Some Facebook Applications Thrive, While Others Flop is an Article that is in the Wall Street Journal today. This is a nice article with some great observations that touches near the one year anniversary of the facebook f8 platform.

I happened to be quoted in the WSJ Facebook article.

Digital Darwinism kicks into overdrive on the facebook platform and apps that give people what they want will rise to the top of the food chain. While the article makes some great points about the changing landscape of the facebook app ecosystem I wanted to add a few points worthy of attention.

* Brands are still missing a golden opportunity here on multiple levels
* Creating a viral loop and application are more difficult yet still possible
* 2x as many people are on facebook as when the platform launched ~1 year ago
* Competition is greater “If you build it they will come” is not true. You need a cohesive promotion strategy that raises awareness from points within and outside of facebook.
* Facebook is still the most widely used application platform that embraces a large social ecosystem
* Facebook Connect will bring even more opportunities for webmasters outside of facebook to do some very interesting things.
* Successful applications can leverage success and migrate over to other social networks such as myspace via the Google Open Social Container Structure
* The only constant in web 2.0 (whether it is facebook or not) is change. We are continually living in a constant state of beta. Iterations are the norm; not the exception. Adapting to that change rapidly is critical.
* Understanding the ecosystems in which you choose to play requires a detailed roadmap and social engagement methodology.

The take away here is the low hanging fruit has been picked. The work is tougher, but the rewards can still be quite impressive and sweet for those that execute properly and give the people what they want.

Photo Credit: Dave Morin

Technorati Tags: facebook, facebook applications

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