IT Milk: entry

I recently teamed up with two programmers to leverage the current trend in social media. This means researching social networks like Facebook and Myspace and developing custom applications on those platforms. There is a tremendous amount of potential on social platforms because of the large, well-defined user bases and all the interesting sorts of personal data we can integrate into the applications. We want to dig our hands into this pile of so-called web 2.0 before the bubble bursts.

Today, we launched our first Facebook application called Crush Mail. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this app lets you send secret messages to your crush that include random clues from your Facebook profile. For instance, I would send a message to you and it would have a) my message, b) a picture of a jigsaw puzzle with more pieces being revealed with each reply, and c) a list of clues about my identity.

Although our team happened to launch Crush Mail together, all the props for the application go to our two developers. I stepped into my position just as they were putting the finishing touches to Crush Mail, so I didn’t get much of a chance to get involved at all with this one.

Crush Mail has a nice concept and its launch is perfect timing for the Valentine’s Day season. However, the profit model on this app is weak and the target market is limited. We are just testing the waters with our first Facebook application.

Our developers are talented and, more importantly, driven by commitment so I am confident that, for each subsequent application after this, we will be able to go from application concept to working beta within a very short amount of time.

I also write for our Facebook application blog at Meezik, so I’ll probably be writing future updates about our products over there. So keep the Meezik blog bookmarked because we’re going to be rolling out some serious apps in the near future.