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A couple days ago Facebook launched a post application removal review box which does exactly that: let’s users review applications after they have removed it from their account. The purpose of the box, according to Facebook is to get “more information from users”. Developers are complaining though as they have witnessed a surge in negative reviews since this new review box was added.
For some developers the impact has been significant. One developer for instance has a perfect review record “with 70 reviews, but just got 5 new negative reviews” all in one day. The developers are understandably frustrated as many of them have put in substantial effort to get good reviews. The reviews are one of the primary indicators that determine invite allocations on the platform which is why the developers monitor this metric so closely.
So what should Facebook do? While Matt Trainer of Facebook said that the company is “working on a number of ways to boost reviews visibility and placement”, the latest addition happens to skew negatively. Matt says developers shouldn’t be overly frustrated though as there will be more integration points which “include points of contact that will most likely skew positively in sampling.”
What those new integration points are and when they will be implemented have not been specified but one developer suggested the creation of a new FBML tag “that developers can put anywhere in their application that” generates a review dialog. This would make sense because developers can get application fans to review the application in order to counter the negative reviews generated via the post application removal dialog box.
Based on the responses posted by Facebook in the developer forum, it doesn’t sound as though Facebook will be removing this new dialog box anytime soon. Developers hope that new tools are created soon so that they can increase the number of reviews from fans to counter all the negative reviews. Have you seen the new dialog box? Are you frustrated by this new addition?
Nothing says a user will leave a negative review after removing the application. Even as a Developer; I find it important to have negative reviews. These will tell me what my users expect of me and my application, and should allow me to greatly improve it.
Although, I have to agree that there is not yet a good way to increase visibility to the add review dialog box for users who would otherwise leave positive reviews.
This is starting to be more inline with how iphone applications as for a rating upon removal but nowhere else (that’s easy for a user to find). I don’t disagree with a review prompt at removal but agree there should be an API call to prompt users to get positive feedback for great applications. Most users never find the “about” page where an application can garner fans, reviews and other feedback.
Developers never want to admit they’re apps may be flawed r need changes. How do developers expect to improve the quality of their work if they don’t know what people DON’T like about it, or why they’re removing it? I say add that feature to everything….
@John, Navarr:
What user who likes your app will remove it?
Also, if you read the topic, many of us are angered over the fact a comment is not needed… most users are leaving us 1 star ratings and we have no idea why. So John, we have no way to improve at all.
What if we judged Facebook solely by the comments of people who left because of the new profiles? What if those users’ comments were actually on the Facebook homepage so that anyone considering joining could read them first?
Clearly the minority of people who stop using Facebook don’t accurately represent the majority of people who continue to use it.
The same problem applies to this change for applications.
Show me a web app that uses the complaint forms to rate itself. It might make sense to ask a user who removes your app for feedback, so you know what went wrong, but it really doesn’t make sense to ask for a rating.
David implicitly raises the important point: exactly *how* is Facebook using these reviews to determine invite allocations? Whatever they’re doing should take into account what proportion of an app’s users are leaving in a huff, whether that proportion is changing and in which direction, and probably other considerations. I’m guessing Facebook refuses to discuss their procedure, but Nick, if you know otherwise, please post a link.
@john
developers DO appreciate valuable feedback. the current change does NOT provide valuable feedback. what does a one-star rating with no comments tell me? what do i improve?
if they are going to add more review options later on - why start with the most negative one?
facebook likes to call itself a community but it is NOT. they dictate things to us - even if it is something as ridiculous as this borne out of discussions on a friday evening at a bar after a few beers.
Or you could be like http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php?app_id=46896919715#/apps/application.php?id=6953377468#reviews and simply remove the review feature from the about page.
I don’t even know how they do this or why Facebook allows it? This is one of the more popular apps on FB.
Ah, Facebook continues its string of terrible decisions
Facebook’s primary audience must be its users, not the developers. Of course they need to strik a balance. Users need the power to point out which apps are crap. Although there may be pain now for developers, the smart ones can use the negative feedback to improve their product. The whiny ones can cry, say nobody loves them and go home.
The comments made on here apply to more than just FB development.
Negative feedback is just as important as positive feedback, in fact without negative feedback how you would improve the product? And, come on, does the ‘perfect app’ exist?
Maybe I’m just echoing what’s already been written but having a ’star rating’ upon removing an app is ridiculous. As someone already pointed out: if you like an app then why would you remove it? Of course, it’s highly unlikely you would. So, we can assume that the majority of people removing the app are dissatisfied users.
A multiple choice questionnaire along the lines of “sorry you’re leaving, can you take a moment to tell us why?” with a few answers and an ‘other’ option with a comment box is far more likely to receive constructive criticism. A ‘click on star’ option is far too easy and offers no feedback at all.
I’m neither an FB developer or an FB user (I’m an ‘ex’ FB user!) but have learnt a lesson from this post and it’s comments! (never use a rating system but invite commented feedback instead)
Thanks guys.
This is a brilliant idea by Facebook. In fact, they should prompt people who deactivate their FB account to give a review and rating, and post those on facebook.com (the signup page). That way, Facebook will get valuable feedback on how to improve their site, and potential users will get the down-lo.
This move by facebook shows a real lack of respect to developers. This does not give valuable feedback whatsoever to developers — most of the “reviews” are blank. If they want to build up more reviews, why not take a balanced approach rather than just slap up an extra integration point to add 100% negative reviews?
I think it’s a great idea, it’s about time users had some way of letting Devs know that they can’t just ignore users. I use a lot of applications and one especially in which the Devs constantly ignore the wishes of the users, changing it and ignoring customers totally, they even brought in a proper forum, but anyone that disagrees with the company line gets shouted down, gets their threads and posts deleted or even banned from the forum! They trot out the same BS lines in response to criticism and refuse to actually listen to their customers point of view.
Well done FB!!
How about, you know, fixing the issues that cause negative reviews???