facebook apps - here, there and everywhere
July 11, 2007 – 9:13 pmFacebook is quite the buzz these days in startup land especially since they opened up their app platform (something that those of us in online marketing have been begging for years for fwiw - hint, hint, wink, wink FIM). For those building consumer web services you know absolutely need to understand facebook and think long and hard about your facebook application strategy (just like in 2006 you needed to think long and hard about your myspace widget strategy). So we’ve been down this road before. The main difference is that Facebook is trying to allow it’s application providers actually build real businesses around the apps! I know shocking!
My buddy Dave McClure does a great writeup around initial thinking about facebook application marketing (check it out - it’s the feed, stupid!). I’ve been playing around with Facebook like Dave these past few weeks and trying to ramp my ultra n00b status up and think Dave’s hit a lot of key points. One thing is that the Feed has some limitations that I’ve found recently that limit some of it’s godsend ability for app marketing within Facebook. I’ll be posting more details soon. Also one thing I noticed is that how early stage and unpolished most of the apps - it’s early for sure. And that’s not a bad thing.
And now another pal - Scott Rafer is up to no good again ;) with Lookery according to GigaOm an ad network for facebook apps - assuming it can be expanded to all widgets - all I have to say is why didn’t I think of it first. Great idea.
