If I learned one thing from the Facebook Developer Garage, it would be Facebook developers are great at making applications but they suck at make money online. There were nine groups showing off their Facebook apps. Of the nine, only one, Facebook Scratch and Win was making money with it, if you call it making money. The application receives over 25,000 page views per day and makes less than $5. All the other applications made a big goose egg.
It’s very clear that the developers who are making these apps are not doing it with making money in mind, except for the Scratch and Win guy. He was doing it with the intent to cash in big. So far, he’s failing big time. He does admit that development and technology is his thing and he wouldn’t know marketing if his life depended on it. That may explain why his app is making only $5 per day. Then again, it’s $5 more than anyone else.
The Developer Garage was full but it wasn’t the Sardin cram session I was expecting. While there were 186 confirmed guests and 55 maybes, only about 115 people actually showed up. A representative from Facebook was suppose to speak at the event but couldn’t make it. Instead, we had to listen to him say hi on Skype. Overall, it was a very good event. Vancouver has a very big Facebook developer community that I can tap into when it comes time to make some Facebook apps.
We’ve been brainstorming ideas for Facebook apps and unlike those developers at the Garage, we’ll be making money from it. Why? Because we’re Facebook marketers, not Facebook developers. 😈