As we wrote the application for Facebook
How to make an application for a social network? How to make it popular? Why out of hundreds of thousands of applications, only a few become popular?
If we approach this formally, then we had 4 people and two weeks of time. Today it is easier to do than tomorrow. By writing the simplest application for facebook or for vkontakte, everyone will get not only the experience of the developer, but also the opportunity to monetize their project, making it successful and multi-user. It is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. In this article we will tell you all sorts of usefulnesses that we found out during the creation of our own application Flickr Photo Quiz (FPQuiz). You can test it in action here apps.facebook.com/flpquiz/game.php .
Highlights to pay attention to.
Before you start to do something, you need to figure out what is needed and who can help. Of course, the creation of an application is most easily divided into two large parts:
1. Development
1.1 Design.
In this case, the simplicity and convenience of the interface are put in the first place. A minimum of unnecessary details turns into a maximum of user friendliness.
1.2 Server and client parts
The main programming languages and libraries that we used ourselves.
1.3 Layout.
The only problem is the dullness of different browsers. There are no secrets.
2. Promotion
2.1 Promotion.
6 rules under which the number of users will grow exponentially. The principle of “come, do, go”, the regular return of users to the application, the principle of maximum friendship, enticing an avatar and a beautiful name, ratings and feedback with the user
2.2 Monetization
Virtual currency and opportunities that can only be provided by the developer who needs to pay for it.
In addition to the story about our application, at the end there will be a
2.3 Bonus.
You can download and see our research and conclusions based on the data obtained.
Design.
The simpler the better. Minimalism and functionality. Functionality should not suffer because of beauty. The right option would be to first make the application as functional as possible, and then as beautiful as possible, as much as possible while maintaining all the functionality. But not the other way around.
Initially, the design sketches looked something like this:
You had to choose one. We settled on the latter. It is the most functional. Large and clear buttons, a regular easy-to-read font, nothing distracts from the essence of the application. Further, some metamorphoses occurred to him, and the current version at the beginning of the post (or here apps.facebook.com/flpquiz/game.php ).
Server and client parts.
When writing the server and client parts, we first of all had a question. What to write on? It is clear that you can understand a specific language and write something. Do not learn everything. Yes, and I want to choose the language that is most suitable for a specific purpose. (Yes, none of us wrote before under the web and we only knew university C ++ and had a little Linux administration experience)
So, to write the server side we used php and the library that facebook itself provides. You can get it here: developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/php
In fact, the entire server side is written in php and is used to query databases and to authorize a user using Facebook. The API provides access to user data, allows you to organize user authorization in the application. By and large, this is already enough for work. And we limited ourselves to this. In general, there are several levels of authorization. By default, only basic user data is requested: first name, last name, where he was born, where he lives, gender, age, interests, etc. (what he indicates about himself), time of the last visit and address of the user's page. In addition to basic information, you can request access to the wall, offline user data, and more. All of this is described in detail on the facebook documentation page: developers.facebook.com/docs/authenticationthose. getting a user into an application on fb you can get a lot of diverse information about him.
Actually, php is also used to work with databases that store data about the user, his points, time of the last visit to the application, topics of questions, categories of answers and other things that we may need in the process.
The client part is written entirely in Java-script using the jQuery library. But in fact, this is just an html page, made up for the size of the iframe, which gives facebook for the application. The layout will be discussed below, but, looking ahead, we did not have any initial knowledge of any of these languages (php / js / css / html). It turned out to be done not in the best way, however, of the most common only in Internet Explorer, some problems arise. But more about that below. Those who previously wrote at least something in these languages have much more chances to make faster, better and more beautiful!
The general algorithm of our Flickr Photo Quiz application is as follows. The application receives photos and pictures using a json request to the flickr api with certain parameters taken from the database. For example, Moscow or Asia. Otherwise, we would get a completely random picture. Further, depending on what we requested, the number of points on a five-point scale is selected, which the user will receive when he answers the question correctly. The choice is subjective, so that for someone the question of 5 points can be very simple. If the player answers incorrectly, then 2 points are taken away from him in any case, regardless of how many points would be given if the answer was chosen correctly. Answer options are selected from the database according to the request sent to flickr. Among the answers there is only one correct one, the remaining three are randomly selected from the desired category (country, city, part of the world). Responses are posted randomly.
Another feature of the application. If the user has less than 100 points, then, in case of an incorrect answer, points are not taken away from him. This is a kind of bonus for new users. When a person has played out and scored more than 100 points, the penalty system is already starting to work. The application is good because the images are not stored somewhere on our server, but are taken directly from flickr. Thus, if a user logs into this application in a month, then the same requests from the application database, flickr will give out other pictures and will not be able to win, just by memorizing the pictures.
Layout
In order to make up everything that the designer drew, you need to deal with CSS. The main task and at the same time the difficulty is that the application is displayed equally in all browsers.
With Google Chrome there are no problems at all. This is a smart browser created by the best programmers. Things are a little worse with Opera and Mozilla FireFox. But there are no particular difficulties with these browsers either.
The most difficult and incomprehensible task arises when trying to get Internet Explorer to display the application as it should. There are no rules, methods or algorithms on how to do this. Everything will have to be done by eye, by trial and error. Many functions do not work in Internet Explorer, and you have to make layout specifically for this one browser. And it is necessary. Because most people still use it. For the rest, everyone can do this by learning a little about the basics of CSS markup.
Promotion.
You can come up with a lot of success indicators for the created application, but, nevertheless, the easiest way to manage what can be measured. Therefore, we will measure the success of the application by the amount of money that it brings.
Obviously, the more people there are, the more money they will bring.
An application is considered successful if more than a million people actively use it. The critical mass for the existence of the application is 100 thousand users.
The most successful social networking applications have over five million users. This brings a good stable income.
As a result of the analysis of a huge number of applications in social networks, information from the websites of development companies and articles in magazines, we identified 6 main criteria for the success of applications.
• The principle of "come, do, leave."
This principle is perfectly demonstrated in Fermat applications. He went in, dug up and watered the beds, harvested and went out. The crop grows and ripens itself, without user intervention. This is the main gameplay of social games. It is because of the lack of this principle that the leaders of traditional games could not become the best in social gaming applications. Traditional games are exciting but time consuming. Therefore, such games quickly gained an audience, and then also rapidly lost it.
• Regular return of users to the application.
The goal of the developer is to get the maximum profit. A lot of new users are good. But the "old" scatter bad. Make them come in again and again. The farm is a great example. If you do not enter the application on time, then the crop will rot, deteriorate or be stolen. You can give bonuses for the frequent appearance in the game, for example, in the game Poker for a daily visit, additional chips are added that you can play in the casino. Thus, a person can have a big score, not only constantly winning, but just going into the application daily. Many people go to such applications every day for points, and then it just becomes a habit.
• Maximize the use of friendships.
The button "invite a friend" should be required. In addition, the application should work with the player’s friends not only directly, but also indirectly. For example, the application publishes a miracle piece, a cocktail, a cute kitten, a greeting card, or a request for help on a friend’s wall. Some games are specifically geared towards group play or dueling. Many applications give bonuses for invited friends. This works great.
• Big name and enticing avatar.
A beautiful or interesting picture on a friend’s wall or in the news serves as a good incentive to see what is hidden inside. The main thing here is not to overdo it and not turn into a spam mailing list. As you know, most applications before downloading, ask the user for permission to access personal information. The purpose of the bright intriguing avatar is to prevent the user from logging out before the application starts loading.
• Rating.
Without a well-designed rating system, success will not come. It is necessary that users measure something. The number of points, strength, level of character, a place in the overall ranking or among friends. The simple principle “Who is cooler and who has more” always works flawlessly. People always want to know what place they occupy among the rest. The more different measures and ratings, the better. Thanks to the rating system, a competitive spirit, a spirit of competition wakes up, and this forces him to enter the application again and again. This point is important, among other things, in that it is thanks to it that for the most part you can monetize your application.
• Constant feedback with the user.
A person always needs to be reminded of who he is, what he has achieved, to which he has a few more steps left, and what he can get in the near future. So you need to send feedback from time to time to the user's wall. And the more colorful it is, the better. Not only will you remind the participant of your application that he has already achieved a lot and entice him to play again, so his friends, seeing this, may want to compete or just try and become new users. By the way, some applications gained their popularity only thanks to such viral advertising.
Monetization.
If you want your application to bring a steady income, you need several things:
• Many active users (successful application)
• Developed rating system
• What people will pay for real money.
Most often, money is taken to advance in the ranking faster, additional bonuses or temporary special features that other users do not have.
It makes sense to introduce paid services only when you have more than 100 thousand actively playing users. Then it will become clear to new users that they will not come close to the leaders on their own or it will take a lot of time, and they will begin to use the developer’s capabilities for their own promotion, which are naturally not free.
Bonus
Before we started making the application, we had a question. For which social network do the application, and what should it be. To make a choice, we conducted a study on six points:
1. General data on social networks
2. Application overview
3. Developer companies
4. Financial indicators
5. Application promotion methods
6. Forecasts
It would be possible to tell about all this directly in the article, but it would be much more convenient to use structured information in the form of a presentation. All information was taken from major studies, expert opinions, reputable magazines and interviews.
You can download the presentation with all the materials of our study by clicking on this link www.slideshare.net/DmitriyDyadin/ss-10273462 . It contains various statistics, comparatives, graphs, opinions, analyst forecasts and something else that will help in creating successful applications for social networks.
Our Flickr Photo Quiz app was created for facebook. All users registered on facebook can familiarize themselves with it by driving “fpquiz” into the search bar or by clicking on the link apps.facebook.com/flpquiz/game.php .
If we approach this formally, then we had 4 people and two weeks of time. Today it is easier to do than tomorrow. By writing the simplest application for facebook or for vkontakte, everyone will get not only the experience of the developer, but also the opportunity to monetize their project, making it successful and multi-user. It is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. In this article we will tell you all sorts of usefulnesses that we found out during the creation of our own application Flickr Photo Quiz (FPQuiz). You can test it in action here apps.facebook.com/flpquiz/game.php .
Highlights to pay attention to.
Before you start to do something, you need to figure out what is needed and who can help. Of course, the creation of an application is most easily divided into two large parts:
1. Development
1.1 Design.
In this case, the simplicity and convenience of the interface are put in the first place. A minimum of unnecessary details turns into a maximum of user friendliness.
1.2 Server and client parts
The main programming languages and libraries that we used ourselves.
1.3 Layout.
The only problem is the dullness of different browsers. There are no secrets.
2. Promotion
2.1 Promotion.
6 rules under which the number of users will grow exponentially. The principle of “come, do, go”, the regular return of users to the application, the principle of maximum friendship, enticing an avatar and a beautiful name, ratings and feedback with the user
2.2 Monetization
Virtual currency and opportunities that can only be provided by the developer who needs to pay for it.
In addition to the story about our application, at the end there will be a
2.3 Bonus.
You can download and see our research and conclusions based on the data obtained.
Design.
The simpler the better. Minimalism and functionality. Functionality should not suffer because of beauty. The right option would be to first make the application as functional as possible, and then as beautiful as possible, as much as possible while maintaining all the functionality. But not the other way around.
Initially, the design sketches looked something like this:
You had to choose one. We settled on the latter. It is the most functional. Large and clear buttons, a regular easy-to-read font, nothing distracts from the essence of the application. Further, some metamorphoses occurred to him, and the current version at the beginning of the post (or here apps.facebook.com/flpquiz/game.php ).
Server and client parts.
When writing the server and client parts, we first of all had a question. What to write on? It is clear that you can understand a specific language and write something. Do not learn everything. Yes, and I want to choose the language that is most suitable for a specific purpose. (Yes, none of us wrote before under the web and we only knew university C ++ and had a little Linux administration experience)
So, to write the server side we used php and the library that facebook itself provides. You can get it here: developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/php
In fact, the entire server side is written in php and is used to query databases and to authorize a user using Facebook. The API provides access to user data, allows you to organize user authorization in the application. By and large, this is already enough for work. And we limited ourselves to this. In general, there are several levels of authorization. By default, only basic user data is requested: first name, last name, where he was born, where he lives, gender, age, interests, etc. (what he indicates about himself), time of the last visit and address of the user's page. In addition to basic information, you can request access to the wall, offline user data, and more. All of this is described in detail on the facebook documentation page: developers.facebook.com/docs/authenticationthose. getting a user into an application on fb you can get a lot of diverse information about him.
Actually, php is also used to work with databases that store data about the user, his points, time of the last visit to the application, topics of questions, categories of answers and other things that we may need in the process.
The client part is written entirely in Java-script using the jQuery library. But in fact, this is just an html page, made up for the size of the iframe, which gives facebook for the application. The layout will be discussed below, but, looking ahead, we did not have any initial knowledge of any of these languages (php / js / css / html). It turned out to be done not in the best way, however, of the most common only in Internet Explorer, some problems arise. But more about that below. Those who previously wrote at least something in these languages have much more chances to make faster, better and more beautiful!
The general algorithm of our Flickr Photo Quiz application is as follows. The application receives photos and pictures using a json request to the flickr api with certain parameters taken from the database. For example, Moscow or Asia. Otherwise, we would get a completely random picture. Further, depending on what we requested, the number of points on a five-point scale is selected, which the user will receive when he answers the question correctly. The choice is subjective, so that for someone the question of 5 points can be very simple. If the player answers incorrectly, then 2 points are taken away from him in any case, regardless of how many points would be given if the answer was chosen correctly. Answer options are selected from the database according to the request sent to flickr. Among the answers there is only one correct one, the remaining three are randomly selected from the desired category (country, city, part of the world). Responses are posted randomly.
Another feature of the application. If the user has less than 100 points, then, in case of an incorrect answer, points are not taken away from him. This is a kind of bonus for new users. When a person has played out and scored more than 100 points, the penalty system is already starting to work. The application is good because the images are not stored somewhere on our server, but are taken directly from flickr. Thus, if a user logs into this application in a month, then the same requests from the application database, flickr will give out other pictures and will not be able to win, just by memorizing the pictures.
Layout
In order to make up everything that the designer drew, you need to deal with CSS. The main task and at the same time the difficulty is that the application is displayed equally in all browsers.
With Google Chrome there are no problems at all. This is a smart browser created by the best programmers. Things are a little worse with Opera and Mozilla FireFox. But there are no particular difficulties with these browsers either.
The most difficult and incomprehensible task arises when trying to get Internet Explorer to display the application as it should. There are no rules, methods or algorithms on how to do this. Everything will have to be done by eye, by trial and error. Many functions do not work in Internet Explorer, and you have to make layout specifically for this one browser. And it is necessary. Because most people still use it. For the rest, everyone can do this by learning a little about the basics of CSS markup.
Promotion.
You can come up with a lot of success indicators for the created application, but, nevertheless, the easiest way to manage what can be measured. Therefore, we will measure the success of the application by the amount of money that it brings.
Obviously, the more people there are, the more money they will bring.
An application is considered successful if more than a million people actively use it. The critical mass for the existence of the application is 100 thousand users.
The most successful social networking applications have over five million users. This brings a good stable income.
As a result of the analysis of a huge number of applications in social networks, information from the websites of development companies and articles in magazines, we identified 6 main criteria for the success of applications.
• The principle of "come, do, leave."
This principle is perfectly demonstrated in Fermat applications. He went in, dug up and watered the beds, harvested and went out. The crop grows and ripens itself, without user intervention. This is the main gameplay of social games. It is because of the lack of this principle that the leaders of traditional games could not become the best in social gaming applications. Traditional games are exciting but time consuming. Therefore, such games quickly gained an audience, and then also rapidly lost it.
• Regular return of users to the application.
The goal of the developer is to get the maximum profit. A lot of new users are good. But the "old" scatter bad. Make them come in again and again. The farm is a great example. If you do not enter the application on time, then the crop will rot, deteriorate or be stolen. You can give bonuses for the frequent appearance in the game, for example, in the game Poker for a daily visit, additional chips are added that you can play in the casino. Thus, a person can have a big score, not only constantly winning, but just going into the application daily. Many people go to such applications every day for points, and then it just becomes a habit.
• Maximize the use of friendships.
The button "invite a friend" should be required. In addition, the application should work with the player’s friends not only directly, but also indirectly. For example, the application publishes a miracle piece, a cocktail, a cute kitten, a greeting card, or a request for help on a friend’s wall. Some games are specifically geared towards group play or dueling. Many applications give bonuses for invited friends. This works great.
• Big name and enticing avatar.
A beautiful or interesting picture on a friend’s wall or in the news serves as a good incentive to see what is hidden inside. The main thing here is not to overdo it and not turn into a spam mailing list. As you know, most applications before downloading, ask the user for permission to access personal information. The purpose of the bright intriguing avatar is to prevent the user from logging out before the application starts loading.
• Rating.
Without a well-designed rating system, success will not come. It is necessary that users measure something. The number of points, strength, level of character, a place in the overall ranking or among friends. The simple principle “Who is cooler and who has more” always works flawlessly. People always want to know what place they occupy among the rest. The more different measures and ratings, the better. Thanks to the rating system, a competitive spirit, a spirit of competition wakes up, and this forces him to enter the application again and again. This point is important, among other things, in that it is thanks to it that for the most part you can monetize your application.
• Constant feedback with the user.
A person always needs to be reminded of who he is, what he has achieved, to which he has a few more steps left, and what he can get in the near future. So you need to send feedback from time to time to the user's wall. And the more colorful it is, the better. Not only will you remind the participant of your application that he has already achieved a lot and entice him to play again, so his friends, seeing this, may want to compete or just try and become new users. By the way, some applications gained their popularity only thanks to such viral advertising.
Monetization.
If you want your application to bring a steady income, you need several things:
• Many active users (successful application)
• Developed rating system
• What people will pay for real money.
Most often, money is taken to advance in the ranking faster, additional bonuses or temporary special features that other users do not have.
It makes sense to introduce paid services only when you have more than 100 thousand actively playing users. Then it will become clear to new users that they will not come close to the leaders on their own or it will take a lot of time, and they will begin to use the developer’s capabilities for their own promotion, which are naturally not free.
Bonus
Before we started making the application, we had a question. For which social network do the application, and what should it be. To make a choice, we conducted a study on six points:
1. General data on social networks
2. Application overview
3. Developer companies
4. Financial indicators
5. Application promotion methods
6. Forecasts
It would be possible to tell about all this directly in the article, but it would be much more convenient to use structured information in the form of a presentation. All information was taken from major studies, expert opinions, reputable magazines and interviews.
You can download the presentation with all the materials of our study by clicking on this link www.slideshare.net/DmitriyDyadin/ss-10273462 . It contains various statistics, comparatives, graphs, opinions, analyst forecasts and something else that will help in creating successful applications for social networks.
Our Flickr Photo Quiz app was created for facebook. All users registered on facebook can familiarize themselves with it by driving “fpquiz” into the search bar or by clicking on the link apps.facebook.com/flpquiz/game.php .