The minds behind the online calendar 30Boxes are coming out with fbExchange, the first ad network for Facebook applications. An application will display links to other applications, and you collect credits when users click on them. Other apps will link back to your app as you continue earning credits, creating a link exchange or ring of sorts.
Popular apps like Free Gifts, Twitter, and Slide — which includes the number one Facebook app, Top Friends — have already signed up for it. Judging from the design of the system, it seems like fbExchange will help more with general app promotion than actual revenue generating, but nothing can be said for sure until the service goes live.
However, fbExchange won’t be alone. Scott Rafer, founder of MyBlogLog and Feedster, and David Cancel, co-founder of Compete.com, announced that they are working on their own Facebook application ad network called Lookery. No details are available yet on how it will work, but it is expected to go live sometime next week.
All Facebook reports that there’s a rumor going around that Facebook is already working on their own ad network, and if that has any weight, how they’ll take the presence of fbExchange and Lookery into account remains up in the air. Facebook is clearly a hot spot for marketers right now, especially with the wide demographics they can reach — they have access to audiences on a much more effective and scalable level than just buying flyers, as Inside Facebook says.
However, Steve O’Hear over at ZDNet suggests success will follow if the focus is on leveraging the core appeal of Facebook, which is communicating and connecting with one another:
With monetization infrastructure falling into place, the question remains whether Facebook apps can generate better click through rates and campaign results, than the traditional Facebook. One theory behind the poor results to-date is that Facebook is about communication not content, and so users are too focused to click off-track. Many Facebook apps put sharing content at their center, so it may be that they do slightly better.
