Slide 1 : FACEBOOK
AND
FACEBOOK APPLICATIONS
What is Facebook? : What is Facebook? - A free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook
Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people
- Facebook members can put together their own profile that lets them post photos, send public and private messages, list their interests and build a directory of friends.
- People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves
Slide 4 : Number One site for photos in the United States, ahead of public sites such as Flickr
Membership - 200 million
Growth
7 million (July 2006)
9 million (September 2006)
14 million (January 2007)
36 million (August 2007)
68 million (April 1 2008)
200 million (May2009)
More than 100K new registrations daily
35% growth since launching applications Facebook Growth
Slide 5 : Founded in February 2004
Founders:
Mark Zuckerberg
Eduardo Saverin
Dustin Moskovitz
Chris Hughes
All were students at Harvard College at the time
Lawsuit from website ConnectU
-Alleged that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea while employed by their company History
Facebook’s Main Features : Facebook’s Main Features Making “Friends” & keeping in touch
Personal whiteboards or “walls”
Joining “Groups” and their message boards
Advertising Parties / “Events”
Private messaging
Uploading & Sharing an unlimited amount of
Pictures
Campus Advertising
Displaying your “status
Slide 7 : Applications by Facebook
Groups
Events
Notes
Posted Items
Video
Applications by Third Parties
What are Facebook Applications? : What are Facebook Applications? Facebook Applications are optional enhancements that Facebook users add to their profiles to enhance their interactions with friends and networks.
Original Facebook applications include Photos, Notes and Groups.
In 2007, Facebook enabled third parties to develop applications that live within the site
Small programs developed specifically for Facebook profiles
- to add some fun and personality to their Facebook profile.
- to generate content that the user finds is relevant or of interest to them.
Facebook Application Directory : Facebook Application Directory Business’
Education
Entertainment
Friends and Family
Games
Just for fun
Lifestyle
Sports
Utilities
Slide 11 : “Virtually an application for everything, ranging from a Facebook application that reminds a user when their favourite band is coming to town to a slide show of a collection of sentimental photos.”
Most successful Facebook Application : Most successful Facebook Application LivingSocial by LivingSocial - 24,089,596 monthly active users
Best way to show off and keep track of the things you like to do and Tell everyone the 5 books to read before they die, keep track of your movie watching and more! It works with books, movies, albums, beers, tv shows and more!
Causes by Causes - 18,978,089 monthly active users
Causes strives to empower people from all walks of life to have a positive impact on the world in which they live..
Movies by Flixster - 14,227,595 monthly active users
Compare your taste in movies with friends. Share reviews. Discover new movies. Test your movie knowledge with the Never-Ending Movie Quiz.
We're Related by FamilyLink.com - 13,862,457 monthly active users
Build your family tree and see who you are related to on Facebook! With this application you can find relatives on Facebook and build your family tree. Add this app, it is sweet!
Slide 13 : RockYou Live (formerly Super Wall) by RockYou! - 13,323,494 monthly active users
The best way to find and share entertaining videos pictures, graffiti, and more with your friends!
Texas HoldEm Poker by Zynga - 12,672,561 monthly active users
Play Texas Hold'Em with your fb friends. Get free chips every day that you play.
Top Friends by Slide, Inc.-12,633,361 monthly active users
Own your profile with Top Friends! Now you can CUSTOMIZE your Top Friends Profile! Choose your skin, add music and more. Give and receive exclusive awards, show off your mood and keep tabs on the people you really care about with Top Friends News!
Slide 14 : Mafia Wars by Zynga- 11,978,239 monthly active users
Start a Mafia Family with your friends, do Crime Jobs for cash, buy Powerful Weapons, and Fight!!!
Pet Society by Playfish - 10,955,644 monthly active users
In the world of Pet Society you and your pet can have a great time! You can play games, decorate your house and even bring gifts for your friends when you visit them. Play now and share the fun with everyone!
Birthday Cards by RockYou - 9,221,272 monthly active users
Send your friends the BEST custom cards on Facebook! Make a custom birthday card or a funcard from millions of user generated content for any occasion. Manage your birthday calendar, get reminders for your special friends birthdays, and more!
How to build successful Facebook Applucation : How to build successful Facebook Applucation Copy Another Application
Put a New Twist On A Popular Application
Launch Holiday Oriented Applications
Niche Gifts
Translate Existing Applications Into A Foreign Language
Post Outrageous News Feed Stories
Integrate a Way to Rate Friends
Turn A Popular Fan Page Into an Application
Slide 16 : Create the Online Version of a Television Game Show
Create Culturally Oriented Applications
Create a Ranking System
Make People Feel Like They’re Part of an Inside Joke
Generate Creative Quizzes
Slide 17 : 1.) Copy Another Application
Imitation is the biggest form of flattery
For those that are not very creative, duplicating applications is frequently the most efficient model for attracting a lot of users.
Copy the top applications and there’s a good chance that you will attract a large number of users
For example, there is now an entire suite of Mob Wars applications created by Zynga and SGN which are essentially copycats of the original Mob Wars application.
2.) Put a New Twist On A Popular Application
Improving upon existing applications can bring you great success.
If there is a popular application that appears to have an active user base but still doesn’t rank among the top 50 applications, you may want to explore ways to improve
Slide 18 : 3.) Launch Holiday Oriented Applications
Applications have thrived on the Facebook platform. Every time another holiday comes around, a temporary spike in application traffic is seen to those apps catering to the specific holiday. So market for holiday applications.
4.) Niche Gifts
Niche gifts are most popular applications tend to have avid fan bases.For example, the YoVille virtual world application, created by Zynga, has an extremely active user base
5.) Translate Existing Applications Into A Foreign Language
Take one of the more popular applications (not the most popular since the are probably translated already) and convert it into different languages. Also, a good strategy for choosing which language to translate into is to use our demographic statistics tool to find the fastest growing countries and then translate applications into each country’s native language
Slide 19 : 6.) Post Outrageous News Feed Stories
By publishing news feed stories regularly with outlandish statements you rapidly increase the likelihood of friends of your users clicking through and adding the application.
7.) Integrate a Way to Rate Friends
The act of rating friends to determine who’s the most popular, who’s the most friendly, who is the best looking, and others, caters to our inner high school yearbook ranking system. Any time you can list out friends into ranked lists, you are guaranteed to attract the attention of users.
8.) Turn A Popular Fan Page Into an Application
Fan pages are a great indicator for what’s popular among users of the Facebook platform.Go find the most popular topics and brands and build applications around them.
For example Kinder Surprise, a popular chocolate egg which comes with a toy inside (and has been banned from the United States), is one of the most popular pages on Facebook.
Slide 20 : 9.) Create the Online Version of a Television Game Show
Duplicating television game shows.One good model is to recreate a television game show but call it something else
10.) Create Culturally Oriented Applications
People tend to be strongly attached to is their cultural groups. Whether it’s religion or geographically related cultural activities, targeting sub-groups of users is always a great way to achieve rapid adoption
11.) Create a Ranking System
One of the better ranking systems I can think of is done through Grader.com. The site has a number of ranking systems including the Facebook grader which ranks the top Facebook users and top Facebook pages.
Slide 21 : 12.) Make People Feel Like They’re Part of an Inside Joke
Making people feel like their part of an exclusive group as well as stroking their ego by emphasizing their intelligence. The Dunder Mifflin Nifty Gifties application is a good example of this
13.) Generate Creative Quizzes
Quizzes are a great step for first attracting users. Browse through a Cosmopolitan magazine, and you’ll see it filled with tons of quizzes that are almost identical to ones they put in previous editions. Quizzes are as enticing as top 10 lists. They never fail to capture the user’s attention.
Conclusion : Conclusion “Don’t expect to see immediate success though just by using the strategies outline. You need to go through a little bit of trial and error and run thorough A/B testing in order to maximize your application’s “viral potential”.
References : References http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-application-strategies/
http://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php
http://s3.amazonaws.com/ppt-download/inside-facebook-applications-july20071464.pdf