Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

The old adage is that the best way to learn is by doing. Well that’s my excuse for spending my weekend on a sad obsessive task – Creating a Facebook Application.

Let me start by saying that I am not a technologist. I can find my way around a blogging platform, sling a bit of HTML but I am not a developer. I am a marketing-type (i.e. I have limited marketable skills).

A while back I created a map for my main sad obsession, running a blog on sailing, Messing About in Sailboats. The map called Great Places to Sail used Platial. This is a nice, simple social mapping service for creating maps about a particular interest and getting other like-minded people to add to it. They use Google Maps as their platform.

This weekend I turned this map into a Facebook app. It was labor-intensive but surprisingly easy. First I turned the map into a widget using Widgetbox. Then I turned the widget into a Facebook app. Presto Digito – Great Places to Sail is now on Facebook as an application!

I give Widgetbox great kudos. They do a brilliant job of stepping you through the process. It felt like doing your taxes with Intuit. Really well-designed, easy-to-use, with lots of context-sensitive help and simple checklists to ensure that you have completed the long list of tasks correctly.

The fascinating thing is the way all these tools work together as a system. Platial develops its service on Google Maps. They use Widgetbox to allow users to turn their maps into distributable widgets. Widgetbox integrates with Facebook to turn widgets into applications. The content gets distributed on Facebook as an application. By the way, Widgetbox runs an ad network that sends money into your Paypal account if people click on ad next to you app. Ultimately, Google benefits from all this as their mapping platform reaches a wider audience, increasing its share of users.

All these services are built on readily available open platform tools. This makes it easy for companies to create products and services that integrate seamlessly, each one playing a distinct role that builds and feeds on each other. They put the user in control, give them the tools to go create and potentially profit from their creativity. Like an organic ecosystem, the services can adapt as new opportunities arise or the market moves in a different direction.

Now all I need is a few million Facebook users to start using my application and I can retire on all the money I am going to make through Paypal.

Adam Turinas