More of Facebook Platform in headlines yesterday, this time talking about a drop in developer interest. Basically the argument is that less participation in the developer communication’s tools means less interest in the platform.
From my vantage point on the ground, I agree that there is less interest in the platform. However, it’s less interest from the amateur crowd; the kinds of guys that throw up a poke application in weekend just to see how it does (a plethora of quiz apps have also diluted the application count). There is a “professionalization” of the Facebook platform afoot, where small groups of developers or companies are gaining a better grasp of how the platform works and starting out with more sophisticated strategies (launching portfolios of applications, or developing many more small applications). We’re passing through the hype curve and have finally found that the Facebook platform can’t make everyone instant millionaires (although for some it comes pretty damn close).
Sanity is coming to the application space and the persistence of the platform is starting to make larger companies and brands comfortable with developing on the platform. In the next coming months, we’ll be seeing many more large organizations logging on with increasingly more sophisticated application and advertising strategies, some of which I can’t talk about right now.
Update: Jesse addresses a lot of this in an update.
