

$700 000/month with Socialmedia, unlikely. - markm
http://blog.clutterme.com/2009/03/700-000month-with-social-media-bullocks.html

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joshuaxls
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.

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bemmu
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.

