Jon Stahl points out that Facebook is no longer measuring apps by raw number of users but by their engagement. There’s more info at the Facebook blog. So how does this play out for charity apps on Facebook?
Well as of 10:38 PM EST on 8/29/2007, here are the stats for charity Facebook Apps:
App Name % of active users Active users per day Firstgiving 14% 34 Causes 6% 203,182 Change.org 4% 288 Razoo Speed Granting 3% 207 Chipin 1% 39
Clearly, there’s room for better user engagement within most of these charity apps. Causes is still the 800 lb. Gorilla of the Facebook charity app world. What’s even more interesting is that Causes is also the biggest political Facebook app by far. And yes, that statistic lumps in political Causes with nonprofit Causes. Let’s say only 10% of those Causes are political. It’s still leading the pack. That’s how huge the Causes user base is. Those of you in the political advocacy world had better start figuring out Causes quick. I hear there’s a very important election in 2008. 
I’m very intrigued now by the activity of Firstgiving users. Does anyone have a hypothesis as to why they lead the pack? I certainly don’t. Could it just be a statistical outlier or does Firstgiving have some secret user interactivity sauce?
Oh yeah, if anyone can think of more charity Facebook apps to add to the list, please tell me.
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I think the Firstgiving number is simply too small to make any conclusion about. The sample size is 34 — these could all be employees, for all we know.
The apps that are really taking off on Facebook in terms of usage are ones that aren’t passive. That’s what Causes and the others need to figure out — how to get Facebook users to interact with each other within the framework of the Cause. It’s not enough to have me listed as a member of a group. (It’s boring!)
True — it IS boring. Perhaps we can throw causes at one another? Or maybe make cute drawings for the Cause and pass it around? Any kind of mashup between a charity app and the other really cool apps out there would be appreciated.
[...] August, I had noticed that the Justgiving app had a large amount of user interaction with the Justgiving app. That continues to this day with four percent of their installed base interacting with the app on [...]