Want to launch a Facebook application that gains millions of users? Awesome, so do I! There are two challenges facing applications: (1) gaining critical mass and (2) retaining users. Andrew Chen has a great post about why apps eventually “jump the shark.” While his post is extremely technical, the lessons learned are valuable.

When the Facebook platform launched 9 months ago we witnessed the overnight growth of a few hundred applications. Many of these apps ended up with millions of users. Only a select few were able to retain those users though. Applications such as food fight or other Facebook classics found it difficult to retain their users. Ultimately they jumped the shark. Andrew has done an excellent job of outlining how and why this takes place on his blog post.