The Facebook effect: Timeline app developers rule the App Store

A day after Facebook announced it is acquiring Instagram, the app became the top free iPhone app on Apple's App Store. At the time I asked: "Can we call this the Facebook effect, or is that going too far?" Well, now I'm ready to say that, yes, there is such a thing as the Facebook effect, it has nothing to do with being acquired by Facebook, and it can seriously help your iPhone app grow.

Two months after launching its Timeline app, Viddy hit the number one spot in the App Store for the first time ever. Viddy is essentially the video version of Instagram. To the right is the screenshot to prove it, and here's the message from Viddy announcing the milestone, posted on Twitter: "Check the @AppStore - We're #1!!! http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/viddy/id426294709."

Facebook has underlined growth courtesy of Timeline apps many times already: Facebook announces more media apps for Timeline, Facebook: Lifestyle apps on Timeline are taking off, and Facebook: Video apps on Timeline are taking off. Viddy's announcement really made me sit up though.

Facebook first ported the Facebook Platform to the mobile world, starting with Apple iOS and its own mobile website back in October 2011. The social networking giant said the move would allow developers to take advantage of social channels for app discovery, among other things.

Thousands of app developers have been leveraging Facebook Platform for Mobile, but Viddy is the biggest success yet. Here are some numbers showing Viddy's growth through the social network's mobile channels:

• Since launching its Timeline app in February, Viddy has gone from 60,000 monthly active users to more than 1.7 million.
• Averaging 300,000 new registered users per day, an average that has seen a significant bump since February.
• There have been more than 15 million interactions with Viddy content on Facebook since Viddy launched its Timeline app.

Like I said, Viddy is an extreme example. Yet the app is part of a trend, not an offshoot: seven of the top 10 grossing iOS apps are integrated with Facebook, and seven of the top 10 free iOS apps are also integrated with Facebook. Those numbers come straight from the horse's mouth, but even if they were inaccurate, there's no denying that integrating Facebook helps more than it hurts. The question is: how long will this trend last?

See also:

• Facebook has 3,000 Timeline apps
• Facebook brings status update features to apps
• Facebook starts rolling out Timeline to everyone
• How to get started with Facebook Timeline
• A closer look at the Facebook Timeline and the Open Graph
• Facebook: "We're going to become a mobile company"