Can Facebook help apps get iPhone distribution?

July 16, 2009 | Eric Eldon | Comments | |

facebookiphoneOne of the biggest problems for iPhone apps is finding users — the main way growth happens now is, paradoxically, by climbing the charts of the iTunes app store rankings. The more popular you get, the higher you get in the rankings, and the more people see you as a result. But Facebook is working on a new version of its popular iPhone app, and it could provide a new way for any iPhone app using Facebook Connect to get more Facebook users on the iPhone.

The new version of Facebook’s iPhone application is slated to launch “very soon,” and as you can see from the screenshot, it includes an iPhone-like menu of Facebook’s own applications. It includes Events, Photos, Chat, and other apps that Facebook created — apps that Facebook already places together with third-party applications on its web site interface.

So, today on a mobile panel I moderated at our MobileBeat 2009 conference, panelist and Facebook mobile head Henri Moissinac was asked by fellow panelists — and iPhone game developers — if Facebook had any plans to promote third party applications. Shervin Pishevar, chief executive of top iPhone game developer SGN, suggested having an apps tab within the Facebook iPhone app. This way, when you log in to Facebook or its iPhone app, you could potentially bookmark and save your favorite iPhone apps. You could even get alerts and invites from games or other apps that your friends are playing on the iPhone, like how apps already work on Facebook’s web site. Moissinac hedged, saying that Facebook was looking at how to do it. But he pointed out that Facebook is working with more than 150 carriers in 50 countries, trying to customize its service to make it easier for anyone to access. The inference was that iPhone features might be too narrow of a focus for the company to develop for at this point.

picture-7But, if you take a look at Facebook’s planned version of the iPhone app, you can see how apps could fit in nicely. For starters, Facebook has been busy blending its own apps in with third-party applications within its web site interface. The lower left-hand toolbar menu lets you select a few apps to show on the toolbar; the default includes Events, Photos, and other Facebook-created apps, but you can add your own third-party apps to the menu. So, when you think about Facebook’s approach that way, it would make sense for Facebook to take the same approach to letting you add apps to its iPhone app. Indeed, the early screenshots of the Facebook iPhone app already show a second page that you can scroll to within the interface. That second page would be a logical place for third-party apps to have a home. Facebook already says you’ll be able to customize the new iPhone. You’ll be able to “add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen.” It seems logical that you’d be able to do this with third-party apps.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • Nice. I think there is plenty of room for other vendors to promote apps within the iPhone environment without going through iTunes or jailbreaking your iPhone / iPod. I write for http://StuffRichPeopleLove.com and am excited by the creativity shown by established (e.g. Google / Microsoft - XBox) and up and coming companies (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) to build sustainable, innovative advantage for their users. Well done Facebook!
  • Well for now, the best way to share your iPhone apps with your friends is http://Appsfire.com does not require facebook or nothing. Just an iPhone and a computer. let me know if you want to try it
  • Allowing Facebook Apps within the Facebook for iPhone app would be convenient, but it is not really feasible.

    For the apps to be able to fully use the features of the phone, like an SGN iPhone/Facebook Connect Game does, it would have to be coded into the app. That wouldn't be realistic given how the App Store and iPhone SDK works. I suppose apps could have a page in the Facebook app with some content and link to a full standalone app, but then why even have it in there in the first place?
  • I don't mean apps that you would actually use apps within Facebook's iPhone app.

    "I suppose apps could have a page in the Facebook app with some content and link to a full standalone app, but then why even have it in there in the first place?" This is more what I mean.

    There are a few things Facebook could do here. One feature would be to show you which friends and how many friends are using a particular iPhone app that uses Facebook Connect. It'd be a sort of automated list of recommendations, based on information from Facebook Connect (which I think would fit under the SDK terms). Another feature would be to fully integrate notifications from iPhone apps that use Connect into a separate tab or window from web-based applications. Users of the Facebook iPhone app may gloss over web-based app notifications but be more inclined to check out Facebook-connected iPhone apps while on their iPhones.
  • That would be interesting if they did something like that.

    I am a big fan of Apps that integrate with Facebook connect, and would love a way to discover them more easily and find friends who also use them. Integration with the Facebook app would definitely lend a hand in that!
  • Simon
    No way ithat would mean trying to be an OS on top of Apple and for this Stevee WOULD SMACK THEIR FACE TO THE GROUND OUT OF THE APP STORE ยงยงยง
  • I'm not saying there would be a full OS within Facebook's iPhone app.
  • The web gets tighter & tighter each day. Interesting article about how Facebook may help popularize iPhone apps.
  • sanj
    Apple won't like anyone else pushing apps, but anyone can generate a link and lead people to their content on the iTunes Store. As an example, our app is at http://itunes.com/apps/luckycal.

    But, it'd be trivial for Facebook to set up a config option during app setup on their site asking for the URL of the iPhone application. I'm guessing they'd want to make sure it was using FBConnect and so getting into that directory might require a step of human intervention.

    Second, I think that there's another path. Do you remember when the iPhone first came out and the story line was that you were supposed to write web apps? And that those would "just work" on the iPhone? It sounds silly now, especially referencing the iPhone, but FB apps *are* web apps.

    In fact, for our iPhone application, we chose to build a very "thin" client component and then sublaunch Mobile Safari so we could take advantage of server-side work and rendering. I believe it works pretty well, but you're welcome to see for yourself: http://itunes.com/apps/luckycal

    Since FB Apps are just web apps, the apps 'tab' on the Facebook iPhone application could launch the mobile version of the FB Apps the user has installed -- ideally shrunk down and optimized for the handheld screen. In fact, you could use a WebUI view to keep it within the Facebook iPhone application and maintain the user experience. The sublaunch could deal with handing over the credentials *and* perhaps some other information (geolocation comes to mind). I'd be happy to port what we've done into that environment.

    The practical upshot would be that existing FBApps would have a place on the iPhone with little additional work for Facebook.