Appsaholic is a must have facebook application
Published by Michael Vu August 10th, 2007 in Facebook Applications, Facebook Review, Facebook Software, Facebook Trends, Facebook f8 platform.
Rating: 
One of my favorite Facebook applications is Appsaholic simply because it gives me a much needed perspective on the application ecosystem. Powered by the same people behind Socialmedia.com, a network of applications across leading social networks, Appsaholic provides a powerful suite of tools to analyze the usage and adoption of Facebook applications.
Key Analytic and Statistic Features
On the home page, there is a showcase for a random application, a list of applications that you’re tracking, a list of applications that your friends are using, and the top 100 list. Front and center are also two dynamic graphs that pertain to an application that you select, one showing new users per hour, and one showing the number of total users.
Off of the homepage, there is a link to a ‘Compare Apps’ section that allows you to compare the graphs of multiple applications over a one day or one week span. This is a powerful feature that gives you a visual representation of adoption rates, something that is missing from Facebook’s native application directory.
There is also a ‘Most Viral Apps’ section ranking applications based on their daily growth percentages, allowing us to see which applications are really the most Viral. Currently, the most viral application is called ‘My Solar System’ with 58,405 users, up from 8,924 users - an astounding daily growth % of 554%!
There lies the power of this application. How else are we supposed to find out that type of information? Or how about information about the top developers on the Facebook platform? Ever wanted to know who has made the most apps, or how about who has the most users across all their applications? It’s all possible now through the ‘Top Developers’ section of Appsaholic.
Application Promotion
Analytics and statistics aside, another core feature of this application is to help companies and developers promote their applications. This is done through Socialmedia.com’s growing application network, which has 14,509,826 apps installed across the entire network (not just Facebook, Myspace as well).
Applications are promoted in the top area of apps, showing a recent user who has added the app, the app name, and the number of people who have installed the app in the last 24 hours. You can set the price that you pay per click for your app through a real-time auction model. The higher the price, the more often the app will be shown across the network, and the more clicks/installs your app will get. Your pricing per click, viral growth of the application, and the clickthrough rate on your application’s ad will determine when your ad will appear.
Conveniently, Appsaholic also has a section that allows you to quickly add funds via Paypal. For those of you who want to reach more users, this is a smart and effective way to do it.
What I would like to see
Although this is an awesome application, there are a few features I would like to see added. The biggest one being statistics regarding the attrition rate of applications. It would be very helpful for developers to get a fresh perspective on which applications get dropped like flies, and why. As we’ve all may know as Facebook users, it’s not rare to see applications get added and removed in the day. Since the name of the game is ‘viral,’ understanding why some applications are infectious and why others are repellent would be invaluable.
I would also like to see statistics regarding the geographic locations of the users who have added a particular application. For example, how many apps have been added in California, Canada, San Francisco, or UC Berkeley. Of course, this information is likely instrumental to SocialMedia’s business model and thus too valuable to be shared publicly. An API and a revamped UI would be nice, but it’s still early and they are probably already on it.
Appsaholic should be on everyone’s top 10 app list, it is a badass Facebook application. It helps users find cool, useful, and hot applications faster. It helps developers analyze those apps that have strong viral growth, understand why apps were able to achieve that type of growth, and figure out how their own applications can achieve the same results. It helps marketers and investors see results that they like to see. Go add it now.
Check out some screenshots below:
Front Page
Compare apps
Most Viral
Top Developers
App Promotion Ad
Technorati Tags: facebook, facebook ads, facebook advertising, facebook promotion, appsaholic, facebook analytics, facebook statistics
I also would really want to see a some info on the date that the app was added to the directory if that is possible - but I totally agree that this app is 0 pure utility
Dave, good idea! The date of when the app was added would be great.
Is this related at all to http://appaholic.com ?
They seem to be aiming for the same thing, but Appaholic is a lot cleaner than the Facebook app.
Totally unrelated companies.
I think appaholic is separate and came after appsaholic. Even the appsaholic.com domain name seems to be registered before appaholic.com. Not sure why they aren’t using it though.
Jakob, thanks for pointing out Appaholic.com. =)
Great review! Alexaholic (Statsaholic) has been such a big help with my research on the web. Appsaholic is yet another research tool to add to my repertoire.
Good stuff Michael.
Michael,
I’d never heard of Appsaholic before this post, so go figure. Which do you like better? I think I prefer Appaholic, although it might be worth the author’s time to create a Facebook application for that, too.
I’d have to go with Appsaholic. Although Appaholic is a bit cleaner, it lacks the most important property - being a Facebook application. To be able to access this data within Facebook, as you are using/testing applications is more effective.
However, considering that Appaholic is made by Altura Ventures, you can be sure that their own app is on the way.
“Altura 1 (sponsored by Altura Ventures) and AppFactory (sponsored by Bay Partners) are the first VC funds focused solely on the Facebook Platform, Applications, Developers and Entrepreneurs.”
Michael,
Yeah, but I don’t see how being inside Facebook brings that much value to an analytics package like this. I like Appaholic because it’s cleaner *and* more open. They give me access to all the data, and I’m going to bookmark my most commonly tracked apps anyhow, rather than using Appsaholic’s built-in (and very clumsy) tracking system.
*shrug*
They’re pretty similar in functionality right now, but as an app developer Appaholic is more valuable because I can integrate it into my app easily. Appsaholic is a big walled garden, kinda like Facebook itself.
Jakob,
I think the real value of such an analytics tool built as a Facebook will show if/when Appsaholic releases an API. This would open up a whole new set of doors for other applications to leverage the Appsaholic system.
In any case, I can’t wait to see Appaholic release their own app…the competition is definitely heating up.
Cheers,
Michael
Michael,
Well, Appsaholic had an API for a while and it sucked. They’ve since removed it. But, really, Appaholic has an API: the CSV files. Download, parse, and display as you see fit, yeah?