Widgetbox Releases Facebook App Creation Stats - Are they the Cross-Platform Play?

Fifteen days have passed since Widgetbox launched their App Accelerator which allows you to make easy Facebook applications. The stats the company sent over show over 700 applications created, many with over 1,000 installs. So far the top apps are: Perez Hilton, a Baby Ticker and a Magic 8 Ball. The team is also working on a monetization strategy.

Mike from Techcrunch noted the following recently, "Platform competition is great for developers, but it also means they need to create and maintain separate code for each platform they choose to play on. Someone is hopefully working on a startup that will streamline that process for people. Whoever does it first, and best, can have a winner on their hands."

Could Widgetbox be the company that helps streamline the cross-platform process? While it probably wouldn't work for deep apps, for simple apps it might be able to do the job. Enter the app info in the App Accelerator and it provides app code for all of the platforms.  This raises a point I bring up a lot which is becoming dependent on another's technology - in this case, not only are you depending on the app provider (i.e. Facebook) but also on the translation software provider (Widgetbox). Jason has a discussion about trusting your business to Facebook.

Lastly it appears that Facebook wants to take out LinkedIn. Check out my platform-mania post from last week for more discussion on the various live and upcoming platforms.