Facebook tests ‘games only’ activity feed, might drop games ticker
Facebook is testing a games-only activity feed that groups all friends’ game stories in one place. The social network is also considering scrapping the games-only ticker that appears along side canvas apps.

As detailed on the developer blog, the new games-only activity feed is actually a sub-menu option under the apps and games dashboard called “Friend Activity.” When selected, the view condenses all friends’ game stories into one feed organized by most recent stories first. This effectively creates a one-stop destination for games on Facebook — which is something the social network has tried to avoid in the past even as Google+’s rival games platform embraces it.
Meanwhile, Facebook is deciding whether or not to keep the games activity ticker. The blog reports that the feature hasn’t been a significant driver of traffic and that Facebook is looking into other options “improve and simplify” the games experience. Games bookmarks are here to stay for the time being, however, as Facebook reports they do drive significant traffic and re-engagement. Both features have been updated several times since launching over the summer.
Other discovery features announced include the News Feed and Timeline units we’ve seen this month, both of which play into the theme of social discovery. The current unit that appears for games in News Feed not only shows recent game activity for friends, but also identifies games by genre. The “recent games activity” section in Timeline currently only displays game achievements, but the new unit (pictured, right) adds high scores and a bookmarks section for most-played games. It’ll be interesting to see if the unit can also display friends’ comments or Likes on individual game stories.
Lastly, Facebook reminds developers that app profile pages will be discontinued on Feb. 1, which means all Likes and vanity URLs need to be migrated to an existing Facebook page before the change goes into effect.



January 30th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
[...] Read the rest on our sister site, Inside Social Games. [...]
January 30th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Sounds Familiar, hmmmm….http://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/games-in-google-fun-that-fits-your.html
January 31st, 2012 at 11:22 am
[...] Source « Previous Post Tweet [...]
January 31st, 2012 at 2:24 pm
[...] Currently Ticker includes many of the same stories that end up in News Feed, giving the feature little value (see image below). The social network found that the ticker on canvas app pages was not driving significant traffic to games or apps so it has removed it for now. [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 4:03 pm
[...] meanwhile, is trying to forge a stronger, more compelling games platform with improved discovery to offset rising costs to developers on its platform. Through Credits, Facebook takes a 30 percent [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 4:57 pm
[...] when they cut off several viral channels. In a developer blog post on Monday, Facebook announced a few new ways it is promoting games on the platform, including a games-only activity feed and aggregate News Feed [...]
March 1st, 2012 at 11:00 am
[...] discovery of new friend connections and a live app ticker for games activity (which is something Facebook recently disabled on canvas [...]
March 8th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
[...] Conference in San Francisco, EA Playfish Creative Director Ray Mazza revealed that Facebook’s now-deactivated games ticker drove 93 percent of the early referral traffic for The Sims [...]