Slowly but surely Facebook is beginning to roll out their full offering surrounding their home made web currency Facebook Credit. And with it, the immense possibilities are beginning to become apparent.
The new Facebook Credits getBalance interface allows participating services to dynamically adjust prices or other aspects of their offering according to information about the Credits from users.
"Facebook has released the getBalance API call as an incentive to game developers who use Facebook Credits as their exclusive premium in-game currency.
The call lets developers determine the Facebook Credits balance of any of their users. This allows them to identify high rollers with a large balance of Credits and dynamically price virtual goods to increase purchase probability or profit margin, improving monetization."
In January, Facebook announced a strong incentive to use Facebook Credits with Buy With Friends:
"Buy With Friends will allow users to share that they’ve made an in-app purchase to their stream. Friends can then make the same purchase using Credits, sometimes at a discount, in-line from the news feed."
The possibilities for Facebook with APIs and their linkage with the social graph are multifaceted. For example, a next step could be to allow a Credits API to be linked to information from a social graph outside of the application. Services could then have the possibility to offer special incentives to identified high value persons in external circles. Such persons could then act as multipliers to pull several users into the application.
Bottom line is that a deep connection between Facebook Credits and accessible existing data could lead to overall revenue which is high enough to justify Facebook’s 30% transaction fee.
Inside Facebook reports on the possibilities of the getBalance API:
"The getBalance API opens a whole new level of strategy to virtual goods pricing. Large developers with huge volumes of data will be able to deduce patterns and discover tricks to help them maximize user spend. The API could even create a market for Credits balance analytics services that bring these insights to smaller developers."
Related posts:
- Buy With Friends: Facebook Credits To Be Mandatory from July 1
- Facebook As Social Commerce Engine?
- Ifeelgoods: Driving Sales with Facebook Credits
Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
My question is do you think that companies will be willing to accept Facebook credits on social commerce stores? Or do you think will not be something we see for awhile. I am just curious to see where the movement of businesses and sales on to Facebook. Do you think consumers will have a problem with the sharing of their information, more than they already do?
Molly Griffin
Dydacomp
http://www.dydacomp.com
Posted by: Dydacomp | 03/17/2011 at 10:32 PM