Who's making money on Facebook?

December 11, 2008 9:17 PM

Hopefully a simple question: Has any Facebook add-on/app/page/game/whatever published how much money it has made in advertising or other revenue?

Yes, I'm considering an idea. I know it's a longshot, and most don't get many users at all, but I figured before I waste a bunch of time writing something I'd like to have an idea what API-created pages, especially popular ones, are making.

Thanks in advance!

posted by Kickstart70 to technology (7 answers total)

Fluff Friends was making more than 100,000 USD per month last summer, when it was sold to SGN. From what I've heard at some bars (you'd be surprised at how incestuous the San Francisco web app companies are), at one point they were making around a quarter million dollars per month.

I found this article that mentions SNAP's earnings for more than a year ago, at 388,000 USD for a quarter.

There are other companies and apps I don't want to name that are making anywhere from $50,000 a month to $200,000 per application, and others that are making less than $10,000. This numbers do not include advertising, only subscriptions or virtual goods. They go from 3 person outfits renting servers to 100+ employee companies that own impressive hardware.

All of the successful companies I know either were there during the facebook or myspace land grab phase, positioning themselves at the top of their segments early on, or had enough cash and manpower to throw dozens of applications out there is a short period of time and keep only what sticks.
posted by dirty lies at 10:41 PM on December 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I heard somewhere (=can't vouch) that facebook's bookshelf was grossing them north of $200k/month via amazon and that they took a significant beating when fb redesigned their site, which made their app smaller in profiles and slapped it to the side. perhaps techcrunchies would be the kind of kids to ask.
posted by krautland at 11:04 PM on December 11, 2008

Mob wars was making a million a month at one point, but the author got sued by his former employer (also a game company) over some contractual bs.
posted by delmoi at 12:07 AM on December 12, 2008

Before Scrabulous was canned, the authors hinted they were making six figures a month, without going into greater detail than that.
posted by spamguy at 6:59 AM on December 12, 2008

I just read this article yesterday about a Facebook Apps designer that sold his work : http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/10/ali.entrepreneur.esgut/index.html?section=cnn_latest
posted by Brettus at 8:41 AM on December 12, 2008

This guy sold friend hugs for $21,000 here. According to him he was making over $100 per day on ad clicks.
posted by trueluk at 9:59 AM on December 12, 2008

Thanks all, that's good/scary information :)
posted by Kickstart70 at 2:52 PM on December 12, 2008