$700 000/month with Socialmedia, unlikely.

$700 000/month with Socialmedia, unlikely.(blog.clutterme.com)

6 points by markm 17 years ago | 2 comments

joshuaxls 17 years ago |

As someone who has become fairly involved in the monetization of viral, online gaming, I can confidently say that it's not that unlikely for Socialmedia to claim numbers like that.

My real beef with this post is the assertion that Facebook apps are dying because of changes in layout. That's not true. Most of the big-name Facebook apps are growing traffic AND revenues. Check out how well the CPA-based solutions are doing.

The Facebook app realm is dominated by engaging, high-retention games. Think anything of the "Mob Wars" ilk. I can sympathize with the author's position seeing as how his apps were largely based on having something on the user's profile surface. Unfortunately, those apps are dead; it's the games that dominate Facebook now.

bemmu 17 years ago | |

I had two of those badge apps. One of those apps was making around $2000/day for a time, then $100/day after the changed profile and lowered CPMs. I sold that app so I can't really know, but I think it would be making even less now. Am I angry / disappointed? Not so much. That would be like winning the lottery twice in a row, and then being upset when you don't win for a third time. The app took almost no effort to create initially, although getting it to scale was an interesting challenge.

Now developers will need to come up with things that are more compelling, and this will bring better experiences to the users. Not that people were somehow coerced or spammed to install my badges. They spread by people noticing the badges on their friends' profiles, and installing them from there. Loyalty in Google Analytics showed a lot of people visiting regularly to tweak the layout of their badge, and I got a lot of nice feedback.

The company that I most look up to with admiration is Playfish. Those guys really know how to create experiences that are genuinely fun, but still viral enough to spread. I wish one day I will be skilled enough to be able to come up with apps that have quality matching what they offer.