I'll have to check out Zoosk desktop, congrats on it's success

so far the traction has been amazing. our most active users are now basically on Zoosk around the clock and the feedback has been so positive that we are focusing even more than planned resources at our desktop AIR client.

Who said You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too! Adoption of web (even of social apps!) augmented with engagement of Desktop. Pure delicious

PS: your connect integration is broken this is what i get when i try it http://skitch.com/shayang/bh12m/facebook-develo...

This is a helpful and relevant post. My company plays in this space, and like any marketer we try to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses – and some things are just beyond your control.

The timing of a launch as well as type of audience can greatly affect the adoption of the application. It's pretty easy to predict that a sports team's adoption is going to ebb and flow whether it's the sport's season or off season. Likewise, retention could be considered migratory with users returning each year at the first signs of pre-season. While this might affect when you want to do the math, it won't separate the app from the web site.

The audience type, however, can play a very serious role. We've seen adoption rates of 30%, and sometimes from surprising clients. For client's that fit those profiles, the app can go toe to toe with any program.

The biggest surprise for me, however, is not around any of the data points discussed — it's how often companies view the options as mutually exclusive. “We can't do this, because we're doing that…” There are enough options and enough vendors that costs and resource demands are pretty low. Once built, there's little overhead to hosting the various products. So, I'd expect to see more racking and stacking of the programs and execute them as quickly as possible letting the consumer decide where and how they'd like to be engaged.

Look at successful apps like Evernote, that you can use in a browser, on your phone or locally on your machine.
Same thing for Twitter. Big part of its success is because of the high number of clients available, that give the final user the power of choosing how to use their service.

I personally like desktop apps better, cause way too often I close the wrong browser window and find that really annoying. In that case Fluid or Prism (on OS X) is the answer for me.

In the cash capture stage, both apps become similar and have similar economics. Cost management is king, promo spend matters, it looks like a constant recession, downward pricing pressures are persistent and worsening.

The installed app and web app operate as completely different businesses. For the installed app most of the money is made by upgrading installed customers. It's far cheaper than churn in terms of sales commissions and cost of sale. So even if the numeric comparison showed higher revenues for the web app, profits would still be lower.