TechnoCloud

Facebook is expanding its Facebook Credits payments system across the site in a move to boost revenues from games and virtual goods.

Facebook first introduced a limted trial of its Credits system in in May 2009 as a way for users to buy e-goods from the Facebook gift store and a small number of third-party apps, but is now rolling this out to more app developers.

Facebook takes a 30% commission in line with Apple’s App Store commission.

With the rise in social gaming the virtual gifts economy this is a major revenue opportunity for Facebook. As Apple have shown in their App Store, making payments easy and people are much more likely to spend on digital content.

In the background is the battle to be the web’s micropayment engine. Many products are competing to unlock this potential goldmine, from early attempts at online currencies like Beenz (now closed), to retailers like Amazon, to eBay-owned Paypal and social networks, but surely the web is just too big?

As social networks, and Facebook in particular, increase their share of web usage their chance of having the kind of reach to become an ‘easier’ solution grows, but they will still be one among many.

Facebook is fast catching Yahoo and Google as US web users’ home on the web, having already overtaken MySpace and Microsoft in the past year. It has doubled in the past 6 months to nearly 30 billion total minutes usage, against Yahoo’s 40bn and Google’s just over 35bn.

And why? Mobile access is certainly a factor, but isn’t it just human psychology in that news is interesting, news about your friends even more so. Indeed perhaps it’s news about ’strangers’ that is a big factor in MySpace’s fall from 17.5bn to 8bn in a year.

Meaningful and detailed social networking statistics can prove elusive, certainly on the open net, so all the better to see a good summary of data from Facebook, MySpace and the lower profile Reunion on Jeremiah’s Web Strategy blog.

Perhaps the most interesting in the post is the Forrester prediction that Facebook will overtake MySpace in terms of registered users by end 2008. Feels about right until you look at the stats on display.

The stats claim 60m active users at present versus 110m for MySpace (but don’t state registered user numbers) - would it really double in a year given its high penetration in the key US market (85% of universities)? And yet, there’s the stat about active users doubling every six months, so it’s possible.

And what about MySpace’s likely growth, particularly when you consider one of the other statistics? Facebook’s average of 250k registrations a day versus MySpace’s 300k. Some catching up to do surely?

Brings to mind the old adage about the three types of lie: “lies, damn lies and (social networking) statistics”, as Jeremiah alludes to in a follow up post.

Another day, another social network announces more mobile functionality. This time, US giant Facebook joins in the fun, even if many of the services were already available.

Joining in the push to get into the mobile space along with fellow heavyweights MySpace and Bebo, the enhanced Facebook service allows those with access and the required handset to surf their profile, upload photos and notes and send and receive Facebook texts. (Update: now Google’s orkut is getting in on the act).

The Facebook blog does make an interesting point about the connection between social networks and the mobile industry:

Facebook was invented to make sharing information with your friends easier and better. Mobile phones were invented for pretty much the same reason. People needed an easier and better way to get in touch with each other, and mobile phones made it happen.

So, a natural partnership it seems? Certainly the me-too race is on to ensure that no large social network is left behind when it comes to mobile, even if the strength of the revenue streams are as yet uncertain.

2007 is already proving a big year for mobile with Apple’s (or is it Cisco’s ) iPhone and the likes of Google, Yahoo and YouTube all getting in on the act with a series of services and partnerships. 2007 may well be the year when we find which services stick, before 2008 is the year when they start to pay.