One of the world’s largest social networking sites, Facebook, has recently decided to delve into a new way to get virtual money online. This virtual money, called Facebook Credits, has been widely used in games on the site such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. Players who want to buy additional items for their gaming experience have had the opportunity to sign up for various offers to get in-game cash, such as signing up for a Netflix trial or similar offers.
Facebook has recently found themselves caught in the middle of a conflict between their user audience and app developers for virtual in-game cash offers coming across as scams. Instead of entirely banning virtual currency via cash or offers, they are now in the works of providing their own offers which have been sorted out and can be trusted to not take advantage of the great number of individuals who use Facebook for recreational activities. They have chosen to work with 2 companies by the names of Peanut Labs and TrialPay whom are known to be honest companies.
Facebook credits can be found outside of just game applications and are available on the under the application tab which is located on the left hand side of the user’s interface and then once on the Application page at the top. A button which is clickable next to display shows the amount of credits a Facebook account has available. They appear to still be in the split testing face of their offer experiment, as only a handful of users have access to both paying cash or by signing up for various offers with all users having the ability to pay cash for them. Time will only tell how it will work out, but it so far appears to be a much better option for their audience to know they can trust offers coming directly from Facebook versus the makers of random applications.
