tinnovation.net

This week’s Tinnovation session was all about Facebook’s latest plans for world domination, Facebook Credits.

Facebook Credits have been available in their ecosystem for a while now, mainly in the form of the Facebook Gift Shop, you know the thing where you can buy a friend a virtual bunch of flowers, a fish or similar. However with the gift shop shut down like so many real world high street stores, the way is paved for the release of Facebook Credits, a currency initially for use “in game” but with a strategy for so much more.

FB Credits are available to purchase today, http://www.facebook.com/credits/ at a value of approximately $0.10 per credit. You can also win Credits in a variety of games and in order to kick things off Facebook are randomly seeding credits to lucky people.

The vision for the future is to merge the virtual with the real worlds, deals have already been done with Disney for ticket purchasing and P&G’s Max Factor for beauty products.

The principle behind the move is to allow users to shop whilst never leaving the comfort and security of their Facebook page and with US users currently averaging 7 hours a month on their favourite social site that’s a lot of time for impulse purchases!

What’s in it for Facebook I hear you say, well about 30% of any purchase made with Credits that’s what, great business for Mr Zuckerberg and friends.

One day the currency will be interchangeable with the high street allowing you to spend your amassed credits in a store near you!

The team had a quick brainstorm as to where Facebook Credits purchasing would be beneficial:

• VIP tickets – Recieve benefits when purchasing with FBC, similar to O2′s Priority scheme
• Micro payments – Long been an issue online, but FBC could be a great method for purchasing one off music downloads, movie rentals, content access, subscriptions and of course exisitng Facebook games in-app purchases
• Top ups – PAYG mobile accounts for example
• Personalised transactions – If the purchaser needs to associate a pyment with an individual, such as festival tickets to a kid who doesn’t have a credit card
• Group bookings – Currently being used with the Disney Together scheme, invite a group of friend to see Toy Story 3 at the weekend, on acceptance the group booking can be made with out leaving the Disney/Pixar Facebook page with the bonus of exclusive content

With other online purchasing models such as PayPal and Google Checkout now ubiquitous combined with Facebook’s ever growing dominance in the social space this is certainly one to watch!

Buzz term of the week: “Social Commerce”

“It’s best if you put any loose metallic items- you know, keys, change – in your bags. It makes it easier.” Such was our greeting on entering the Radio Theatre for the recording of the BBC’s The Media Show. We duly obliged, being helpful licence payers. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been if we hadn’t complied, as after loading all my keys and collection of other offensive weaponry into my bag we walked around the corner and discovered a bored security guard. I gestured with my bag towards the waiting x-ray machine, but the guard shook his head and directed me through the metal detector. I tucked my backpack under my arm, grimaced and marched through the silver arch. Surprisingly the alarm went off, most likely due to my bag and it’s miscellaneous metal content. Rambo simply waved me on. We headed straight for the bar where we were given beer in, somewhat ironically, plastic bottles. Thankfully we could take them into the recording, but only if we didn’t take the metal tops. Oh well, at least I still had my keys…

Alan! Alan! Alan! Alan!... Alan! Alan! Ala...

The show we were audience to was dubbed ‘Behind the Pay Wall’, and was a debate between Alan Rusbridger and John Witherow, the editors of the Guardian and the Sunday Times respectively. The idea was to discuss the two opposed models for online news content, the Guardian is opting to continue it’s free online service, whilst the Times is planning to charge readers for it’s content. A number of interesting points were raised in the exchange, such as people being prepared to pay for newspaper Apps on the iPhone and iPad, yet reacted against paying online for news. With regards to this point I feel I need to say that the iPhone market is largely made up of reasonably affluent people, many of whom are probably mid-level business/design types. This market probably wouldn’t think twice about spending a few quid for a nice functional App to show off with. That said, the iPhone has generally always been a platform that has required it’s users to pay for the best content. The Internet has not. The other thing that is worth mentioning is that since the iPhone’s release it has sold roughly 41 million units. Alan mentioned that the Guardian had sold around 120,000 Apps. He also stated that the Guardian’s website had around 37 million unique hits a month. When you compare those figures the number of Apps sold is really not that impressive. In fact it is more reminiscent of the number of readers that the New York Times had when it tried charging it’s readers to access content online (227,000), an experiment it quickly dropped in 2007.

Gophers never talk to this guy.

Interestingly the New York Times is considering charging again for it’s website, but using a metered system where readers get a certain amount of access before being notified that they have to pay. I believe the idea is to not lock out users who have been referred to the site through services such as Twitter. A major downside to the Pay Wall system as far as Alan was concerned. John wasn’t so nearly so bothered, wishing instead to build up a core base of loyal readership.

Both parties were willing to admit that the iPad was a game changer, and if it sells well (which current figures suggest it will) could spell the end for the printed newspaper, but the ultimate conclusion to the debate was that they really don’t know what is going to happen in the coming years. The two models are in fact just two sides of an experiment to see how best to save our ailing journalism industry, which is sorely in need of being brought into the 21st Century.

A very thought provoking experiment too, and one you should check out. I could sit here and write up who said what and what have you, or you could click the image below and have a listen for yourself. You’ll be pleased to hear that the question I asked has been edited out. Probably because, after sitting in relative silence for fifty minutes, when the microphone was passed to me I had a throat drier that a camel’s elbow and promptly coughed and choked loudly into it.

Oh, and it was a stupid question.

John did his best to ignore the Radio 4 logo buzzing in his face