JustNI Blog – Programming and startup chit chatCreating Change

Earlier this week, JusNI launched a facebook based flash game for the IrishFA which made some news on the blogosphere and in the media. Its a simple game where a user clicks the mouse and tries to keep the ball up in the air, every time they keep the ball in the air by clicking the game their score is incremented. A leaderboard is shown along the bottom of friends who have played the game and their score. You can see a screen shot below, click on the image below to try the game

Try the Irish FA game

So what benefit is building a game for the IrishFA and their fan base?

Key Benefits of a game on Facebook

• Fun Traditionally brands where limited to being traditional brands with a serious outlook. Now with the evolution of gaming and the internet we have driven people who typically sit in front of the computers all day and away from social interaction to be some of the most sociable people amongst our species through online game playing in a fun enviroment.
• Engagement Facebook allows users to engage with brands at a scale which was previously unheard of. You no longer have to send a stamped addressed envelope to enter a competition, you can now engage with a brand by opening your laptop or you mobile device while watching television and post on Facebook. A facebook game can be as engaging as facebook and your creativity allows. Whether its as simple as kicking a football to try and beat your friends score, or avoiding items falling from the sky while trying achieve a higher level than your best friend, Facebook games allow a branded interaction than traditional tools on Facebook do not
• Competitiveness Fans of your brand can now play against each other. With everyone wanting to be part of your Mafia or a neighbour of your farm, the Facebook platform has helped the adoption of online gaming reach new heights. 31 million users play farmville everyday (Source). Did i mention this is all about engagement, ENGAGEMENT, ENGAGEMENT and more ENGAGEMENT
• Market Size IF you consider the size of the world to be around 6.7 billion and the population of facebook is 500mill which means 1 in 13.4 people in the world use facebook. This means 1 in 3.6 people who use the internet uses facebook.  (source)

A few statistics to end

For the Irish FA game above,

• The most amount of tries by a single user was 715
• The average user tried 18.3 times

Comparing Facebook applications to iphone applications (and a little bit on android)

More often than not, when I mention to people that develop facebook applications they retort with “and iphone apps?” which I then proceed to frown. Apple have done their job, they have marketed the iphone and app so well they every business needs an iphone app when more than likely they don’t. Most people where I am based do not see the real potential that Facebook provides on the application front and automatically jump on the buzzword band wagon and say they need an iphone application.

In this article I am going to give the benefits for both developing an iphone application and a facebook application but as some kind of disclaimer I do develop great facebook applications and if you have an idea for one you should contact me- chris@justni.com

Now after that shameless plug I can now get on to the meat of this blog post

Iphone and IPad advantages/disadvantages (IOS devices)

Cost of download Unlike facebook applications people pay to have the application installed on the device. The average costs of an application on facebook is an amazing $0 to install, while the average cost of an Iphone application is $2.43 and slightly higher for an android application at $2.96 (source:http://folo.me/dzqh). This can provide much need income for many developers to cover the development costs, unlike facebook which has the business buzzword model of “freemium”

• No virality Unlike the facebook platform that has an existing mechanism to share valuable application information across hundreds of friends instantly with one click of a button, mobile doesnt compare to facebooks hold on a users social network.
• Application ads Some applications have gone down the advertising route for their business model and so have some facebook application developers. In the free world of facebook, its hard to get a grasp on advertisements within applications. Of course you have access to the facebook graph which I assume can be used to target an advert to a specific user. The key difference to iphone users is the positioning of the user. An advert can be targetted to a users exact location, be it a coffee shop the user is walking past playing a game or a office suite that a user is working in, this kind of data is valuable to advertisers and will pay accordingly
• Productivity and business applications Facebook doesn’t really work well with the theme of productivity, often it will be banned within an organisation therefore business applications and productivity applications would be best suited to a mobile device.

Facebook applications advantages/disadvantages

• Virality the number on reason why most developers edge with facebook’s platform is the social network element, if it happens on facebook everyone sees it and has the ability to interact and share content/media
• Late to market Many applications that where built for iphones became popular because they where first to market with ideas and therefore where adopted first, many applications tried to break into the market and failed. Unlike iphones and ipads, many big applications where just better implemented versions of other applications, for example, farmville wasnt the first farming application to be on facebook. Its all about fashion on facebook, users go to what their friends are going to. If you seen an idea thats poorly implemented and have some time/money go ahead and do it, chances are you might be a success
• The numbers Facebook definitely has this as an advantage, with over 500million active users compared to 120million IOS devices and 60million android, the figures are with facebook. There are 1million facebook developers publishing applications while 43,200 apple developers and 10,200 developers for android. Obviously with more developers the cost of building a facebook application would be much lower.
• Growth Few iphone applications have reached more than 1 million installs while over 250 have on facebook. When you have that amount of eyeballs staring at your application you are definitely going to monetise

Conclusion

I would side with facebook applications. With an iphone application its a single user experience, which will probably cost you more than a facebook application and when something happens on facebook all my friends see it. The numbers are swayed with facebook but the real benefits iphone development is the cost of the download which can generate serious revenue and the other benefit would be the location, you can target so much more when you know where your user is.

UPDATE: thanks to @codeswimmer for pointing out my mistake

The benefits of working with a freelancing or small company or often over looked as people typically getting the best deal with a larger company. In this blog post I am going to work through some of the disadvantages and advantages of using a freelancer rather than a larger agency.

I am a freelance web developer specialising in Facebook applications and connecting current websites with Facebook. I also help sites with their search engine optimisation, online strategy and dabble in foursquare consulting as well.

Advantages

• Expertise. When dealing with a freelancer your talking to actual person who is doing the work. If its a highly technical piece of work, this is usually more advantageous than just another sales person trying to hit their monthly targets
• Its personal. When dealing with an agency, thats what your doing, dealing with an agency, in the web 2.0 social sphere, we have evolved full circle from social introverts who sit in front of computers 24/7 with no real communication skills to being more social than ever (twitter, facebook and foursquare). Relationships are important and often freelancers survive on good relationships for the living.
• Cost. More often or not a freelancer works at a much lower rate than an agency due to the fact that typically a freelancer has much lower overheads. (they usually don’t have a big office and they don’t have a team of admin staff) They daily rate of a freelancer is typically much lower than what an agency would charge.

Disadvantages

• Capacity. Freelancers are often very good at one specific thing, web design, facebook apps or seo. When the project requires a heavy amount of flash work but still requires a lot of php work a freelancer may not be suited to this.
• Sickness/conferences. One of the disadvantages of using a freelancer is what if the person got sick and they couldn’t deliver a project on time, if you used an agency they would have someone who could take over the project or find a suitable contractor to continue on the project and meet the guidelines.
• Turnaround time. A lot of freelancers are VERY good at what they do, so good that they are in high demand and often they are very busy and their turn around time is quite high or they will not be taking work on.

To summarise

If I had the choice I would go with a freelance, I may be some what biased though. With a freelancer you are typically getting an expert in their field who will work with you to build a relationship and usually at a lower cost than an agency

Have I missed anything? Email me chris@justni.com and I will add them in to a future blog post

If you spend as much time as I do in front of a computer (12+ hours a day) you need to be as productive as possible, these are tips/constraints i have placed on my life(style) to remain as productive as possible. Some of the tips are specific to computer and some are specific to lifestyle.

About me and my situation

I’m a freelance web developer which means I work crazy amount of hours due to the fact that what I actually get paid for, accounts for a third of my time, the other two thirds are  made up of generating sales and chasing payment (with generating new business being the major part of my day)

Tips to combat procrastination (for web developers)

1. Small screen. When I started out developing i thought it would be a great idea to have multiple monitors and look like something out of Star Trek. I soon realised when I used multiple monitors I got distracted with email running on one screen, skype and other IM on another and my actual work screen in the middle. It may look cool to have  multiple screen setup but as a productive environment, its not good. Embracing the constraint of a smaller screen can help you focus on the task at hand, if you want to swap between an editor and a browser to test some code use alt+tab- that’s what its there for
2. Keep tabs to a minimum. Due to laziness, I often open a hundred tabs and a load of applications when its completely unnecessary. Now I try to have two applications open, my web browser and my script editor (which has been notepad++ for nearly 2 years). With less tabs, there is less distractions. Having a lot of tabs open means you need to close a lot of tabs, with this,  you will see a tab that you opened and never got around to reading which can lead to nasty distraction
3. Make a list. Before I clock off the night before i make a list of things I need to get done the following day and I usually have my list from the previous day beside me as well. As tasks get completed they get stroked through. I keep this on the left of the laptop which I can quickly glance at if my mind starts to wander and I know where I can pick up from. I keep a pad on the right hand side of the laptop where I jot down notes, scribble code, work out SQL queries and plan the flow of a proposal.
4. Get an office. Having the mental separation sometimes is just not enough, i tried having a “home” office but that didn’t work, i tended to just spend a lot of time in front of the computer, turning 1 hour pieces of work into 4 hours when it was completely unnecessary. An office helps to switch of when you get home, keeping work to before 6 in the evening, you can sit down and relax and watch the TV shows you want to watch instead of trying to juggle watching them and writing a proposal or a few lines of code. One side tip to be super productive is to get up earlier- a chinese saying I’m ripping off from Malcom Gladwell’s outliers-  “A man who can rise before dawn 360 days a year, never fails to make his family rich”. You tend to get more done the earlier you get up (in my experience anyway)
5. Regular Breaks. Often i can find myself beginning to wander but working in conjunction with my paper based list I find my productivity increasing. The last thing i need to address is my mind wandering, if I have an idea I write it down straight away in either my pad or my to do list. If I find my mind starting to wander, I take a break. Usually end up drinking 4 cups of coffee during the day and also having a break for lunch, but this means when I am extremely productive when sitting in front of the computer
6. Listen to trance Music. Some people like to work in silence, I don’t. Some office workers find listening to the radio helps their productivity during the day, I find the radio can be a distraction in itself, where a competition is running or they have a guest in for a chat, I tend to listen to the radio and not concentrate of code I am writing or a proposal I am working on. I listened to a lot of trance music, usually around 140 BPM and with a nice solid beat, this helps in keeping my energy levels going. I listen to DJ sets rather than radio broadcasts or podcasts, as talking between songs, again will disrupt my concentration, I have some nice long 3 hour sets which keep me going during the day. Long DJ sets help because your not thinking of which artists to listen to next when a 60 minute set is up or CD finishes

Thats it, following these tips myself I have now increased my productivity ten fold. If anyone have tips- email me chris@justni.com and I will include them in another post.

I recently got send through a free facebook voucher for their ads, which was to the value of $50 and as a tinkerer, of course i was obliged to give them a go. This post is very ad hoc, the ad was thrown together quickly and conversion tracking was not correctly carried out

What I was selling- Facebook apps

If you don’t know me, I am a geek, i recently walked round a conference wearing a bright yellow t shirt saying “Get your apps out”. I build Facebook applications for clients, such as this virtual postcards one here which i built for a local hotel here in Ireland.

My ad was thrown together as a test with not much effort put in, i took a screen shot of the text on on my website “justni- web dev” since i dont have a logo and I am not that artistic, the resulting advert look like this screengrab below- (pathetic, I know)

Who I targeted with Facebook adverts

I wanted to target people who where into marketing, this exact demographic selection wasnt tested and even now looking back is some what off.

When I talk to clients either about SEO or Facebook the first thing i ask them is, who is their ideal customer/lead that they want to reach from a campaign, if you ask them who they are targeting you often get a very generic answer and even a few times I have had the answer “everyone”

My ideal person- The marketing manager who resides in Ireland/UK and speaks english

Why did I choose this person? typically if you target a social media person, they are either consultants or don’t control the budget. I wanted the most bang for my buck therefore i wanted the person in charge of the budget.

The interests where picked accordingly as “Advertising” “Marketing” “Marketing Manager” “Marketing Sales” You can see this information selection in the screengrab below

I do not know why I set this age range, a typical 25 year old is usually to far down the food chain to make a decision, even at 30, maybe for my next campaign i will set it to an age range of  30-50

The numbers

It all comes down to whether it was cost effective are not and only the numbers can tell that. If you want to see a more indepth look at the numbers you can try this image below

But the bottom line numbers are the one below

Thats a display cpm of $0.17 per 1k impressions

Business generated?

I can track one enquiry back to Facebook (because I asked them)  which has turned out initially to be £93.75 worth of consulting work but we are now discussing an application which is typically £1k or above

Typically my website and landing page converts around 1 in 3 with google adwords

Facebook Ads Review

Good points

• i love the way you can target job titles, interests, male/female and ages
• It can predict how many impressions your going to get
• Very easy/quick to setup

Bad Points

• Conversion rate much lower compared to Google adwords
• Adverts achieve a higher CTR if they have an image which isn’t needed on adwords
• Justifying spending $1/ click when it doesnt convert as well is tough

Facebook Adverts Conclusion

I like them, conversion improvements will take a bit of work, took me a while to get my adwords skill to a level where I would say I am somewhat competent and Facebook will be the same. For the service I offer which is very specific, Google allows me to target exactly the person I need.

I will try them again when I go through the user experience and test different demographics. I am sure i could reduce the conversion rate to below 1 in 10 or even 1 in 8, and if i continue to get $1.08 a click this will be very fruitful

A lot of people are thinking that the stalking game has just got easier but people fail to realise the potential that these type of social tools can now provide, twitter has been using cellular devices to tag tweets to location and Facebook recently launched facebook places for phone (coming shortly to other devices). As the new products are rolled out and improved, many people are asking why? and what? can it do for my business.

Firstly why as a user? serendipity (of course)!

If my friend just checked into a coffee shop in close proximity to where I am and I was wondering what I was going to do for the next hour, this helps me decide whether or not I want to hang out with my friend or walk the streets aimlessly

I think Facebook has gotten it bang on with their video for the launch of facebook places, I think this is great representation of what makes Facebook so great.

Foursquare seems to be leading the field with its user base growing and the in depth analytic’s that it provides to places but with facebooks already massive userbase how many people will use check in?

Using technology to move crowds

Foursquare works of game mechanics where different users can be rewarded with badges to check in at places. Some badges are harder to attain than others, such as the swarm badge which requires 50 people to check in the same place around the same time. People have even thrown parties to attain this highly coveted badge.

You can reward users by promoting a specific time to check in during quite periods, such as if someone checkins in a cafe between 10.30 and 11.30 in the morning (often a quiet period) the visitor gets rewarded with 20% of their coffee or buy on get one free

Unlike the mentality that this would increase the amount of stalkers, take the thought that if your friend checked in near by at the local pool hall and you had an hour to kill and wanted to hang out, this would give you something to do.

The key thing for geo location is that any live event (including a sporting event) can utilize geolocation to move consumers to a venue, increasing brand exposure and helping drive business independent of ticket sales.

Case studies

http://www.superdataresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/FNO-hearts-Foursquare.pdf (Foursquare case study)

http://www.allfacebook.com/kentucky-university-places-2010-09 (Facebook Places case study)

http://drop.io/ceukguq (Gowalla Case Study)

In an age where company founders are becoming celebrities i expect to see more books along the lines of delivering happiness. So what about delivering happiness? Its a great book, i loved the story of Tonys life, without giving too much away. The story of buying an apartment just to party in and understanding the rave culture was key to hooking me into the book, as he went on through the book actually talking about zappos i found it harder to read about three quarters’s of the way  in but with the final chapter discussing actual happiness, it left me with  a warm feeling inside and wanting to go out and change the world.

I did read this book in bed which I do with all my books, and there was points in the book where I did want to get up and start coding a startup idea or working, it was just that inspirational.

Overall, highly recommended and well worth the purchase. Here in the UK amazon wasn’t currently shipping it and had to buy it from a 3rd party seller on Amazon but Amazon do have the release date set at September 30th

Buy on Amazon.co.uk

When delivering strategy for brands its often interesting to see other brands posting first thing in the morning. I find this often quite alarming, it usualy means that someone was working late on that killer article and cant wait to get it posted as soon as they get up/into work.

Does it make a difference what time I post at?

Think of this way, if you have 40 friends who post 1 message complaining about the day they are having between office hours, by the time people actually get home from work, sit down and read what is happening in the world of Facebook your message that you posted first thing in the morning has slowly dropped of the news items or pages.

Identifying when to post Facebook updates

Put yourself in your target shoes! If your brand is reaching out to consumers and not business do a simple test. This is based on the theory that most people work from 9-5 and are not facebook addicts using it all the time (like myself).

Login to facebook first thing in the morning and count how many friends are signed into facebook using facebook chat. Then when you get home from work around 6 (if your working office hours) check again to see how many people are logged in again. Unless you have some crazy friends, most people are logged in to Facebook between the hours of 6-11 in the evening.

This is my tip- post your content at half 6 while people are chilling and relaxing after a hard day working.

Times are changing, and after announcing almost a year ago that facebook profile boxes where going and tabs where being reduced it has finally happened.

A key thing to remember is tab size its 520px, thats it!

This means if your div container is 520px with a 1 px border you will not see the right side of the border. the maximum div container size should be 518px to accommodate the 1pixel border on left and right!

Setting up an application structure on facebook was quite confusing when I first started as i wanted the same application to both display the application on Facebook and be the administration of the data on the back end. How i achieved this was to setup two different controllers.

I used the default welcome controller as my front end facebook app but i used routing to get all the controller functions on the base directory instead of using the controller name, example-

http://app.facebook.com/APPNAME/welcome/use

http://app.facebook.com/APPNAME/welcome/send

Would become

http://app.facebook.com/APPNAME/use

http://app.facebook.com/APPNAME/send

I added the following line to my routes.php config file located in the config directory of the codeigniter application folder.

$route['^(?!cadmin|admin|details).*'] = “welcome/$0″;

This means, the cadmin, admin, and details controllers are routed normally but every thing else is assumed to be a  controller function.

Two different base_urls

Since i was using the same install and directory for both the admin sections and the actual facebook app I needed two different base_urls or when i used my anchor tags or base_url variables it would get very confusing if it was set for the facebook apps URL and then someone tried to use the admin section that was hosted away from the apps.facebook.com domain.

I got round this by checking if a request variable was set $_REQUEST['fb_sig_in_canvas'] which allowed me to do an if else statement to swap the base url if the user was coming from facebook or was using  just normal domain where the application was hosted

Here is the code that replaces the $config['base_url'] assignment statement in config.php in the codeigniter config directory

if(isset($_REQUEST['fb_sig_in_canvas'])){ //is user coming from facebook canvas?

Stay tuned for more tutorials and commentary on utilising social media.