Facebook's HTML5 App Store
Last year Techcrunch published an article that Facebook is building HTML5 app store, and they hired CEO of openappmkt.com to carry out the task. More recently during Mobile World Congress Facebook announced that more people are using Facebook on mobile web and that Facebook is working with mobile operators worldwide to solve payment problem for these users. I think this is a great move on Facebook’s part to build a strong foundation for their upcoming HTML5 app store. I believe Facebook’s HTML5 app store can solve three biggest problems that app developers face today:
- Discovery: Today app discovery is quite challenging, as there are thousands of app around. Facebook can leverage its social graph to make app discovery social.
- Large investments in building native apps: Building and maintaining native apps is expensive, as you need to build apps for completely different platforms. With HTML5 you can build a platform agnostic app.
- Monetization: Monetization is low for native apps due to limited payment options. Facebook can facilitate payment by tying up with carriers.
I have been playing with HTML5 apps lately (will follow-up with my views in another post) - I think they have great potential and I am excited about Facebook’s HTML5 app store.
