Sometrics, an analytics provider to more than 1,300 social applications, will announce a partnership later this week with Zembly, a platform for developers of such apps. The deal will integrate Sometrics within the Zembly environment, allowing developers to analyze their traffic, demographics, and user actions from the same place they build their applications. Currently, Zembly provides tools for building apps for Facebook, Meebo, OpenSocial, iPhone and Google Gadgets.
For Sometrics, the partnership positions the company as an all-in-one resource for developers of social applications. Last week, they also announced a deal with AppsSavvy, an ad sales company specializing in social networking inventory. Combined with the company’s own platform for ad management, its core analytics product, and now its deal with Zembly, Sometrics is able to provide its customers with a complete tool set from development to monetization.
While that might paint a rosy picture for the company, the cloud lingering over this model is the fact that end-user demand for applications – especially on Facebook where the majority of the company's customers are - is no longer in the boom cycle it was back when the application platform launched. While recent changes to the platform announced last week at F8 may eventually re-invigorate demand, Sometrics is looking beyond Facebook for future growth. The company is set to announce deals with a dozen other social networks outside of the Facebook and OpenSocial ecosystem in coming weeks, according to CEO Ian Swanson.
While Sometrics currently offers all of its tools for free, there is a big upsell in the works that is the company’s business model. Eventually, Sometrics plans to offer ad serving to its customers – a strategy that should work well if they are able to continue establishing relationships with ad agencies and expand their base of developers using their free analytics and ad management products through more partnerships with companies like Zembly.
