Revenues from Engaging Apps
There’s gold in them there Facebook apps. And a class at Stanford is learning to mine it.
According to a recent WSJ article, students in “Creating Engaging Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook” are focusing on simple software programs for Facebook users that are catchy and viral, because those can bring in ad revenues. To get a picture of an app, imagine something you can download called Hugs
, Hotness, 
or Love Child (that produces a virtual child with another member).
And the Stanford students are succeeding. The evidence — Facebook users have made 16 million total installations and five have more than one million installs of their apps. An engaging app has to capture attention and use humor, they learn. Hugs has the highest base, with 2 million installs.
Even the teacher, entrepreneur and consultant Dave McClure, has been surprised by the success of student projects. He was expecting something in the neighborhood of 10,000 users.
What about revenues? Would you believe that five are pulling in more than $1,000 a day in ad revenues? And that three of the teams have already incorporated as companies?
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Peg Corwin
