Facebook Launches “Donate” Button For Non-Profits That Also Collects Billing Info For Itself

Facebook unveiled a “Donate Now” button today to make it much easier for non-profits to take contributions. A nice side effect for its business? The button will collect credit card numbers and other billing info for Facebook that could aid its ecommerce and gaming initiatives.

19 non-profit launch partners will start displaying the Donate Now button at the tops of their Facebook Pages and bottom of their News Feed posts. These include DonorsChoose.org (a personal favorite), Boys And Girls Club Of America, World Wildlife Fund, UNICEF, Red Cross, and Kiva. After some more testing, Facebook will open the feature to additional non-profits, who can sign up for access here.

Thanks to the Donate Now button, instead of forcing users off Facebook and away from their friends, these organizations can now accept donations in a pop-up window right on Facebook. Users can choose how much they want to give and either enter payment details or use ones already stored with Facebook. The pop-up could boost conversion rates and get more funds to needy projects. The Donate Now button also gives people an easy way to share the call for donations with friends, helping philanthropy go viral. Facebook is not charging a fee to process donations.

Sadly, some people believe that corporations are all evil and there’s no way they could actually be staffed by decent human beings that want to help non-profits. But Facebook seems genuinely determined to help these causes, even if there’s no denying that the button could also aid its business. It’s a part of a trend of for-profit businesses launching philanthropy initiatives that could earn them money in the long run. Facebook backs Internet.org, an internet accessibility project for the developing world that could also get more people signed up for its social network. And just this morning, Comcast announced multi-million dollar backing for online education resource Khan Academy in hopes of attracting more low-income families to its reduced-price broadband service.

[Update: Perhaps Facebook should make it easier to delete your credit card info after donating. Right now you can go to your payment account settings and remove your credit cards. Adding a link there or delete button to the donate flow itself would make it easier...but would also make it tougher to donate to other non-profits in the future.]

Facebook is behind in the race to collect credit card numbers compared to app store owners like Apple and Google, and ecommerce juggernauts like Amazon. Not having payment details on file creates a barrier to people buying virtual goods in Facebook Games, or buying Facebook Gift cards for friends. The moral imperative to donate to a worthy cause could get users over the hump to keying in their credit card number or connecting another billing service like PayPal.

More payment info on file will also bolster Facebook’s latest ecommerce push: Autofill With Facebook. The system lets third-party mobile apps integrate a button in the checkout flow that lets users quickly pull in their billing and shipping info from Facebook without much typing.

Facebook doesn’t collect a fee or revenue share, but instead plans to use purchase data it peeks on through Autofill to prove the return on investment of its ads. If you click an ad to download JackThreads’ ecommerce app, use Autofill With Facebook to import your payment info that you previously entered through the Donate Now button, and make a purchase, Facebook can tell advertisers just how much money their marketing message earned them.

Again, these indirect boosts to Facebook’s business provided by Donate Now might not have been what drove Facebook to build the button, but they’re a convenient synergy. Connecting people to their friends and non-profits just so happens to make it easier to connect them to advertisers as well.

A Like Is Not Enough: Facebook Tests Star Ratings Displayed On Pages

Facebook is apparently testing displaying star ratings, out of a possible five in total, on Pages on the desktop version of its site, according to a reliable tip received by TechCrunch this morning.

Screenshots and live testing show that Facebook has turned on the star rating display for at least a small subsection of users, providing information to network users that goes beyond the somewhat sentiment-deprived basic Like.

Using a star system for place and page ratings isn’t entirely new; Facebook has been collecting star ratings from users on the desktop and via local search for quite a while now, and also seeking star ratings on content and apps via Timeline.

What is new is making this information explicitly displayed on the social network itself, in a prominent place on a business or place Page.

This shift, if it moves from the testing phase to general adoption, has a couple major implications for Facebook users.

First, for general members, it provides an increased degree of sentiment information surrounding places and content that goes well beyond the simple off/on attribute of the Like.

The Like is actually fraught with ambiguity users employ it variously to express sympathy, solidarity, endorsement, a sign of interest or even in some cases a feeling of dislike.

The number of Likes something has indicates how present it is in public consciousness, but not necessarily how people generally feel about it.

Comments provide some sense of sentiment around a Page, but the five-star system threads the needle between ease-of-use, information and digestibility, compared to both the Like and text comments.

And as Facebook moves to become a platform geared towards providing public information, as well as real-time interactivity around media like TV, offering more granularity around how its users feel about people, places and things makes a lot of sense.

For businesses, it’s not clear yet whether displaying this rating will be optional or mandatory, but if Facebook is making a play to compete with the Yelps, Foursquares and Angie’s Lists of the world when it comes to local discovery and service recommendations, it would make sense that they are required by default.

That could mean a considerable shift in how businesses use FB, with more emphasis placed on customer service versus just maintaining a presence on the network. Likes are easy, after all, but getting users to fill up that star bar will require a lot more effort and interaction.

We’ve reached out to Facebook to learn more about this feature, the extent of the test and whether a wider rollout is planned, and we’ll update when we receive more information.

Update: A Facebook spokesperson provided the following confirmation and info from the company:

We’re extending star ratings on Facebook from mobile to desktop to make it easier for people to discover great businesses around them.

This is beneficial for both businesses and consumers. Star ratings encourage more people to rate a business, making it eligible to appear in News Feed and help others discover a business they didn’t know about previously. For businesses themselves, this also leads to greater brand awareness.

As you may recall, star ratings launched in early 2012 with the introduction of Nearby on mobile. Now we’re bringing the visibility of star ratings to a more prominent spot at the top of Pages’ timeline on desktop and to the preview in News Feed.

Thanks to FB user Om Agarwal for the tip.

Facebook Admits Some Decrease Of Usage Amongst Young Teens For The First Time

Facebook may be feeling the pinch from teen-focused, mobile-first social networks like Snapchat, as CFO David Ebersman said on today’s earnings call that Facebook “did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens,” though he prefaced that saying “usage of Facebook among US teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3.” This is the first time Facebook has reported real trouble with teens.

Facebook did say that “We remain close to fully penetrated among teens in the US,” (eww, terrible phrasing) and noted there wasn’t a ton of data supporting the drop with young teens. On the data, Ebersman said “This is of questionable significance. but we wanted to share this with you now because we get a lot of questions about teens.”

The grim notes on young teens come after Facebook had denied losing luster with teens last quarter. Mark Zuckerberg said in July that “One specific demographic I want to address is U.S. teens.

There’s been a lot of speculation and reporting that fewer teens are using Facebook, but based on our data that just isn’t true.” But the social landscape is rapidly shifting.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in September that it sees 350 million “snaps” (photos and videos) sent per day.

That’s equal to the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per day. Of course, some teens may be shifting their attention to Instagram, which Facebook owns.

Still, analyst Ben Bajarin confirms that his research shows Facebook is losing usage amongst teens in core demographics like the U.S.

As soon as Facebook reported the news about teens, its share price took a nose dive, as shown below. You can see in the share price chart how, at around 5:20 EST when Ebersman discussed teens, its price suddenly sank.

This wiped out the billions of dollars in valuation gain Facebook scored from the 15 percent share price climb Facebook made in after hours trading based on the strong financial info for the quarter it released at 4pm EST. Facebook had a strong beat of estimates, hitting $2.02 billion in revenue, $0.25 EPS, with 49 percent of ad revenue now from mobile.

The news about teens was clearly hard on Facebook but could be a boon to Snapchat, which is reportedly trying to close a big round of funding of around $200 million at a valuation between $3 billion and $4 billion.

That could be easier, or Snapchat’s valuation could rise thanks to signs Facebook is losing teens Snapchat’s core demographic.

Why Would Kids Use Facebook Less?

As I wrote the other day in my piece “Kids Love Snapchat Because They See Facebook Like Adults See LinkedIn”, the permanence of Facebook may be partly responsible for teens shying away.

They feel that everything they post on Facebook is scrutinized, and they could jeopardize their future by sharing themselves being silly, partying, or by discussing their opinions.

They worry parents, friends, and potential hirers might discriminate against them based on their digital past.

Facebook soap opera Another possible cause for reduced usage amongst teens is that they see Facebook’s mobile app as bloated. There’s the News Feed, messaging, photos, events, groups, apps, and more.

That means it can feel overwhelming, providing so many options that it causes decision paralysis. Compare this to slimmer services like Snapchat and Instagram where it’s obvious what you’re supposed to do view and share photos and videos.

Finally, Facebook may cause drama for some teens whose “friends” may not be as civil as adults. With kids trying to figure out their identities as they hurdle into young adulthood with hormones raging, comment threads can get heated.

Facebook has tried to discourage cyber-bullying by offering resources and easy ways to report it, but it’s still an issue on the social network likely more so than on other apps that focus on media sharing and private messaging.

Or perhaps the nearly decade old social network just isn’t as novel as it used to be.

Teens are the tastemakers of the world, and if Facebook can’t hold onto them, there are worries the rest of its user base could start to slip away or at least use it less.