With a lack of monetization options and greedy platform owners, it’s hard out there for small app makers. Platforms are made or killed by developers. Threatening their existence and changing the rules of the game will prevent serious companies from investing in their platforms.
According to TechCrunch:
Facebook has been quietly searching for a partner to take over their year and a half old classified listings application, and may relaunch as early as the end of December.
By partnering and endorsing an app developer for their Facebook platform poses some problems to the other players in that market segment. Where do players like iList or iLike end up?
Michael Arrington proposes the following options in a article while exploring the possibilities for a Facbeook Music service to compete with MySpace Music:
1) build their own music service like MySpace did and lose the trust of their application developers forever (plus it will take them a year or more to build the service and secure deals with labels and other rights holders),
I can only think of an Internet Explorer-like evil doings that destroyed Netscape.
(2) partner with a third party to build out Facebook Music, and then compete on a somewhat level playing field with other third party developers
Level playing field, really? Are there clouds that taste like cotton candy and a shinny lemon flavored Sun in that world as well? In my opinion people usually go with the default(platform branded, i.e. Facebook Classifieds) application, even if it is just good enough.
(3) just acquire iLike (or another service) flat out, since they’re already a “Great App,” and show developers that if they really excel in their niche, they have a path to liquidity.
Nice to know the only way to make bank off a Facebook app is by being acquired by a company that doesn’t know how to monetize their success? How comforting!
The Facebook Platform is broken, no matter how you see it. The biggest selling point for a Facebook app is: you have a huge market available. But does that really matter?
In contrast Apple’s recently released iPhone platform is far from perfect, but it has clearer monetization and rules. Apart from a few isolated cases the iPhone platform is much more standardized and a better playing field for small developers.
The platforms that will survive going into the future(recession) will be the ones that can provide the following things to developers in this particular order:
1. Optimized Monetization(no lipstick on pig, banner/text add commission)
2. Large installed base
3. Clear rules and level playing field
4. Solid development tools
No comments yet.