bonus is available? Sound off in the comments.

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Tags: britain, cityville, cityville uk, cityville uk items, uk, uk items, united kingdom, zynga

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Advocacy Group, Facebook and Other Companies Launch Privacy Info Site for App Developers

In another effort by Facebook and other technology companies to inform developers about privacy issues — and show the world they don’t need legislation in order to stop abuses on their platforms — they’re launching an informational site together with advocacy group called the Future of Privacy Forum.

Called the “Future of Privacy Forum: Application Privacy,” the site promises information on “emerging standards, best practices, privacy guidelines, platform and application store requirements, as well as relevant laws and regulatory guidance.” For now, though, parts of the site lack content or otherwise don’t feel fully baked.

For example, under the “Learn/Resources” tab, in a section called “Hot Data Issues and Important Alerts,” an area called “1) Transmission of User IDs in Mobile Devices” provides links to a Wall Street Journal series on mobile app data leakage. Oddly, the section features Facebook’s reaction, noting that the company at one point said that it has “zero tolerance for data brokers.” The thing is, the issue was about mobile platforms, which Facebook doesn’t offer. The site appears to have conflated the mobile app incident with an earlier Wall Street Journal article that looked into data issues being passed by canvas apps on Facebook.

The site only launched in the last week, so we’re not going to judge too harshly yet. The practical benefits it does currently provide include a wide variety of links to other materials developed by governments, privacy groups and platform companies, which should be especially useful for developers who are new to platform development, and all the associated privacy issues.

Meanwhile, as active developers already know, each platform already goes well out of its way to tell developers about what they can and can’t do with user data. Facebook in particular has built out a series of policies and guides over the years to explain to developers what they can and can’t do on the platform, and it has restricted or removed some developers’ access to the platform due to abuses. By this point, any serious Facebook developer should have a clear idea about what they can and can’t do.

The same goes for Apple, Google and other companies who provide platforms, who have also become embroiled in privacy issues — and who are also sponsors of this new site, and of the Future of Privacy Forum. When questioned about their efforts to educate developers about privacy issues, the companies now have this site to point to. But in terms of making a big impact on how developers behave, it’s not clear what difference the site is going to make.

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The Social Success Workbook for Teens: Skill-building Activities for Teens With Nonverbal Learning Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, & Other Social-skill Problems

Making friends is a skill like any other--there are rules to follow, ways to measure your progress, and reasons why some people are better at it than others. Although it may seem like this skill comes naturally to those who don't have Asperger's disorder, nonverbal learning disorder (NLD), or other problems relating to others, the reality is that even the most popular people must constantly hone their abilities in order to make new friends and keep the friends they already have. This workbook includes forty activities you can do to recognize and use your unique strengths, understand the unspoken rules behind how people relate to each other, and improve your social skills.

After completing the activities in this workbook, you will discover that you can get along with others and build friendships despite the challenges you face. All you need is the confidence to be yourself while still keeping the feelings of others in mind.

Price: $14.95

Click here to buy from Amazon