This week we have added the capability for friendster platform publishers to monetize their applications and widgets. The service is available now through the Ad Chap web interface at http://stats.adchap.com

Ad Chap is now available on facebook, myspace, bebo, hi5 and friendster.

For advertisers, friendster will increase social networking traffic reach for your campaigns. More information about friendster is below (quoted from a friendster press release).

“Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia, with over 55 million registered users and 33 million monthly unique visitors from Asia.* In Asia, Friendster is almost twice the size of any other social network. Friendster is the 9th largest website and the 3rd largest social network in the world in terms of traffic, with over 22.1 billion page views a month.* Friendster is 1st in “user engagement” among the top five global social networks with an average of 215 minutes per visitor per month.About Friendster With more than 75 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. ”

We have implemented a new feedback forum for advertisers and publishers to let us know how we are doing.

To access the feedback forum, just login to the Ad Chap web interface at http://stats.adchap.com and you will see the feedback tab on the side of the screen.

If you have an idea, comment, suggestion on how we can make things better just let us know.   Also, if you have comments on our new analytics and web interface, let us know that too.

We look forward to hearing your ideas!

Just in time for our one year anniversary of Ad Chap launching on facebook (we went live one year ago today), we are releasing, in beta, a new analytics platform for both advertisers and publishers.

Previously, you have been accessing Ad Chap either on our facebook or bebo applications within each respective social network.  Now you will be able to get access to all social networks  (Currently, we operate on bebo, facebook, hi5 and myspace, with more social networks on the way soon)  through the new Ad Chap web based user interface.

For publishers this will allow you to manage all your application monetization across social networks from one platform.  Features like comparing your application’s performance regardless of social network platform, dashboards, geographical analysis, and many more features are now available to you.

For advertisers, also A/B comparative tools, dashboards, more detailed cost analysis, raw data, graphical analysis and more.

To get started
1. Goto http://stats.adchap.com and create an account - If you are a new customer, that is it, you can get started.  If you are an existing or previous customer goto step 2

2. Merge your existing accounts.  Your account and all data in Ad Chap bebo and Ad Chap facebook applications can (and should be) merged all into one account.  You can do this in either the bebo / facebook application or in the new web based interface.  Just goto Account > Merge or Account > Preferences > Merge depending on which application you are in.  Select the platform you want to merge and follow the instructions.

3. You now have all your previous data available on one platform.  Going forward you can use the web based interface to view your entire account.

The Ad Chap bebo and Ad Chap facebook applications will no longer be improved, so we recommend all customers move over to the new web based platform in the coming months to continue to get new features, the best data and service.  Note, also you will not get a consolidated view from the bebo and facebook applications, only from the web UI.

The first step is detailed analytics for our advertisers and publishers, which we now will have a very good base to build upon.  Next we will be expanding the data, metrics and reports for you.  After that we have further plans that will build upon and expand the platform.

If you have any comments or suggestions on the new platform’s functionality, or you would like to let us know features you would like to see in the future, feel free to let us know anytime at support (at) adchap.com

We are grateful to have had your custom over the past year and we will strive to serve you even better in the years to come.

We realize the importance for both publishers and advertisers to have the data they need to manage their campaigns successfully.  We have been busy in development in order to improve Ad Chap reporting in several areas:

- Access.  To date we have provided access to statistics and campaign management via the Ad Chap facebook and Bebo applications.  This is great for working within a single platform but proved limited across multiple platforms.  Our upcoming web based application will provide unified access and control of your campaigns across all networks (currently facebook, bebo, hi5 and myspace with more coming in the near future)

- Dashboard.  Our new web analytics provides a much better overview of your campaigns

- Configurable time periods.  More control over the data you want to see.

- Visual.  Graphical representation of many data sets and statistics.

- Geographic data.  Understand where your clicks and impressions are taking place in the world to maximize returns and ROI.

- Reach.  Statistics on which networks your traffic or clicks are taking place on.

- Comparisons.  Compare ads for advertisers and apps for publishers.

- Downloadable data.  Download your data for your in-house data crunching

- Campaign management.  Create, edit and manage your advertiser and publisher campaigns

We are excited about the new release and hope it will help all of our customers to understand their social networking and media campaigns better and make more money whether you are an advertiser or publisher.

We expect the beta version to be live in less than two weeks.  If you would like to get early access to the new platform, let us know at support (at) adchap.com.

It has been a topic of discussion if social networking is approaching saturation in the United States or not.  There are many opinions on this subject but one thing that does seem to be quite unanimous is the growth prospects in the “rest of the world”.

Last month Comscore came out with some stats to back this up and indeed social networking site use in the rest of the world is growing, and growing fast.  Here is an excerpt from the report on regional growth.

Facebook and Hi5 are leading the growth worldwide according to the report.  Friendster follows up in third place for international growth rates.

It is also worthy to note that as facebook’s localization its user interface continues, it is posting some amazing growth numbers in other markets (other than North America).  In Latin America for example, facebook has grown over 1000% in the last year to June 2008.

The full Comscore report can be found here.