GridView

GridView is an app I wrote for Facebook, a social networking site. GridView lets you add the profile pictures of all of your friends to your Facebook profile, so everyone can see them. GridView was originally called FaceView, but Facebook doesn't like apps which have the word "face" in the name.

Taken Off

GridView has really taken off beyond my wildest dreams. As of writing this, it has 420,000 installs, including about 10,000 new users every day. Each day about 45,000 - 60,000 people use it. I never thought that the idea would be this popular. Users tell me GridView makes it easy for them to find their friends, and is a piece of profile artwork.

Up to date (kind of) 3rd party stats

Mosaics

Source Image

My GridView Mosaic (now 4 times the detail!)

GridView Mosaics are the logical extension to GridView. Mosaics lets users create photo mosaics of their profile pictures using their friend's profile pictures as tiles. Mosaics look best when you have a lot of friends and when you have a profile picture with a range of colors. Recently, GridView added the option to create Mosaics with 4 times the detail, by reducing the size of each tile.

Story

I came up with the idea on the last day of 10th Grade. I was thinking about Facebook's name: a book of faces. Thinking about it made me realize that they don't really have a place where you can see all of your friend's faces. I wrote GridView all that afternoon in about 5 hours. I had to become familiar with Facebook's API, and APIs in general, because it was my first app using an API. Facebook provides good tools for helping people get started.

I used his new found free time to experiment with the newly announced Facebook platform. Very quickly the application became popular, with the number of users snowballing. I think it became so successful because of the Facebook's Newsfeed which spread word about the application, as well as its viability on user's profiles. I think the cleanness of the design attracted users to it. I tried to keep it clean and usable, without all of the ads everywhere. (The square grid arrangement of photos was inspired by Flickr)

I then attracted some light angel funding for the project and a minority partner who brought years of experience in the industry. Together we started building up GridView. I designed a "rearrange" flash applet for GridView, we put it out for bid, and then I got up at 5AM every day before school to manage the overseas development team building the project. I also hired and managed an independent domestic developer.

GridView grew to over 1,300,000 users. Unfortunately in 2008, Facebook changed the layout of the profile and the usage of GridView fell precipitously. GridView was essentially profile artwork - when Facebook changed the profile the art work become hidden. We tried twice to build a second act, when we acquired my business partner's old firm ForumsPlace and building a petitions platform 4Change. Unfortunately I did not have the time to dedicate to the projects and they never got any traction. I think the timing of the economy had a lot to do with it, GridView's revenue was mostly from other app developers waving VC cash advertising their applications. However the Facebook bubble burst and the entire economic environment became a lot more challenging. Still, I personally made a profit from the venture, and I gained far more experience than other experiences high schoolers.

Shutdown

GridView will close down at the end of 2010, because Facebook is completly removing applications from the profile papge at that time. I just don't see any reason to continue the application.