Facebook launches 18 new Timeline apps – outlines traffic boost for sites

27 Apr 2012

In rolling out 18 new Timeline apps – from newspapers to music and travel – Facebook has emphasised the impact the apps can have for developers. It said charity app Justgiving raised stg£22m through Facebook, with one in 10 donors sharing their donation via the social networking site.

The 18 new Timeline apps unveiled yesterday at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam include Canal+, Le Figaro, JustGiving, Livesport, RTVE, Sky Italia, Tripbirds, Voix.io, Magisto, Le Monde, Muzu.TV and WP.pl.

Facebook is clearly encouraging developers to get cracking on apps for Timeline and emphasised the success Timeline apps are delivering for start-ups.

For example, Wooga and King.com, which grew to reach tens of millions of users after building their businesses on Facebook, each hitting the top 5 list of game developers on Facebook within a year. Wooga reaches more than 45m users each month through mobile and Facebook, while King recently hit 42m monthly active users.

In other cases, Facebook said last month there were around 1.5bn shares from Spotify to Facebook.

Deezer in the past month has seen a 300pc increase in traffic from Facebook mobile and is growing by 200,000 new Facebook users per week.

One month after launching its Timeline app, design marketplace Fab.com’s German site has grown to 500,000 users, adding 300,000 users in 40 days.

Social travel site Gogobot’s user base in three months since launching its Timeline app saw its user base grow by more than 50pc, with 45pc of that coming from the top economies in Europe, Facebook claimed.

The social network cited the example of Justgiving, which says one in 10 donors share their donation on Facebook. It raised stg£22m via Facebook last year and intends its new Timeline app to boost donations.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com