Facebook Greases The Wheels for Getting New Members
7 Comments Published by Rodney Rumford August 10th, 2007 in Facebook, facebook developer, Facebook Marketing.
Facebook is brilliant. I often times tell people that what makes Facebook unique is that it removes friction for how data flows and how people communicate. Facebook is becoming the Ball Bearing and Grease that makes data flow in a low friction environment.
They are currently working on a way to remove friction for joining facebook. It is already pretty slick. Additionally they will have thousands of sites promoting facebook. 
In a move that in hindsight will be looked upon as brilliant; facebook is going to streamline ways to get people into their network and promote applications. Application owners will also promote facebook. Smart!
Here is what they said just a few hours ago to application developers: “We wanted to give you a heads-up that we’re designing a new promotional opportunity that’ll give your users who aren’t on Facebook yet a streamlined way to sign up on Facebook and immediately start using your Facebook application.” Smart!
Additionally, “Over the next few weeks, we’ll try this out with a few beta partners, and will use their feedback to refine and improve the experience both for application developers and for our users.”
It removes friction for joining facebook; it gives an immediate application install and reason to jump into the facebook world for facebook non-users. Plus facebook gets websites to promote joining facebook. Brilliant!
Conversation that happens in a consumers head in a split second: “I want to use that cool looking shiny widget/application that this website is teasing me with. But I am not a facebook member… but I really want to try that cool shiny object… HMMM. I guess I will click this button and get that cool shiny object (application).” BINGO!
Watch the growth rate of new facebook members increase velocity after this reduced friction, registration feature and promotional tool goes live.
Technorati Tags: facebook, facebook members, facebook promotion, facebook developer
7 Responses to “Facebook Greases The Wheels for Getting New Members”
- 1 Pingback on Mar 18th, 2008 at 11:17 am
This sounds great, I can’t wait to see what they have in store.
Makes sense. This won’t only up conversions for Facebook, but should tremendously help the apps that belong to preexisting destination sites.
dont understand this. What’s in it for developers? Why would I send my users to Facebook and why would I want to promote Facebook if I am slide, flixster or rockyou?
Companies like Slide and Rockyou have mainly widget-based products, and with the Facebook Platform, you essentially have super widgets. In fact, Slide is the maker of Facebook’s #1 application, Top Friends – which has about 11 million users. If you take a quick look at the top 10 applications right now, a lot of them are either made by or promoted by Slide and Rockyou.
It’s now about why someone would want to promote Facebook, it’s about why you HAVE
to promote your products within Facebook in order to remain competitive… It’s about leveraging the Facebook user base to reach target markets with unparalleled precision.
Whats in it for developers? Users. A rising tide lifts all boats.
If you have an existing web property, you can get people into facebook and add your app in an easier fashion.
Oooo…everyone look at the shiny object; it’s so pretty!
C’mon…it is NOT in a “legitimate” company’s best interest to promote Facebook on their own properties for the sake of driving traffic to Facebook. The appeal for sites to develop apps for Facebook should be 1) brand awareness and 2) traffic to their own web properties, which can be a result of 1).
To your point, Michael Vu, it’s one thing to remain competitive on Facebook with your own app, but doing it by cannibalizing your traffic is like pounding sand.