facebook application development

Global brands joined a band of celebrities and musicians on this week’s list of Top 20 Facebook Pages, compiled by our PageData tool, counting the number of fans joining a Page on any given day. In order to make the list this week Pages had to acquire between 1.1 million and 518,300 new Likes.

Top Gainers This Week

Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	YouTube	9,105,143	+1,127,486	+14.13
2.	Facebook	14,234,219	+888,703	+6.66
3.	Lady Gaga	13,690,189	+817,782	+6.35
4.	Family Guy	13,451,027	+793,141	+6.27
5.	Coca-Cola	8,664,011	+785,276	+9.97
6.	Bob Marley	7,381,216	+766,719	+11.59
7.	House	10,824,937	+714,771	+7.07
8.	Eminem	8,262,643	+699,808	+9.25
9.	Linkin Park	8,994,938	+641,159	+7.68
10.	Vin Diesel	12,309,003	+630,930	+5.40
11.	South Park	8,914,566	+621,207	+7.49
12.	The Twilight Saga	10,257,766	+605,544	+6.27
13.	Starbucks	11,056,832	+597,424	+5.71
14.	Cristiano Ronaldo	8,911,429	+586,248	+7.04
15.	Shakira	5,591,895	+579,678	+11.57
16.	Michael Jackson	17,058,493	+550,254	+3.33
17.	Red Bull	7,021,774	+544,560	+8.41
18.	Oreo	7,202,917	+539,091	+8.09
19.	Lil Wayne	8,563,543	+538,582	+6.71
20.	Katy Perry	5,617,561	+518,320	+10.16

First was YouTube, adding 1.1 million fans to pass a total of 9.1 million Likes. Overall, the growth seemed pretty steady, although there appeared to be some official Page consolidation last week that affected many of the Pages on our list this week.

In the global brands category, Facebook came in second place, adding 888,700 Likes to reach a total of 14.2 million, perhaps in part to news of the hitting the half billion user mark. Coca-Cola came in fifth place, adding 785,300 fans to grow to surpass 8.6 million inw aht seemed to be partly due to Page consolidation.

Starbucks took the number 13 spot, adding 597,400 fans, growing to 11 million. Red Bull was at number 17, adding 544,600 fans, pulling in a total of 7 million Likes by promoting sporting events. Next was Oreo at number 18, adding 539,100 fans to pass 7.2 million Likes; the company continues to promote a contest for international fans to become the Page’s profile picture.

Celebrity, in several forms, made up a chunk of this list this week, too; this includes television shows, movies and stars.

In fourth place was television show “Family Guy,” adding 793,100 Likes to grow the Page to 13.4 million; the makers of the show made appearances at the recent Comic-Con event in California this week. Medical drama “House” was seventh, adding 714,800 fans to reach 10.8 million total; the show had big growth this week and won big at an awards show.

Action star Vin Diesel’s Page added 630,900 fans to grow to 12.3 million this week. Next, “South Park” took the number 11 spot, adding 621,200 Likes to a total of 8.9 million. “The Twilight Saga” followed in twelfth place, adding 605,500 fans, passing 10.2 million total, and also putting in an appearance at Comic-Con. Finally, Portuguese football (soccer) star Cristiano Ronaldo added 586,200 fans to his 8.9 million total to take fourtheenth place.

The rest of the list was occupied by musicians.

Lady Gaga was third, adding 817,800 fans to her 13.6 million. Bob Marley’s Page took sixth, adding 766,700 fans to a 7.3 million total, though there wasn’t much happening on the Page. Rapper Eminem was eighth, added 699,800 fans now with 8.2 million Likes; he’s promoting his new album. Linkin Park was ninth, adding 641,200 fans to come in just under 9 million fans; the Page is promoting the band’s new album in various ways, including by offering a pre-order on the Page.

Shakira added 579,700 fans to take number 15, coming out with a total of 5.5 million Likes; her Page has been promoting her award nominations, merchandise and tour dates. Next was Michael Jackson at number 16, adding 550,300 fans to pass 17 million total Likes. Rapper Lil Wayne was at number 19, added 538,600 fans, grew to 8.5 million in part by releasing a new music video and sharing another letter from prison. Finally, Katy Perry came in at number 20, adding 518,300 LIkes to now boast 5.6 million; she’s also promoting a new single.

Assorted types of entertainment-related Pages took over our list of Top 20 Facebook Pages this week. Everything from fantasy movies to musicians to soccer stars and SpongeBob SquarePants was on our list this week. It took between 1.2 million and 592,000 new fans to make the list this week.

The statistics used to count the number of fans added to each Page were gathered from our PageData tool.

Top Gainers This Week

Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Harry Potter	1,267,502	+1,232,725	+3,544.66
2.	Lady Gaga	10,425,332	+1,153,117	+12.44
3.	Facebook	12,542,572	+1,131,893	+9.92
4.	Michael Jackson	14,634,326	+1,079,729	+7.97
5.	The Twilight Saga	8,947,263	+1,047,070	+13.25
6.	Family Guy	11,715,095	+1,046,100	+9.81
7.	Cristiano Ronaldo	7,735,834	+1,045,592	+15.63
8.	Tyler Perry	2,497,530	+857,632	+52.30
9.	House	9,313,783	+850,979	+10.06
10.	Vin Diesel	10,933,539	+834,701	+8.27
11.	Starbucks	9,839,151	+779,661	+8.61
12.	Eminem	5,539,299	+764,544	+16.01
13.	Justin Bieber	7,135,030	+743,167	+11.63
14.	Linkin Park	7,672,246	+719,249	+10.34
15.	Taylor Swift	6,881,058	+689,831	+11.14
16.	SpongeBob SquarePants	4,797,023	+683,967	+16.63
17.	Shakira	4,410,179	+659,725	+17.59
18.	Barack Obama	10,471,764	+653,641	+6.66
19.	Red Bull	5,959,803	+604,662	+11.29
20.	Megan Fox	8,350,152	+591,736	+7.63

Topping the list was “Harry Potter,” adding most of its 1.26 million fans in the past week with the addition of 1.23 million. Another film geared towards younger audiences, “The Twilight Saga” took fifth place on the list, adding 1 million fans to grow to 8.9 million; the latest installment of the franchise, “Eclipse,” recently debuted in theaters.

A few big name brands made the list this week. Facebook’s Page came in third, adding 1.1 million fans to grow to 12.5 million. Starbucks at 11, adding 779,700 fans to grow to 9.8 million and Red Bull at number 19 with the addition of 604,700 fans to the Page’s 5.9 million.

There were television shows, too. “Family Guy” came in sixth, adding over 1 million fans to a base of more than 11.7 million; the popular show was recently nominated for an Emmy award. Medical drama “House” took ninth place, adding 851,000 fans to get the Page to 9.3 million; this show was also nominated for Emmys. Then there was the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants,” which took sixteenth place, adding 684,000 fans to come in at a 4.7 million total.

Musicians made up about a third of the list this week.

Lady Gaga came in second place, adding 1.1 million fans to round out a 10.4 million fan base; she’s on tour and has appeared on television shows. Michael Jackson’s Page took fourth place, adding 1 million fans to grow to 14.6 million total fans. Then there was rapper Eminem in twelfth place, adding 764,500 fans, growing the Page to 5.5 million; he’s been promoting a recently released album.

Justin Bieber followed at number 13, adding 743,200 fans to his current batch of 7.1 million fans; the teen crooner has been promoting singles, music videos and touring. Linkin Park followed in fourteenth place, with 719,300 new fans on a Page of 7.6 million; growth seems partly attributable to the beginnings of promotion for an album to be released in the fall. Taylor Swift came in at 15, adding 689,800 fans to come out with 6.8 million. Finally, singer Shakira took number 17, adding 659,700 new fans to a Page of 4.4 million, probably mostly due to being the author of the official FIFA World Cup song.

About a fourth of the list this week was composed of famous people who aren’t named Lady Gaga.

Portuguese football star and hunk Cristiano Ronaldo took seventh place, adding 1 million fans to grow his Page to 7.7 million. He’s had a busy few weeks, playing in the World Cup, announcing the birth of a son and starring in Armani underwear ads. American playwright/actor/moviemaker Tyler Perry appeared on the list this week at number 8, adding 857,600 fans to a total of 2.4 million; there were huge jumps of several hundred thousand on July 8 and 9, hinting at an official Page consolidation.

Jack-of-all-trades Vin Diesel came in at tenth place, adding 834,700 fans to come in just under 11 million this week; he recently announced plans for a new movie production. President Barack Obama added 653,600 fans to his official Page, growing it to 10.4 million and starlet Megan Fox rounded out the list at number 20 with steady growth, adding 591,700 fans to surpass 8.3 million.

Portuguese soccer/football star Cristiano Ronaldo topped this week’s top 20 Facebook Pages, as measured by our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to Pages over the course of the week. Along with Ronaldo were plenty of musicians and television shows, a few movies and a couple of big name brands.

Top Gainers This Week

Name Fans Gain Gain, % 1. Cristiano Ronaldo 5,501,159 +706,747 +14.74 2. Eminem 5,025,018 +632,476 +14.40 3. Michael Jackson 13,658,874 +623,294 +4.78 4. Lady Gaga 9,364,119 +610,233 +6.97 5. Toy Story 1,850,907 +605,149 +48.58 6. Family Guy 9,760,125 +603,141 +6.59 7. House 7,698,594 +502,556 +6.98 8. Vin Diesel 9,201,245 +423,927 +4.83 9. The Twilight Saga 6,816,509 +423,788 +6.63 10. Megan Fox 7,811,613 +410,076 +5.54 11. Starbucks 8,330,042 +386,271 +4.86 12. Disney Pixar 2,168,971 +381,295 +21.33 13. Facebook 10,371,902 +381,042 +3.81 14. Drake 2,679,464 +377,556 +16.40 15. Justin Bieber 5,602,360 +375,282 +7.18 16. Lil Wayne 5,882,988 +341,514 +6.16 17. Metallica 5,000,900 +324,165 +6.93 18. Glee 3,701,682 +311,661 +9.19 19. South Park 6,347,643 +304,871 +5.05 20. Skittles 5,337,394 +303,421 +6.03

Ronaldo was number one, at least on Facebook this week, as the Portuguese soccer team continues to advance in the World Cup in South Africa. He added 706,700 fans to grow the Page’s fan base to 5.5 million.

About a third of the list was taken up by musicians. Eminem, who just released a new album, took the number 2 spot, adding 632,500 fans to surpass 5 million fans. Michael Jackson was third, adding 623,300 fans to reach a total of 13.6 million; the one-year anniversary of his death was recently. Fourth was Lady Gaga, on a North American summer tour, adding 610,200 fans to get up to 9.3 million.

Drake added 377, 600 fans to grow the Page to 2.6 million by promoting his new album this past week to land at number 14. Justin Bieber followed at 15 adding 375,300 fans to reach 5.6 million fans; he’s also promoting a new single and music video. Lil Wayne took the number 16 spot, adding 341,500 fans to surpass 5.8 million fans; a friend is updating the Page for him, promoting his November release date party, the BET music awards, a letter to his fans from prison and other updates. Metallica followed at 17, adding 324,100 fans to pop past 5 million; the band is currently on a world tour.

Movies with youngish audiences were also on the list this week, namely “Toy Story” at number 5 adding 605,100 fans to reach 1.8 million and the studio that produced it, Disney Pixar, at number 12 with 381,300 new fans and 2.1 million total. Also, the eminent premiere of The Twilight Saga’s “Eclipse” this week put the movie at ninth place on our list this week with 423,800 new fans to its 6.8 million base.

A good number of television shows popped onto the list this week. “Family Guy” came in at number 6, adding 603,100 fans to 9.7 million. Seventh was “House” with 502,500 new fans and a total of 7.6 million; the show’s been promoting its “appisodes” for iPhone and the main character, Nurse Jeffrey. At 18 was “Glee,” adding 311,700 fans to 3.7 million and promoting its recent awards nominations and upcoming Comic-Con appearances. “South Park” came in at number 19, adding 304,900 fans to grow the total to 6.3 million.

A sprinkling of celebrities on the list this week, Vin Diesel at number 8 with about 424,000 new fans and a total of 9.2 million, as well as Megan Fox at number 10, who added 410,000 new fans to reach 7.8 million by promoting her new movie, “Jonah Hex.” The rest of the list included a few random Pages. Starbucks came in at number 11, adding 386,300 fans to now count 8.3 million; the company’s been promoting its brand with musician Sarah McLachlan. Facebook’s Page added 381,000 fans to reach 10.3 million this week at number 13. Finally Skittles rounded out the list at 20, adding 303,400 fans to now boast 5.3 million.

Among the 20 Pages that gained the most fans in the last seven days, the World Cup — as you might have guessed, considering Facebook’s massive international audience –made a big appearance.

Not all of this seemed attributable to the World Cup, which started on Friday).

Musicians and television shows still reigned strong on the list, as measured by our PageData tool, and leading game developer Zynga stayed strong, too. The list seemed to be somewhat inspired by some big movement on Saturday, when many Pages experienced jumps in traffic — possibly due to Page consolidations. There may also be some positive effect continuing to occur from the influx of personal profiles linking to Pages.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Avril Lavigne	3,677,553	+651,053	+21.51
2.	redbox	774,408	+393,024	+103.05
3.	Family Guy	8,678,877	+350,296	+4.21
4.	Sports on Facebook	1,492,135	+297,313	+24.88
5.	Texas Hold’em Poker	19,486,524	+296,548	+1.55
6.	Lil Wayne	5,269,009	+289,062	+5.80
7.	Lady Gaga	8,419,308	+254,007	+3.11
8.	Justin Bieber	4,965,447	+213,097	+4.48
9.	House	6,867,942	+211,760	+3.18
10.	Toy Story	982,857	+184,514	+23.11
11.	Michael Jackson	12,698,450	+171,138	+1.37
12.	adidas Football	853,763	+158,957	+22.88
13.	Cristiano Ronaldo	4,435,638	+157,281	+3.68
14.	South Park	5,827,140	+155,893	+2.75
15.	Linkin Park	5,811,001	+155,635	+2.75
16.	Eminem	4,184,545	+146,767	+3.63
17.	Dr. House	6,098,271	+145,409	+2.44
18.	Metallica	4,477,752	+145,185	+3.35
19.	Two and a Half Men	3,560,297	+143,942	+4.21
20.	Mafia Wars	12,559,651	+138,197	+1.11

Singer Avril Lavigne took first place this week, adding most of her 651,000 fans to her 3.6 million total in a single day — Saturday, June 12 — despite the fact that there didn’t appear to be much activity on her Page other than the promotion of her new fragrance.

Redbox, the automated DVD rental kiosks, came in at number 2 this week, adding 393,000 fans, more than doubling its numbers, with 226,700 of those added on June 12 (probably meaning a consolidation). There hasn’t been much activity on the Page, although there is a promotion to receive a free rental on June 21.

There were a handful of TV show-related Pages on the list, too. “Family Guy” came in third, adding 350,00 fans to grow to 8.6 million with consistent growth; the show was nominated for a Teen Choice award recently.

“House,” coming in at number 9, was also nominated for said award, adding 211,700 to grow to 6.8 million with a June 12 spike. “South Park” took the number 14 spot, added 156,000 fans with a 72,000 spike on June 12 and no recent updates on the Wall. “Dr. House” came in at 17, adding 145,400 to pass 6 million fans with a spike on June 12, but no real updates for some time (consolidation?). Finally, “Two and a Half Men” came in nineteenth place, added 144,000 fans to reach 3.5 million with steady growth and no updates since the series finale in May.

The World Cup, which began on Friday, June 11, in South Africa, has unsurprisingly  attracted the attention of Facebook users around the world. The official Sports on Facebook Page came in fourth this week, adding 297,300 fans to come in just under 1.5 million total. If you recall, this Page launched a leaderboard with Involver last month, and cumulative growth on the Page since June 11 totaled 296,600 fans, so that may be one reason the Page is seeing growth.

Adidas Football came in twelfth, added 159,000 fans to grow to 854,000 — including a huge 124,000 jump on June 12 — and has been heavily promoting the World Cup with a landing tab and other Wall activity. Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese soccer player widely considered to be one of the best players in the world, has also seen a lot of growth on his Page. Ronaldo came in at number 13, adding 157,300 fans to grow to 4.4 million with a big jump of 108,000 on June 12. His Page is also running a fan photo contest and it has been updating from the World Cup.

The “Toy Story” Page came in at number 10 this week, probably because the movie premieres this week and the Page became popular recently as Disney became the first company to sell movie tickets to the premiere right on Facebook. The Page added 184,500 fans to come in just under 983,000.

Musicians, as per usual, ruled most of the list.

Lil Wayne came in at number 6, adding 289,000 to grow the Page to 5.2 million with a few big spikes, including June 12, but without any Facebook activity (he’s still in jail). Again, consolidation? Next was Lady Gaga, who added 254,000 fans to her current 8.4 million fans, also partaking of the June 12 spike. Her newest video, “Alejandro,” debuted last week and her U.S. summer tour is set to begin shortly. Teen idol Justin Bieber came in at number 8, adding 213,000 fans to reach 4.9 million; he’s been busy promoting the theme song to the “Karate Kid” remake, a single about to hit iTunes and a new music video.

Michael Jackson came in at 11, adding 171,100 fans to grow to 12.6 million with little else but related news updates on the wall. At 15 was Linkin Park, adding 155,600 to pass 5.8 million with news of tour dates. Eminem followed at number 16, adding about 147,000 to grow to 4.1 million as he promotes his new video, single and album. Metallica took the number 18 spot, adding 145,200 fans or so and growing to 4.4 million partly by announcing tour dates in the fall.

Zynga maintained a presence on the list this week, despite competition, with Texas Hold’em Poker coming in at number 5, adding 296,600 fans to now count 19.4 million; the Page has been promoting all sorts of World Cup virtual goods — the landing tab is even promoting them. Mafia Wars, closing out the list at number 20, has been promoting virtual goods related to the game as well, in addition to actual cards at 7-11 convenience stores. The Page added 138,200 fans to grow to 12.5 million.

Orange, the lead brand of France Telecom, has a new Facebook application out called VoxCards, Using text-to-speech recognition technology, it lets you send virtually any type of message to your friends in French, or at least in an outrageous French accent.

Though the application is in French, it’s pretty easy to figure out (Google Translate helps a lot too). Users are able to access a drop-down list of any number of odd and quirky characters. Most of the options are fictional, such as the robot Rob HO-X22Z36PO or the yeti Joe Monster, but there are a few celebrity voices as well. Likely, those outside of the francophone world won’t recognize them, but some examples include the voices of Fred and Omar from the show Omar et Fred.

Each avatar comes with their very own unique set of animations and very distinctive caricature-style artwork. From the overly sultry female characters, to wannabe rappers, to the fictional King Stone’s smoke-producing hat (use your imagination), each one is more or less unforgettable.

From here, players can choose from a set of pre-determined messages or replies that range from the bizarre – J’ai été attaqué par des renards tout à l’heure (I was attacked by foxes earlier) – to the curious – Je suis un vrai Pitbull, je vais te sauter dessus! (I am a true Pitbull, I’ll jump on it!), said by a “sexy” looking female avatar in a bikini.

Of course, while amusing, these are hardly personal, so the user is given the opportunity to write their own personal message, up to 250 characters, themselves, and the chosen avatar will, in their own unique voice, speak it. Truthfully, it doesn’t work perfectly, and certainly not as well as the pre-made messages, but it still does the job decently well. Furthermore, VoxCards’ text-to-speech does a pretty impressive job with other languages.

As the app was created in French, all the characters have a thick French accent and will pronounce anything you type in such a manner. However, if you type a language (so long as it is using the Latin alphabet) such as English or Spanish, it will still nail a fair number of the words. Nevertheless, it does sort of become a game of trial and error to see what will work, pronunciation-wise, and what won’t.

What adds a kick to these voice messages is also the fact that they don’t get sent to a message box but can either be posted directly to your wall or a specified friend’s wall. And as an added bonus, VoxCards takes a look at your friends profiles and lets you know whose birthday is coming up; in case you want to send them an amusing birthday greeting.

As far as anything negative goes regarding VoxCards, the only real qualm is the animation is a bit jittery, and speech to lip movement doesn’t synch up at all. To be fair, however, the latter is something one only typically sees in major video games and software such as Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

All the same, VoxCards is still a very cool way to send your friends personalized messages through Facebook. The text to speech works surprisingly well, and decently well in other languages beyond French. Moreover, even if it doesn’t work for the language you’re trying, it’s still quite fun to figure out what will, and the characters are so unique that it’s unlikely anyone will forget them, or this app, any time soon.

Currently, VoxCards is earning upwards of 200,000 monthly active users. On a final note, the promotion for Orange itself is limited within the app. All that really exists are a few banner ads advertising an Orange tablet, the RadioMee iPhone application, the site Memory-Life, and a few other random items; nothing terribly unique – perhaps this is more of an experiment by the company, rather than part of a strategic marketing effort.