Facebook Credits – Part I: The Story So Far

With rumors that Zynga will soon integrate Facebook Credits into FarmVille, the nature of microtransactions on Facebook is poised to change. The implications of Facebook Credits in abundant usage across the Facebook application platform are made more clear when we see the popularity of paid Apple iPhone applications. Studies of the success of iPhone applications (and iTunes) have revealed that a secret to Apple’s success is ‘one-click purchasing’. In similar fashion, Facebook Credits has the potential to making the barriers to buying an application or virtual good extremely low. Here we look at the long steps Facebook has taken to arrive at this point.
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