Update on Facebook and Local Search

Published by Darby Sieben | Filed under Facebook, Featured, Local

As many of you know - my YP Labs team launched the YellowPages.ca Facebook Application back in May. I did a post on the television coverage by CTV - check it out.

So what is the determining success in developing a facebook application? In the facebook world it really comes down to the number of installs of the application and more importantly the number of daily active users. At the bottom of this post, I will share some numbers on local search applications in facebook.

Before I get into small application numbers, I want to highlight a feature about the YellowPages.ca application - building your own lists to share with friends and then map your lists. This application allows a user to create lists for private, semi-public and public on pretty much any topic. Here are some public user created lists:

Favorite Restaurants in Calgary - Map List.
Favorite Sports Stores in Montreal - Map List.
Favorite Toronto Restaurants - Map List.
Great Restaurants in Port Perry - Map List.
Places to Eat in Ottawa - Map List.

Some interesting lists, including one for my favorite places to eat in Ottawa.

Back to numbers of successful application usage. I grabbed these numbers from Adonomics.com, which aggregates usage on facebook applications. Here are some stats regarding application usage on facebook. Numbers are as of today.

The most successful application, in terms of installs is SuperWall with just under 43M installs and a daily active usage of 2%.

Funwall has the most active users at 1.8M from a total install base of 36.5M and a daily active usage of 5%.

Scrabulous (now being sued by Hasbro) has 3.9M installs and daily active usage of 506K or 13%.

So what about local search applications? First, from an expectation perspective, they are not even close to the above numbers. Facebook is still, at its core, a platform of entertainment. However, it is interesting to see how some of the local search player applications fair-out:

Yell Socialiser (UK) - 500 installs, 2 daily active users (0%)
Praize’n'raze (CDN and US) - 950 installs, 57 daily active users (6%)
YellowPages.ca (CDN) - 667 installs, 40 daily active users (6%)
Local Picks (Global) - 1.1M installs, 3349 daily active users (0%)
Lolodex (US) - 2800 installs, 15 daily active users (0%)