Using rails and Facebooker we released our first app I think in something like 2 days. We went from 0 platform experience and an idea to a simple but functional app (that grew like crazy, but unfortunately had only 2 weeks to sign up new members) in probably under 20 developer hours. Our following app (the one that is doing fairly well today) took something like 1 developer month to launch, though we've since put probably put 1 developer year into improving it, generalizing the engine and launching two new themes on top of it, as well as porting the whole thing to Myspace. We'll be releasing game #4 onto both networks this week.
We didn't have to worry about being accepted into any store. (Facebook has an app directory that takes a couple days to get reviewed for, but honestly there's very little benefit to even being in it.) After we launched, upgrading was as simple as any website. We didn't have to make some fairly hard to achieve top 25 list to get traffic, in fact, we're hoping for the reverse.
Developing for Facebook isn't that different than any other web development (in fact a lot of apps run in an iframe). It's far easier, and gives far less control to a third party. It's far more lucrative, doesn't have the "hit or miss" aspect of the app store.
You're right about the hosting cost. Only some iPhone apps need that, many do not. All Facebook/Myspace ones do. But the greater monetization potential more than makes up for it if you're doing games (I'm not so sure about other types of apps). eCPMs on offer pages are measured in the $100s. Many people I know (in a way that would be admissible in court) are pulling in north of $500. Even if that only amounts to 1% of your traffic, that's still ludicrously high, especially on the volume you can get very quickly.
The only way in which it is inferior is it isn't sexy and nobody is going to write lots of articles about you. The iShoot guy got more coverage in bigger media outlets for bringing in $600k than Zynga did for making $40-$50m last year.
We didn't have to worry about being accepted into any store. (Facebook has an app directory that takes a couple days to get reviewed for, but honestly there's very little benefit to even being in it.) After we launched, upgrading was as simple as any website. We didn't have to make some fairly hard to achieve top 25 list to get traffic, in fact, we're hoping for the reverse.
Developing for Facebook isn't that different than any other web development (in fact a lot of apps run in an iframe). It's far easier, and gives far less control to a third party. It's far more lucrative, doesn't have the "hit or miss" aspect of the app store.
You're right about the hosting cost. Only some iPhone apps need that, many do not. All Facebook/Myspace ones do. But the greater monetization potential more than makes up for it if you're doing games (I'm not so sure about other types of apps). eCPMs on offer pages are measured in the $100s. Many people I know (in a way that would be admissible in court) are pulling in north of $500. Even if that only amounts to 1% of your traffic, that's still ludicrously high, especially on the volume you can get very quickly.
The only way in which it is inferior is it isn't sexy and nobody is going to write lots of articles about you. The iShoot guy got more coverage in bigger media outlets for bringing in $600k than Zynga did for making $40-$50m last year.