Hi Alex, Beth and Thomas -

Thanks for the comments. This chart is actually from Facebook itself and represents (as the legend notes) the number of applications developed - not users.

True 'nuff - it's possible that what people USE vs. what is DEVELOPED could be strikingly different. However, in this case, I'm going to assume that market forces are getting right and that demand is driving development.

To me, it does mean that there's an opportunity to engage folks with games. If that's what they want, we should figure out how to give it to them.

Good games for good examples. Any others you guys like?

Been seeing more games for good type apps too - like these:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/04/social-change-a.html

It's the FreeRice game on steroids.

Two thoughts:

1. That's the supply side. What are people actually using? Probably still heavy on the fun, but there are a lot of crummy, low-adoption "just for fun" apps out there.
2. There are some good NP-engagement apps that are tagged "Just for Fun," like ArtShare. It's not immediately clear from the chart whether apps with multiple tags are counted twice.

The overall signal-to-noise ratio on the Internet is nothing new for nonprofit communications professionals. But if you can use the tools to develop better relationships with some constituents, cool.

but your tagline bothers me...


can you clarify what the numbers represent here, please? is this the number of applications that have been developed? or the number of apps that have been selected and installed by some specific demographic?


the implications of each of those is significantly different, and neither necessarily represents what people "want"....