The value of Facebook applications

At the Graphing Social Patterns conference in San Jose, I’ve overheard more conversations about the accuracy of application valuations than I’ve been Rick Rolled in the past week. It is safe to say that much of the discussion around the value of apps is because app analytics company, Adonomics, publicly shows what they feel an app is worth on their website. So, of course, we asked Lee Lorenzen, the CEO of Altura Ventures, the Facebook fund that acquired Adonomics in August, to be a discussion leader at App-Camp.

The Adonomics website states the following factors are used to value an application:

Facebook-reported numbers

Standard web metrics such as pageviews, uniques, visitors, etc.

Computed data, such as sudden changes in your growth profile or the age of your application.

Estimated growth of your application and Facebook in general

Optimal monetization strategies across all possible services, including CPM/CPC/CPI advertising, potential sponsorships, and
cross-promotion deals.

Using that data the following three applications are valued at:

1) Vampires – $2,678,670
2) My Aquarium – $2,629,780
3) (fluff) Friends – $1,629,290

Are these apps worth that much? Are they worth more? All three of these application developers are leading discussions at App-Camp in addition to Lee Lorenzen, so those attending will have the opportunity to understand application valuations from two unique perspectives.

Tags: (fluff) Friends, Adonomics, app-camp, applications, facebook, Graphing Social Pattersn, Lee Lorenzen, My Aquarium, Rick Rolling, Vampires