You'd think a "wish list" application from Amazon would have been a success on Facebook. It enabled the sharing of individual wish lists and direct purchasing without leaving the confines of the social network. But Amazon's wish list app, called Giver, launched earlier this year, failed to gain significant traction and is no longer in operation. The problem was that it lacked integration with Facebook's native applications, specifically the Birthdays app that tells you when your friend's birthday is near -- you know, a time when people actually buy gifts for each other.
Another application called SocialCalendar launched earlier this year, aiming to do Amazon one better. Today, SocialCalendar says it's growing at an expected rate of two million new users a month, after having grown to 1.5 million total active users since launch, according to Facebook.
The twist? SocialCalendar is built to take full advantage of Facebook's platforms and Amazon's application programming interface for, well, wish lists. SocialCalendar application tracks and updates you about your friends' birthdays, events and special occasions, it also shows you the exact wish list items that friend has posted. Friends know the exact items you want for your birthday, as you can import your Amazon wish list to SocialCalendar.
Integration with Facebook's birthday data and Amazon's wish list isn't the only cause for growth, according to one of SocialCalendar's developers Raj Lalwani. Recent changes to Facebook's design, specifically the lowered barrier to entry for adding an application, have helped users see actions in the app more easily.
Yet even with all SocialCalendar's success, it is still limited to Amazon wish list sharing, meaning items from other retailers can't be shared or recommended with SocialCalendar's application. Compare that to longer-standing applications like Birthday Calendar, which doesn't enable any wish list sharing, or the Wishlist application which isn't relegated to a single retailer for affiliate purposes, and you'll see that the particular variable for the actual gift giving/recommendation service isn't the only likely determining factor for SocialCalendar's success.
SocialCalendar is looking to branch out across other platforms (it already has an application on Bebo) while also building out its own site as the central destination for users. Given the investor interest in monetizable Facebook applications, SocialCalendar's use of the Amazon affiliate program within a social networking platform appears to be a viable business model. The company isn't disclosing how much it's making, but sending people to Amazon for purchases makes third parties money through affiliate deals. Maybe because of this, SocialCalendar has also hinted that it has been approached by potential acquirers.