Facebook Platform - The Challenges Ahead For Developers

There is no question that the new Facebook platform is going to have a massive impact on the market. A FB app and integration is going to become an essential part to any social site and startup, just like the rage of widgets was middle of last year. With only days under its belt, we’ve already seen one massive success with iLike’s music service. Despite all of this I do think that there will be challenges for developers and entrepreneurs ahead:

Overcrowding
With massive popularity, the Facebook platform is going to get flooded with new applications. It won’t be long until the number of applications is so high, that it will make it extremely tough for any individual application to stand out above the rest. Gaining traction will soon be just as tough as it is in the open web. The only difference is that instead of vying for users among the open web, each app is vying for an audience within an audience. The early applications that avoid the mass overcrowding will have a significant advantage in gathering an audience.

Making Money Will Be Harder Then You Think

Thousands of eyes lit up with gold when Mark Zuckerberg said that application owners would be allowed to keep all revenue produced by the application. But I think there is one important thing to remember; all applications will be within the context of Facebook. And Facebook has two key aspects, one, advertising is extremely light (to the point that a lot of Fbook users don’t even know its there), and two, everything is free. Users will have the same expectations for applications as they do for the facebook environment itself. They will not respond well to ads, and possibly even worse to subscriptions.

Transferring Users Off Of Facebook

Users already spend huge chunks of their online time on Facebook, and this number will increase much further as all of their favorite applications and content become available within Facebook as well. I think this could have an adverse affect on those applications that need to get users from Facebook, over their own platform. Users are going to expect more from within Facebook, and will opt for those applications that give them more. It is going to be a very careful balancing act for companies in deciding what to offer through the platform, and what users can only get through the company’s site.

Only One True Winner Per Category

The most successful applications will be those that leverage the social power of Facebook. But with any social application outside of Facebook, it takes a critical mass of users for it to be useful. Same goes for within Facebook. This means that there will probably be one star application for each category (i.e. iLike for the music category), while the rest will struggle with a very small portion of the audience.

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Online Community, Facebook, Facebook Platform, F8, Facebook F8, iLike, Brian Balfour[/tags]