Treat launch as the end
The best applications treat their launch as the beginning. A good developer will collect volumes of data on how people use applications, and will continue to A/B test, quickly iterating to optimize the application flow and user experience. Most successful applications are managed by companies with teams of people who work continually to improve and enhance applications for their users. There's so much data to improve things, and users want to see changes to applications to know they're alive.

For example, although Travel Channel Kidnap grew virally to more than 12 million users, it didn't take off when it first launched. It took tweaks to gameplay and user flow to optimize the application for growth. Looking at a chart of user adoption, it's clear when adjustments to the game changed the slope of the curve. Now 300 million kidnaps later, Travel Channel's award-winning application is the largest branded application on Facebook, but it never would have grown without the analysis and design after launch.

Don't set a goal
If you don't set a goal, you're pretty much guaranteed to not accomplish one. A branded application needs to address a marketing goal -- whether it's raising brand awareness, deepening user engagement, driving web traffic, garnering contest entries, improving brand favorability, etc. Goals and metrics are key to framing the application concept and design, optimizing during the program, and determining success when complete.

Electronic Arts still primarily sells console games, and most of the applications it has built have been designed with an eye toward promoting sales of console titles. Whether we're talking about Smarty Pants, the first Facebook application launched by EA in 2007, or Dante's Inferno, the company's most recent, or any of those between, EA is engaging its audience to build brand awareness for the console games it sells.