To make money online you can also develop facebook application.

[arnoldsmithh]

If you wanna make money online so you can develop an application on facebook. Once Application get popular so you can earn a lot from that application. I saw many companies are working for application development of social networks like facebook, myspace, linkedin and orkut.

Creating an application for social network is also a very good business

[Dave A]

How does developing a Facebook app bring more business?

[twinscythe12332]

and what languages are you supposed to use to be able to develop for it?

[Debbiedle]

Dave, by linking to your the site when used properly. Most of them aren't at this stage and are being used as data accumulators for the designers.

Twinscythe - my son is doing this and he is a LAMP programmer - using Linux, something, My SQL and PHP.

[arnoldsmithh]

How does developing a Facebook app bring more business?

If you make fun application on facebook and when its get popular so people will curious to know that who make this application and what he did for getting this application popular and one more thing if your application gets popular so you can show this app as your identity that this is your product and many peoples are using it.

[arnoldsmithh]

and what languages are you supposed to use to be able to develop for it?

Most of the facebook apps are developed on PHP.

[Dave A]

I must admit I still don't get how this turns into making money online. Arnold, could you give an example of a Facebook app that is making its developer useful money?

[twinscythe12332]

gifts. you can buy someone a personal gift for a dollar. they can attach it to their profile. poker. small amounts of advertising, I think you can also buy chips. loooooots of traffic.

[Dave A]

OK - that makes sense, if people will buy. Obviously I don't spend enough time on Facebook.

I went hunting around Facebookster and they've got a page about monetization. It all looks reasonable (they insist on the numbers being conservative) until I get to the eCPM. They base their numbers on an advertising return of $150 eCPM, which is incredibly high.

[arnoldsmithh]

I must admit I still don't get how this turns into making money online. Arnold, could you give an example of a Facebook app that is making its developer useful money?

I give you an example of a gaming application name Mob wars and Living Social. These are the highest earning applications of facebook so just think about the developers of that application how much they are earning. Living social is just a normal application but it is so popular and the developer of that application are earning alot.

[arnoldsmithh]

I must admit I still don't get how this turns into making money online. Arnold, could you give an example of a Facebook app that is making its developer useful money?

Applications on Facebook are thriving most around the revenue models of virtual currency, ad-network inventory and branded sponsorships. Due to these three models, not just the apps but the whole Facebook payment eco-system as a whole is growing rapidly. Rock You’s ballpark earnings for 2009 are $300 million, which are mainly streamed from these three models while Zynga has crossed a $100 million sales mark this year. Seems like social gaming companies are really thriving!

Analogous to $500 million made by media app developers combine, Facebook is expected to make $500 million in revenue in 2009. According to the Ad Age estimates, Facebook developers are turning in between $300 to $500 million. Even if its $300 million, it’s a big number.

[Debbiedle]

virtual currency, ad-network inventory and branded sponsorships. Due to these three models, not just the apps but the whole Facebook payment eco-system as a whole is growing rapidly.

Please help me understand...

Virtual currency - right now doesn't relate to money in the bank for a traditional trading company. Is it a way to trade / barter without actual cash changing hands? Is this the wave of the future?

I see the virtual currency working well with ad-network inventory and gaming etc, if I understand the phrase (ad- network inventory) correctly, other than that I am still way in the dark.

Branded sponsorships, I understand - but still maintain that not many of the apps on facebook are that well branded, hence very little money is being made for the company paying for the brand.

I understand that the gaming community will follow the apps and get to purchase the games etc etc, it is a particular market and I also understand that a good programmer then gets to build his bank account, but how does an app help a plumber, a mechanic, a printer or a teacher to make money?

Facebook payment eco-system - this is what I think this is! We all pay Facebook and it goes into their system! Joking, but I would like to play devils advocate and suggest that Facebook and Google are creating their own little cyberworlds, where the money is going round and round in circles, with the major syphoning off the top coming from them and them only. This scares me a bit, it sounds like the current financial institutions and their behaviour of the last few decades repeated??...

Please understand I am not being difficult, I have a son who can pretty much design any app I ask him to. If there is a possibility that I can retire simply because I gave birth to this genius, I would like to...