The Potential of Facebook with Ruby on Rails
People are joining Facebook by the herd, and if you’re not on it yet you probably haven’t heard or don’t care. However if you’re in any kind of B2C business that uses the Internet as a revenue channel, you should pay attention. The success of social networking websites in gathering viewers is something that cannot be ignored, even if you choose to be an anti-social digicrat. With 34 million users worldwide logged in July 2007, Facebook is expected to grow it’s numbers exponentially. Thousands of developers are creating plug-in apps on rails for an ever-increasing number of Facebook users to market their ideas, skills, and products. College dudes aren’t the only people making Ruby on Rails applications for Facebook. Companies have caught on to the potential of this platform and as a result we are seeing more mature applications showing up on Facebook.
One such example that I have come across is the Shopping 2.0 project by Hungry Machine LLC, which goes beyond purposeless graphical haggis and philanthropic esteem-feeding rate-me apps to more sophisticated efforts, where actual business intentions are integrated into the applications. The Visual CD rack is an app in the Shopping 2.0 suite that allows a Facebook user to build and show their CD collection using thumbnails taken from the Amazon.com catalogue. If a user chooses, “want to buy,” the link takes you to Amazon’s shopping engine. If you’re unsure how this is smart, Amazon.com has a very rewarding affiliate program that pays in commission dollars when click conversions turn into actual sales. I’m sure they’ve figured out a more sophisticated way to integrate the app seamlessness into Amazon’s model but one thing is for sure, Hungry Machines is definitely looking at commission dollars. If Hungry Machines simply developed this app for Amazon.com (which I doubt), that’s not entirely bad if you position your company as an RoR development firm, which is exactly what these coworkers from Evolution Health have done.
That is not to say that Visual CD rack will sell CDs. There still are variables like the fact that CD sales have plummeted since the idea of Napster came along and gone, and spawned dozens of other clonish P-to-P music sharing software. People are simply not buying CDs like they used to anymore. No matter how smart your rails application is.
Hungry Machines has also developed (without surprise), Visual Bookshelf, Visual DVD Rack, Video Games, Magazines and Gadgets which of course is basically the same app repackaged with different names because they access a different catalog database. These applications are in no way perfect in functionality but for what it is worth, the business idea makes sense and they are definitely paving the way for others who see the light in RoR. HM needs to work on IA and UA to perfect Shopping 2.0 in order to make the experience seamless enough to convert users into consumers.
In any case, this topic is way too big for me to attempt with one blog entry. I’ll be sure to touch on the subject again soon enough.
If you would like to learn how to create applications for Facebook, a good place to start is the Facebook Developer’s site. You might also like to take an online tutorial on Ruby on Rails, and research RoR in more detail on your own. Then the next step is really to just get down and dirty with it.
Who?
JACQUELINE MIAO
Web Strategist
PRINCE2 Project Manager
Location: London, U.K.-
