In its bid to drive next generation-ready innovation, Facebook has chalked out plans to invest in the developer community.
The Facebook developer platform or Fbstart – relies on the strength of its international community, with more than 70 percent of Facebook developers located outside the U.S.
FbStart, helps early stage mobile developers, it has distributed benefits worth more than $50 million to startups in Asia Pacific and held FbStart events around the globe.
Developer opportunities in India
More developers are building apps with Facebook in India than any other country outside the U.S. and today, more than 75 percent of top-grossing apps in India are integrated with Facebook. Of the $50 million in benefits distributed to Asia Pacific startups through FbStart, more than $20 million went to startups in India.
With millions of people still not yet connected to the Internet in India and around the world, there is a huge opportunity for mobile developers to build some of the first experiences people have with the Internet.
Through programs like FbStart and the Internet.org Platform, announced earlier this summer, Facebook is working with developers to build better mobile experiences that demonstrate the power of the internet.
FbStart World Tour in Asia Pacific
This month, Facebook held FbStart events in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and India as part of our FbStart World Tour, where the company met with program members and local developers. Strategic Partnerships Director ImeArchibong keynoted both events in India, where he spoke with developers about tips for growing their businesses and reaching more people through Facebook’s tools:
“I’m incredibly excited to be back in India this week. There’s an amazing opportunity for Indian-based developers to work with Facebook to grow their businesses, and we are doubling down on our investment in the country through programs like FbStart and the Internet.org Platform.”
A number of Asia Pacific FbStart apps have already shown how they can use the tools provided through the program to see success.
In Asia alone, the company has more than 1,000 members in the FbStart program. Some examples of apps growing with FbStart include:
Carousell
Singapore-based Carousell is a lifestyle marketplace app that makes selling as simple as taking photos and allows anyone to create a free listing to sell their items in just 30 seconds. Since it launched in 2012, Carousell has grown to have more than 8 million listings and millions of items successfully transacted across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan.
Through FbStart, Carousell’s team was able to run and test marketing campaigns with their Facebook mobile app ad credit. The quality of users acquired and cost targets have exceeded expectations with the help of lookalikes from custom audiences of their top buyers and sellers.
They also used FbStart’s partner benefits, including Transifex to scale to multiple countries and languages and Mobile Action to improve their app store optimization. Additionally, Carousell uses Facebook Platform products such as Facebook Login, Social Plugins, and Facebook App Analytics.
Cardback
Delhi-based app Cardback helps cardholders and wallet users identify their best ways to pay and maximize their rewards and savings for every transaction they make. It is a payment recommendation platform that helps credit, debit, prepaid cardholders and mobile wallet users make smarter payment decisions.
As a member of FbStartCardback has used Facebook ad credits to increase the number of people installing their app by 5x in the past six months, now with 50 percent of people coming to their app through Facebook ads.
Cardback also uses Facebook Login, which now accounts for 60 percent of signups on iOS and Windows. Through Facebook App Analytics they are also able to better understand their customers and make more informed decisions based on user engagement, demographic information and retention patterns.
Samosa
Samosa, based in Hyderabad, offers a curated collection of clips from popular movies that people can share with their friends, including punchlines, proverbs, love proposals, witty responses, funny expressions and song clips. FbStart’s free tools and services helped the team focus their time and effort on building their app, rather than spending precious time searching and deciding which services to use to fulfill their needs.
With Parse, Samosa was able to quickly iterate on their app. As an Android-first company, they were able to ship more than 10 different versions of the user interface in the span of just a month by relying on a Parse-powered backend. Samosa also uses Facebook Login to sign up customers, and they integrated with Messenger to bring their collection of clips to even more conversations.
Apply to join
To join the FbStart program, developers can visit our website and apply today.
