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Facebook Apps Facing Delays and Uncertainties
NewsCloud writes "After reading about the Facebook platform launch, I spent the next week learning the API and building my application. Facebook's platform has been pretty successful despite complaints of poor documentation, instability and outcries over its application approval process. I've been waiting two weeks for my application to be approved for their directory and had my account disabled (temporarily) after I invited a large number of colleagues. While I'm impressed with the potential of the platform, the experience has made me more concerned about the lack of transparency in privately held social networks and the risks we take as developers when we invest time in a company's platform. Facebook's home page advertises itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you." My concern with Facebook is that there's no one regulating the utility."
Not sure what is going on with you, but we are not having issues with our facebook app, actually one of our guys was invited to speak a facebook meetup here in the city.
It sounds like they had concerns about your app being used as a/by a spam-harvester to abuse their network, and frankly I would be also cautious.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
-- tinyhack.com
Is this coy sarcasm? Or did you just post in the wrong thread? I'm rather confused.
The author of the "article" doesn't seem to get "it" with regards to the platform.
Firstly, the documentation isn't fantastic, I agree, it's a relatively straight-forward REST api, and wouldn't you know it, the community of developers has been filling in the documentation gaps
As for instability, it's been there for the most part, you have to understand that Facebook might lack of the 100% reliability you may think your own code has. Facebook developers aren't perfect, nor is it unusual for things to break when near 25 million active users a day pound on it (at the very least, tiny bugs, image caching collisions i'm looking at you, become big bugs. As a side note, that has to have been the most famous end-table on the planet before they fixed that bug).
Finally, I've seen the "outcries over its application approval process" and those are silly as well. A very tiny percent of users actually install the application from the directory. My applications have blown up because of making use of the viral tools provided by the platform, invites, news feed postings, etc. Applications like X-Me exploded to well over 100k users before it was even listed (congrats chips), the same went for Graffiti
No system, especially a third-party system you rely on as a developer is ever perfect, but it's barely been a month since the Facebook Platform, so crying foul is extremely premature. If your only concern is that there's no one regulating the utility, then you should go ask some of those Windows developers how much fun the Longhorn-Vista moving target of a platform has been. It's their API, their platform, their social network, they get to choose what goes on with their "utility."
I'm sure i'll be marked as a troll, but this just reads like the same gripes at the bottom of the barrel in the FB Developers discussion board for some time now.
Disclaimer: I was one of the F8 attendees, and have been developing for the platform for almost 2 months now
Error 407 - No creative sig found
"My concern with Facebook is that there's no one regulating the utility."" Regulating what? The handing out of api docs? The creation of the programs? I've seen a couple of the programs and i can't see any that cross any lines, and i think the API was specifically designed for that. I can't comment on the handing out and documenting of the API, but perhaps the writer should talk to some of the other programmers.
I really am. It took me a lot of kicks in the head to realize what I was doing was stupid.
In term of failed platforms, I think I have a long list. I invested time in:
mIRC script
NWN1 scripting engine
Win 95 era Visual Basic
Access 97 era VBA
Notice anything in common about these platforms?
The final kick was Labview. It was a fun language and, as a student, I didn't have to pay for it. Now of course I'm not a student so to update and reuse some nifty things I wrote as a student I would need to pay hundreds for a run time. Not smart.
Of course it's not useless. A lot of the things I learned have helped when programming in proper languages (C/perl/java/occam etc), and leaning for learning's sake is never a waste. But all of the things I wrote are now useless because someone else owns the platform they run on and I can't get or afford the environment.
Older and smarter I would have to be getting a healthy wage to write anything in a closed tool. I might be interested in learning DirectX 10 to steal the best ideas, but if I decide I want to do some 3D visualisation I'll do it on openGL thank you. I will also write my tools in the UNIX style, with exposed APIs and designed in the most modular fashion possible, since it makes them far more valuable in the long run.
Beep beep.
before all the craplets that people push on unsuspecting facebookers, I really enjoyed the site. It was an excellent work alternative(tm) Now, however, it's just becoming a more cluttered myspace. I'm expecting the facebook people to next open up the possibility to 'personalize' their profile with gaudy poorly written code that crashes web browsers (or maybe just safari, which - to be honest - isn't the most stable inmate in the asylum). So much for being elegant, simple, and unique.
And to add, your attitude is precisely why software, in general, is mediocre at best.
In a free market, the customer regulates. In fact, by raising your concerns, you are doing it right now.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
My concern with Facebook is that there's no one regulating the utility.
But REGULATION is BAD and the FREE MARKET will SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS!
To avoid situations like this, I wonder if anyone would be interested in proposing an RFC for a public, distributed social networking system. Much like IRC, that could be made redundant with multiple geographically diverse servers and more importantly couldn't be controlled by any one corporate entity.
Advertising revenue could be made by the "application" writers themselves, and the framework (something like Facebook) would become a commodity just like IRC became.
Facebook-like social networking without the corporate oversight could be a little more chaotic, but no more chaotic than every other distributed system on the Internet.
It's because of developers like this that are making Facebook junk. It was one of the best networking applications on the net, now your getting all these frills that are really making it lame.
In fact, the lack of such seems to be shooting facebook in the foot. Why doesn't facebook have a peer-approved petitioning process to allow people to join facebook networks?
I can count several different associates with dormant facebook accounts whom, if given the chance to be "rallied into" a particular facebook network by other facebook users, would gladly use the website (and benefit from the private, social network).
I'm ... more concerned about the lack of transparency in privately held social networks and the risks we take as developers when we invest time in a company's platform. ... My concern with Facebook is that there's no one regulating the utility."
Answered your own question didn't you? If you don't like the way that they run their company, then don't deal with them.
Who exactly do you think should "regulate" them? How?
Three Squirrels
> My concern with Facebook is that there's no one regulating the utility.
Because we certainly don't want people going around doing things without permission, do we? An unregulated activity? How shocking!
Listen. It's a private company operating in an open market. If you don't like their rules take your business elsewhere. Want more "transparency"? Start your own "transparent" network.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
II. Consent Regarding Use of Facebook Site Information
(a) Information That May Be Provided to Developers. In order to allow you to use and participate in Platform Applications created by Developers ("Developer Applications"), Facebook may from time to time provide Developers access to the following information (collectively, the "Facebook Site Information"):
(i) any information provided by you and visible to you on the Facebook Site, excluding any of your Contact Information, and
(ii) the user ID associated with your Facebook Site profile.
(b) Examples of Facebook Site Information. The Facebook Site Information may include, without limitation, the following information, to the extent visible on the Facebook Site: your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location (city/state/country), your current location (city/state/country), your political view, your activities, your interests, your musical preferences, television shows in which you are interested, movies in which you are interested, books in which you are interested, your favorite quotes, the text of your "About Me" section, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history, your course information, copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums, metadata associated with your Facebook Site photo albums (e.g., time of upload, album name, comments on your photos, etc.), the total number of messages sent and/or received by you, the total number of unread messages in your Facebook in-box, the total number of "pokes" you have sent and/or received, the total number of wall posts on your Wall, a list of user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends, your social timeline, and events associated with your Facebook profile.
When one tries to add any application to their profile, it says, from which the above was quoted (emphasis mine):
Brief blurb. By clicking 'add', you agree to the Platform Application Terms of Use.http://www.collude.biz - Ignore this, it's for Project Honey Pot.
From the article: I saw a real opportunity for my site to reach a large new audience without a big marketing expense.
In other words, this guy had figured out a way to spam via Facebook. And he's complaining that they didn't process his application for a developer ID fast enough.
Who even remotely cares about facebook or it's fleeting effort to keep it's dated social networking model alive with eye candy and a plethora of useless bells and whistles.
In the end facebook is not innovating, it's just filling up the site with distracting content to remove the user from the reality that the premise of the site is not evolving. Keep it simple stupid works everytime and facebook is guarantee to waste it's efforts trying keep social network alive through low end web apps.
Social network like any social trend is just that, a trend and most sites are simply little more than blogs with an eye candy home page. Wake up people, these are the infants of social networking and myspace and facebook are doomed simply by the fact they are aged. The next generation of kids are going to reject facebook for something different because that's how trends and socializing works. These social networks are proprietary or useful enough like IM is to remain a useful internet tool. They are just entertainment websites and many times the focus isn't really socializing unless you consider cutting and pasting text, sounds and pictures socializing. It's not really. A thousand people posting the same Bob Marley pic smoking a J is just a place to waste time and PLAY with the internet. Most people I know have had their fun in the social networking scene and gotten tired of it as they get older or get a real life. It's mostly for kids you know, rainbow bright themes and ohh wow I can post my own pictures and sounds thats SOOoo amazing. How long can that shit really entertain people.
Social networking sites need to get with the picture, providing feeds on whats your friends are doing so you can all effectively spy on each other in the long run is not going to attract a lot more users for facebook. They need less BS and more real substance, more reasons for people to actually socialize and not just post pictures and sounds and then tell everyone to come look at my new site. That's simply not socializing, it's more like interior decorating. In all reality a site like craigs list has just as much a real social network potential because it's community is less superficial and based on trendy crap. People go to craigs list for reasons beyond I'm lonley and bored out of my mind or I want to get laid. Facebook and Myspace are really just one step down from other sites like match.com and the majority of people there are using it to hookup with people. Because of that, these sites are doomed and they'll be replaced by the latest greatest trendy sites.
How will I be able to SuperPoke my friends? Or give them little puppy dog icon gifts? Noooooooooo!!!!
My bicyles
i don't see how the parent was modded anything but a troll, tho now i suspect the majority of the slashdot upper-echelon raise their nerdified noses in disgust at the mere mentioning of facebook. the craplets you speak of are actually really awesome. a file hosting app that lets you share any file under 10mb with all of ur friends (up to a gig total) freakin rocks, great for sharing mp3s and full resolution pictures. (yay for png's) not to mention all the music sharing things they have (which do NOT autoplay, thank goodness) and other fun apps like fluff friends which gives ur facebook a pet that other people can... pet. graffiti is great too, if you have creative friends, probably not so much if you have idiot friends who just fill it with tons of penises and akwardly drawn boobies.
The solution is simple in my mind, for both facebook and myspace. They should allow logged viewers to disable various "features" on user pages. For example, I could go without the "Ask a question" or "Emote" applets on facebook, which post notices to everyone in your friends list. In myspace, I could deal without the non-default backgrounds and background music. To make this feature really useful, there should be an option to automatically disable any new application and to specify which ones are allowed manually.
I agree. Facebook's simplicity was key in its success (in my mind), and now it feels like a heightened form of spam. I've enjoyed using facebook, but this is becoming a deal breaker for me.. unless they allow me to automatically turn this crap off.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
The problem with social networking sites and many others is that they have the power to restrict access to your personal networks. If you make friends through facebook, or use the site to stay in touch, that relationship is owned by facebook. They have a leverage against you. If they decide to put interstitial ads or some other annoying thing on their site, you cant just migrate your friend network to myspace.
Mostly you can expect this not to happen, and if it does there is always the phone and e-mail, but a solution that is more node based and less reliant on all of your networks (social or physical) going through one company would be more like an actual social network, which grows organically and in a decentralized manner. Facebook, MySpace etc.. are more akin to an Elks Lodge or other association that is the singular source of social engagement for its members.
Which technologies exist now that operate outside of the single source model?
Nice idea, but I doubt it would be adopted or practical to implement on a wide scale. One of Facebook's killer features is lightning response combined with a consistent interface anyone can understand. Both these things are less likely to occur outside of a monolithic entity, ala Google.
..don't panic
It amazes me that, in this day and age, there are still concerns like this around social networks. If you want community involvement in your platform - involve the community in its design! OSS and Wikipedia have proven that it is a workable model. That's why I've recently moved my blog+myspace profile over to a wiki-based social network: http://meopedia.com/en/User:Eric_Redmond
http://www.coderoshi.com/
YOU ARE GOING DOWN!!!
I have been using Facebeeok for a few months.. I have to say I like Facebook SO much better than cluttered and mostly unreadable other social networking sites (MySpace and Yahoo 360)... I just hope that facebook doesn't go out to become another MySpace. The fact that it is so much more stripped down (and actually readable) is the reason I prefer it over MySpace or Yahoo 360.. In my opinion it isnt the 3rd part apps that are the problem.. it is the
Not sure if it had anything to do with the Slashdot post - but the NewsCloud application is now approved and listed in the Facebook Directory.
Now that Facebook has given its users to create ugly profiles, it also needs to give users the ability to customize their views of other people's profiles. There should be an app-free view.
Count me in on this one.
We have a decentralized trust metric system built into http://about.psyc.eu/
which so far we use for surfing profiles along the social network - but we
are actually a messaging protocol and looking into using trust metrics for
multicast routing (not IP Multicast, more like IRC).
I can see we have an overlap with appleseed in the requirements for the
distributed trust model but we are heading different direction in their
application which means appleseed on top of our protocol could be a major
enhancement and a win on both sides!
We should look into that. Somebody throw some time at me.
Wouldn't that be "pooper soak" (spoonerism of super poke)?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"