Is Facebook Playing Favorites With App Developers?

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1. SearcH◆ EngineS WEB
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

   When will society FINALLY understand that we do NOT live in a perfectly ethical and egalitarian society.

   Bottom line survival is not always ideal .

   How many of us would do the same thing if we were honest about our drives

2. Garth
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 6:47 pm

   As a developer I didn’t mind the 20 invite cap so much as the forced adoption of Facebook’s invite panel. My own designed panel was super clean, with just names that you could check off. And no, there wasn’t any sort of nefarious forced inviting going on. Their own design is more cluttered, and it can be hard for a user to find the person they want.

   The rate at which my users sent invites dropped by 75% after the forced adoption of their interface. This was a valuable (and painful) lesson in the power of good clean design.

3. un.valley
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

   this is the infamous drug dealer model.

   let them in for free (everyone’s doing it - you will like it - trust me).

   get them hooked.

   make them pay.

4. Jay
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

   Facebook’s 15 mins are up

5. digginestdogg
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

   The private sector isn’t a democracy and there only a few laws governing corporate favoritism which are easily skirted on the greedy road to riches–just ask Bill Gates. Stop whining when the capitalism you love and defend so much when it benefits you benefits the other party and hurts you. It’s the law fo the jungle in American Capitalism. Sissies.

6. John
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

   Weird, if you pay money you get more stuff! Really, complaining about this is ridiculous. This isn’t about honesty or anything. It is about having multiple tiers of support for partners. For free you get a hell of a lot from Facebook as a developer. If you want more, pay one of the application ad networks or pay them for distribution.

7. Matt
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 7:10 pm

   it doesn’t have to be “fair” … facebook owns facebook and for all the demands of a free service i praise them for exploiting their imposed limits on others to make a buck… keep facebook free for those people who like it (of which, i am not one)… but lord knows they need a revenue model and if allowing “special rules” that circumvent facebook’s limits for a price then that to me seems as fair as tiered hosting plans that start at free and go upwards of hundreds of dollars per month.

   nice one fb, keep up the smart revenue. i mean, right? isn’t that what happened here? by “partnership” please tell me that mark scraped a few bucks into the barrel… i swear the kid can be too damn nice… he could be swimming in cash if we’re a blood sucker.

8. Michael Arrington
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

   John - actually no. there are no set tiers where competitors can also pay to get the same benefits as CBS did in this case.

   Also, remember that Facebook put limitations in place to protect the users, not create a tiered service scheme. By making different rules for CBS, they are effectively saying that the interests of users are not as important as revenue. That may be penny wise, but pound foolish.

9. Erick
   

   March 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

   So what? Its their website. They can run it how they want. If your main revenue stream is through other people’s services then you need to reevaluate your business model.

10. Nabil
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

    it’s not a question of “fair” or “right or wrong” — it’s a question of tact. facebook has shown that where tact’s concerned, they’re not consistent. as a developer that would concern me. end of story.

11. Michael Arrington
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

    Erick - I’m actually not so sure about that. I need to review the agreement between facebook and developers, but facebook promises access under certain rules in exchange for developers making time and capital commitments for facebook. This may be an express, or more likely implied, breach of contract.

12. bs
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    they’re a private corporation, they can do whatever they want to. Sorry but companies trying to make applications on facebook as businesses are a joke

13. Kevin
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:36 pm

    While the legal question is an interesting one.

    I think that what Facebook is really saying here is that FB knows who CBS is and FB knows that CBS has built an app that FB have decided isn’t as prone to dangerous spamming. Furthermore, to the extent that the app does spam they know it has an expiration date, namely Thursday at noon (or the end of the tourney at the latest).

    You could even go so far as so say this is a plus for users so that the app can build up a user base quickly and that that is more necessary here than normal (because of the time sensitive nature).

    While that may be bad for the creators of competing aps, it doesn’t really seem like it is bad for users.

14. bs
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:36 pm

    9; i conmpletely agree with

15. mrshl
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    You know, it’s funny. I’ve got 200 friends on Facebook, and I received not a single invite to this site. Nor have I invited anyone to be on it. But, holy crap, people are using it. Me and my friends signed up.

    Why?

    I’m guessing it’s because it’s actually fun. It’s not a hatching egg or a vampire or some dumb “compare your friends” meme. 42% of the 433,825 users are listed as “active users.” That’s a pretty damn good ratio. My guess is that the bulk of those users came from the prominent placement the app has received on the site, not from the generous invite cap.

    Finally, if Facebook users (not developers) are pissed about all the invites they’re receiving to take part in what has become the most exciting event in American sports — well, I’ve not seen any complaining. If you’ve got a link to a single blogger complaining about being spammed by the CBS app, it would make a nice addition to your post.

16. Frank Sinton
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:43 pm

    Michael - I don’t see where it would be a breach of contract. In fact, FB even says they reserve the right to charge a fee:

    “We reserve the right to charge a fee for using Facebook Platform and/or any individual features thereof at any time in our sole discretion.”

    http://www.facebook.com/developers/tos.php

    And what do you think will happen when fbFund invests in a few app companies?

17. Mahmud
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    The apps were looking to good at the beginning when the platform was released, but now they cluttered facebook and cause all kinds of issues such as these. The original facebook courses is gone (luckily we have Courses 2.0). The original brackets was so cool it made last March one of the best March madness. Now thats gone but replaced with this annoying CBS “app.” The fact that it’s an app makes the bracket less fun because a lot of users don’t add apps anymore. As usual, facebook is freaking secretive about everything. ESPN Brackets, here I come, but I sure missed the original facebook brackets.

18. Kevin
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    So taking Michael’s advice I’ve read through the developer TOS (a more interesting read than the user TOS actually).

    The relevant language (conveniently in all caps so that we shan’t miss it!):

    FACEBOOK MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE WITH RESPECT TO FACEBOOK PLATFORM OR FACEBOOK PLATFORM DOCUMENTATION. YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF FACEBOOK PLATFORM IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW, FACEBOOK DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, ACCURACY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES ARISING OUT OF ANY COURSE OF DEALING, COURSE OF PERFORMANCE OR USAGE OF TRADE.

    For the non-lawyers in the audience. “Facebook owes no obligations to you whatsoever at any time now, in the past, or in the future.”

    In fact the only things that Facebook agrees to are to a) give you access to the platform as long as you stay in their good graces and b) all disputes arising out of the TOS will go to arbitration and be governed by Delaware law.

19. Michael Arrington
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

    Frank - a breach of contract wouldn’t be around facebook’s right to charge. It would be around FB’s right to set different rules for different developers. The question is, do developers have a reasonable right to assume a level playing field.

20. Sandeep
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

    I would not be surprised to see this kindof situation in a business model that consists of one-to-many relationship. Facebook App developers have very limited weight (because they are dependent on FB). Breach of contract could be an interesting angle, but I would assume that in that contract their lawyers would have put a clause similar to this: “Facebook reserves the right to change the terms of this contract anytime, without giving any prior notice to the developers”

21. Dave
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    @15

    It doesn’t matter if the app gained most of its users from advertising. It’s the fact that Facebook has been pitching to all it’s developers how they are against spamming users and placed higher restrictions on applications while opening the door wide open to CBS. They have pitched the platform as an ‘equal playing field’, which obviously isn’t true anymore. They have denied multiple times on the forums to ever giving any preferential treatment to companies like Slide and RockYou (not that I’m saying they get any). Well, there is definitely no way to deny giving special treatment to this app, and it’s sad to see a company with such a devoted developer base make a decision like this that questions their loyalty.

22. Jorge
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    @ 19 “a breach of contract wouldn’t be around facebook’s right to charge. It would be around FB’s right to set different rules for different developers. The question is, do developers have a reasonable right to assume a level playing field.”

    FB doesn’t state anywhere that it will hold all developers to the same rules or limitations, much less contractually make that promise. Hence, no breach of any kind.

    If you don’t like it, don’t use the Facebook platform.

23. ghunda
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

    So, once I stood in this long line for a club. After waiting for about 10 minutes, I saw some dude jump the line, hand the bouncer a bill or two and walk right in. Putting the interests of “users” below that of revenue is pretty much how it goes. And you know who is going to care? No one.
    That is, in spite of everyone seeing the pay-off, no one got out of line for the club.

24. Peter J
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    I have a crunch AOL just acquired Tacoda. I dont know why I have this feeling but I just do

25. teddy
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

    It is worth noting that the CBS application has a horrible “user review” score of 2.5 out of 5, and a majority of the 1-star reviews call out the application for being spammy or simply not working… and that was before the invite cap was moved to 100.

26. Anthony
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:31 pm

    Right. Facebook apps aren’t a business model. Killer.

27. Erick
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    @Micheal

    Anyone in the website world knows the agreement means bumpkus and is only meant to protect the company, not the user.

28. Erick
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    @Michael not Micheal sorry

29. Erick
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

    @Anthony -

    For your main source of revenue. Yea, not a concrete way of making a living. Sure facebook isnt going anywhere soon but they can change their policies on a whim and screw you and your business model.

30. 113.com
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

    Either way (to limit invitation emails or not) it isn’t an easy decision…

    But it’s certainly a great distribution platform - whether the app developers can viably build a biz via viral access to its users, it’s obviously not a core concern to fb (whether the app dev folks can build a biz or not).

31. John
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 8:53 pm

    @Michael Arrington - There is absolutely nothing expressed or implied that would lead you to believe that your relationship with Facebook gives you any rights to fairness with other developers. In fact, virtually all of the terms of service are specific to what obligations the developer has to Facebook, not the other way around. This article is a great way to drum up page views for Techcrunch but is otherwise completely flawed — unless you are warranting all your posts against defects and fairness with other startups

32. AnonTroll
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 9:41 pm

    Great “reporting”

33. bs
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

    im glad that facebook did this because it pissed off arrington.

34. Alfred
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pm

    @Michael Arrington

    This is similar to our experiece as a developer focussed on white-labeled solutions mostly sitting on Mobile Operator decks. What used to be a business model that was based on the operator’s discretionary placement on deck and a pure revenue share is changing across Europe. We are seeing many - and I expect this will soon be most or all - operators moving to a paid placement model with a slightly larger share going to developers.

    This is due to the changing nature of how data services are charged. Operators in Europe are learned sooner than those on the US side that their walled garden approach was failing and that for data services, they are little more than a bitpipe. In any case they need to make money and low-cost, flat-rate plans cannot deliver revenues like per Kb billing.

    This puts the responsibility for making money on those applications squarely on the shoulders of the developer in that their apps need to be compelling and sticky. But Facebook is a business and I see nothing wrong with this model - if it is “official’ practice.

35. Raj Lalwani
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 10:45 pm

    Michael:

    At the end of the day it all boils down to how much Facebook needs the developer community and vice versa. If Facebook remains the only game in town, I am afraid they will behave much the same way as Microsoft did with Windows - creating Word, Excel and Power Point and trying to kill 3rd party applications for their own platform - Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and Harvard Graphics.

    Hopefully this won’t happen because competition is coming - Bebo and MySpace have already launched their own developer platforms. Also, so far it appears that Facebook is not evil and ultimately wants to do what is right.

    Raj Lalwani
    SocialCalendar.com

36. Web Design by Jacques
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    Hiya All - There is currently a facebook group that is petitioning for applications to ban the adding of friends on applications. It is over a million strong and growing daily. Interested to see where this is going, as public opinion drives this service….

37. Mike
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    Funny, I checked on this a while back and the CBS Sports app had 12 invites allowed per day (about 1 week ago or so - I was checking to make sure they were following rules). Meaning their invites had similar response rates to most apps that are suffering under the new rules.

    This is outright favoritism. Users deemed their invites as spam just as much as any other application receiving 12 app invites per day (which is close to the average).

    Two other notes:

    1) Facebook made a huge announcement at the top of the newsfeed (similar to when they launch a new feature or the privacy options - the most recent notice)

    2) I got a message from the application in my Facebook Inbox (twice!) - developers have no way of doing this currently. They can only use the much poorer performing requests and notifications systems.

38. LOL
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 11:48 pm

    This app came out and I remember seeing how it had poor traction… just like all the other new apps coming out.

    So what did Facebook do? turn on the spam for CBS and get this app running!!!!

    All the developers can do is complain and go wah wah wah. The point is you guys built businesses/apps centered around Facebook and they can change whatever rules they want…….

    Clearly Facebook is going to let the big guys make apps and take over good ideas from the little guys. It’s a way of life, deal with it.

39. Mike
    

    March 19th, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    But doesn’t this prove that they’ve now made it REALLY hard to go viral?

    Even a CBS Sports March Madness app couldn’t gain traction on its own - how are businesses and developer teams with real biz goals going to want to commit to the FB platform now?

40. bob
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 12:24 am

    Facebook had a contract signed with CBS for the last year or so (before platform was around) that enabled them to do this.

41. open for business
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 1:30 am

    so this is not an open platform and really a walled garden. Not to surprised. I think facebook fatigue will set in over time. From friendster, myspace, facebook to the next great latest thing. I think it will not be too hard to migrate from facebook. Just imagine a company on of the so called widgets with 20M users becoming more of its own social network and taking users along. The next business model that will work will likely be more open than facebook. After the high school and college phase wears on you time to move on.

42. Martin
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 4:24 am

    I agree with those on this being a big “so-what”. It’s just another one of the risks of being a FB developer.

    I did notice that when adding applications, you can explicitly say that you don’t want to invite friends. If the application tries to force you, you can report the application to FB (via a button) that it’s forcing you to invite folks.

43. Joshua March
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 5:12 am

    Facebook have to monetise effectively - adverts aren’t a great way to do this, but branded and interactive applications are. It’s great that Facebook are allowing any developers to step up and give this service to brands, and keep the money for themselves. In return Facebook gets more engagement and advertising views.

    However, I don’t see any problem with Facebook giving additional opportunities to companies willing to pay - this is the same as a company coming in with a huge advertising budget all over the site to promote their application.

44. senatuskienlee
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 5:24 am

    this business we call an Open API business is unlike any other webbased business, so there are no experts (yet)… from the groundlevel, its much observation that this is the first time the little developer gets to thrive, react and adapt the fastest, making them the real enablers and winners in such a space. Few pureplay, moveoutofdad’sgarage startup has succeeded on facebook because now they move even slower than developers.

    And my point is, the day these developers move from trying to cater to the whims of FB users, to another network like Open Social because they’ve been abused enough by last minute code changes, user count cockups (e.g., my 1 million user app get halved, my other 6000 user app was logged in with 60,000 users… how do you do genuine business like that?) and other fb teething brouhahas, it’ll be too late (for FB).

45. Chris
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 5:31 am

    As a Facebook developer, I am annoyed. But if I look on it from the outside, who the hell am I to get mad? If I were in Facebook’s position, I would do the same thing.

    Facebook had platform launch partners who got benefits in the beginning. Developers got used to this (most) and ion reality, the community isn’t that mad. Sure we have on irate developer (who just registered on the forums) and Kien Lee (who loves to increase his post count). None of the big developers are crying because we all know that the users are next to immune to invitations anymore. If it doesn’t look interesting, they ignore it. Sure, for something like the March Madness they will accept, but for many of our applications, invitations are our primary source of users. News Feeds and tailored notifications (rather than invites) are the real winners here.

46. Chris
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 5:32 am

    Wow, apparently I cannot type this morning. Invitations *aren’t* our primary source of users. The other typos I can live with.

47. Kurt
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 6:06 am

    Hasn’t this contest been on Facebook for years? Far before the platform even launched? They had unique integration before anyone else, I see no reason why they can’t continue to be treated specially by a private for-profit company.

48. Wal
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 6:26 am

    The reality is this…. Facebook made a song and dance about wanting to reduce the spammyness of applications on the platform. They then introduced a bucket/threshold limit system for invites/requests that dropped most apps below what the current allocation of the time was (20).

    Many applications had received no spam reports from users and had healthy accept rates for invites - my own app is more than 2x the avg for applications yet sits at 15 (but has been as low as 8).

    Applications developed by Facebook themselves did not have these limitations applied.

    People can make a point that Facebook can do whatever they want, but really folks, if facebook really cared about their users and the spammyness that facebook claim they are trying to elivate, how can they justify giving an allocation of 100 to this application.

    For the $$$ ? if this is the case then spam now has a price on Facebook, won’t the users love this.

    Also, there are other avenues for applications to gain installs via a number of advertising networks including Facebook’s. While many third-party apps are paying for this type of advertising, the app in question appears to have done a deal to get a greater allocation of invites - if this is the new Facebook model, then why wern’t other apps given the opportunity to bid for this deal?

    Come on Facebook, get your act together, get professional, and start to treat your users and the developer community with respect.

49. Steve S
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 7:10 am

    Developers could protest this kind of thing by getting together and suspending their apps for a day or longer. Facebook is earning their money with ads that are running alongside our app. If they really are doing this for “business reasons” then that would give them a message they couldn’t ignore.

    Strike! Strike!

50. senatuskienlee
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 7:29 am

    You know in reality, an OPEN API is not just referring not just to the OPENING of the technology platform, but an OPENING of the market, mindset, attitude for all with the skills and tenacity to come play and participate…
    If facebook goes into exclusive arrangements with select corporates, then its backtracking to what Open Social is only starting to do! What a devolution!

    You need some real grey haired folks in that organization, folks who’ve had some experience making sure some things are not done like in the wild west.

51. Gabe
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 10:08 am

    @Wal:

    “if facebook really cared about their users and the spammyness that facebook claim they are trying to elivate, how can they justify giving an allocation of 100 to this application.”

    It’s very simple. They have a business relationship with this company. They have a hands-on approach with the details of the app, or at least whatever assurances the company gives them. They can monitor this app directly. Obviously they don’t have the resources to police 20,000 apps in this same way, the vast majority of which are half-baked gold-rush apps with very little purpose. And honestly, the number of requests per day is not the root of spamminess… it’s just a mitigation factor for apps that are already spammy.

    It’s understandable to be angry as a developer, but don’t blow it out of proportion. It’s ridiculous to assume that now that F8 is out there, Facebook is never going to do anything outside the scope of the official API ever again. I’m not sure where this righteous indignation and sense of entitlement come from, and I’m really curious about why Arrington is spinning this thing so sensationally.

    The reality is, you still get a lot for free with F8. If you built your business model on top of any free API then you probably shouldn’t sleep well at night, but if the API is F8 then the sky isn’t falling… yet.

52. ask5
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 10:12 am

    If facebook calls itself a social network then it should comply with the network neutrality principle.

53. App developer
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 10:46 am

    Mike - You’re absolutely right about how developers are thinking about the FB Platform. And as a developer, it’s hard to come out and say anything publicly against Facebook for fear of retribution.

54. Phil
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    I think your comment about penny wise but pound foolish is really on the ball. I mean, to me one of the most interesting developments is that new profiles will kill RockYou and Slide’s “Wall” products. Doesn’t that chop their valuations in half? Actions like these have to make things even worse.

55. FB user
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    As a facebook user I’m sick of getting invites for dozens of worthless apps. I applaud their efforts to minimize the garbage traffic. As soon as I start seeing glitter showing up on FB pages I’m out of there.

    I see nothing wrong with what they are doing here. Of course they are playing favorites because it’s in their interests to increase revenue.

56. CB
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 11:56 am

    How many developers have given facebook prime time ads on national television? I only signed up for the bracket after hearing about it during the Big Ten championship game on CBS this past Sunday.

57. Mike Zeuthen
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 2:14 pm

    I think this gives app developers something to work towards. Make a good app and maybe Facebook could buy it from you.

    My worry is if Facebook doesn’t want to buy your app, but make it themselves. Change the name and remake it to call it theirs and out do yours with (and other tricks they might have) invites… that could be unfair.

    I hope Facebook doesn’t do anything unfair or unethical… but I really don’t think they will because there is always other networks we can use.

58. FB Developer
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    I’m a mid-level app builder on facebook and I think facebook is totally mis-treating its developers. They are constantly changing the rules of the game and provide crappy communication about it. They are are about as arrogant as they could possibly be and their whole livelihood is about coming up with ways to punish what they personally perceive as bad for their users by going after the drug dealers (the developers) instead of the drug users (their customers.) Apps don’t spam people, people spam people, so instead of focusing on empowering users to control their communications with friends they focus on the developers. The big developers all have the resources to quickly figure out the new cure of the week, while the smaller developers get hosed.

    Facebook is building up a lot of ill-will amongst the development community. They need to put someone in charge and focus their efforts on empowering their users to control their user experience.

    As for me, the minute I get a real alternative to facebook, you can bet that I’m going to be jumping ship.

59. Amit
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    It seems perfectly valid to leave the playing field uneven for the simple reason that not all apps and application developers are the same. Try following this line of reasoning… If you look at the number of active users relative to the number of installs across the top 100 application developers you’ll see that the median retention rate is somewhere around 2%. I don’t know what that means to you, but to me it looks suspiciously like spam-like behavior. By contrast, the CBS app currently sports a 42% retention rate. If everything else exhibits spam like characteristics and the CBS app does not, wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interest (except spammers of course) to leave the playing field uneven?

    v14gr4 emails get dumped straight into my spam folder by my email provider. I’m no more upset about that than I am about facebook limiting the invites available to spam-like applications.

60. Zuckerborg
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    this is beginning of the end for facebook.

61. team ray
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    what program language makes app’s java, php, flash this thread is making me think about becoming a developer?

62. Wal
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    @Gabe

    Yes I agree there are a lot of crappy apps in the directory, but guess what Facebook approved them for the directory. I personally wouldn’t have approved many of them.

    And sorry, but if its the mitigation factor, then you are saying my app is spammy which its not - its overall rating is 4 out of 5, it sends one notification to the feed when the user hits a certain page in the workflow (once), and doesn’t get reported as spammy by the users when they send out invites, or blocked on notifications etc. Yet my invites allocation was more than halved initally (with invites being directly related to user growth rate).

    As for “righteous indignation and sense of entitlement come from”, well I’m actually not all that, but its my (and the other developer) time and effort that was put into develping the third-party apps, and you need to remember that out of the 19,500 apps only about 30 have been developed by Facebook themselves. Facebook made a song and dance about spammyness, implemented a poor (IMHO) method of control and then we find an app with 100 invites - why wouldn’t we be annoyed given that we’ve had our own allocations cut to well below this number?

    Communication by Facebook with the developer community is poor to say the least. I am an IT professional with more than 14yrs commercial experience and with Facebbok I am astounded by some of the things they’ve done without any form of consultation with us.

    The attitude, that third-party developers should be honored to have access to the facebook platform will be its undoing in the longer term. Facebook are no longer the only game in town, and whilst there is some first mover traction, don’t expect a huge amount of loyalty.

    As senatuskienlee points out above your post Facebook really does need some ‘gray hairs’ on the team.

63. Wal
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 8:10 pm

    @Amit

    Unfortunately, you are not comparing apples with apples. When an app is first released and is gaining lots of new users the DAU % will be higher than that of an app that has been in the directory for an extended period.

    If you wanted to compare them you would really need to pick a date towards the end of the season or several months in. The other apps you talk about would have had similar rates in their early stages. My own app was 50%-75% for the first week or so, but has settled to just less than 10%. Also not all apps are ‘daily use’ type apps, this doesn’t make them bad or unuseful just not high on that one metric.

    Also, “spam-like applications” - haven’t been defined to the developer community by Facebook. How many emails would you classify as spam that were sent by your friends who knowingly hit the send button (i.e. not a script virus)? This is one of the problems, invites are user generated, other things in the news-feed are application generated (such as notifications) - however in both cases applications have quota’s (well below the 100 allocated to the app in question).