Can Facebook bring Internet access to 5 billion more people?

Mark Zuckerberg wants to add 5 billion more Facebook friends.

Well, not exactly. But he does want to expand the Internet’s reach to 5 billion more residents of this increasingly interconnected planet earth.

In a white paper titled “A Focus on Efficiency” released this week under the aegis of Internet.org, a consortium of companies who’ve adopted the same aim of expanding online access, the Facebook founder outlines a plan to expand technology reach and the importance of the Internet as a human right, a way to pull away from a zero-sum resource-based economy and plug into its knowledge-based counterpart.

The plan depends on a couple critical innovations: To bring down the underlying costs of delivering information and to use less data by making apps more efficient, Zuckerberg writes:

If the industry can achieve a 10x improvement in each of these areas — delivering data and building more efficient apps — then it becomes economically reasonable to offer free basic services to those who cannot afford them, and to begin sustainably delivering on the promise of connectivity as a human right.

The paper looks at Facebook as a case study. It examines how the social network made its own infrastructure technologies more efficient, building mobile apps that use less data and power, to connect the billion-plus users it has today. When Zuckerberg kicked off the site at Harvard, he used a single $85-a-month server, he says:

With the limited financial resources available at the time, Facebook had to be capable of running with only a few people maintaining the service, even as more and more schools joined. Facebook.com was first coded in PHP, which was perfect for the quick iterations that have since defined our style of product rollouts and release engineering. PHP is a “dynamically-typed” programming language, allowing for greater speed than a “statically-typed” language like C++. As a programming language, PHP is simple to learn, write, read and debug. New engineers at Facebook can contribute a lot faster with PHP than with other languages, producing a faster pace of innovation. However, it soon became clear that if Facebook were to scale exponentially, PHP would be an obstacle to achieving this efficiently. Although PHP enabled speedy shipping of new products and changes to the service, its continued use would require exponentially more servers. A new approach was needed.

Instead of rewriting the whole site in new programming, Facebook’s infrastructure team figured out new ways to run PHP faster. A few years ago, the site launched a took called HipHop, which transformed PHP source code into highly optimized C++ before it reached the servers. That meant fewer machines were used – and, of course, less power, effectively doubling efficiency, the paper says:

These efficiencies and innovations are necessary at Facebook’s scale. Every day, there are more than 4.75 billion content items shared on Facebook (including status updates, wall posts, photos, videos and comments), more than 4.5 billion “Likes,” and more than 10 billion messages sent. More than 250 billion photos have been uploaded to Facebook, and more than 350 million photos are uploaded every day on average. The technical complexity of delivering a personalized Facebook experience — which generates a completely personalized view of the world for every one of our 1.15 billion users, every time they log in — requires that we process tens of thousands of pieces of data, spread across hundreds of different servers, in a few tens of microseconds. This complexity means we need to be able to process 1000x more traffic inside our data centers (between servers and clusters) than the traffic in and out of them. And that load is continuing to increase.

The company-wide challenges offer a glimpse of what it would be like to amplify access on a much broader scale.

Of course the challenges of global access are myriad. For one, the only online access in much of the developing world is mobile. Cisco’s yearly Internet services growth forecast predicts access to increase from 32 percent of the global population to nearly half by 2017, with most still concentrated in North America and Western Europe. Zuckerberg’s addressing the physical infrastructure lack already. His company spent more than a billion dollars building networks in poor countries. That’s still not enough to meet his own projections for 5 billion people. He’s counting on technology to advance enough to quicken the pace.

National Geographic published an article last month that questions the benefit of this ostensibly philanthropic plan for global connection. Timothy Carmody writes:

This entire enterprise could be criticized as either a publicity stunt long on PR-friendly promises and short on long-term commitments, or as a shameless land grab by Facebook and other powerful technology companies using a philanthropic veneer to gain a foothold in parts of the world they haven’t been able to penetrate. One could also say that it ignores much more serious global problems and has a too-rosy view of the Internet’s benefits.

Internet.org last month anticipated that kind of criticism, agreeing that no one should have to choose between food or medicine and the Internet. Zuckerberg says his motives are charitable, trying to raise the standard of living by providing access to the single largest knowledge database in existence. Zuckerberg wrote last month in a 10-page essay asking “Is Connectivity a Human Right?“:

The unfair economic reality is that those already on Facebook have way more money than the rest of the world combined, so it may not actually be profitable for us to serve the next few billion people for a very long time, if ever. But we believe everyone deserves to be connected.

Image courtesy of Facebook/Instagram.

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Facebook testing ‘More People to Follow’ prompt

Facebook is trying to promote users to follow more. According to sister site AllFacebook, the site is testing a prompt that shows similar people to follow when a user opts to follow someone on Facebook.

AllFacebook reader Yan Yanko Kotliarsky submitted the above image, which came up after a follow of Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Arielle Zuckerberg.

Facebook has done this in the past, prompting users to like other pages after they’ve clicked like on a page.

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Pixel People (iOS) review

Pixel People is a new iOS game published by Chillingo and developed by LambdaMu Games. It’s available now as a free download from the App Store, with additional in-app purchases available of the game’s hard currency.

Pixel People is obviously taking very heavy cues from Nimblebit’s popular mobile games Tiny Tower and Pocket Planes, but manages to create a distinctive experience while maintaining the same endearing pixel-art style. The concept of the game is that the player is in charge of a futuristic colony of clones and must splice genetic material together to discover the game’s 150 jobs. Unlocking jobs subsequently unlocks buildings and allows the player’s colony to grow and increase its regular income, but the player must check in regularly on the colony to ensure that all its citizens are getting on with their work. Players may also share their new job discoveries on Facebook — playing communally with friends to discover all the combinations is a good way to make rapid progress.

Basic gameplay in Pixel People involves building houses in order to free up space for new inhabitants, then waiting for new clones to arrive in the “arrival center” facility. When a new clone arrives, they are a “blank slate” and must have their genes spliced in order to find them a job. Initially, two jobs are available — mayor and mechanic — but as the player combines different arrangements of jobs together, they gradually unlock more and more different careers for their pixelated citizens to join. Most of these jobs are discovered by splicing genes together, but some are simply awarded for making a particular amount of progress in the game. The interface gives good feedback on which combinations the player has already tried, which ones will result in a new job and which ones will not work at all — this helps ensure that the player will never waste their time creating jobs they already know. A humorous “news ticker” across the bottom of the screen occasionally provides hints on new combinations, and tapping on buildings with unoccupied jobs allows the player to unlock the genetic formula for the missing careers in exchange for hard currency.

Upon discovering a new job, sometimes a new building type becomes available and must be placed on the map before the new citizen can star their career. Different buildings take up varying amounts of space on the game grid, and there is a limit to how many spaces the player is able to occupy with their colony. This limit may be bumped up by spending increasingly large amounts of soft currency, and is one of the main means through which the player’s progress in the game is reflected.

Besides splicing genes and building, the player must also keep an eye on their colony to ensure it is running efficiently. Occupied “job” buildings will only produce money for a set period of time, after which they must be tapped on again to continue. Similarly, naturally-landscaped areas around the colony regularly produce coins and sometimes hard currency, which must be tapped on to claim. Finally, hearts occasionally appear over residential buildings — tapping and holding on these claims the clones’ “love,” which is exchanged for a prize when 11 have been collected. Prizes range from soft currency awards to collectible animal species, which are tracked in a separate screen to the discovered jobs.

Much like Nimblebit’s games, Pixel People is a simple to play and endearing game that doesn’t have all that much depth or strategy to it but still manages to remain compelling and addictive regardless. Its monetization is unobtrusive and never requires that players pay up to make progress — they can simply progress a little quicker if they pay for some hard currency. It’s obviously been designed to be fun and entertaining first and foremost, and to make money second. As Nimblebit proved with their titles, this is a good way to win the hearts (and subsequently wallets) of a broad spectrum of players — including the notoriously difficult to please core gamers.

In short, then, Pixel People is a very strong addition to Chillingo’s lineup, and a sign that perhaps LambdaMu Games are a studio that are well worth keeping an eye on in the near future.

You can follow Pixel People’s progress with AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social games and developers.

A fun and endearing — if ultimately slightly limited — mobile game in the Nimblebit mold.

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Crowd Science’s Facebook Study: People Most Often Click Like to Show Support and Enjoyment

“Like us on Facebook!” is a common Facebook marketing catch-phrase, but it’s not getting the biggest reaction among users, according to a new study by social analytics company Crowd Science out this week.

Facebook brand Pages have been Liked by only nine percent of the users surveyed. Instead, the most popular reasons users Liked a Facebook page were “because I wanted to show my support” or “enjoyed what was being said or shown.” Which makes sense. People naturally want to show what they care about as part of their identity on Facebook, just like they do in the rest of their lives.

Along with the relatively low interest in Liking brand Pages, only six percent of those surveyed Liked Facebook pages for deals and sweepstakes.

As the age of the user increases, the interest in keeping abreast of product offers and company activity decreases, according to the study. Only one percent of respondents 65-years or older were reported to have Liked brand items to keep informed about the brands.

But no single type of Facebook feature has attracted ’likes‘ by more than 20 percent of all Facebook user activity, according to the survey respondents in the study. Wall posts, pictures and comments led the ’likes‘ list, each having been Liked by 16 percent of respondents, consistent across all age and gender groups.Those who have Liked marketers Pages skew younger, according to the sample of 1,224 random respondents gathered in June 2011. When we asked whether older users, 65 and older, were commenting instead of Liking, they didn’t have this information. With the upcoming Timeline layout, we’ll see if the more aesthetically engaging interface encourage more likes, or if the Liked button is just not a natural click for users.

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CrowdStar CEO: We want to create a game that reaches a billion people

The question is, however, can it be done? Speaking at this week's HTML5 Dev Conference in San Francisco, YouWeb chairman and CrowdStar--It Girl, anyone?--CEO Peter Relan (obviously not pictured) said, "We want to create the game that reaches a billion people." VentureBeat reports that the general consensus of the event was that HTML5 is the future of social and mobile gaming.

HTML5 is a web-based coding language that, in theory, will allow game creators to develop a single game that could be played across multiple devices through web browsers without a change in the experience. Currently, however, HTML5 isn't looking so hot as a gaming platform--HTML5 games aren't as sophisticated yet as even FarmVille on iPhone--but it's gaining steam.

"We sense that web 3.0 is here," Relan said during a panel at the conference. "Mobile devices will get to six billion people. They will become pervasive. We greatly overestimate what we can do with a technology in two years, and greatly underestimate what we can do in 10 years." Relan is confident that, from arcade-style games, HTML5 games will evolve into more complex experiences, citing games on the iPhone as an example.

And Relan shares this sentiment with a number of folks in the space. Rovio marketing exec Peter Vesterbacka has already mentioned his company's goals of reaching 1 billion players with the Angry Birds franchise. Even EA CEO John Riccitiello sees his company topping 1 billion players worldwide. And the mighty Zynga, despite being less than bullish on this whole dang-fangled HTML5 thing, is rumored to be working with Facebook on its not-so-secret Project Spartan.

But wait a tick--we're talking 1 billion players of a single game, no? To do that, it's going to take not only the right technology, but a game with enough widespread appeal to hit critical mass. If anything, the number one challenge game creators will face in this effort isn't whether it is possible, but whether they can craft characters that folks of any background can fall in love with.

Do you think any of these companies could create a game that will reach 1 billion players or downloads? What do you think it will take to accomplish such a feat. Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Would rational people buy cup of coffee? (Yet alone virtual coffee)

Cup of coffee costs like couple of euros or something when you go to some fancy coffee house where you get to drink it from a luxury mug.

Pack of coffee beans (and stuff) costs twice that. That makes home made coffee to cost like twenty times less or something. Depending how thick coffee you happen to drink.

Now, we could go lengthy way on arguing the taste of coffee in home and in coffee houses. I’ve tasted coffee in both places and I actually prefer home made ones. But some say otherwise.

Anycase.

Would a rational person go and buy a cup of coffee when he can have 20 cups at home for the same price?

Soon you’ll see plenty of comments rationalizing why it makes sense. We’ll get to see comments about quality, freshness, atmosphere, right blends et cetera.

And after you’ve seen those comments, stop for a moment and really think if those make it any more rational to purchase cup of coffee.

Then, use this information the next time you figure out pricing for your game (or in-game purchases, or anything).

The point is: no matter what you sell, there’s somebody who is ready to purchase it.

If somebody sells virtual coffee, somebody will buy it.

Was thinking of selling virtual coffee here to prove my point but then decided it might not be such a good idea, and not sure if it would be legal for Finnish folks, so not selling any virtual coffee here. Move along people.

Money is in the pocket of a customer
It doesn’t matter what you and I think is rational (or normal for that matter). What matters is what the potential customer thinks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Featured Facebook Campaigns: AVG and Zynga, People Magazine, Hyundai and Linkin Park

How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

AVG and Hyundai hoped to accomplish their goals on Facebook by using games this week, while People Magazine gave away free subscriptions using and Linkin Park worked to make the world a better place with a livestreamed event.

Goal: Product Purchase, Engagement

Core Mechanic: AVG Technologies is set to give free Farmville virtual gifts to customers who purchase their PC Tuneup between February 24 and March 2.

Method: Farmville players and AVG customers who purchase the product receive 1 free Biplane and 3 applications of Instant Grow. To promote the deal, AVG produced a video about Farmville and is blogging about Zynga’s game, too. The company is promoting the package as something that will help Farmville players with PCs enjoy the game more, while saving money.

Impact: AVG currently has 235,100 Likes on its Facebook Page and hundreds of fans have commented and Liked posts on the Wall about the deal.

Goal: Engagement, Branding, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: A game located on the Car Blaster tab of the Hyundai Page, Compact Hype Blaster Game.

Game: The game is very simple and straightforward. The player uses the space bar and arrow buttons to move left or right and uses the space bar to “shoot” cars that represent the hype associated with compact cars. Every time you hit a car, it explodes and a word describing the hype surrounding compact cars appears, such as “Gets Great Mileage,” “Dependable” and “Reliable.” As the player is shooting the cars, they shoot back and keep inching closer to the player, getting shot or smashed by the cars ends the game, as does shooting up all the cars. There’s no publish to the stream option after playing the game.

Method: As players also don’t have to Like the Page to play the game, Hyundai misses an opportunity here to grow its Page with the Compact Conspiracy campaign and as people play the game. The campaign includes a video, other apps on the Page and the game itself. One thing missing from the game that could encourage virality is the option to publish your score, or the fact that you played the game, to the feed, or even a pop-up window to invite friends to play the game. The only option for network exposure with this game is a Share button, which requires much more work on the part of the player to spread the word.

Impact: The Page admin has been promoting the game and the Compact Conspiracy campaign and the posts have been receiving hundreds of Likes and comments. Currently the Page numbers about 129,500 Likes.

What are today’s most effective Facebook marketing best practices, and which campaigns have profited most? Visit the Cases section of Inside Network’s Facebook Marketing Bible for the full summary of brand campaigns on Facebook from the past week.

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