Facebook Developers, Application Advertising
Since Facebook released their public API several months ago, thousands of applications have appeared on the popular social networking website. Applications ranging from new communication tools to funny quotes boxes have sprung up and become extremely popular (in a web sense) in a matter of hours. The real question is, what is the incentive to the developer?
At Highlight Media, we have developed two Facebook applications which have been approved and have made it to the application directory. TextMsgMe and Best Wall currently have around four thousand users each. TextMsgMe is an application that puts a box on your profile through which users are able to send SMS messages to each others cellphones for free. Best Wall is an alternative to the regular wall on Facebook. It allows users to use HTML in posts, allowing people to post images, emoticons, flash files, and much more on each others walls.
Now to the interesting part. Though both applications have experimented with targeted commission campaigns on both profile and landing pages, neither have even broken the hundred dollar mark in commission. With other thirty thousand views per application, not even enough profit to pay for the hosting. You may be thinking, why not use pay-per-click ads? You can’t! Facebook does not allow JavaScript on profile pages outside of i-frames, and that rules out Google Adsense and most other well known advertising alternatives.
In the end the only real sense in having a Facebook application, is to gain social fame, and possibly some awareness in your networks. Business on the other hand which target users who may be interested in a paid service, have the potential to make thousands by attracting the younger crowd with their flashy applications. Moral of the story is, don’t expect to make much with Facebook, you’ll likely be disappointed.
Comments
Leave a Reply