Trey Philips goes over some basic steps to be successful on the Facebook Platform

1. Getting love from the Facebook
Platform
http://apps.facebook.com/facebook_success

2. http://apps.facebook.com/treys_f8_story
THE F8 STORY

3. The F8 Invite
• Random invite must
have been an accident
• Allowing individuals to
develop applications
before you launch is a
good idea (hint hint,
impending platform
launches).

4. The F8 Event
• Somewhat predictable
announcement, but still
awesome
• From a developer’s
POV, this is a great way
to rapidly gain a user
base
• From the user’s POV…

5. The F8 User “Possibilities”
• From the user’s POV…

6. The F8 User Possibilities
• Access to cool, • Additions to Facebook
unheard-of web itself that the company
applications from never implemented
outside of Facebook

7. The F8 Idea
• Really the first time
we’ve seen such third-
party integration to a
major site
• Pretty successful
• Other companies
attempting to emulate
its success
• Individual platforms are
the future?

8. The F8 Apps
• All alone
• Coded hardcore for a few
hours
• Went on family vacation
• Had to work from dial-up
= tragic
• Sold to SideStep
– Their current app was a
true utility
• Fun summer internship
with them in Silicon
Valley

9. The F8 Lesson
• Listen to your fellow developers. Maybe
they’ve got a good idea. Maybe it’ll pay off
later.
• Love Facebook.

10. http://apps.facebook.com/creating_a_killer_app
(Introducing the <fb:killer-app /> tag)
CREATING A KILLER APP

11. General tips: start now
• Get in early
– App fatigue
– Flooded directory
– No more good URLs
(minor but annoying)
• Concentrate on your
idea
– Make it unique
– The longer you wait, the
more likely it’ll be done

12. General tips: start now
• Don’t spend too much
time developing before
launching
– User feedback will guide
you (if it’s successful)
– Prepare to respond to it
while your app is still
somewhat small (a few
thousand users)
• Make the app sticky

13. Facebook approach
• How to use requests
• How to use notifications
– “Zombies” was blocked when its
developer left for 9 hours to go play
Frisbee. The reason? He was using
notifications instead of requests to tell
people they had been bitten. Now he
uses them appropriately and actually
sees better results.
• Don’t go in just for money
– leads to spam apps
• Don’t take things so seriously
– It’s all experimental
– Monetization? Ehh… Although some
apps are claiming 100k/year (which is
interesting because it’s only been open
five months), monetization is really
hard.
– One really useful effect of applications
is building name recognition

14. Different types of apps
• Utilities and games
– Useful inside and outside of Facebook
– Well developed because they’re
feature-filled
– Facebook <3s utilities and games, builds
around them
• New metrics
• Preventing abuse
• Games are gaining
• FBFund
• Dave @ Facebook talking about good
apps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8K
ggY3LhSw
• Facebook extensions
– Wall apps
– Gifts apps
– Poking apps
– Extended Info
• Fads and seasonal applications
– Zombies
– Quotes

15. Define “success”
• Total users?
• Active users?
• Niche users?
• Users in a specific demographic?
• Happy users
– measure this by looking at groups.
Try searching Facebook for
‘Funwall’ and clicking the groups
tab at the top. Then, try ‘Extended
Info.’
• What happens next?
– Sell the app
• To who?
– Bidder with the highest price so
you can sit around reading
Valleywag all day?
– Best bidder for your users?
– Take it out of Facebook
– Try to maintain it independently

16. Demographics
• Changing fast on
Facebook
• Most are not students
anymore
• Most are at least 25
• More females
• Is your app targeting all
the people it could be?
• Mostly English speaking
users, for now…
– Get in early on multi-
lingual apps

17. Execution
• Prepare to scale
– You host the most
– Facebook app =
Facebook traffic
– Tyler’s “Coping with
success”
• Keep up that growth
– Deceleration = bad news
• Prepare for Tuesday
night pushes. Seriously.

18. Metrics
• Think about it before you
launch
• Google analytics/urchin
has its own FBML tag
• More advanced analytics
means you’ll be able to
tell from the beginning
what viral methods work
and what don’t
• Maybe we’ll have more
advanced analytics soon

19. Growth
• #1 tip: make it social
• Organic growth
– Verified by latest stats
– News feed
• Use images for more visibility
• Call to action = cheesy
• Now templatized! More users = more
likely to appear in news feed
– Directory
• Often forgotten: think about your icon,
app name, and add a screenshot to
your ‘About’ page
• Abuse (aka spam)
– Don’t use notifications in the beginning.
They have a tendency to be marked as
spam then.
• Advertising
– Free indie ads from Tyler/Slide
(unethicalblogger.com)
– Facebook app ad networks like
Slide/RockYou/Cubics/several others
– Submit your app to review/news sites

20. Example App
• “The Wall, Lah”
– Translates wall posts to Singlish
– “omg haven’t talked to you in a while”
might turn into
“alamak! long time no talk lah!”
• Who does this target?
• Will it catch on? Is it sticky?
• How does it spread?
• Can it monetize?

21. Next up
• I’ve talked about:
– The idea
– Planning
– Executing
• So what’s left?
– World domination
– Monetization
– (cue next speech)
• The best applications, the ones that drive
Facebook, are supposed to come from
developers, so get to work tonight 