Facebook Developers Garage Vancouver (October 2007): Monetization Highlights
October 24, 2007
As demonstrated by the image above, I am a Facebook addict.
Tonight was a night of firsts - my first Facebook event, and my first external presentation. It goes without saying that I was pumped.
The Facebook Developers Garage, held at the Vancouver Film School, brought together a hundred of Vancouver’s Facebook enthusiasts for a night of demos and forward thinking. Most interesting was the presentation on monetization by Jason Bailey, of Millnic Media.
Do you think you can make a million dollars in revenue from a Facebook application? How about in a week? Seems impossible, especially with the notoriously poor performance of banner ads inside of Facebook. But, after being introduced to Pink Ribbon and My Graveyard, I can see how it’s definitely possible.
Pink Ribbon
The premise of Pink Ribbon is to support research for breast cancer during breast cancer month. For each user that installs the application, and an accompanying tool bar, Pink Ribbon donates a small amount to break cancer research. However - that’s where the good ends and dollar signs start coming into view.
In support of defeating breast cancer, millions of users have added the Pink Ribbon application and its tool bar. Yes, Pink Ribbon is donating money for breast cancer research, but it’s keeping a margin for itself as well. The money comes in through the tool bar installation, which is a form of adware. I didn’t get the exact numbers, but when you break down over a million users, even if only 10% of users were to install the tool bar, Pink Ribbon would still be making a hefty payday. This is a perfect example of knowing your target market and timing your campaign to coincide with important events.
It’s surely a lucrative application, I can’t imagine Facebook is happy with them as it seems they’ve been removed from the directory listing.
My Graveyard
In My Graveyard, you can create your own graveyard full of pumpkins, ghouls, headstones, and goblins. Each day, you’re allotted a small number of coins where you can purchase items for your graveyard. However, once you deplete them, you’re done for the day. Unless, of course, you fill out an offer.
Similar to the free iPod sites, My Graveyard lets you trade completed offers for coins. And of course, for each completed offer, My Graveyard receives an affiliate fee.
I can’t say I see My Graveyard to be as lucrative as Pink Ribbon. The human connection just isn’t the same, plus I think people have an easier time downloading a tool bar than completing a free movie rental offer.
This whole thing kind of makes me feel dirty to be a marketer. I wonder how many people realize this happens behind the scenes all the time?
For an overview of the event, make sure to check out Miss604’s blog.
Posted in Advice, Facebook, Monetization, Personal
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October 25th, 2007 at 2:31 am
*drools*
oh jeremy.. you look mighty studly in that picture.. how i want to touch you…
October 25th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Fantastic post! — you really captured all of the thoughts I was having after the event. Also - brilliant photo!
October 25th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Web users are very savvy these days - sure they know that applications are making money off them, but they continue to participate so they can continue to enhance their application experience.
At facebookcamptoronto2, Ami Vora was there and she spent a great deal of time talking about the “social graph” that is mapped onto facebook, and she really illustrated the reasons that facebook users are spending more and more time on the site each day, and why so many more people sign up. The really good applications are the ones that help us add detail to the social graph… and there are the good ones that just entertain (though interest in these will wane).
Great post! I came over her from Miss604s post.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Did some detective work — the Pink Ribbon application (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=5242885101) is developed by the developers of FreeCause.com. They don’t just develop toolbars for Breast Cancer — they’re all over the gamut!
“Take your web experience to the next level. Whether you are a charity, sports team, national brand, or political campaign, FreeCause can help you gain recognition and support.”
–FreeCause.com
They allow any of these groups to easily customize a toolbar for FREE so that they can then get all of their members to install it. In theory, a toolbar is an excellent way to engage with your constituency so a nonprofit would be very much inclined to encourage their thousands or millions of members to install a fully customized, branded toolbar.
And for every member who installs the toolbar, FreeCauses likely generates a significant & quite sustainable revenue. There are over a dozen affiliate programs that are built into the toolbar and FreeCauses likely gets a cut of all the revenue generated from the ads that get clicked on when people do a Yahoo search (which is the toolbar’s main feature).
Back to the facebook conversation — if you install the toolbar through the Facebook app, some of the money goes to Breast Cancer, right? — but if you get a toolbar from the site directly, ALL the money goes to the MIT grads who started FreeCause. As far as I can tell, anyway. They don’t really discuss this stuff on their website.
This raises a lot of questions … about transparency, revenue-sharing, and how we should be engaging pro-social institutions.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Danielle:
I’ve been trying to voice what it is that makes a Facebook application successful - and I think you nailed it.
I’m a big fan of Graffiti. Oftentimes, it’s just as silly as Zombies or the other spammy applications. However, the difference is that Graffiti holds value like a Facebook Wall does - it’s a communication between two nodes in the social graph, and thus adds detail to that graph. But Zombies? Nothing, as far as I know.
Kudos! (And hot pink blog, by the way.)
Joe:
What a sleuth!
I have to applaud them for nailing an market that will take action. In fact, it seems weird that no one’s done it before. People go great lengths to support causes. (When you look at all the things people do to support their beliefs, a toolbar isn’t so bad.)
From an ethical standpoint, is this different from the existing charities out there? They pay for staffing, marketing, administration, expansion, etc. I guess it all comes down to margins.
Where do we strike the balance between capitalism and benevolence? How far off are we now?
October 28th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
[…] Marketing Ruined My Life, a blog by Canadian Jeremy Lim, is a Vancouver marketing blog. This blog features posts on many topics related to marketing and web development, in particular, he recently posted on his attendance of facebookcampvancouver. […]
October 29th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
[…] on October 30th, 2007. Two ways described in this blog how in how to make money with Facebook. Pink Ribbon Facebook App and Graveyards. This from a video talk by Millnic Media at the Facebook Developers […]
January 16th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
freecause is a scam. i’m not convinced they give money to the causes they say they do..questionable