There has been a lot of buzz this year with regards to Facebook Applications. Several people in the affiliate space have developed fun applications - Udrink by Brian Littleton and statustalker by David Lewis come to mind. Other affiliates, coming out of the coupon sector, have developed shopping applications. Right now I'm aware of
These different applications are merchant directories with coupon offers. The affiliates I spoke with concurred with what I'd heard - namely that there haven't been many transactions in this space though it's got a lot of juice. "it's been slow in attracting new users ... From a buzz point of view, however, it has definitely done that and given us more attention than about anything else we've done"
Affiliates are making an effort to build, maintain, and promote these apps. Mike Allen posted an informational page and Scott Aiken a press release.
The features on these vary. Some send traffic to the affiliate site; others send traffic through an affiliate link to the merchant. Some seem to display automatically on the profile page while some do not. Some let you post offers that interest you. I imagine that it is difficult for the developers to pay close attention to their metrics, especially during the busy holiday shopping season, but I think there is a good market here and that best practices will emerge.
Facebook stubbed its toe recently with the Facebook Beacon incident, commented on recently by ReveNews blogger Duane Kuroda but I agree that this incident will soon be forgotten. I don't have firm opinions on how Facebook will turn out as a shopping portal, but I wish these forward-thinking affiliates the best of luck with their efforts.
Facebook Shopping Application Roundup - Read More...
