Monday is the day that application notifications will finally be removed from the Facebook platform. While some developers are on edge, as they are concerned about the negative impact that the loss of notifications will have, Facebook is providing developers with advice on how to adjust. The primary piece of advice is to use the homepage counters, dashboard news stories, and request access to users’ email addresses.
In order to help developers, Facebook has released the following set of communications channels best practices. The company has ranked the communications channels based on their ability to do the following:
- Growing your user base.
- Retaining and reactivating your users.
- Enabling your users to share content with each other.
- Informing your users of changes within your application or integration.
In addition to killing off notifications, Facebook is moving application requests to the inbox. While the impact of these changes is unknown, many application developers have been increasing the emphasis on bookmarking applications over the past few months prior to the new homepage being rolled out. For now, application developers will simply have to shift to new communication channels.
We’ll have to wait and see how application growth is impacted. Are you concerned about the new shift? Do you think applications will be dramatically affected?
![[Inside Social Apps 2012]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/ISA2012_336x100_F_RegisterNow.gif)
![[AllFacebook Stats: Facebook Analytics for Your Business]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/stpro_allfacebookstats.gif)
![[How can Facebook change your business?]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/FMB_A_MAY2011_336x100_F.gif)
Application requests moved to the inbox? Ridiculous. Yes, they will be affected. Users do NOT want requests in their inboxes. Until the dashboard gives users to option to delete apps in bulk or make changes to app settings in bulk, it really is not very useful to the end user.
Comment by Facebook User — February 26, 2010 @ 11:43 am
Application requests moved to the inbox? Ridiculous. Yes, they will be affected. Users do NOT want requests in their inboxes. Until the dashboard gives users to option to delete apps in bulk or make changes to app settings in bulk, it really is not very useful to the end user.
Comment by Facebook User — February 26, 2010 @ 11:44 am
You asked so I'll take the plunge & answer.
I'd be extremely surprised if any application retained more than 20% of their currently active users within 3 months.
And I'd also be surprised if FB didn't see a dramatic traffic decrease in conjunction with that.
For a large number of users the applications provide the only solid reason to be actively engaged with FB 24/7. As that habit quickly fades with the absence of frequent & immediate prompts, so will the number of visits to FB.
Comment by Jon Loveless — February 26, 2010 @ 11:46 am
is this only for application notifications? or are they doing away with all notifications? (ex: "Jane Doe commented on John Doe's status")
Comment by amyrm05 — February 26, 2010 @ 11:55 am
I already find it annoying that every time I want to check a different game, I have to go to the home page and half the time that doesnt work. I dont want my email plastered every where.As it stands you are having trouble with hackers and I really dont want that in my email as well. More than likely I will stop playing the games. If its not broken, please dont fix it. You are actually ruining FB for all of us
Comment by Kathy Carlson Brossa — February 26, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
I think applications moved the inbox is not user friendly. I don't want all that stuff coming to me as messages. I play a lot of games – but this move may reduce the amount of time I spend on FB. Who makes these decisions anyway? They never seem to ask us – the users of the site what we prefer. That's a major problem. I expect FB will see traffic drop significantly. FB – check w/ the users and see what we want. After all, isnt that the reason you're here?
Comment by anita santiago — February 26, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
I agree with Jon. Facebook is just too boring without applications.
Comment by linto — February 26, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
I agree with Jon's comments.
It will be interesting to see the impact.
Comment by Simon Yencken — February 26, 2010 @ 2:59 pm
No impact at all. Once users realize the significance of the lightweight counters, application activity may even increase.
Comment by Corey Popp — February 26, 2010 @ 3:24 pm
The majority of users don't even realise where their bookmarks have gone, and won't be noticing a buggy grey number that sometimes just changes to your user ID.
Comment by linto — February 26, 2010 @ 5:12 pm
I agree with Corey, I’m a regular FB user, and I don’t think this will affect my FB use at all.
Comment by Femiluv — February 26, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
I use face book to interact with my friends and play games together. If I don't get updates on what my friends are doing then why do I need FB at all? I could go directly to the application sites to play the games if they have a way to do that or just drop the games and go back to POGO. I could check FB once a week and get updated on my friends, unless they want to send those to my inbox as well. I really am not looking forward to the change at all.
Comment by Michele Trautlein — February 27, 2010 @ 10:58 am
This is actually the first I'm hearing about this, and I'm about to go track down more information. As a Facebook junkie and Facebook Games addict, this concerns me a lot. Will I really not get notifications about my favorite games? The notifications I WANT to get won't be there anymore? I'm very confused and I'm hoping I'm just misreading things.
Comment by Heather — February 27, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
I believe this will surely change some aspects in facebook, but maybe good or maybe bad ones. If you have noticed before some of the application start to send you a lot of notification just because a random friend of yours joined a 'spamming app' like the ones that once faked the photos app and the videos app. Well so, I think this is a good idea but surely I don't want to receive my notifications in my inbox, because that will annoying, if you get me…
Well basically I have different aspects about all of this new notifications things, can say that accessing a game from the homepage and not from the bookmarks bar is rather annoying, if I start to receive notifications through my inbox, I will surely quit all of the apps, as I'm sure the app developers will love this new thing or maybe not.
Comment by Carlos Ferreira — February 27, 2010 @ 11:32 pm
this is big
Comment by Tree Kam — February 28, 2010 @ 7:45 am
This is going to be a game changer for some.
Comment by Steve Miller — February 28, 2010 @ 4:12 pm
Will there be some sort of opt-in for users who want to continue to receive updates/information from apps in their News Feed?
Comment by matt — March 1, 2010 @ 6:44 am
poor developers, it seems facebook used them to generate users and now that facebook is huge, its bullying them around something awful. I’m not fb developer and glad of that fact now a days.
Comment by pThomas — March 1, 2010 @ 9:48 am
Why can't you just leave Facebook the way it was? It is now morphing into something that is unrecognizeable to most FB users, and all of the features that got us "hooked" in.the first place are being changed or removed. If it aint broke, don't fix it!!! FB is just not fun anymore. I am on it less and less, and I am sure I am not the only one!
Comment by Thea Brown — March 1, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
Pleaaaaaase do not do this
Comment by Yassine — March 2, 2010 @ 1:06 am
I am always on facebook and never check my e-mail. I have too many messages in there now,can't imagine every game I play sending messages to my inbox. does facebook want internet traffic or do they want it to go to verizon or whoever your internet provider may be?
Comment by Rebecca Moore Pratt — March 4, 2010 @ 7:09 am
what in gods name was facebook thinking getting rid of the notifications i like the new setup but taking out the notifications i found another way to keep them till they took those out tonight now all i have is buddy garbage on my news feeds stuff i dont want to see it sucks and facebook needs to have it be user choice and leave it at that if not i predict there going to be seeing a drop in sponsors and sharing then the company goes belly up now unlike myspace will start making a return i predict this cause it still user friendly but not app friendly if face book dont make a change to this in a months time i will be moving back to myspace again lol
Comment by Revs Slow Burn — March 11, 2010 @ 1:26 am
oh theres a way to fix the email inbox problem add a second email one for inbox and one for login solved that problem but still hate it lol
Comment by Revs Slow Burn — March 11, 2010 @ 1:28 am
[...] requests. It’s a small step that could have a huge impact on the platform. Since first killing off notifications earlier this year, the noise from applications has dropped significantly. While most users have [...]
Pingback by Facebook Tests New Application Notifications — December 13, 2010 @ 3:20 pm