This article on how Israeli developers are building Facebooks apps by theMarker doesn’t quite put things in perspective.
ill be the first one to give due respect to Israeli programmers for being class A, but building a good Facebook app has little to do with knowing the Facebook object model or being a gifted developer, and it has all do with virility, and that simply comes with being a great marketer and understanding promotion & stickiness.
I’ve met with a dozen Facebook developers are offering the same thing, we know how to write apps. None have said… we have a great idea.
The article also gives few example of Developers creating “global” apps, most of these developers are not developing viral apps for the mass, they are doing it for Israelis on Facebook currently numbering about ~340,000. Even if all Israeli’s on FB where to add their application, how much ad revenue do they think they will generate? certainly not enough to build a real business from.
The largest Facebook [exit] to date was about $3m by TripAdvisor for “where I’ve been” app, probably well paid considering that the app has been added to several tens of millions of profiles. Thats good coverage, none that has seen since then.