As the number of third-party applications on social networking site Facebook continues to grow (despite regular changes to Facebook’s platform), Facebook and developers are still experimenting with ways to make money with those apps — for example, the site recently started testing ads that run in the apps. But there’s an untapped opportunity for subscription-based [...]
Zuora chief executive Tien Tzuo notes that there are more than 50,000 apps and more than 600,000 developers on Facebook’s platform, and the vast majority of the apps try to make money with advertising — a model that may not be a great fit for the some apps, or for the site. But particularly as more productive, business-oriented applications move onto Facebook , there’s a growing number of apps that users might be willing to pay a small subscription fee to use.
“We think there could be a whole class of applications that people would be willing to pay for,” Tzuo says. “Why hasn’t it happened yet? Well, there’s a lot you have to do.”
In fact, Facebook’s developer site includes a discussion of subscriptions in its page on common business models, as well as links to payment tools, such as Amazon Flexible Payments, PayPal, and Google Checkout. But like the version of Z-Commerce that Zuora rolled out for cloud computing developers in January, Zuora’s tool for Facebook developers is a more full-service solution. It includes a console for managing user subscriptions, access control to ensure only subscribers access the app or certain sections of the app, and commerce widgets that plug into your app. You can see a diagram of how Zuora’s access control and commerce widgets work together below.
Redwood City, Calif.-based Zuora is announcing its Facebook solution today at the DEMO conference in Palm Springs. It’s also opening a contest for Facebook developers to submit apps where subscriptions might be a good fit; five of those apps will receive free access to Z-Commerce for Facebook for a year. Go here for more information.
Zuora has raised a total of $21.5 million in venture backing. Competitors include Aria Systems and Vindicia, neither of whom offers a Facebook product.
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