Facebook launched a new mobile referrals tool within its App Insights dashboard, offering developers deeper visibility into the traffic their apps receive from the social network's mobile sources. Developers can leverage this information to optimize distribution across Facebook's mobile web, iOS and Android channels, writes software engineer Greg Schechter in a Facebook Developers blog entry.
The Mobile Referrals dashboard illustrates the number of total mobile app clicks across all sources, broken down by source (e.g., Facebook Feed, Timeline, Notifications, Bookmarks and Search) and devices (iPhone, iPad, Android or m.facebook.com). Facebook also supplies a demographic breakdown of mobile referral data by age, gender, language and country.
Facebook now tops 850 million users worldwide, with more than 425 million users accessing the platform via mobile device each month. Since the Facebook Platform developer toolset expanded to mobile devices late last year, recommendation tools and Newsfeed updates are responsible for sending more than 60 million visitors every month to apps and games. Mobile visitors were responsible for more than 320 million visits to mobile apps in January 2012, Facebook adds.
At last month's Mobile World Congress 2012 event, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor announced the social networking giant is partnering with mobile operators across the globe to introduce streamlined billing practices enabling users to charge mobile web application transactions to their monthly wireless bill. Earlier this month, Facebook also opened new APIs and documentation to developers enabling the creation of third-party applications that allow consumers to add friends and location data directly from whichever app they're currently using.
For more:
- read this Facebook Developers blog entry
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