A lot of people are talking about the Facebook Platform lately, so this past weekend I decided to check out the Facebook Developer Garage, held at Facebook’s Palo Alto HQ, to find out what all the fuss is about.
The event packed a lot of geeks into a small room, and was fun and informative. A bunch of others have blogged about the event, so I’m not going to rehash it in detail. You can also watch videos of some of the speakers here and here.
The event began with a talk from lead platform engineer Dave Fetterman, which basically served as a motivational speech on how cool the platform is, and why everyone should develop apps.
With the tone set, R. Tyler Ballance from Slide gave a more technical presentation covering lessons learned in building various popular facebook apps.
Next up were ‘lightning round’ presentations, where 8 Facebook app developers talked for 10 minutes each about their experiences. All were very candid in sharing advice for other Facebook developers.
Apart from some interesting technical tidbits, such as the performance benefits of JSON vs XML, and the fact you can run on Amazon EC2 for around $100 a day, one of the most interesting talks came from Lance Tokuda at Rockyou. I’ll share some details of his talk here:
To achieve strong user growth, first engage the user during the signup process (basically make it very easy for them to install, minimize work), then engage their friends (have them invite their friends etc during installation, as well as ongoing engagement), and thirdly use techniques to encourage viral growth (have a strong call to action when people view the app on others’ profile pages etc).
Lance presented a case study, showing how RockYou worked with Yahoo! Music and used these techniques (as well as cross-selling via RockYou’s ad network), to go from design to 900K users in four weeks. The application is on track to join the million user club very shortly (an enviable position for the vast majority of facebook applications).
RockYou’s real secret to rapid growth is to very quickly gain the first thousand users by cross selling the application within their network. This works so well that they are opening up this network to other developers (and monetizing accordingly).
While Lance mentioned that they will work with individual application developers for free, this rate card (courtesy of Valleywag) shows pricing starting at $5K to acquire 6,500 users.
Pizza and networking followed the lightning round presentations. Apparently there were some more technical discussions later in the afternoon, but I decided to head down the street and check out the Palo Alto Art Festival and enjoy the great weather for the rest of this Saturday afternoon.
Overall, I am definitely more excited about the Facebook Platform after attending this event. It is clear that there is a lot of enthusiasm for the platform from developers and investors alike. One VC in the audience went so far as to claim that Facebook users will be worth between $1 and $10, and we are all now on the ground floor of a real money-making opportunity. I guess time will tell.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
Atlas Shrugged
Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying
Yahoo! Hacks
The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm
The Fountainhead
$1 per user seems like a lot, especially since most of the applications are fun, such as the zombie one, and the cocktails, etc. I’m not sure how well those types of apps can be monetized, or their longevity. But there will certainly be some new business opportunities from Facebook apps and the sooner you can get into this the easier it will be to rise up above the white noise of thousands of other developers jumping in.
Please could you explain about facebook application and its integration