marcporcelli

It was last spring while attending F8, Facebook's annual developers conference that it hit me during a presentation on Facebook Credits by Debie Liu, that the rise of alternate payment methods online had now become very important. I left the presentation motivated by the sheer amount of opportunity. Facebook had a made a very good move and understood the market and where it was going.

Facebook credits allow Facebook users to pay for goods and services through credits. These credits can be earned through taking actions, for example liking a page, filling out information, or beating a section of a game. Alternatively, these credits can be used to purchase virtual goods and services. As Facebook Credits expands, there will be more than just virtual goods that can be purchased through Facebook Credits. This of course will increase conversion for products and services purchased online, thus attracting more advertisers.

Today, there are some 200 games and 75+ developers using Facebook Credits. There have also been some significant partnerships announced with organizations such as Rockyou, who will exclusively support all virtual payments for the next five years. Most recently, Facebook has partnered with Playspan which has a larger global reach for accepting different payment methods outside of the primary payment methods in North America, Credit cards. Users of course can also purchase Facebook credit gift cards at stores such as Target, GameStop, Safeway, Walmart, RadioShack, and Best Buy.

While doing some Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping on Amazon.com last week, I noticed that American Express was allowing Amex users to pay via their Membership Rewards program. I had previously only seen this payment method available through a partnership Amex had with Ticketmaster. Clearly, Amex is expanding their offering to users as a means to use Membership Rewards.

Just last week, it was announced that Amex and Zynga had formed a partnership that will allow Amex users to use their Membership Rewards towards the purchase of virtual goods through Zynga's games. This is the first time that virtual goods can be purchased through rewards points and further legitimizes (as if it was needed) the virtual goods business.

Perhaps this will lead into Amex also becoming a partner with Facebook to allow users to use their Membership Rewards to purchase Facebook credits in the near future. One thing is for sure; these alternate forms of payment could prove to be very lucrative to all players involved.

As an American Express cardholder, I am very familiar with the Membership Rewards program and the pros and cons. For example, some rewards are highly beneficial and cost-effective with others are less beneficial and cost-effective. A lot depends on the end users perception of value. Clearly with the scale of Zynga with their games online and huge virtual goods business rumored to be north of $500 million annually, there is huge demand for what they have to offer.

What will be interesting to assess is how many users actually opt to use their Membership Rewards towards virtual goods like windmills for Zynga's hit game, FarmVille. To increase usage and introduce the alternate payment method to Zynga's users, there is a planned release of some 20 exclusive virtual goods products in the very near future.

Look for more alternate payments methods to made available, particularly with high-growth online business that are hungry to acquire and retain new affluent users. Perhaps in the near future, we will be paying for our purchases on sites like Groupon through Amex Membership Rewards.

Marketers should be paying very close attention to this growing opportunity as a highly efficient way to attract new users to their products. After all, who wouldn't want affluent American Express cardholders to purchase their products! Throw in a recession where consumers are looking for added value and you have a nice recipe for success.

From the page: "If you are like so many other professionals, you are always online. You may not physically be in front of your computer, but you are �oeonline” at all times via your Blackberry, iPhone, iPad or other smartphone devices. I am one of the individuals that is always online. In fact, it was not until my honeymoon last fall that I even knew there was an option to turn off data on my Blackberry . This (arguably) good feature disabled my email �" how pathetic is that!"

While attending the F8 Conference last month in San Francisco, I remember sitting through the Keynote and individual breakout sessions thinking to myself, "Wow Facebook really has something big going on." I left the conference excited by what I had heard. During Mark Zuckerberg's demo, he showed how the Facebook social plugins would integrate into sites like CNN. Of course, right when I went back to my hotel room that night, I tried it out.

From the page: "Facebook has been in the news a lot lately regarding their privacy changes and at times, issues. I came across a great interactive post recently titled, The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook by Matt Mckeon that all readers should spend some time with."

Why should you care about Display-Side Platforms (DSP) and Real-Time Bidding (RTB) when it comes to online marketing? Read the article to find out...