The Dollars and Cents Behind Facebook Apps [Infographic]

The social media powerhouse has spawned an industry of profitable applications.

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Ricky publishes and manages the content on BizTech magazine's website. He's a writer, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all-around digital guy.

When people talk about the economic heft and weight of the app ecosystem, most think of mobile apps. But before mobile apps took hold with the iTunes App Store, Facebook opened up its platform in 2007 to third-party developers. Facebook's bet that its future lied in becoming a platform paid off, as it quickly left MySpace in its dust.

But how has the Facebook app ecosystem matured in the past five years?

EngineYard, a Platform as a Service vendor, has put together an infographic on the Facebook app economy. The graphic takes stock of some of the lucrative businesses that have been built on Facebook's platform. One you may have heard of is Zynga. The social gaming company grew so much through Facebook that it was able to pull off an initial public offering (IPO) at the end of 2011.

Here are a few stats on what the Facebook app economy has accomplished.

235,644 jobs have been created by the Facebook app economy.
$1.65 billion is the amount of virtual goods expected to sold through Facebook in 2012.
20 million apps per day is the amount of apps installed by Facebook users every day.

Check out the full infographic on the Facebook app economy below.