I’m not sure if there are any companies that have done a better job of spreading their apps on Facebook than RockYou. A look at the top apps list on Facebook shows the following apps thriving:
Horoscopes – 4.4M Users
Super Wall – 3.2M Users
Likeness – 2.9M Users
Slideshows – 1.4M Users
Until recently, the primary benefits of acquiring a Facebook App user appeared to be:
- Trickle down traffic to your destination site
- Branding
- Cross promotion of other Apps
Well, we can now add cash to the list.
RockYou has decided to let the market decide precisely what a Facebook App user is worth by using its huge Facebook footprint to promote other apps, on a CPA (Cost per Acquisition) basis.
Says RockYou BizDev person Rogelio Choy in the comments section at TechCrunch:
“Simply put, we have an installed base of 23MM apps on Facebook growing at 500K new installs a day. We have a very high click-through rate on cross-promotion and can deliver between 5K-30K new installs/users per day per app promoted on our network. We’ve been selling this placement for $0.50 CPA and are already oversubscribed.”
I guess this is the sort of cool innovation that happens when an army of smart people start focusing their attention on a single platform.
In the short term, this provides an emphatic answer to the question of “What’s a Facebook App User worth?” It’s worth exactly what companies will pay RockYou to get one.
In the longer term, there are a few questions that come to mind regarding this model. Will cross promoting apps, regardless of the quality of those apps, slow down RockYou’s growth? Is the market for these app users artificially inflated by the amount of VC cash sloshing around? Will the buyers of these app users be able to monetize at a rate higher than they paid for them?
Only time will tell. But for now, RockYou’s play is the most innovative thing that I’ve seen on Facebook.
(one other thing that comes to mind here is that there is potentially a market being created for those Facebook users with the influence / network to distribute apps at a higher than normal rate. I wonder if RockYou will find a way to charge more for the acquisition of this sort of user.)
For more analysis on RockYou and/or the value of a Facebook App User, see TechCrunch, Mashable, Andrew Chen, and Jeremy Liew.
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