Facebook’s Verified Apps program, first announced in Summer 2008, is a way for trusted application developers to be separated from the pack. But the program is yet to launch, and perceived delays and a lack of communication by Facebook is making some developers who signed up for the program a little antsy.
The details of the program were announced in November. Developers are charged $375 to apply to the program, and must continue to pay the fee each year. I called it a protection racket.
Putting that aside, though, the program seems to be very popular with developers. Facebook hasn’t said how many applications they received but they initially estimated that at least 10% of of the 50,000+ third paryty applications on Facebook Platform would become Verified. My guess is 10% is on the low side.
Facebook originally said the program would go live in early 2009, and we’re still in the ballpark of “early” in the year. But some application developers are saying Facebook took their application fee and now aren’t communicating with them at all about timing or the status of their application. A few comments from a Facebook Forum page on the topic:
It’s been months since we have heard anything about this. What time frame are we looking at?
Communicating with the verification team seems almost impossible – their email system doesn’t work properly and they wont give out the name of the person dealing with my application or any contact phone number. All the emails they send me are anonymous and unsigned making it impossible to hold a conversation. Most of the emails I send them disappear into a black hole or seemingly get delayed a week then end up not being delivered to the same person who I was replying to. They offered to phone me at a pre-arranged time but it has proved impossible because they want to organise it by email and their email system doesn’t work! If it takes a week to exchange one email, we can’t arrange a time for a call within a week! We’ve paid a lot of money for a service we’re just not getting…
I had to pay the full $375 for which I got nothing, because the changes suggested by the reviewer were in direct conflict with what the platform policy team had told me to do, so I couldn’t implement them and Facebook have not responded to any of my questions sent by email. Can Facebook please explain why some developers have only paid $1 and got verified while others have been charged $375 and you wont even communicate with us?
A Facebook representative responded in the forum and said:
Thanks for your feedback about the Application Verification program. For those who have completed the detailed submission form, you should have at least heard back from us with initial feedback. You can reply to us with any questions through that channel.
As far as what’s been going on, we’re working hard on two fronts. First, ensuring the verification review is thorough and results in applications that are trustworthy and improve the user experience of Platform applications. Second, we are working developing and testing the full package of verification benefits to make sure they achieve our goal of helping trustworthy apps gain exposure on Facebook.
Facebook hasn’t yet responded to my email inquiry on this, but I’m guessing the volume of applications may be a factor in the delay. Facebook is also building a lot of new products in a lot of different areas of the business, and they are becoming famous for missing publicly stated dev deadlines.
But it’s also clear from the comments that developers expect something besides silence, largely because of the fee they paid. Facebook has said from the beginning that the fee only covers their costs in running the program, which I don’t completely buy. But at any rate, this looks like the Verified Apps program may be a bigger headache than they counted on.
So they charge 4x much as Apple’s iPhone developer program and didn’t expect to provide 4x the service?
This is really hard to believe. When Mike first called this a protection racket, I thought that he was being too harsh, but in fact, that is what it seems like.
I would even venture to speculate that, to continue Mike’s formulations, this “extorting” is their only profitable “business” right now.
With so much funding in their coffers, you would expect Facebook to take the high road in the way they deal with their users and their developers. I am really at a loss to understand why they do not.
From India
Anjali Sen
(5K apps) ($375)= $1.875M
That’s about 18 people (total yearly burden). Not that many people. They obviously want to get it right.
O/T: Not to be rude, but how can you (Anjali) justify replying to the first comment. Your motives are transparent, and you’ve seen people become quite rude because of practices such as these. Please stop.
they’re trying to be profitable, simply. ad revenues have tanked so they can’t be successful that way. $375 is about the cost of a day of good developer time and that’s probably what the review takes.
And unlike apple, facebook doesn’t have a high-markup hardware business to subsidize this cost.
stop thinking in web2.0 business terms when 2.1 is in beta
RETARD BABE
I don’t like Facebook or their lawyers Orrick, but I will say that if somebody’s willing to pay for something, you have a responsibility to charge them for it.
“Today, together, we’ll change the world”, what a joke. More like, “today, tomorrow, we’ll screw the world”.
I heard that Suckerberg had been dumped by his gf, could anyone confirm?
Monetizing on other’s hard work with poor customer service hmmmm?
TechFilipino
Yeah, to think about it, we should really thank application developers for they’re the one who’ve made Facebook a success… They were the unique selling point of Facebook…
It’s time they get something more for their efforts…
Over $18M in annual application fees? Seems like a cash cow for Facebook and you’re saying that 50k developers is on the low side?
One can be certain not all 50K apps care about this program. I believe your math needs work. Just sayin’.
Hell! I don’t give a shit even if they’re verified or not… The thing is, there are so many players on apps like that by Playfish that they don’t really need a verification, they already had : the users.
I think this came a bit late…
@coldbrew *typo. i missed the ‘.’ in $1.8M… Nonetheless it’s hard to believe.
What do you get for $375 per year?
How will existing apps be treated?
What criteria does Facebook use to judge whether an app is verifiable?
At this point Facebook apps are nothing but spam. It’s going to be hard to reverse that image. This seems to be the problem Facebook needs to address before charging developers a gatekeeping fee for ’success’.
The funny thing is, where’s the data to show that Facebook users will even give a crap whether an app is verified or not? My hunch, they won’t; i.e. a waste of $375 and the shot of bourbon for stressing.
You got my darn vote young man!
I don’t think that’s a problem, $375 for the reach that facebook has is not going to deter many developers.
I don’t agree that users won’t give a crap, spy ware and trojans are more and more common with social apps, I think don’t think it’ll be long before many users stop downloading unless apps have been verified, same as they do with executables now.
do you even know what facebook apps are? who’s going to download what? i ‘ve never heard of people catching a virus from facebook apps (it can only happen from third party apps (but has never happened for me), as facebook filters the app code)
I’ve only noticed crap coming into my facebook chat… But that too, I think is because some asshole stupidly clicked on a link in the chat itself…
Do apps on Facebook specifically are really able to transfer spyware and stuff???
The apps Facebook already have are a handful for this user. They are slowww to load, and require a separate click for each action. I have begun turning down the endless invitations to participate in them. I have both, but still use Myspace far more than Facebook. Both have their glitches on a regular basis, but Facebook far far more often.
When they opened the platform to apps it went insane – apps charged into the facebook experience so abruptly, people got angry about them.
Then facebook pulled back massively the other way, stripping away the viral mechanisms that helped apps propagate, making app marketing too hard.
Now maybe they are slowly nurturing the apps back to life with user-reassurance measures like this.
Or maybe they have just seen a way to siphon some cash out of a dormant mass of app developers.
I think the faceboook’s apps is hard to use ,they want to build their own standed,so it is inconvenient!
Facebook’s app are very easy to build so an approval scheme would be welcome. A lot of FB apps dev are not really devs.
The major pb with widgets is 95% of them are crap. Simply look at user’s rating for widgets. No to pay for a certification seems like subscribing to Verisign for an E-commerce website. Doesn’t matter what happen next, you get your certification icon and expect increased traffic.
Facebook application are getting crappier everyday.
total racket
I personally like the “idea” of verified applications. It’ll definitely keep the clutter down. Or at least allow me the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. But, $375? WHAT!?! Do I get dinner first?
The Facebook API can be exploited in many ways by badly behaved apps. Perhaps this is a way to recoup the costs of keeping on top of that task.
I think its a good idea. But I am not too optimistic that it will be run like it should.
We’ve stated on that thread we’d gladly pay… if we knew we would be getting anything but many months later it is obvious we won’t be.
Lucky you. I ‘ve already paid for my app and have passed the criteria, but they won’t even tell us what are the benefits of this program (there is only a 3-line vague description) – let alone they won’t give us even a vague timetable for the launch.
I feel outright scammed here. I ‘m giving it 1 more week before i drop out of the program
As for the number of applications speculated here, i doubt it is that big. Taking a look at the top 20 apps on facebook you ‘ll realize most of them have a user rating < 2/5 – because they are the worst spammers in the universe. These apps would never make it through the verified apps program criteria.
The market is becoming focused on e-commerce apps. A frictionless economy is the cause of such a grand and glorious coming. Twitter as a for runner pioneers the flow of bloggers, surfers, and gamers in a very unique way.
Anyone who paid $375, you just got Rich Dad Academy’d ! !
As a developer who is trying to build world class experiences that increase the utility of sports fans on the facebook platform, I think the bigger concern should be about changes around “pages” and “apps” and user relationships between both. I know it’s a mouthful, but at some point last night app powered feed stories were removed from the Live Feed. What’s interesting is that the “new changes” announced last week are supposed to enhance real time status/communication, and also improve fan/brand page functionality. But, by limiting app powered stories the feed is limiting the value of real time status/social interactions. And, by increasing the capacity for “pages” to power feed stories they are creating a double standard between apps and “pages”…stay tuned, but thought i would point this out to tc community. Clear direction as to how apps and users of apps can be communicated to and with versus fans of pages is a big issue for developers right now…much bigger issue than verified apps program imo
thanks,
mike kerns
citizen sports
We are in touch with facebook about the communication standards/differences between app developers and “pages” creators/administrators. Until that conversation is completed, we want to communicate that our intetrepretation of the changes may be incorrect.
thanks,
mike
The early days of Facebook of app program were the golden era for app developers, there was little competition and you could spam users freely and many pointless apps quickly grew to millions of users this way. Now there are thousands of apps + they’ve tightened things up, so the actual benefits of creating a Facebook app are much smaller.
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This isn’t too different from paying to be included in Yahoo’s directory.
Wait, let me get this straight. When facebook apps first launched, being approved meant your application would show up in the apps search results. This was back when the application link was easily accessible, and generally all applications were treated like first class citizens.
Forward to the present and you’ll see 50,000+ apps in the repository. Most of the top performing developers have been screwed by facebook providing their own version of the popular apps. Other apps are carefully hidden as far away from the users as far as possible.
They now want developers to pay $350 for a more prestigious status in the catalog. Most fb applications don’t make that much in a year and those that do risk being killed by fb. Plus fb has been notorious for introducing drastic changes to the platform with little regard for developers or their business.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
I feel for those who dumped almost 400$ for basically nothing (as it seems to be in many [most?] cases)? I also don’t necessarily have a great quantity of confidence in fb’s ability to evaluate all the developers. I’d rather use an independent source for my digital security needs like justaskgemato.
Facebook is asleep at the wheel. They have zero integrity. They allow anyone to have an application, even offensive ones and Facebook will do anything for money. They are shameless.