Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Bans AdSense In Apps
An anonymous reader writes "Three days ago Facebook finalized their list of accepted ad networks for use within Facebook Apps; AdSense being an (unsurprising?) omission from the list, stating that any missing ad network had yet to agree to the Facebook TOS. Facebook developers were quick to point out the only losers in this cold-war between Facebook and Google are the developers themselves. Other devs go on to clarify that the reputations of some of the accepted networks is shady at best, leaving developers with sub-par options to monetize their work on the Facebook platform."
So who really cares about this "debate"? Nobody who matters.
I love how Facebook can't do anything right as far as Slashdot is concerned. If they block ad networks, their evil...if they don't their also evil. Come on people!
Yes there is a definite pro-Facebook bias around here. Otherwise there'd never be so many Facebook stories.
Bear in mind that the very worst thing you can do to a company like Facebook is to ignore them.
To see their name in news headlines on so many sites tells them that they are important, that people are waiting with bated breath to see what they will do next, that people think it's worth talking about. It's what helps keep their brand in mind and ultimately helps to drive traffic to their site.
If Google is willing to partner with Facebook for advertising and Facebook thinks having a pissing contest is more important, then to any would-be Facebook developers: doesn't that tell you what their priorities are? Their priorities certainly don't include you. If you have skill and talent and a good work ethic, why not go someplace where your efforts are better appreciated?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
If they tick off advertisers, then who are they going to sell your information to?
I imagine advertisers would overlook a ton of BS in order to gain access to (what they'd perceive as) such a treasure trove of personal information. The prize is too tempting to walk away from that easily.
Developers are a different story. If Facebook insists on alienating them, effectively using them as pawns in their pissing contest with Google, they might eventually get tired of that. Most people don't like being jerked around, especially for no good reason. If they finally go elsewhere, Facebook will miss them when they're gone.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The TOS "advertising providers" have to comply with are very very strict. I doubt Google will agree to things like these:
And Facebook would be able to "audit" Google for anything covered in the agreement:
And if anything goes wrong, Facebook already had decided the verdict of the trial:
If they finally go elsewhere, Facebook will miss them when they're gone.
Very true. I believe 100% that the biggest reason that Facebook has grown to the size that it is today is because of the (mostly shitty) applications.
People no longer play Farmville because it's on Facebook-- they go to Facebook TO play Farmville.
It makes me sad to say that.
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A couple of months back I spent a few weeks looking at developing a Facebook App. By the time I was done coding a simple one, I'd basically come to the conclusion that there were a lot better things to do with my time. Here's why:
* The APIs and SDKs. There's a lot of them. And not in the lots-to-love sense. In the dissociative identity disorder sense. Some of them work as specified. Some of them don't.
* The documentation. It sucks. It sucks extra because of the changes to the APIs -- a lot of times, you don't know if any given howto, forum post, internet article, and (in some cases) actual official documentation refers to the version of the API or SDK you're using. It sucks *particularly* hard because some complete moron at Facebook made the decision to blow away a community-built wiki site and replace it with a Bing search of the half-hearted official docs. And a lot of the links still out there still point to it.
* The policy/UI changes. Profile boxes (rather successful interaction hooks) were phased out in favor of tabs, which were going to be The New And Better Way. Now tabs are going away -- why? Oh, because it turned out that people didn't actually use them and Facebook now has another idea of what to do.
And this is from a company that's certainly sitting on the actual resources to do a hell of a lot better than this.
Watching all this, I developed two theories about Facebook:
1) It's possible that its success is more or less an accident of history -- they put something good enough together at the right time to become the premiere social network, and because of the network effect, it's sticky enough people don't simply defect despite its problems. But as an organization, they're not genuinely smart enough to do much further effectively... including providing a good platform for third-party devs.
2) Facebook doesn't really actually care about providing an effective and reliable platform for developers. They don't have to. There's enough incentive for would-be devs to try something and see if it works out that they can let the mass of attempts hit the wall and fail, and still reap benefits from those who break through and make things work. In the meanwhile, they can pretty much shift agendas as they see fit, and if that breaks a number of developer eggs, oh well. More will come.
I'm not sure which one is more true. My money is on #2, really, but there's possibly some measure of #1 as well. Either way, though, the upshot is that it's more or less an abusive platform, and the announcement that they're forbidding AdSense doesn't surprise me in the least -- it's totally consistent with both theories.
If you've got an idea that needs to feed from the fabric of the social web in order to succeed, then it's still the place to go. But if you've got another idea that doesn't, it might be better to go with that than to work with these guys.
Tweet, tweet.
As a facebook user, I get mad pussy.
As a facebook developer, I get mad money.
Do the math.
0 + 0 = 0
I don't use any Facebook apps at all. Ever.
Why?
Because every "click to confirm" dialog contains requests for information tantamount to anally raping my account with no lube and no reach-around.
Maybe, just maybe, if I had more control over the granularity of such requests, I *might* just consider using a Facebook game or something. But the way things are right now, nope, not gonna happen.
And if you're a Facebook app developer that is intent on anally raping Facebook user accounts, die in a fire.
--
BMO
http://www.amazon.com/FarmVille-Dummies-Angela-Morales/dp/1118016963
That's right, Farmville For Dummies.
You may now cry yourself to sleep.
--
BMO
As intelligence goes up, happiness often goes down. See, I made a graph. I make a lot of graphs...
I love how you mischaracterize the story just so you can go on a rant against "slashdot." They didn't block ads. There are ads all over the fucking place.
And it's "they're," you knucklehead.
Yeah, he's a knucklehead who can't correctly do easy things.
People can bitch and moan about "grammar nazis" all they like. What hard experience will tell you, assuming you fucking listen, is that people who can correctly write a sentence in their own native language are one hell of a lot more likely to have an argument worth entertaining than those who fail basic things that 4th graders are expected to know.
If you have a weakness in this area and basic grammar is difficult for you, the remedy is easy to understand. Man up, grow a pair of balls, get some guts, and admit that you have a weakness. Then confront your weakness and work to improve it and turn it into a strength. Don't do it because some grammar nazi might hassle you. Do it because you give a shit about yourself and want to improve.
If you can't handle that, you can always bitch about those terrible grammar nazis. That sure is easier than admitting you don't have what it takes to work on your weaknesses, isn't it?
I doubt that facebook will die, normally companies that get this big hang around indefinitely, even if they eventually turn into yahoo or aol.
There is a killer app waiting to kill facebook, namely an open source private social networking application that takes photo & video sharing to the logical extreme of friend2friend file sharing. Ideally, you'd want all communications traffic-analysis-resistant and obviously encrypted. An approach might be making FreeNet user friendly and adding a FreeNet Social Networking app, but FreeNet seems slow as piss and incapable of handling even basic IM functionality.
I doubt you'll knock out facebook without some major new feature though, like general purpose friend2friend file sharing. And you'll need solid plausible deniability before that one becomes viable.
Alternatively, all the pitiful "also ran" social networks like Tuenti, Hi5, Orkut, etc. could gang up on facebook by adopting some common shared data model. I'd expect they'll try this eventually, but like 5+ years after facebook has killed them all, and only once google starts buying them.
Another alternative might be for various countries to start legislating around social networks, requiring age verification, requiring that photos expire after 6 months, barring the data from being mirrored outside the country, barring civil servants from using foreign based social networks, etc.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
If you're replacing cable tv ONLY with piracy and not even occasionally buying a dvd or two, you kind of are a bad guy. If the only way to get content was ad-supported I might be with you, but there are plenty of legitimate ways to support the content you enjoy without dealing with ads.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie