Comments on: Max Levchin To Facebook: Developers Need More Certainty (And A Payment System Would be Nice Too)

By: On f8 « On Technology

On f8 « On Technology — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:27:15 +0000

[...] lack of a payments system exercised some app developers, including the illustrious Max Levchin, who seem to think if there is a payment system people will [...]

By: johng

johng — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:47:24 +0000

umm.. Max Levchin himself did this with Paypal. Ebay tried for years to stop paypal, even launching their own direct competitor, but Paypal still won. eventually, ebay capitulated and bought them

By: jjenkins

jjenkins — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:39:08 +0000

Slide is a joke and Max is one of a seemingly *giant* list of people that claim to be the founder of Paypal. My guess is that Slide slides into failure at some point in the future!

By: sd

sd — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:55:40 +0000

I am going to build an app that helps you to filter out slide and rockyou. 5$ lifetime usage. anyone?

By: Justine

Justine — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:43:40 +0000

I’d pay for an app to never see a facebook application request ever again.

By: Codebert

Codebert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:31:02 +0000

“he’d like to see clearer rules about what is and is not allowed”

The TOS are quite clear, and he has blatantly been on the other side of them for a long time, with immunity that no other developer has enjoyed.

By: Roman

Roman — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:17:35 +0000

i would actually pay facebook $20/ year to BAN slide and rockyou.. ironic isn’t it..

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Max LevchinからFacebookへ「デベロッパーにはもっと安心（と決済システム）が必要」

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:08:29 +0000

[...] [原文へ] [...]

By: seoman

seoman — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:58:58 +0000

a lot of people where turned off by the chaos. Let’s hope for them that they get it right this time.

By: Idiot CEO

Idiot CEO — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:20:36 +0000

True. Many a company crashed and burned trying to do that on top of eBay. And that’s a platform where the sellers actually would pay. Sometimes. Once a in while, oh hell, almost never because eBay has already nickeled and dimed them to death.

eBay should be a prime example of a platform that could be built on top of and monetized but can anyone name a company that has successfully done that? And if so how much are they making, probably not much.

And even if you do become successful, the rules can be changed. You may as well build your house on a raft floating down a river.

By: boilr

boilr — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:08:17 +0000

If facebook really knew and understood how to play the (royal) game, it would assist developers in making their apps work via the FB iApp. I’d much rather be able to use many of the apps that make FB worth participating in to begin with…especially via my iTouch. Why shouldnt scrabulous, where in the world, etc be accessible in an iFormat?

Oh, and if FB starts charging for apps…its game over.

By: billy

billy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:22:56 +0000

waaaaaaaaaaaaaah, facebook is making it harder for me to make money on their website. now i’ll have to find some other website to make money off of instead of starting my own or getting a job, waaaaaaaaaaaah

By: techdude

techdude — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:11:29 +0000

I don’t think anyone would want to pay for a Facebook app, simply because Facebook is a free social utility, the iPhone people pay for to get so you really cannot compare..

http://blabtech.blogspot.com

By: Sean McMenemy

Sean McMenemy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:09:11 +0000

I’ve stopped looking. If people had to pay for the apps 98% of them would go away.

By: John

John — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:37:46 +0000

Great Post! I also have a short post on my blog that examines:

“Will Facebook treat its developers like eBay has treated its sellers?”

There are many similarities between the two companies and history often repeats itself. I would love it if people came to check out the post and added their thoughts to the discussion.

http://ebayobserver.blogspot.com/

Thanks!

By: TheMan

TheMan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:35:10 +0000

There will be no payment system announced today.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:17:27 +0000

At Leapways, our motto is: “A Hiring Manager’s primary job is not HIRING”. Leapways Team is helping the hiring managers in many ways so that they can focus on their primary job. Our job board site leapways.com is primarily aiming on Technology start-ups. We have a free service for both job seekers and employers. Apart from simple job posting, we have end-to-end hiring solution starting from job ad to technical interviews and help on H1 processing.

By: Alex Berger

Alex Berger — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:09:47 +0000

Is it just me or would the vast majority of facebooks actual users be just as happy without 99% of the applications out there?

I’d be willing to bet that most of the people adding a lions share of the apps don’t even really like them.

The level of utility coming out of these apps is pathetic.

By: 哈哈网

哈哈网 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:46:31 +0000

By: Jesse Farmer

Jesse Farmer — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:31:08 +0000

Slide needs Facebook more than Facebook needs Slide.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:29:41 +0000

Most people pay for iphone app because they are native, meaning:
-take advantage of phone HW features
-better performance
-capable offline

FB apps don’t have these advantages and there iis probably a site that will perform the function for free or much better on its own.

By: Robleh

Robleh — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:24:37 +0000

If people won’t pay to use FB they won’t pay to use FB apps either, payment system or no.

iPhone users pay for apps because they pay at least $199 to buy it and $69.99 per month to use it so in that context a few extra dollars for an app isn’t much.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:22:11 +0000

Max probably did not explicitly mean “people will pay for apps”, but many apps already monetize through paypal. Paypal requires separate signup (and dealing with their hideous service). With an FB payment system it will be easier to get people to actually pay for:

virtual goods
premium features
some crap i can’t think of

By: Peldi GuilizzonI

Peldi GuilizzonI — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:12:43 +0000

One reason you haven’t seen any app worth buying on FB is precisely the lack of a payment system for them. I for one have been waiting on the sidelines until this happens. Once developers can charge for their apps, Facebook can become an AWS-like platform for delivering any app, and all of FB’s social features become nice add-ons to the app you bought. In other words, it turns the whole paradigm on its head…brilliant!

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:12:35 +0000

Almost true, unless they create a boiler plate agreement that any LLC can sign. Of course the larger players, slide and rockyou being two (Zynga just raised $29M, for example) will negotiate better terms.