development

The two most common pieces of advice you’ll hear about developing a Facebook app are probably:

1. Viral ideas are like half-cooked spaghetti; some of the stick to the wall, but you have to throw a bunch of noodles to find out which
2. Launch you app before it’s “finished,” and develop it over time as new features occur to you

I call this strategy of developing apps over time “baby step development,” because it relies significantly on incrementalism, or taking baby steps with your product.

Why is this important in social media?

Because what you’re looking for is engagement. Facebook highlighted this when they introduced the idea of “daily active users” for an app, instead of just counting the number of people who have installed an app.

And what better way to keep people coming back to your app than to keep adding new features and responding to user requests?

From that standpoint, it’s important that you look at any Facebook or OpenSocial app spec as something to provide a trajectory, not just a product.

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