Are Facebook Apps Still Relevant?

I was interviewed by the publication DM News recently about Facebook Apps and whether they are still relevant. I won't re-hash the article, you can read it HERE. My favorite part is the misprint where they call me the CEP of Fanscape. A few years ago that would have made me the Chief Executive Partier. Later on I became the Chief Executive Pontificator and today I think I'm just the Chief Executive Papa to my little boy - or better yet, the Chief Exhausted Papa.

Here's a snapshot of my quotes from the article:

“Several years ago a great widget, game or video could garner millions of views because it was different, funny or controversial,” notes Larry Weintraub, CEP of LA-based Fanscape, which has completed social media programs for clients such as NBC, Game Stop to POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. “Today that same piece of content may only garner interactions in the thousands, so marketers are realizing it's not about hitting tons of people—it's about hitting the right people.”

And whether it's an entertainment brand, or a packaged consumer product, marketers are also realizing they want their social media application to do more that simply tout a brand. “There's no point in building a social media application that doesn't have a call to action,” Weintraub stresses. “There has to be something tangible—it can't be that a bunch of people threw a virtual snowball or played a game.”

I'm personally over the Facebook app. I got sucked in by the Zombie game, that was fun for a while (that's my zombie over there to the right - I just looked and it turns out I'm a Zombie Mogul - who knew?). But now people attack my zombie and I think to myself, "Don't you have something better to do?" I know I've accepted about a dozen apps, but I never look at them. I don't think I've ever actually gone out of my way to find and download an app. At least not a frivolous one. Strike that, I have downloaded the Shelfari app. I like the way it keeps track of the books I'm reading. But like the Zombie app, I haven't looked at that in a year. Probably right around the time when Facebook apps were all the rage. Funny how quickly this social media world changes, huh?

Now iPhone apps, that's another story. Damn you Solitaire app!