A Word on Facebook Applications: Part 1

As reported from Compete.com, Facebook received 15.7 billion page views in August making it the third highest entity for page views online. The major catalyst for this run has been Facebook Applications. In fact, ’attention’ (a new metric) has grown over 50% since Facebook opened its platform to Applications. Attention combines engagement (measured by time) and traffic (measured by unique visitors) into a single, more holistic look at a website’s value.

During the month of August 14 Million persons interacted with Facebook Applications — an incredible number especially considering that ~16 Million browsed photos in August. This means that nearly as many people interacted with the Applications, as did with FB Photos (arguably Facebook’s most sophisticated feature).

Taken in context of Pokes (80,000 in August), Facebook Applications received 176x the number of Poke interactions — a staggeringly high number. Pokes, though dated, are interesting in terms of functionality because they convey the more social, ‘hooking-up’ nature of the site. Applications, like Pokes, also tend to be fun interactions but they clearly represent a movement away from simplified and direct 1:1 interactions. Applications have the ability to be viral and support advertising. Also by using Applications, Facebook users can more easily interact with multiple parties and have access to new faces from outside their own networks (if an Application is installed, you often gain access to all installers of that Application).

So what does this mean for businesses looking to break into Facebook Applications?

More to come

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