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I would like to know what percentage of Facebook apps can be considered a business?

jfarmer 17y ago
Considering thousands and thousands are made per day and most are not necessarily, probably a very low percentage. A more interesting question, IMO, is the "market size" of Facebook apps, irrespective of your chance of success. I've built a few apps that generate $800k-$1MM in revenue per year. It's just much easier to get massive scale on Facebook than outside on the web, and the monetization methods are constantly improving. Of course, it's hard to say if you can just build a viable ten year business out of it, or if the Platform will be dead in two years. But you take what you can get now, factor in the risk of long-term failure, and branch out it ways that protect you against that. There's certainly enough money to sustain a decent business in a short-to-medium-term.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Ok, I believe that without a seconds hesitation. But here is my problem with this: A REAL business, such as twitter or facebook creates an ecosystem around it. You are just part of their ecosystem, conclusion, you are not a business. A business stands on its own strengths, and minimizes its dependence on outside factors that threaten its existence. If your business is solely dependent on Twitter or Facebook you should be trying to diversify like mad.
  - caffeine 17y ago
    A REAL business, such as twitter or facebook creates an ecosystem around it :s/REAL/big It's called an ecosystem because of the web of interdependencies. If it makes money, it's a business. Biologists define an organism as a "thing that eats, poops and reproduces." Let's just define a business as "a thing that eats resources and poops profits". In which case, businesses that are "just features" certainly count as businesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      > a thing that eats resources and poops profits By that definition large numbers of web 'businesses' are not businesses (yet) because they do not make profits. Their owners might disagree though. And there are plenty of 'real' businesses out there that make a loss. It's really not that simple to put out a definition of what really is a business, but I think that something that lives by the grace of an API as a total dependent on some other company does not count as a business in its own right. Every now and then you come across a rant somewhere from someone that got 'cut off by google' because they depend for 100% of their sales on search engine traffic, and google happened to provide the bigger portion of that. Suddenly they find out that even though they were profitable last month they did not have an actual business, they forgot to realize they were actually a small extension of the google ecosystem and were only able to make a profit because of that. Anybody that has been in business for a while would realize that is an accident waiting to happen. Making your company 100% dependent on FB or Twitter is no different. It's easy money if and when it works, but easy come, easy go.
      - dirkstoop 17y ago
        Following your logic, if you're in the business of selling pencil sharpeners, relying on the existence of one or more third parties selling pencils, who in turn rely on a market of people who want to use pencils, is also not a 'real' business, because who knows, the third parties may decide to start selling a self-sharpening pencil and stop offering the regular ones, effectively cutting you off. Now, the above mentions one or more third parties. Having redundant providers significantly reduces the risk of being cut off like that, but while having a known single point of failure may seem stupid, it's not as if only businesses that don't have any are real. Whether or not something constitutes a 'real' business does not hinge on that business' dependencies or any other risk factors. Whether you'd want to be a stakeholder in it is an entirely different matter. How many of us in the software world would actually have a real business within this definition of dependencies if you consider how quickly we'd all go in the red if google somehow ends up blacklisting us? With a somewhat grown-up business, you don't need 100% of your sales to evaporate to be in serious trouble..
  - jfarmer 17y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. Like, a mom-and-pop store has vendors who supply the flour they sell, so that's an ecosystem and therefore a REAL business? I certainly have vendors (server providers, contractors, etc.), so if that's not what you mean...what do you mean?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

Considering thousands and thousands are made per day and most are not necessarily, probably a very low percentage. A more interesting question, IMO, is the "market size" of Facebook apps, irrespective of your chance of success. I've built a few apps that generate $800k-$1MM in revenue per year. It's just much easier to get massive scale on Facebook than outside on the web, and the monetization methods are constantly improving. Of course, it's hard to say if you can just build a viable ten year business out of it, or if the Platform will be dead in two years. But you take what you can get now, factor in the risk of long-term failure, and branch out it ways that protect you against that. There's certainly enough money to sustain a decent business in a short-to-medium-term.

jacquesm 17y ago
Ok, I believe that without a seconds hesitation. But here is my problem with this: A REAL business, such as twitter or facebook creates an ecosystem around it. You are just part of their ecosystem, conclusion, you are not a business. A business stands on its own strengths, and minimizes its dependence on outside factors that threaten its existence. If your business is solely dependent on Twitter or Facebook you should be trying to diversify like mad.
- caffeine 17y ago
  A REAL business, such as twitter or facebook creates an ecosystem around it :s/REAL/big It's called an ecosystem because of the web of interdependencies. If it makes money, it's a business. Biologists define an organism as a "thing that eats, poops and reproduces." Let's just define a business as "a thing that eats resources and poops profits". In which case, businesses that are "just features" certainly count as businesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    > a thing that eats resources and poops profits By that definition large numbers of web 'businesses' are not businesses (yet) because they do not make profits. Their owners might disagree though. And there are plenty of 'real' businesses out there that make a loss. It's really not that simple to put out a definition of what really is a business, but I think that something that lives by the grace of an API as a total dependent on some other company does not count as a business in its own right. Every now and then you come across a rant somewhere from someone that got 'cut off by google' because they depend for 100% of their sales on search engine traffic, and google happened to provide the bigger portion of that. Suddenly they find out that even though they were profitable last month they did not have an actual business, they forgot to realize they were actually a small extension of the google ecosystem and were only able to make a profit because of that. Anybody that has been in business for a while would realize that is an accident waiting to happen. Making your company 100% dependent on FB or Twitter is no different. It's easy money if and when it works, but easy come, easy go.
    - dirkstoop 17y ago
      Following your logic, if you're in the business of selling pencil sharpeners, relying on the existence of one or more third parties selling pencils, who in turn rely on a market of people who want to use pencils, is also not a 'real' business, because who knows, the third parties may decide to start selling a self-sharpening pencil and stop offering the regular ones, effectively cutting you off. Now, the above mentions one or more third parties. Having redundant providers significantly reduces the risk of being cut off like that, but while having a known single point of failure may seem stupid, it's not as if only businesses that don't have any are real. Whether or not something constitutes a 'real' business does not hinge on that business' dependencies or any other risk factors. Whether you'd want to be a stakeholder in it is an entirely different matter. How many of us in the software world would actually have a real business within this definition of dependencies if you consider how quickly we'd all go in the red if google somehow ends up blacklisting us? With a somewhat grown-up business, you don't need 100% of your sales to evaporate to be in serious trouble..
- jfarmer 17y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. Like, a mom-and-pop store has vendors who supply the flour they sell, so that's an ecosystem and therefore a REAL business? I certainly have vendors (server providers, contractors, etc.), so if that's not what you mean...what do you mean?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]