As Facebook is getting ready to announce a registered user base of 500 million, there is also some interesting news that the company will be enabling the development of mobile applications for the social network. While most of Facebook’s services are designed for use on desktop PCs and laptops, a new generation may be on its way – a generation that is laid out to work especially with smartphones. It is not difficult to imagine that there may be a whole new opportunity for app ideas within Facebook.
VentureBeat is reporting that Facebook intends to provide a platform for mobile developers that is similar in functionality to the desktop platform. The desktop platform currently runs about 550,000 applications at this time. It is the right time to look to mobile devices since Facebook says that 150 million of its users now access Facebook via mobile devices.
According to All Facebook, 21.5 million iPhone users run the Facebook mobile app. About 800,000 iPhone users have been installing the iPhone app per week on average over the past few weeks. 10.8 million Blackberrys are running Facebook, while Android phones are accessing Facebook through their web browser.
Of course, that user base is no guarantee for overnight success. You still need a great idea and a great application that appeals to those users. But apps are getting much more sophisticated – an example may be Animoto, which was developed here at ELC Technologies, and the right knowledge how to leverage the Facebook user base for app adoption can be priceless marketing support. It does not take much to predict that we will see a big jump in Facebook mobile app development.