Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Friday, 1 March 2013
Facebook to Offer Discounted Mobile Messaging
On Sunday, Facebook unveiled partnerships with mobile operators around the world to provide free or discounted data access to Facebook messaging for their respective subscribers. Free or discounted data access will be available in the coming months on Messenger for Android, Messenger for iOS and Facebook for Every Phone, which is now optimized for chat.
The social networking giant said that this promotion will be available from more than 18 operators in 14 countries. Operators committed to special pricing for Facebook messaging include TMN in Portugal, Three in Ireland, Airtel and Reliance in India, Vivacom in Bulgaria, Backcell in Azerbaydzhan, Indosat, Smartfren, AXIS and XL Axiata in Indonesia, SMART in Philippines, DiGi in Malaysia, DTAC in Thailand, Viva in Bahrain, STC in Saudi Arabia, Oi in Brazil, Etisalat in Egypt, and Tre in Italy.
According to NBCNews.com, when the deal kicks in, messaging via Facebook’s messenger service may turn out to be cheaper than texting in some countries. The report suggests that the feature will work on the Messenger app for Android or iPhone and the every phone service for basic phones.
Facebook said that messaging on Facebook lets people connect with friends and contacts on-the- go, regardless of what device they are using. Study indicates that three out of every four people on Facebook send a message on the platform each month, making messaging one of the most popular activities on Facebook.
Research data shows that today Facebook messaging and chat can be accessed from more than 6,000 mobile phones via Facebook Messenger, Facebook for iOS and Android, Facebook for Every Phone, m.facebook.com and across other devices with Facebook integration.
Source: http://www.techzone360.com/topics/techzone/articles/2013/02/28/328813-facebook-offer-discounted-mobile-messaging.htm
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Facebook adds video recording, voice messaging to iOS app
Facebook is overhauling its flagship mobile social networking application for Apple's iOS, adding in-app video recording and sharing capabilities as well as voice messaging options.
Although consumers could previously upload video clips directly to Facebook accounts from their iOS device photo roll, the Facebook for iOS 5.4 update implements the functionality directly into the app, promising a smoother, more efficient user experience. The built-in video recording and sharing features also mirror functionality found in rival Twitter's new Vine video app, which launched last week--The Verge states that Facebook app updates are released on a strict schedule, suggesting the timing of the latest revamp is likely coincidental, although it's worth noting that Facebook has already blocked Vine from accessing its network.
Facebook for iOS 5.4 also brings voice recording options previously available in the company's standalone Messenger apps for iOS and Google's Android; potential use case scenarios for the new feature include hands-free messaging or more complex messages that are too long and detailed to type as conventional texts. Facebook is additionally improving the iOS app's Nearby tab, which suggests local businesses and landmarks based on the user's interests and preferences.
Facebook is now the most popular application in the U.S. with 85.6 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore data released last week. Facebook also dominates user engagement rankings, accounting for 23 percent of all time spent on mobile apps each month. Facebook-owned photo sharing Instagram occupies another 3 percent of users' time.
For more:
- read this Verge article
Source: http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/facebook-adds-video-recording-voice-messaging-ios-app/2013-01-29
Although consumers could previously upload video clips directly to Facebook accounts from their iOS device photo roll, the Facebook for iOS 5.4 update implements the functionality directly into the app, promising a smoother, more efficient user experience. The built-in video recording and sharing features also mirror functionality found in rival Twitter's new Vine video app, which launched last week--The Verge states that Facebook app updates are released on a strict schedule, suggesting the timing of the latest revamp is likely coincidental, although it's worth noting that Facebook has already blocked Vine from accessing its network.
Facebook for iOS 5.4 also brings voice recording options previously available in the company's standalone Messenger apps for iOS and Google's Android; potential use case scenarios for the new feature include hands-free messaging or more complex messages that are too long and detailed to type as conventional texts. Facebook is additionally improving the iOS app's Nearby tab, which suggests local businesses and landmarks based on the user's interests and preferences.
Facebook is now the most popular application in the U.S. with 85.6 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore data released last week. Facebook also dominates user engagement rankings, accounting for 23 percent of all time spent on mobile apps each month. Facebook-owned photo sharing Instagram occupies another 3 percent of users' time.
For more:
- read this Verge article
Source: http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/facebook-adds-video-recording-voice-messaging-ios-app/2013-01-29
Facebook new update brings even more signaling to the networks
Recent analysis from Alcatel Lucent says that new update (from November 15th) brings even more signaling load to mobile networks. Should facebook allow the user to trigger/ defined how "chatty" is the app and optimize Costumer Experience ?
On November 15, Facebook released new versions of their mobile app for Android and iOS. Prior to the new release, Facebook signaling and airtime already accounted for 10% and 15% of the overall load on 2G/3G networks, respectively. As users around the world updated and started to use this new version, we quickly noticed a dramatic increase of almost 60% in the signaling load and 25% in the airtime consumed by the Facebook application. During the same period, the number of Facebook users increased by only 4%.
Clearly, it is not the swelling of Facebook’s community that intensified the load, but rather the introduction of new Facebook features for mobile users and underlying platform changes.
The effect on service provider networks was significant, driving up overall (total) signaling traffic and airtime consumption by 5-10%. An application design change by Facebook can be innocuous for fixed line and WiFi users, but can significantly boost the cost of delivery for mobile service operators. This 5-10% increase in signaling and/or airtime translates directly into a 5-10% increase in radio capacity requirement (i.e. CAPEX investment) to continue delivering the same service.
So this is obviously of concern to a mobile operator, but why should Facebook care? The simple answer – you! Higher signaling and airtime usage can directly affect battery life. While today, the increase is likely too small to impose noticeable threat to battery life, we did see a huge jump in signaling with this release. If signaling continues to increase at this rate in future releases, a large portion of users may start to notice that they need to charge up more frequently.
Another trend we detected was an increase in popularity of Facebook video traffic — a whopping 350% increase in volume since the November 15th launch — the most growth of all Facebook traffic. Unlike signaling where the updated software was responsible for the increase, this change is driven by more users enjoying new features such as sharing their news feeds. It is interesting that Facebook-chat traffic decreased during that same period (17% fewer users), indicating that users formerly using chat to communicate might be starting to use Messenger and embedded videos (+6% and +154% more users, respectively). While insignificant from a signaling perspective, the growing appetite for high bandwidth applications like video means service providers must account for bandwidth growth as the use of video continues to rise.
On November 15, Facebook released new versions of their mobile app for Android and iOS. Prior to the new release, Facebook signaling and airtime already accounted for 10% and 15% of the overall load on 2G/3G networks, respectively. As users around the world updated and started to use this new version, we quickly noticed a dramatic increase of almost 60% in the signaling load and 25% in the airtime consumed by the Facebook application. During the same period, the number of Facebook users increased by only 4%.
Clearly, it is not the swelling of Facebook’s community that intensified the load, but rather the introduction of new Facebook features for mobile users and underlying platform changes.
Total Daily Signaling & Airtime per Facebook Traffic Type (click for full size)
The effect on service provider networks was significant, driving up overall (total) signaling traffic and airtime consumption by 5-10%. An application design change by Facebook can be innocuous for fixed line and WiFi users, but can significantly boost the cost of delivery for mobile service operators. This 5-10% increase in signaling and/or airtime translates directly into a 5-10% increase in radio capacity requirement (i.e. CAPEX investment) to continue delivering the same service.
So this is obviously of concern to a mobile operator, but why should Facebook care? The simple answer – you! Higher signaling and airtime usage can directly affect battery life. While today, the increase is likely too small to impose noticeable threat to battery life, we did see a huge jump in signaling with this release. If signaling continues to increase at this rate in future releases, a large portion of users may start to notice that they need to charge up more frequently.
Another trend we detected was an increase in popularity of Facebook video traffic — a whopping 350% increase in volume since the November 15th launch — the most growth of all Facebook traffic. Unlike signaling where the updated software was responsible for the increase, this change is driven by more users enjoying new features such as sharing their news feeds. It is interesting that Facebook-chat traffic decreased during that same period (17% fewer users), indicating that users formerly using chat to communicate might be starting to use Messenger and embedded videos (+6% and +154% more users, respectively). While insignificant from a signaling perspective, the growing appetite for high bandwidth applications like video means service providers must account for bandwidth growth as the use of video continues to rise.
Portion of Overall Daily Airtime and Signaling due to Facebook (click for full size)
The bottom line – as we continue to feed our mobile applications habit,
app developers will need to better consider the implications of their
design decisions on the wireless network resources. Optimizing
signaling has big benefits for both the service providers and consumers
– including better user experience at a more reasonable price and a big
one for all of us — longer battery life.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
When the Amount of Internet Based Mobile Messages Equals SMS
Tyntec, a mobile interaction specialist, today released the results of a study conducted in association with GigaOM Research,
naming 2013 as the year IP-based mobile messaging will equal the
popularity and ubiquity of SMS. The research shows that nearly 10
trillion SMS and IP mobile messages will be sent in 2013, predicting
parity for the first time. This follows a year of significant adoption
in consumer-based Internet mobile messaging, driven in part by the
global uptake of OTT (over the top) technologies such as WhatsApp and
Facebook Chat.
The research, which can be downloaded here, shows that this trend is set to continue, with the number of IP-based messaging subscribers already surpassing SMS user numbers in 2012, and 1.8 billion users sending 15 trillion messages per year by 2016.
As users continue to migrate to lower cost messaging services for person-to-person (P2P) communication, they are forced to switch between IP-based messaging and SMS due to the lack of interoperability and inconsistent delivery associated with IP-based messaging. The report also shows that despite the popularity of newer IP-based messaging services, SMS will continue to grow by 5 percent CAGR until 2016. This growth is due in part to Internet companies, social networks and enterprises continuing to take advantage of SMS's ubiquity, interoperability and global reach for Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging. For example, Google relies on SMS in emerging markets to deliver emails and verify authentication. Similarly, mobile money applications use SMS to post transactions and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, also use SMS to publish updates.
The report concludes that the growth of IP-based messaging and SMS solutions have ultimately reached an impasse and will be forced to converge as end-users continue to demand more streamlined messaging. GigaOm Research suggests that virtual phone numbers are a promising solution to the fragmentation, as these provide a universal identifier to seamlessly converge the two technologies.
Virtual phone numbers offer interoperability to IP-based messaging services enabling users to transmit and receive messages regardless of the delivery mechanism. For example, a WhatsApp user would traditionally have to close the app and send a message via SMS to a non-WhatsApp user. By utilizing virtual phone numbers, messages would be sent seamlessly between devices without the user having to worry about choosing the appropriate delivery technology (e.g. SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage) and consumers would benefit from a smoother and more satisfying user experience. Similarly, carriers can take advantage of the shifting market by actively promoting virtual phone numbers to OTT players. This would both enable and promote seamless global communication while providing carriers with an entry point to the OTT / cloud telephony market. This convergence of messaging technologies allows OTT players and carriers to leverage each other's strengths in the value chain, providing enhanced scalability, delivery and innovative interfaces for end users while mobile operators gain additional international, rich SMS and voice traffic revenues from the OTT and web 2.0 markets.
"The rapid uptake and flexibility of IP technology and the reliability and ubiquity of SMS messaging will keep these technologies both competitive and complimentary," said Peter Crocker, GigaOm Research analyst, founder and principal analyst at Smith's Point Analytics. "However, the advent of IP and new players is also creating fragmentation which is bad news for operators, Internet companies and users alike. Converged messaging through virtual phone numbers seems to be a natural way to address this problem because they provide a unique identity to enable interoperability and global reach for all parties."
"While IP-based messaging services such as WhatsApp are grabbing all the headlines because of their growth, it's important to remember that they share the same core purpose of SMS, convenient and reliable end-user communication," said Thorsten Trapp, Co-founder and CTO of tyntec. "By integrating the IP and mobile SMS world, companies can drive revenues and increase demographic and geographic reach quickly and simply. This is why virtual numbers will be so important in 2013 and beyond."
Source: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/new-research-shows-2013-as-year-when-amount-internet-based-mobile-messages-equals-sms-1748618.htm
The research, which can be downloaded here, shows that this trend is set to continue, with the number of IP-based messaging subscribers already surpassing SMS user numbers in 2012, and 1.8 billion users sending 15 trillion messages per year by 2016.
As users continue to migrate to lower cost messaging services for person-to-person (P2P) communication, they are forced to switch between IP-based messaging and SMS due to the lack of interoperability and inconsistent delivery associated with IP-based messaging. The report also shows that despite the popularity of newer IP-based messaging services, SMS will continue to grow by 5 percent CAGR until 2016. This growth is due in part to Internet companies, social networks and enterprises continuing to take advantage of SMS's ubiquity, interoperability and global reach for Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging. For example, Google relies on SMS in emerging markets to deliver emails and verify authentication. Similarly, mobile money applications use SMS to post transactions and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, also use SMS to publish updates.
The report concludes that the growth of IP-based messaging and SMS solutions have ultimately reached an impasse and will be forced to converge as end-users continue to demand more streamlined messaging. GigaOm Research suggests that virtual phone numbers are a promising solution to the fragmentation, as these provide a universal identifier to seamlessly converge the two technologies.
Virtual phone numbers offer interoperability to IP-based messaging services enabling users to transmit and receive messages regardless of the delivery mechanism. For example, a WhatsApp user would traditionally have to close the app and send a message via SMS to a non-WhatsApp user. By utilizing virtual phone numbers, messages would be sent seamlessly between devices without the user having to worry about choosing the appropriate delivery technology (e.g. SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage) and consumers would benefit from a smoother and more satisfying user experience. Similarly, carriers can take advantage of the shifting market by actively promoting virtual phone numbers to OTT players. This would both enable and promote seamless global communication while providing carriers with an entry point to the OTT / cloud telephony market. This convergence of messaging technologies allows OTT players and carriers to leverage each other's strengths in the value chain, providing enhanced scalability, delivery and innovative interfaces for end users while mobile operators gain additional international, rich SMS and voice traffic revenues from the OTT and web 2.0 markets.
"The rapid uptake and flexibility of IP technology and the reliability and ubiquity of SMS messaging will keep these technologies both competitive and complimentary," said Peter Crocker, GigaOm Research analyst, founder and principal analyst at Smith's Point Analytics. "However, the advent of IP and new players is also creating fragmentation which is bad news for operators, Internet companies and users alike. Converged messaging through virtual phone numbers seems to be a natural way to address this problem because they provide a unique identity to enable interoperability and global reach for all parties."
"While IP-based messaging services such as WhatsApp are grabbing all the headlines because of their growth, it's important to remember that they share the same core purpose of SMS, convenient and reliable end-user communication," said Thorsten Trapp, Co-founder and CTO of tyntec. "By integrating the IP and mobile SMS world, companies can drive revenues and increase demographic and geographic reach quickly and simply. This is why virtual numbers will be so important in 2013 and beyond."
Source: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/new-research-shows-2013-as-year-when-amount-internet-based-mobile-messages-equals-sms-1748618.htm
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
Facebook Adds Voice Messages, Tests VoIP Calls
After building out its Messenger app to focus on communications, Facebook is now focusing on voice calls and voice messages.
It’s the latest in Mark Zuckerberg’s “mobile first” push for Facebook, and one of a number of recent moves in mobile communications. While the Facebook status update is nice, the social network is looking to build a much broader set of tools for people to communicate.
Users of Facebook’s Messenger app for iOS and Android can now send
voice messages, after an update Thursday. Users can tap the “+” button
then hold the “record” button to record a message. Releasing the button
immediately sends the message. Sliding your finger off the button
cancels the message.
Facebook is also testing a new feature that enables free voice calls using the Messenger app–right now this only works in Canada and only on the iOS app. Using this new test, people can tap the “i” in the top right corner of the app and then tapp “Free Call.” This only works with the version of the app released today.
The free calling is just the latest news that shows Facebook’s much larger ambitions in mobile communications. The Facebook Messenger app is not just about sending a traditional Facebook message. You can now send a voice message. And in the future, if Facebook expands beyond the test phase, you could make a free call from the app.
Facebook also recently opened up its Messenger app to people who don’t even have a Facebook account–all the better to add new users quickly in emerging markets where Facebook is seeking to grow quickly and add SMS functionality. SMS is a major sector that many are going after, seeking to be the next generation of mobile communications. Facebook also recently launched Poke, a SnapChat competitor that lets users send photos, videos or text messages that disappear after several seconds.
Others such as Skype, now part of Microsoft, and Google Voice, offer voice calling functionality, as do a number of startups. And Apple’s iMessage includes the ability to convert voice to text messages.
But Facebook wants its users to communicate on Facebook, rather than other services. For Facebook, the communications piece is crucial, as Facebook has always been a place for people to keep in touch via photos or status updates. Naturally then, Facebook would want people to be able to click to send a text message or phone call without leaving to a rival service.
Related (@2013-01-17):
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/01/03/facebook-adds-voice-messages-tests-voip-calls/
It’s the latest in Mark Zuckerberg’s “mobile first” push for Facebook, and one of a number of recent moves in mobile communications. While the Facebook status update is nice, the social network is looking to build a much broader set of tools for people to communicate.
Users of Facebook’s Messenger app for iOS and Android can now send
voice messages, after an update Thursday. Users can tap the “+” button
then hold the “record” button to record a message. Releasing the button
immediately sends the message. Sliding your finger off the button
cancels the message.Facebook is also testing a new feature that enables free voice calls using the Messenger app–right now this only works in Canada and only on the iOS app. Using this new test, people can tap the “i” in the top right corner of the app and then tapp “Free Call.” This only works with the version of the app released today.
The free calling is just the latest news that shows Facebook’s much larger ambitions in mobile communications. The Facebook Messenger app is not just about sending a traditional Facebook message. You can now send a voice message. And in the future, if Facebook expands beyond the test phase, you could make a free call from the app.
Facebook also recently opened up its Messenger app to people who don’t even have a Facebook account–all the better to add new users quickly in emerging markets where Facebook is seeking to grow quickly and add SMS functionality. SMS is a major sector that many are going after, seeking to be the next generation of mobile communications. Facebook also recently launched Poke, a SnapChat competitor that lets users send photos, videos or text messages that disappear after several seconds.
Others such as Skype, now part of Microsoft, and Google Voice, offer voice calling functionality, as do a number of startups. And Apple’s iMessage includes the ability to convert voice to text messages.
But Facebook wants its users to communicate on Facebook, rather than other services. For Facebook, the communications piece is crucial, as Facebook has always been a place for people to keep in touch via photos or status updates. Naturally then, Facebook would want people to be able to click to send a text message or phone call without leaving to a rival service.
Related (@2013-01-17):
- http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/01/facebook-buries-video-calling-partner-skype-with-a-tiny-app-update/
- http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=478858&G=5&C=1&page=1
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2013/01/03/facebook-adds-voice-messages-tests-voip-calls/
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