Posted on November 23rd, 2007 in Facebook | Comments
If you’re interested in Facebook apps, you should check out this post by Asi Sharabi on No Man’s Blog. It’s a good analysis of the top 100 Facebook apps with some good insights into the different types of applications and the social needs they fulfill. The post is long, but well worth the time.
Right, let’s start with some figures at the top and bottom of the 100 most popular apps. Leading the table is Top Friends with 22,285,000 installs and 8% daily active users. Closing this table at the time I write this report #100 is Games with 1,015,500 installs, yet only 1% of them are daily active users.
Looking at these 100 most popular applications a very interesting picture revealed. There are overall 3 categories that these applications can be organised into:
Identity formation - 43%
Phatic Communication - 37%
Other - 20%
Read the Rest of the post at No Man’s Blog >>
As I’ve written before, Facebook holds all the good cards in the game it’s playing with app developers for the platform. Valleywag has a great post up about their letter to application developers applying for Facebook grants - We Reserve the Right to Rip Off Your Idea
During this process, however, it has become clear that we will receive proposals which contain similar or even identical ideas. As a result, and in order to protect other developers and us from claims that we or anyone else copied material without the creator’s permission, unless we agree otherwise in writing, we can’t promise that any materials or information you submit here will be kept confidential, or specifically that we or others might not develop similar or identical products or services. Accordingly, we ask that you not submit any materials or information you consider to be confidential or proprietary to this e-mail address.
This said, if you would like us to delete any materials you have just sent us, please send us an e-mail within 48 hours instructing us to do so with an email subject “DELETE”, and we will delete those materials without review by anyone here. If we do not receive instructions to delete your materials within 48 hours, we will rely on that fact as indicating that you wish us to review your materials, with the understanding that we accept no obligations (whether of confidentiality, payment or otherwise) with respect to any materials, information or ideas included in your submission.
Jason Calacanis sums it up best:
However, give Facebook two missed quarters as a public company and they might not have no choice but to squeeze every ounce of revenue out of Facebook. That squeeze might include competing with the current crop of Facebook developers. You know what you can do if they have to squeeze? Nothing….
…Building inside closed ecosystems is very, very dangerous…. be careful.
If you’re building a business, you need to control your own destiny as much as possible. There are enough risks already.
The list below was from Appsaholic (which is awesome). It shows the Facebook apps with the highest growth rate over the last 24 hours. Number 4 is just hilarious.
If there was any doubt remaining in your mind about who’s calling the shots, here’s an excerpt from a post at VentureBeat that I found via Valleywag.
Facebook completely removed the Audio music-sharing application from its platform last night, saying it violated music copyrights.
Audio was developed by a third party using Facebook’s platform for developers, and Facebook says Audio violates its newly updated developer terms of service.
Audio allowed users to upload audio files in the mp3 format, share them with each other and listen to them within Facebook. By the end of last week, it had nearly 750,000 users.
Now granted, this seems like a legitimate step because of well-founded music copyright concerns. However, the fact remains that Facebook pulled the plug on an app with three quarters of a million users just like that.
This isn’t a judgement about Facebook. They’ve created something amazing and there’s no question in my mind that for the right applications, Facebook is a tremendous opportunity for distribution. However, I’d feel a lot better if I had a user base in my own right as well. Being dependent on someone else who’s not dependent on you is not good business.
Related Posts: Impressions from Seattle Facebook Developer Garage
I just got back from the Facebook Developer Garage in Seattle. These are local events started by a local sponsor for people interested in Facebook apps. There were a handful of people from Facebook including the Senior Platform Manager who spoke.
Overall, a really interesting event. Some of my impressions:
- Facebook is an incredible phenomenon - 33 million users, adding 100,000+ every day.
- The platform is real - 2000 apps in 2 months. 75% of active users have at least one app installed
- The talk is “open platform” but Facebook is in charge. They throttle things like invites and the number of notifications apps can put in the mini-feed (1 per user per day.) Like any other application built on a free api - you have no rights. You get what you pay for.
- Lots of Ruby developers in attendance. Probably the single largest group which is sort of crazy in Microsoft country.
- Virtual currency and Ad Networks are interesting right now. However, money is changing hands across Facebook apps. They’re encouraging more app developers to seek to get outside ad dollars into Facebook.
- Top app is seeing $20 CPM; $5-10 is more reasonable.
- Engagement is the key metric. Pageviews/user, repeat visits, time on site. People are more focused on raw numbers right now.
I think the talk about engagement is critical. Anyone will try your app once. The key is how often they come back and actually use your product. This is something we’re very focused on at Judy’s Book. Unless people are choosing to opt in to the experience you’re creating after their initial trial, you’re nowhere.
