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Talking 'bout social apps

Don't Cry Over Your Facebook InvitesMarch 4

Over the last week those of us with Facebook applications have had to try to figure out how to deal with a dramatic decrease in invites that can be sent from an app.  The whole point of developing on the Facebook platform is to be able to have the opportunity to jump into a viral loop and now one of our key accelerators is gone.  Yes, this is frustrating to deal with but I believe all legitimate social application developers and marketers will benefit from this move. 

It's pretty simple, there is obviously a lot of abuse by developers of the Facebook platform.  No matter what changes Facebook makes there are going to be developers who are going to try and figure out how to game the system.  Facebook has a responsibility to its end users to protect them from this abuse.  If they don't we will see users abandoning the application directory if not Facebook as a whole.  We should expect the invite (and the news and mini-feed) rules to continue to change.  Since there is absolutely nothing any of us (at least those of us who don't work at Facebook) can do about these rule changes, the best strategy is to focus on the core value your application is offering to the end user.

Those of us who focus on creating social applications that engage the end user

Social Feed Aggregators Make My Head HurtFebruary 26

One of my favorite innovations that social applications have brought us is being able to see the stream of activity that my friends have engaged in on a site. I spend way more time on Facebook's News Feed page than I do staring at my own (or any of my friend's) profile.  Having a presence on nearly every social platform and many friends that are just as active as I am means that there are lots of places to try and keep track of what my friends are up to.   Clearly others have experienced this same pain as the hottest new trend seems to be sites that aggregate these streams and try to make friend content consumption more efficient.  Louis Gray has done a great job covering this space if you are interested in learning more.

In theory I love the idea of having a single place I can see what all my friends are up to.  I have experimented with Plaxo, Spokeo and today's next great thing and after the initial oohs and aahs of seeing a huge list of activity I just haven't been able to find a long term value that would keep me using these services.  Maybe I am totally missing something but here are the two big problems I have run into in my use of these services:

1.  So while these services may grab m

The Social CloudFebruary 20

Google's Kevin Marks gives an interesting talk on the power of the "social cloud" as a default component of the web experience.  This isn't really a technical talk, but it's exciting to think about the possibilities if the API's that Google is developing are able to elegantly handle the complexities that Kevin mentions in a abstract manner that "just works".   Whether this social cloud is powered by Google or consortium of players (much more likely), I do not believe we are far from a time when developers view the relationships amongst users as a standard asset of web development much like TCP/IP or DNS.  I believe we are going to see a lot of cool products and happy developers in the future.   

Not All Users are Created EqualFebruary 19

Last week I mentioned the need to differentiate between the quality of traffic to your social application and the quantity.   Today over at Mashable Co-founder of Developers Analytics, Charles Yong, goes further when he explains:

“Someone with the right social graph can easily result in tens of thousands of installs, whereas a person with the wrong social graph may fetch only a few extra installs beyond their own. Hence, we believe there may be a paradigm shift in the near future as to how credit is distributed in link exchange and ultimately, advertising. As the platform matures, advertisers will slowly move from the traditional “clickthrough” strategy towards the more organic “viral referral” strategy. Hence, an advertiser should pay more for a referral by a user with 1000 friends, than a user with 3. We hope to be able to measure those values in a meaningful and accurate way.”

This idea of measuring the social capital of each user is a game changer in my opinion.  The critical change is the shift from the collective power of the "users" to the power of the individual.  This will lead to significant changes in how applications are developed and marketed.

As the social graph continues to be exposed and sites learn how to m

Measurement as Recession Insurance for Social ApplicationsFebruary 7

Josh Bernoff over at Forrestor writes that if social applications can prove their effectiveness they can maintain profitability even if a recession leads to a drop in advertising expenditures:

If your social application doesn't have a measurable output, you'd better get one. But if it does -- if it generates leads, or conversions, or buzz, or something useful -- then you can prove it's working. beinggirl.com is four times as effective as TV ads, Procter & Gamble told us. That won't get cut in a recession.

These same arguments apply to some other forms of online marketing, including search ads and email marketing. Those are going to be good investments in a recession. If you're smart, you'll position yourself now with proof your apps are working. Then when the ad dollars get tight, you'll be in good shape.

It boils down to ROI justification (like it should).  How do you "prove your app is working" though?  If your goal is to generate buzz then the overall traffic you receive may be less important then the quality of the influencers who interact with your app.   You want the people who are going to carry the marketing conversation beyond your social application to their other social networks.  While there is no way to really measure whether or not a user is telling their friends, cl