Ignore Your Friends on Facebook
Posted by Nick O'Neill on April 5th, 2008 4:37 PMEarlier today Facebook added a new feature that enables you to block specific friends from sending you application invites. This is a great addition. I have a few friends that keep sending me application invites and it is not the fault of the application provider but instead the fault of the individual. Applications were being penalized for being ignored when in reality it was simply a pesky friend.
It’s great to see that Facebook is consistently updating their feature set to ensure a fair environment for application developers. While there have been missteps that have penalized developers, Facebook has attempted to reconcile with app developers by instituting new features that appear to be somewhat of a compromise. App developers make “reasonable sacrifices” in exchange for a better general user experience on Facebook.
While it could be argued that this constant trend of Facebook making it more challenging for application developers to succeed, there are still applications that have managed to experience continued growth. As we see more high quality applications launch on Facebook we will begin to see more features that focus on filtering through the social graph rather then flat out blocking applications. Thanks to Andrew Cafourek for pointing out this new feature to me.
April 5th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I love this new feature too. I was delighted to notice it the other day and had cause to use it immediately!
Some people enjoy using Facebook for more personal reasons and like to “share the love” when they find a fun FB app. I prefer to use Facebook for strategic business networking and simply don’t have time to check out all these apps.
April 5th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Yes! Finally! I have friends that I think are trying to set a record for the most apps added to there profile.
This feature is long overdue.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Yeah, killer feature!
April 8th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I really find it annoying and waste of time every time my friends’ invite me to use certain applications in Facebook..good thing Facebook did something about this one..^^ anyways thanks for the great post! it was really helpful.
June 30th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Why can’t I “Ignore All invites from this Friend” until I HAVE an invite? I have to wait until they invite me to something?
I want to ignore a bunch of Friends NOW!