Who Makes $1 Million off their Facebook Application Every Week?

Since the launch of the Facebook Development Platform, literally hundreds of applications have been popping up each day. It seems most of these applications will never be added beyond the developer and his Top 8 friends. And you may be wondering: What might possess someone to go through the trouble of creating a Facebook application?

Of course, some developers will slave themselves just to make something cool for the Facebook-o-sphere to love, enjoy and share with all their friends. But there are at least 4 other reasons:

• For Branding (You’re a development house or a popular brand)
• To Sell (Example: Where I’ve Been gets bought by TripAdvisor)
• For Specific Actions (Affiliate products like iLike linking to iTunes)
• For Page Views (If you’re selling banner ad space on your application)

These reasons are very similar to why someone starts blogging. Some do it as a hobby, others to brand themselves or their company. Others blog for a living — to sell affiliate products or ad space.

But how to monetize Facebook applications is a big concern for companies who have tossed around the idea of developing one.

Yes, there is a secondary market for Facebook applications, and you can get an idea of what different applications are “worth” with Adonomics.

What is Adonomics?

Adonomics™, formerly Appaholic, is your source for Facebook analytics. By providing a stock-market-style analysis of the Facebook platform we enable developers and investors to track application growth, activity, and valuation.

But is anyone making money off of Facebook every week? Is $5,000 per day realistic? How about $1 Million per week? How do they do this?

I recently sat in on a session on Facebook application monetization presented by Jason Bailey of affiliate marketing firm Millnic Media at the recent Vancouver Facebook Developer’s Garage. Here’s the video:

Part 1

Part 2

PS, that’s my head in the bottom left. Yep. I know. You want my autograph now.

Side note: In the video, Jason talks about the Breast Cancer Awareness Month application. Well it is now “Movember” and wouldn’t it be neat to have a Facebook application that functions a bit like More Cowbell, where you start with a picture of Tom Selleck clean shaven on your profile, and every time your friends click on the picture (that says “Gimme Mo”) it will play a short clip of a Britney Spears parody “Gimme, Gimme MO Gimme Gimme MO….” and your profile will add a couple hairs to your stache?