Social Commerce Blog | Milyoni Blog

Facebook Credits Whitepaper

milyoni — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:36:17 +0000

For those of you interested in understanding Facebook Credits, we have recently published a whitepaper. It covers how you acquire them, where they can be used, where they cannot be used and more. Our point of view is that Facebook Credits will become the dominant social currency for virtual and digital goods and given the 800 million people on Facebook, that is real money.

Milyoni has created the Social Cinema that uses Facebook Credits for access to movies within Facebook. This includes movies like The Dark Knight, Harry Potter, The Big Lebowski and more. It also has included live concert events from Austin City Limits and Ridgeline Entertainment. The Social Cinema includes social features that create a shared experience for its viewers.

Thanks to ifeelgoods for their co-authoring of this whitepaper.

Get a copy at: http://www.milyoni.com/contact/fbcreditswhitepaper.php

At the Office

milyoni — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:00:55 +0000

The Milyoni environment is always fast-paced and full of energy, but recently the energy level reached a new high. With last week’s release of Social Cinema 2.0 and the Big Lebowski, the entire Milyoni team worked tirelessly to put on the show. Somehow, despite the long hours, the office was still buzzing with excitement and there were still the usual bursts of laughter coming from John’s office.

Everyone had their own assignments, sitting side by side madly typing and clicking. But instead of solitary work, there seemed to be a steady flow of people in and out, exchanging papers or ideas.

By late afternoon just when our blood sugars were beginning to drop, there was an unmistakably, homey scent wafting from the kitchen. John had recruited some interns to bake chocolate chip cookies. Despite a burnt first batch, the team enjoyed some break-and-bake homemade cookies.

Everyone was in good spirits until the dreaded hat was passed around and a number was drawn for dish duty. All but one breathed a sigh of relief until next time.

Tuesday after the excitement of the launch, the team gathered in the conference room for a welcomed potluck lunch break. Good food and good people!

Our delicious feast!

Barry and Ami enjoying themselves

Manasi, Mike and Nisha

Margo, Milyoni Summer Intern

The Big Lebowski on Facebook: Milyoni’s Social Theater 2.0

milyoni — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:13:43 +0000

Yesterday marked the release of Milyoni’s latest Social Theater platform with the Facebook premiere of The Big Lebowski.

Thanks to a partnership with NBCUniversal, the classic Coen Brothers film is now available to watch for 30 Facebook credits ($3) for a 48-hour window. Social Theater 2.0 allows viewers to chat about their favorite scenes, like and share quotes and clips, and even like the Facebook pages of brands and people that appear in film. Users can do all of this without ever leaving the viewing screen.

“What Zynga is to social gaming, Milyoni is to social entertainment,” said John Corpus, founder and CEO of Milyoni. “Social Theater is quickly becoming the most popular social platform for on-demand movies, concerts and other live events deployed on Facebook.”

The enhanced Social Theater introduces a major distribution channel for studios, as well as a new way for fans to experience on-demand movies, live concerts and sporting events.

Keep an eye out for more from Milyoni’s Social Theater!

Partnership with Ifeelgoods

milyoni — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:29:48 +0000

As a startup, Ifeelgoods helps retailers offer virtual goods (Facebook credits, for example) as incentives to “like” or “follow” a brand. Via Facebook fan growth, Twitter marketing and online ads, they work to find the best solutions for their clients.

For obvious reasons, Milyoni was thrilled to team up with Ifeelgoods. They understand what it takes to monetize fans and their philosophy is similar to our own—stay social!

Ifeelgoods co-founder and VP, Marketing Scott Silverman spoke yesterday at the e-commerce event eTail Boston. He presented on the benefits of social commerce, with a contribution from our team about social theater.

We can’t wait to see what’s coming next in this partnership!

Vitrue Teams up with Milyoni

milyoni — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:19:04 +0000

Vitrue, the leading social marketing platform, last week announced a strategic partnership with Milyoni, a leader in F-commerce, to enhance its social commerce offerings for customers. The partnership allows Vitrue’s SRM social marketing platform to provide customers with increased opportunities to convert fan loyalty and engagement into revenue.

Reggie Bradford, Founder and CEO of Vitrue explained, “As more companies understand just how large the gains can be from social marketing, we aim to deliver a comprehensive solution with the necessary resources, tools and functionality for our customers to execute successful programs with real ROI. This is why we’re partnering with strong leaders in the space like Milyoni.”

In Vitrue’s own words, “Social media should be a dialogue, not a monologue.” This new partnership strives to maintain and expand the conversation. The Milyoni team is excited to work with such an innovative company!

The Financial Times is Buzzing About the “F-Word”

milyoni — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:42:04 +0000

Today, the Financial Times declared that Facebook is proving to be a strong competitor in the world of commerce. Correspondent April Dembosky explains that companies like Milyoni are creating a new kind of commerce. She calls it the F-Word, we call it F-Commerce.

As Dembosky explains, “about $5bn worth of physical goods are sold on social networks today.” Additionally, Milyoni is working with customers like Austin City Limits and Warner Brothers to bring streaming concerts and movies to Facebook. Entertainment is turning social. With the social commerce market expected to reach $30 billion globally over the next few years, keep an eye out for what we’re doing next!

Check out the full article here!

F-Commerce Meets Consumer Powered Conservation

milyoni — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:13:54 +0000

Milyoni, and Wildlife Works, last week announced the launch of a new retail model that uses the power of Facebook to enable consumers to offset their travel, home use and personal lifestyle events that contribute to global warming. The Milyoni-powered Wildlife Works Facebook store-front allows consumers to easily offset their carbon footprints as well as purchase carbon neutral apparel.

CEO of Milyoni, John Corpus explained, “We are especially proud to work with a company that is reducing emissions and doing something socially and environmentally impactful on a global scale.”

Founded in 1997, Wildlife Works Inc. serves the environment having built a low-emissions factory in rural Kenya to create jobs and alternatives to deforestation. They also allow consumers to compensate for their own emissions by purchasing carbon credits through the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) program. These credits go toward projects that seek to reduce emissions, preserve the environment and aid impoverished communities.

For the first time, Wildlife Works’ carbon neutral apparel and carbon credits will be available on Facebook through Milyoni’s F-Commerce application. This allows Facebook users to spread awareness about the cause using familiar Facebook tools like the Newsfeed and will allow them to encourage their friends to get involved. Wildlife Works CEO Mike Korchinsky explained, “Offering out products within Facebook will exponentially expand our market, and more sales mean more rural African job creation–the essence of Wildlife Works’ conservation strategy.”

A Social Media Celebration

milyoni — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:30:26 +0000

Just a few days before commemorating Independence Day, the business world celebrates a slightly newer revolutionary holiday. Yesterday was Social Media Day, created to observe the importance of social media in the business world and in consumer life. Today we celebrate social media’s impact.

Companies like Lululemon Athletica are showing support for this advance in technology by posting Facebook photos of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube inspired cupcakes.

The rest of the world is celebrating by staying connected and staying social. According to Mashable the new celebration has accumulated “1,419 Meetups with more than 8,500 attendees on six continents.” Apparently, those in all corners of the globe are hopping on the social media bullet train.

Over the last few years, business has become more and more social. Facebook, Twitter and more recently, f-commerce have forever changed the way consumers consume and the way marketers market. Instead of traditional marketing campaigns, companies are making the shift to market on social sites and taking advantage of the fact that people are natural endorsers. If they love a product they will tell their friends. Social media gives happy consumers a platform from which to endorse their favorite products and share them with their networks. The effects are viral.

More changes are head with the emergence of f-commerce by bringing retail, movies and even live concerts to the social scene.

Happy Social Media Day!

Widespread Panic to hit Facebook

milyoni — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:29:42 +0000

Milyoni is excited to work with Widespread Panic and Austin City Limits Live to host the first live pay-per-view concert on Facebook using our new Social Theater Live Solution.

We first began talking to Austin City Limits as SXSW back in March. We got a tour of the fantastic new Moody Theater facilities and our imaginations were ignited. After a couple of great discussions about how best to tap the potential of Facebook for Austin City Limits, we decided to go for a Live Concert that would create a shared experience for fans. Widespread Panic, a longtime ACL fan favorite, agreed to be the first to stream a live concert from Moody Theater and the race was on to make this happen. Today we open up the ticket windows for fans that want to watch the show on Jun 14th or 15th.

Over the next few weeks Milyoni will work with ACL Live and a great group of platform partners to put on a great live show on Facebook. Those partners include Adobe, PayPal, Symantec, Heroku and Kulabyte. They are also sponsoring this live event as well. For just 50 Facebook Credits ($5), you can watch a great American Jam band…four hours worth!…and be an active participant. Click here to RSVP or Pay in Advance.

Stay tuned over the next 10 days as we continue to build “Social Theater Live” to create the best shared experience on Facebook possible.

Warner Bros partners with Milyoni to deliver movies via Facebook

milyoni — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:36:07 +0000

The news is buzzing today about Warner Bros plans to bring movies to their fans via Facebook. As one MSNBC reporter commented “Mark my words, one little movie on the great big social network may seem like nothing, but it is a spark of a much greater fire that’s about to blaze”

We agree.

The little known fact in today’s news is that Milyoni is the social technology platform behind Warner Bros.’ Facebook distribution strategy. Milyoni’s Social Commerce strategy has always been to focus on the “passion industries”….sports, entertainment, consumer electronics…the stuff people love to talk about. We are thrilled to work with Warner Bros on breaking new grounds in Video on Demand for Facebook.

We will be talking more about this at SXSW next week….join us in Austin if you can.