I'm pleased to announce that the "Places I've Played" Facebook application has now been "soft launched." What I mean by this is that the application is now available to be used publicly, although at this point in time we are only actively publishing this fact to those who have participated in the beta-testing process.

We now have working back-end applications that allow webmasters to earn revenue from the application, but to allow property testing of the back-end features we need to make the application generally available. Otherwise it is really impossible to test the promotion features to make sure they are all working properly. After all, if you cannot invite anyone to use the application, how can you make sure we are crediting you properly if someone signs up and uses the application based on an invitation from you.

The back-end applications are now available at https://www.gpwa.org/ex

Following is an updated summary of what is now in place:

About the facebook Application

The facebook application we have built has two primary components:

1. An application for facebook users who like to gamble and visit casinos (players)

We have built an application called "Places I've Played" that lets a facebook user record casinos and other types of gaming sites and facilities they have visited (both land-based and online). Users can use the application to record planned trips, whether they had a big win, and other information of that nature, and can also tell stories about their visits. Being a facebook application, this information will be published to their friends - I'm going to foxwoods this weekend. I won a slot tournament at river belle casino, or, as in the case of one of our employees a few months ago, I won $45K playing keno.

For land-based casinos we'll show where they are on a map. For both land and online casinos we'll let users of the applications indicate their favorites. And the links to online casinos will carry affiliate codes.

2. A back-end application for GPWA members to be able to promote their websites and earn revenue directly on facebook (affiliates)

If a facebook user adds the “Places I’ve Played” application based on your invitation, then anyone following a link published by that player to go to an online gaming site with which you have a relationship will be sent using your affiliate codes. You will be able to promote the application from your portal websites, in e-mail messages, and directly from within facebook. As a GPWA member you will have access to a back-end application that you can use to specify the affiliate codes for the various online gaming sites with which you work. You will also be able to provide information about a portal site and a facebook group you would like to feature within the “Places I’ve Played” pages of the players you invite.

There is also back-end reporting facility that provides statistics about the traffic through the application attributable to your players, and information such as what casinos they have links to and how many times those links have been clicked on to visit online gaming sites. We think GPWA webmasters will be able to use this infrastructure to promote their portal site and also generate some extra, potentially significant, revenue with very little work within facebook.

More detailed descriptive information is contained within the back-end application itself at https://www.gpwa.org/ex.

Why we think the application will be successful

As the application evolves we believe it will allow people to do a good job of sharing information about their gambling activities with their friends. The facebook "Cities I've Visited" application is quite popular, and we think "Places I've Played" shares many of the good social networking aspects as this application. Users of the application will be able to see their friend's favorite gaming destinations (both online and land-based), and share information, such as a big win, that they want their friends to know about.

We also think allowing users of the application to share both land-based and online gaming favorites is important. If friends that gamble in land-based facilities connect using the application, and one of the friends gambles online, we believe that knowing where their friends gamble online, with links directly to those sites where they play, will significantly increase the liklihood that their friends will decide to sign-up and play too. We think this is good for everyone in the industry, since this type of association with friends who gamble online increases the perceived legitimacy of online gaming.

Feedback

Now that we are nearly ready to make the application available to all GPWA portal webmasters your input on the application is very important to us. Let us know what you like, what you found confusing, what you think we got absolutely wrong, what clever idea you have that you think would make a difference, and, of course, what didn’t work when you tried it.

We have installed a new application call project tools on the GPWA website that will allow you to report problems and suggest features in a way that can be managed better than regular forum threads.

Just go to the page hxxps://www.gpwa.org/forum/project.php?projectid=2 and click on the link on the link titled "Post New Issue." You will then be prompted to provide details about the bug you are reporting or feature you are suggesting.

Michael