6 Comments »Ten years ago the web was an ugly place, cluttered with a vast array of crappy websites and littered with porn. Today, it is still littered with porn and the crappy websites haven’t gone anywhere. Instead they are piling up at a furious pace. This would all be a disaster if it weren’t for one company: Google. Thanks to Google (and others that are attempting to compete), we now have effective filtering methods to sift through all the junk.
The same thing is now taking place on Facebook and it is now extremely challening to filter through them. There are almost 15,000 applications and the list continues to grow at a rapid pace. You would imagine that Facebook would take some time to make their application directory more effective but so far they have not. It has been almost seven months and when I search for an application from the general search box I get completely different results then when I search through the app directory.
Facebook should also quickly add the ability to sort applications by the rating as well as fix the multiple errors within the directory. When Facebook reaches over 100,000 applications they will have significantly reduced the spamminess but more important is that we can search through the applications effectively. How do you find your Facebook applications? Do you spend time browsing through the directory?
Ah, the joy of Clever Hippo: http://www.cleverhippo.org.
But you’re absolutely right, FB still needs a better way to sort through applications on Facebook itself.
When Facebook first implemented reviews onto the application about pages a couple days ago, I was hoping these reviews would help prioritize apps in the directory. However, after thinking about it, I don’t know if this would be a good idea. For one, reviews can be “gamed”. Also, on many about pages, it looks like users are using the reviews section in a way it’s not intended to be used — it’s simply to respond to the users below them, say happy birthday to friends using the app, etc. Hopefully Facebook comes up with something, though I’m not sure what.
This does have me worried a little. For a new facebook developer but long time web developer the app listing page can bury new and worth apps amongst apps that have un justified category tags. Some things tagged as “games” are not a game or even close to being called a game.
And to answer your question, I have spent a lot of time browsing the directory, but I’m sure most dont.
Ah, the joy of Clever Hippo: http://www.cleverhippo.org.
But you’re absolutely right, FB still needs a better way to sort through applications on Facebook itself.
When Facebook first implemented reviews onto the application about pages a couple days ago, I was hoping these reviews would help prioritize apps in the directory. However, after thinking about it, I don’t know if this would be a good idea. For one, reviews can be “gamed”. Also, on many about pages, it looks like users are using the reviews section in a way it’s not intended to be used — it’s simply to respond to the users below them, say happy birthday to friends using the app, etc. Hopefully Facebook comes up with something, though I’m not sure what.
This does have me worried a little. For a new facebook developer but long time web developer the app listing page can bury new and worth apps amongst apps that have un justified category tags. Some things tagged as “games” are not a game or even close to being called a game.
And to answer your question, I have spent a lot of time browsing the directory, but I’m sure most dont.