An open opportunity to increase traffic on a candidates web site

Facebook making a lot of friends among software startups
San Francisco Business Times - August 3, 2007
by Adrienne Sanders
Facebook invites tag-alongs to come play inside
(My comments will be in this red font)
Lance Tokuda has made a lot of friends through Facebook. Traffic at Tokuda's RockYou has quadrupled since May 25, when Facebook threw out the welcome mat to tag-along applications like RockYou's horoscopes and video games. It seems Facebook has decided that the army of startups seeking to hitch a ride on the popular Palo Alto-based social networking site are more of a blessing than a nuisance.
Unlike its larger rival, News Corp.'s MySpace, which merely lets the so-called widgets appear on members' pages, Facebook opened its source code to them and has promised that they are free to make money on applications within Facebook. All political techies should recognize the possibilities this means to candidate campaigns. This means that widget makers can integrate their services directly into Facebook pages. So, for example, a music player can look like it is part of Facebook itself. And armed with user information provided by Facebook, the music player-maker can now send personalized messages to members and their online friends, directing Facebook users to its own advertising-based home site and promoting new applications. Or directing Facebook users to the candidates site and promoting that candidate.
The strategy is Facebook's bid to increase traffic and establish itself as a central part of the online landscape by encouraging Internet companies to build services on top of its platform. So far it seems to be working. Facebook says its monthly traffic leapt to 30 million in July from about 17 million in March. And traffic at San Mateo-based RockYou, which makes applications like Super Wall, where people can add pictures, video and other rich media to their Facebook pages, increased from approximately 286,000 to more than 1.3 million, according to Internet tracker Quantcast. It is expanding more rapidly on Facebook than on MySpace."The world has completely changed in the last six months," said Tokuda.
JupiterResearch analyst Barry Parr agreed."This is one of the big stories of the year," he said "People have talked a lot about viral marketing over the last 10 years, but Facebook is now providing a mechanism for making that happen.
"So far it is anyone's guess how much money application developers can make. Facebook has said it won't take a cut of any revenue generated, but its terms of service say it may change fees at any time.
RockYou, the Sequoia Capital-backed startup, is attempting to make money through a mini advertising network. It offers to promote other applications on Super Wall, charging on a per-user-acquired basis. Tokuda said RockYou generated about $15,000 in eight hours from its first test, but revenue remains under half a million.
Like RockYou, San Francisco-based personal rating site Hot or Not more than doubled global daily unique visitors from approximately 289,000 to more than 722,000 since May.
And Slide, a photo and video site founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, grew global daily unique visitors from approximately 753,000 to more than 2.3 million. "Facebook's move to open its API (application programming interface) and enable developers to deeply integrate into the Facebook experience set the industry precedent for how to do it right," Levchin said. "The move will continue to have ripple effects in the industry for months and years to come. "Indeed. MySpace, which remains about three times larger, has hinted that it might open its API in the future, say the widget makers. There is no tellong what this would do for increasing traffic on a candidates web site.