Facebook announced that it was enabling developers to expand their monetization options with in-app currency offers. Facebook app developers have been able to integrate offers into their apps, but they've only been able to convert them to Facebook Credits rather than the virtual currency of their apps.
It may not seem like much of a hurdle, especially since all virtual currency used in Facebook apps is converted from Facebook Credits in the first place, but it was confusing for some users.
What's interesting is that the move pretty much brings Facebook apps to where they were a few years ago, with the slight but notable difference that everything now goes through Facebook and that the social network takes a 30 percent cut out of every transaction.
"We’re launching in-app currency offers, which lets developers award users with their own in-app currency (e.g., Fred Currency in Fred's game) upon completing an offer," Facebook
announced.
"Previously, developers were able to integrate Credits offers, where users earned Facebook Credits by completing offers. The new in-app currency offers product is in addition to the Credits offers product, and you can utilize either or both in your app," it explained.
Offers don't have the best reputation on Facebook; in the 'good' old days, most offers were really shady and essentially amounted to the type of scams you can still find plenty of in the more unsavory places of the web.
They were found mostly in Facebook games and they allowed plenty of companies to make a lot of money, including the biggest names in the market like Zynga.
Facebook finally intervened, but only after being called out on the scammy offers, and removed the option to include offers in apps altogether. It brought them back last year, but only through approved third-parties and only in exchange for Facebook Credits.
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