12 Comments »One of the largest benefits for developers building applications on Facebook are the less restrictive policies on the Facebook platform. Well at least the less restrictive policies of yesteryear. While Facebook has increased their restrictions on the virality of applications, there are still relatively few limits on the type of content that can be displayed within applications aside from not displaying pornography. This is in contrast to sites like LinkedIn where all applications are subject to strict approval.
Facebook’s decision to launch their platform with no restrictions one year ago, led to an onslaught of crappy applications. While Facebook could argue that the users are best suited to judge the utility of applications, I’m beginning to think that perhaps some sort of initial filtering process would prove useful. There are some obvious challenges with a system where not all applications are allowed to launch. I’d imagine the chief issue being politics.
I can think of a number of ways to work around this. One solution would be to provide a beta launch during which a limited number of people are granted access to an application. If the application takes off, it is grated global access. Whatever alternative model could be devised, the real question is: did Facebook’s willingness to accept anybody as a developer and approve just about any application backfire?
Laurence Hooper of Loladex things that a “poisoned atmosphere” has been created by the numerous spam applications. As such, it is extremely challenging for utility based applications to gain traction. While I agree with that, there are also other applications that have been gaining traction in recent months. Do you think Facebook’s initial loose limits were destructive to the platform?
Yes, I think the loose limits were, and still are destructive. More than once I’ve installed an application, completed some information, and then been told that I need to invite X of my friends to see the results. I don’t want to, so I remove the application.
Now I ignore application invitations - they are likely to have come from applications that want me to do that, and I’ve better things to do. Even if the application is great, I’m not going to look at it.
Well, most of the platforms besides Facebook started with a limited set of developers. But those developers tended to be the VC funded companies like Slide and RockYou that make the crappiest and spammiest applications. So, being picky about developers doesn’t seem like the rational approach.
What you’re referring to is known in the biz as application certification. It is a terrible idea. It inevitably leads to a whole different kind of crappy application, one that satisfies the needs of the platform provider. Certification also serves to squeeze out the small innovator, since very few people can afford to create a software application with no guarantee that it will see the light of day.
The Facebook platform has been around for one year. That is still infancy in platform terms.
Yes, I think the loose limits were, and still are destructive. More than once I’ve installed an application, completed some information, and then been told that I need to invite X of my friends to see the results. I don’t want to, so I remove the application.
Now I ignore application invitations - they are likely to have come from applications that want me to do that, and I’ve better things to do. Even if the application is great, I’m not going to look at it.
Facebook’s application free-for-all definitely created a poisoned atmosphere for applications. Worse, the overall Facebook user experience was severely impaired for several months. The new profile design should rescue Facebook from its self-induced spam era, but it will likely curtail application growth as Facebook exerts more control.
One point you didn’t mention is the financial impact of these black hat applications. Enormous quantities of awful inventory have dragged down eCPM for everyone. So not only has this “poisoned atmosphere” made it harder for quality apps to get users, it’s made it harder to monetize them.
Kevin,
Weddingbook
http://www.wedsnap.com/weddingbook/
When I talk about Facebook with clients and friends who aren’t on it yet, I always tell them to just ignore all the invites and silly applications (unless they are interested) for the exact reasons discussed. A process of filtering or rating the apps would be excellent. Or a beta period as you suggest.
Yes & no. Spammy applications shouldn’t be allowed -
don’t everyone hate spam anyway?
But to say a lot of the apps are crappy is a subjective judgement. They probably reflect what the majority of users want - fun, essentially ephemeral apps, not utility stuff. By now billions of investment money has gone into these, because the developers know what is likely to be popular. Do users want a Facebook bureaucracy or autocracy deciding what apps. they should have ? I think no.
So it’s said these apps make F/Book more like MySpace -
but does this matter ?
Yes & no. Spammy applications shouldn’t be allowed -
don’t everyone hate spam anyway?
But to say a lot of the apps are crappy is a subjective judgement. They probably reflect what the majority of users want - fun, essentially ephemeral apps, not utility stuff. By now billions of investment money has gone into these, because the developers know what is likely to be popular. Do users want a Facebook bureaucracy or autocracy deciding what apps. they should have ? I think no.
So it’s said these apps make F/Book more like MySpace -
but does this matter ?
Applications on FB are no different than any other website out there. When you sign up for a web forum or blog or what have you, you are giving the operators of the site your email address. If a site becomes large enough they will eventually be scraped / harvested for email addresses by spam bots. Whenever and wherever you post personal information, especially your email address, to any website you are asking for spam.
Not to mention the number of websites that actively sell their email contact lists from the site to ‘approved 3rd party vendors’.
FB applications are no different.
How many people actually take the time to read about the application before they ‘install’ it? I would say that it’s about the same number of people who actually take the time to read through the Terms of Service of a web site before they apply for an account - slightly more than 0.
Applications on FB are no different than any other web site out there. You don’t know what you’re getting into unless your friends recommend it.
Jeremy @ 1 says he has, “been told that I need to invite X of my friends to see the results… Now I ignore application invitations - they are likely to have come from applications that want me to do that”.
What he doesn’t expand on is the scenario where his friends communicate with him their delight with a FB application through other means, eg. email, chat, phone, IRL, etc.
If you received an email in your inbox requesting that you sign up for a website you would filter it as spam. If your friend told you about some cool new website while out for a couple of wobbly pops after work, you would be much more inclined to check it out.
FB’s initial loose limits policy opened them up to the world wide web. It was one of the reasons they made it so big so fast. When you do that, you open yourself up to all the pitfalls and dangers that go along with it. The web is no different in that respect.
Other websites pop up much faster than FB applications and with more ferocity / advertising.
Applications on FB are not without their advertising. As Jeremy pointed out above, “More than once I’ve installed an application, completed some information, and then been told that I need to invite X of my friends to see the results.” This is advertising. You can liken it to spam if you like, but it is a little different.
Viral advertising strategies are not new. They have been around since the 70’s. Sure, we call it something else now that it is on the web, but really, it’s advertising.
How do you advertise your FB application if inviting your friends isn’t a requirement?
Look at it a little differently. The advertising has a strange interaction with the user. It requires you to advertise their application to your friends in order to use it. So the developers of the application get free advertising and you get to use their application.
Compare that to a normal web site. You use their website while they advertise some other 3rd party product to you via banner ads, media inclusions, text ads, etc…
A FB application serves advertising in the traditional sense as well as in this strange, invite a friend, viral advertising sense.
Nobody ever complains about the amount of ‘traditional’ advertising in a FB application. They only object to having to invite their friends. Emphasis on ‘having to’.
If you weren’t required to advertise the application to your friends, you could use the application for free as much as you wanted to. Which is, lets be honest here, highly likely.
But what about those applications you seriously appreciate? Wouldn’t you tell your friends about it using some other method like a phone call, chat, email, etc? If you love the application that much, you would advertise for free it anyway.
Facebooks’ continued loose limits prove this time and again. People get to the point where they are required to invite friends and decline to continue. Well… unless the application is absolutely stellar and they don’t mind inviting 10 of their friends.
What I don’t understand is this. If a FB application is really that stellar that people are willing to invite their friends, making it a requirement to invite 10 of them really invites the user to ONLY invite 10 of them.
Isn’t it somewhat obvious that these applications are only shooting themselves in the foot by making it a requirement to invite 10 friends? Don’t like that idea? Look at it from a different perspective.
Imagine what the state of the world wide web would be today if every time you signed up for a web forum or a free email account you were required to invite 10 friends?
Like Jeremy said above and other have said before (and will say again), if “I need to invite X of my friends to see the results. I don’t want to, so I remove the application.”
It’s not Facebooks open policy that is screwing up Facebook, it’s all the narrow minded application developers who simply don’t understand advertising. Requiring people to invite friends to use their application is advertising their application as useless. Regardless of how good it is.
I love Facebooks’ open policy. I love that all the really crappy applications require you to invite your friends. It let’s me know that I don’t want to use it.
I don’t just decline to invite my friends or uninstall those crap applications, I block them. What I wish Facebook would do is add a way for me to invite my friends to block a particularly crappy application. Now that’s an invitation I would send out with glee.
Keep the open philosophy. Keep the required invitations. Give me a link that says, “invite your friends to block this application too” and I will use it like a virus scanner - daily and with much vigor.
I’m sure they would too.
Applications on FB are no different than any other website out there. When you sign up for a web forum or blog or what have you, you are giving the operators of the site your email address. If a site becomes large enough they will eventually be scraped / harvested for email addresses by spam bots. Whenever and wherever you post personal information, especially your email address, to any website you are asking for spam.
Not to mention the number of websites that actively sell their email contact lists from the site to ‘approved 3rd party vendors’.
FB applications are no different.
How many people actually take the time to read about the application before they ‘install’ it? I would say that it’s about the same number of people who actually take the time to read through the Terms of Service of a web site before they apply for an account - slightly more than 0.
Applications on FB are no different than any other web site out there. You don’t know what you’re getting into unless your friends recommend it.
Jeremy @ 1 says he has, “been told that I need to invite X of my friends to see the results… Now I ignore application invitations - they are likely to have come from applications that want me to do that”.
What he doesn’t expand on is the scenario where his friends communicate with him their delight with a FB application through other means, eg. email, chat, phone, IRL, etc.
If you received an email in your inbox requesting that you sign up for a website you would filter it as spam. If your friend told you about some cool new website while out for a couple of wobbly pops after work, you would be much more inclined to check it out.
FB’s initial loose limits policy opened them up to the world wide web. It was one of the reasons they made it so big so fast. When you do that, you open yourself up to all the pitfalls and dangers that go along with it. The web is no different in that respect.
Other websites pop up much faster than FB applications and with more ferocity / advertising.
Applications on FB are not without their advertising. As Jeremy pointed out above, “More than once I’ve installed an application, completed some information, and then been told that I need to invite X of my friends to see the results.” This is advertising. You can liken it to spam if you like, but it is a little different.
Viral advertising strategies are not new. They have been around since the 70’s. Sure, we call it something else now that it is on the web, but really, it’s advertising.
How do you advertise your FB application if inviting your friends isn’t a requirement?
Look at it a little differently. The advertising has a strange interaction with the user. It requires you to advertise their application to your friends in order to use it. So the developers of the application get free advertising and you get to use their application.
Compare that to a normal web site. You use their website while they advertise some other 3rd party product to you via banner ads, media inclusions, text ads, etc…
A FB application serves advertising in the traditional sense as well as in this strange, invite a friend, viral advertising sense.
Nobody ever complains about the amount of ‘traditional’ advertising in a FB application. They only object to having to invite their friends. Emphasis on ‘having to’.
If you weren’t required to advertise the application to your friends, you could use the application for free as much as you wanted to. Which is, lets be honest here, highly likely.
But what about those applications you seriously appreciate? Wouldn’t you tell your friends about it using some other method like a phone call, chat, email, etc? If you love the application that much, you would advertise for free it anyway.
Facebooks’ continued loose limits prove this time and again. People get to the point where they are required to invite friends and decline to continue. Well… unless the application is absolutely stellar and they don’t mind inviting 10 of their friends.
What I don’t understand is this. If a FB application is really that stellar that people are willing to invite their friends, making it a requirement to invite 10 of them really invites the user to ONLY invite 10 of them.
Isn’t it somewhat obvious that these applications are only shooting themselves in the foot by making it a requirement to invite 10 friends? Don’t like that idea? Look at it from a different perspective.
Imagine what the state of the world wide web would be today if every time you signed up for a web forum or a free email account you were required to invite 10 friends?
Like Jeremy said above and other have said before (and will say again), if “I need to invite X of my friends to see the results. I don’t want to, so I remove the application.”
It’s not Facebooks open policy that is screwing up Facebook, it’s all the narrow minded application developers who simply don’t understand advertising. Requiring people to invite friends to use their application is advertising their application as useless. Regardless of how good it is.
I love Facebooks’ open policy. I love that all the really crappy applications require you to invite your friends. It let’s me know that I don’t want to use it.
I don’t just decline to invite my friends or uninstall those crap applications, I block them. What I wish Facebook would do is add a way for me to invite my friends to block a particularly crappy application. Now that’s an invitation I would send out with glee.
Keep the open philosophy. Keep the required invitations. Give me a link that says, “invite your friends to block this application too” and I will use it like a virus scanner - daily and with much vigor.
I’m sure they would too.
I’m inclined to agree that there should have been some sort of screening process when the platform was opened to outside developers.
I’ve become very hesitant now to accept anything new on Facebook, without hearing about it first from either an outside source of friend.
This is due mostly to all the crappy apps, silly one like Zombie Attack, etc… Quiz’s that made no real sense and others still, that would only work AFTER you sent off an invitation to 20 friends.
Then there were the apps that just simply never worked.
It became a waste of time, and some of my “friends” dropped me for a bit because I was too free with the invites.
I’m inclined to agree that there should have been some sort of screening process when the platform was opened to outside developers.
I’ve become very hesitant now to accept anything new on Facebook, without hearing about it first from either an outside source of friend.
This is due mostly to all the crappy apps, silly one like Zombie Attack, etc… Quiz’s that made no real sense and others still, that would only work AFTER you sent off an invitation to 20 friends.
Then there were the apps that just simply never worked.
It became a waste of time, and some of my “friends” dropped me for a bit because I was too free with the invites.