The market panic has been good to the financial press, which has seen traffic growth on the Web. But that excitement hasn't spread over to If Facebook, where market-related widgets are still overwhelmingly ignored.
Apps from Yahoo! Finance (YHOO), Forbes, NASDAQ, HR Block and breakingviews haven't even broken 500 active users - tiny for the 100+ million people on Facebook. (Consider that "Super Wall," the "best way to find and share entertaining videos, pictures, graffiti, and more with your friends!" has some 18.7 million active users. And "Dope Wars" has 690,000.)
The app from The Financial Times (PLC) is doing a bit better - 3,217 monthly active users. But that includes a free subscription to their Web site -- a $109 value. The (sorta) big winner: Fantasy Stock Exchange, which gives users $10 million in fake money to compete against other users. The app has 42,331 monthly active users -- 4.5% as many as "You're A Hottie."
Not a total surprise, of course -- most of these apps are pretty bad. And even if someone spends the whole day on Facebook, it doesn't seem a likely place to pay attention to the market. Even so, these app numbers are still really, really low.
See Also:
LIVE ANALYSIS: Global Market Panic
Why To Start A Startup In A Bad Economy
How Can Facebook Help Apps Grow Again? Make It Easier For People To Find Them
