Facebook Platform Souring App Developers
Published on 10 July 13
Justin0
Surprising it is how attitudes of developers changed towards a giant platform ‘Facebook’. There have been many reasons why developers soured on the Facebook platform. Let’s have a look at some of these reasons:
Virality:
Facebook was a Wild West when it was launched initially. One had possibilities to do almost everything. But now for very legitimate reasons, many of those channels have been shut down. It has become hard for even good apps to attain sustainable viral growth in the ecosystem. Today, none of those channels exists that exited last year. No replacements were made because of which all the excitement has faded. Developers are now riding on iOS platform and have started focusing on this platform.
Increase in Ad Rates:
Few years ago, Facebook offered tons of cheap ad inventories which had driven many companies go nuts on paid and organic channels both. With Facebook doing a million page views a month, ad inventory turned out to be cheaper than ever. Many advertisers and developers were able to cheaply buy a ton of traffic, but it’s not the case anymore. Rates went up and arbitrage started to fail. Effective cost per customer also rose with less virality. For that reason, developers have to look elsewhere as acquiring new user has also become harder.
Continuous Retooling:
Facebook believes in its ultimate rule ‘move fast and break things’. This amazing engineering culture has caused trouble for many developers as they are asked for substantial update time to time. It means, if you want to stick with this social networking giant, move as fast as Facebook to keep up. Part of this retooling refers to maintenance tax on app created on this platform. With Facebook, what works today might not work tomorrow. It is believed to be one of the frustrating reasons for many developers.
Competitiveness:
It is quite evident that Facebook thinks about competitive elements for some its service categories. Facebook is not an open platform any more as the company has well understood the competitive aspects of its products. With increase in use of Smartphones, app stores are getting flooded with tons of apps. If you’ve noticed every other photos or messaging apps have been shut down. It is observed Facebook isn’t letting any such apps buy ads on their platform.
Opportunity of Mobile platforms:
One of the obvious reason it must be, developers becoming more attentive towards mobile and Smartphone, where the new success strive now. Have you recently heard of number of investors willing to invest in ‘Facebook applications’? Not many I suppose! And now developers believe that changing technology within the ground of Smartphone will create a lot of opportunities for them.
This article provokes each reason and provides educational information about what is coming next. Developers have turned their back on this platform for some serious reasons ignored by the company. Facebook has the power to change things around like the way they have always done. The real question is, will Facebook be able to regain the excitement that they had years ago around the platform? We can only wait n watch!
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