Facebook Announces App Center

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook today announced the App Center. Whether you're a Facebook user or a third-party developer, think of it like the Apple App Store or the Google Play store, but for Facebook. That's right: while in-app purchases have existed for a while, Facebook will now give developers the option to offer paid apps (users will pay a flat fee to use an app on facebook.com)."

Comments

App suggestion?

[pro151]

Maybe their first offer will be Google Plus.

But... but...

[DreadfulGrape]

... we hate facebook apps!

Re:But... but...

[game kid]

Well then,

the URL will be facebook.com/appcenter

There, I took out all the unimportant parts of the article so you can block the App Center more easily. :D

Re:But... but...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Eh, it's not that specific. If it requires a friends list, we hate it. The rationale comes later.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try disabling apps in your facebook account. You can't. There is a button in the privacy settings to turn off all apps. Here's what it says when you click it:

There was an error while disabling applications and websites. Please try again.

I have been trying for over half a year. Same error every time. Clearly they are lying, and just don't want me to turn that off.

Shady lying bastards.

Re:But... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked for me, actually. Why don't you file a bug report?

Re:But... but...

[lucian1900]

Interesting. It worked for me.

Re:But... but...

[singhulariti]

They do the same thing when you try deleting an Album or mass deleting photos from your profile.

Re:But... but...

[DreadfulGrape]

Heh... well, yeah. My only point was how bizarre a concept it seems to *buy* a FB app. I've never seen a single one that I'd pay a nickel for.

Re:But... but...

[coolmadsi]

Try disabling apps in your facebook account. You can't. There is a button in the privacy settings to turn off all apps. Here's what it says when you click it:

There was an error while disabling applications and websites. Please try again.

I have been trying for over half a year. Same error every time. Clearly they are lying, and just don't want me to turn that off.

Shady lying bastards.

I turned that off a long time ago, so it worked at some point in time. Do you have any apps/websites connected currently? Maybe they need to be removed first before turning it off completely.

I do check the settings occasionally, just to check that apps haven't been turned on again without me knowing.

This is brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll just be like running apps on your very own computer, except these will be slower, and only usable at the whim of a third party, and will send every action you take to marketers and data-miners, and won't offer as much functionality.

Brilliant!

Re:This is brilliant!

[Bogtha]

So how the F%^& is FB going to be allowed to put an App store on iOS unless its jail broken?

Facebook aren't launching an App Center to sell iOS applications, they are launching an App Center to sell Facebook applications. Facebook applications are basically web applications that are presented through Facebook's interface. The only hurdles Facebook face with iOS are a) making sure their app developers present interfaces suitable for small screens and b) making sure there's no link to buy the apps from within their native application (or else give Apple a 30% cut).

Re:This is brilliant!

[grouchomarxist]

Just to be clear, the AppCenter will include both iOS and Android apps, but not for sale. There will be links to the platform's respective native app stores. However, only those apps that use Facebook login will be included on the store.

Re:This is brilliant!

[oztiks]

So really nothing more than a marketing ploy? the dead link to this service is really encouraging :) I mean even just a place-holder would of been nice.

Re:This is brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

So just like Windows 8 then?

Re:This is brilliant!

[Ucklak]

It looks like the apps will be available for the mobile devices to which they currently are not.

OMG he is going to be a millionaire!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

That guy who wrote cow clicker is going to be a millionaire. Joke's on you pal, you made fun of facebook and wrote cow clicker. Now it is going to make you a millionaire.

Re:OMG he is going to be a millionaire!

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Joke's on you pal, you made fun of facebook and wrote cow clicker. Now it is going to make you a millionaire."

If that is your idea of a joke, I wish the joke was on me!

This can only end in tears

[Overzeetop]

I wonder if they will work on your mobile devices.

They'll be all like, "Yo Dawg, I put an app in your app so you can facebook while you facebook."

Dead horse, stick, go.

Re:This can only end in tears

[aiht]

I wonder if they will work on your mobile devices.

They'll be all like, "Yo Dawg, I put an app in your app so you can facebook while you facebook."

Dead horse, stick, go.

What, you mean "Yo dawg, I heard you like beating dead horses with a stick, so I put a stick and a dead horse in your dead horse so you can beat a dead horse with a stick while you beat a dead horse with a stick"?
It doesn't quite work for me; it's missing that spark, that je ne sais quoi, which makes a meme memorable.

They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

With the IPO in two days?

Seems odd but im guessing they had a reason for it.

Re:They announce this now?

[jesseck]

Seems odd but im guessing they had a reason for it.

apps (and app stores) are all the rage now... This is to lure unsuspecting investors who don't know this is a gimmick.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

There isnt going to be a shortage of investors.

Despite a lot of the rhetoric/slashdot hate, facebook is a successful company that makes money in a now proven way of internet advertising.
There may be a dotcom bubble brewing with a lot of companies that will implode, facebook isnt one of them.

The main reason for the IPO is to reward the people that own the company now and comply with laws, it isnt for the cash that will be raised.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems odd but im guessing they had a reason for it.

apps (and app stores) are all the rage now... This is to lure unsuspecting investors who don't know this is a gimmick.

To be fair, Apple is doing quite well with their app store. It is not clear to me that Facebook's clone will succeed, but I never would have guessed that anyone would want apps on a phone.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anthony Mouse]

There may be a dotcom bubble brewing with a lot of companies that will implode, facebook isnt one of them.

I wouldn't be so sure. Social networking is based almost entirely on Metcalf's law. The reason Facebook has value is that people use Facebook. But social networks are trend-based. And people hate Facebook. They only use it because their friends use it and vice versa; again, Metcalf's law. All it takes for Facebook to dry up and blow away is for something that doesn't initially look like a social network, which Facebook can't quickly replicate, to garner a critical mass of users and then let people realize that the thing they and their friends now all have can also be used as a Facebook replacement, and suddenly Facebook is Myspace.

The main reason for the IPO is to reward the people that own the company now and comply with laws, it isnt for the cash that will be raised.

Which is a huge red flag. If a company is issuing stock, not because it actually needs more investors or capital, but instead to create a bigger market for the existing owners to sell their shares and cash out, that is telling you something about the faith of the existing owners in the future value of the company.

Really the problem is this: We are very close to, if not already past, Peak Facebook. Pretty much everyone who wants to be on Facebook already is, so where is the opportunity for growth?

That's why it isn't a normal IPO. The company isn't taking investment capital in order to grow the company; the company is already big. You would be investing in AT&T, not Google-in-2004. Except that you aren't investing in AT&T, because AT&T has tangible physical assets behind it. All Facebook has is tons and tons of users -- but it doesn't own the users. They don't belong to it, and they can migrate away from Facebook as fast as they arrived. In other words, it's a company you would be paying a lot to invest in, which doesn't have an obvious path to additional growth, and which is in a high-risk market with a substantial possibility that it will lose its user base in the medium to long term and thereby become effectively worthless.

That's not something I would pay a lot of money to invest in.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, you shouldn't be buying stock just to sell it later. You should be buying stock for future dividends.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

People dont hate facebook, some whiny self entitled geeks hate it. Self loathing people that like to hate EVERYTHING because they are incapable of creating anything for themselves.

The masses really seem to like it despite minor easily forgotten complaints regarding interface changes.

It isnt just for cashing out for minor investors, that is a benefit, but the laws as of now essentially require a company that large to become public. Otherwise they have to comply with tons of laws without any benefit of being public.

Re:They announce this now?

[rsborg]

I wouldn't be so sure. Social networking is based almost entirely on Metcalf's law. The reason Facebook has value is that people use Facebook. But social networks are trend-based. And people hate Facebook. They only use it because their friends use it and vice versa; again, Metcalf's law.

You know the only difference between Facebook on the web today and Microsoft on the desktop in the 90s is that businesses (and sometimes the government) required Windows/Office and familiarity with it. Given adequate ubiquity, there's a large possibility [1] that this [2] could occur [3]... once it becomes de-facto standard, good luck getting rid of it.

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/240646/spotify_adds_facebook_requirement_angering_users.html
[2] http://www.slashgear.com/facebook-access-becoming-mandatory-part-of-job-college-applications-06217136/
[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20027837-501465.html

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you let your bigoted opinions of geeks get in the way of truth there buddy: http://jezebel.com/5591973/why-people-really-hate-facebook-its-complicated

People hate facebook as much as airlines. Facebook the company, not facebook the product.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I will not be buying any facebook stock I find that statement to be completely idiotic. Dividends are laughable as an investment tool. They are a bonus for holding stock and nothing more.

Buying to sell the stock is what the stock market has been about for decades.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a geek, I'm Paul McCartney.

Re:They announce this now?

[elloGov]

Facebook is going public because it has too many shareholders. Securities and Exchange Commission rule from 1964 that says that any private company with more than 500 "shareholders of record" must adhere to the same financial disclosure requirements that public companies do.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, I'm with Paul McCartney on this, you are a geek!

Re:They announce this now?

[Anthony Mouse]

You know the only difference between Facebook on the web today and Microsoft on the desktop in the 90s is that businesses (and sometimes the government) required Windows/Office and familiarity with it.

Only if by "the only difference" you mean "only one of the numerous, important differences."

Facebook is not an operating system. They don't get to decide the set of APIs web developers are allowed to use and EEE all the standards so that apps developed for Facebook can't be ported to anything else. The typical "Facebook" app is 95+% bog standard HTML and JavaScript (if not Flash), and the rest is generally just a user authentication hook which can trivially be swapped out for The Next Big Thing when the time comes. On top of that, developers aren't stupid -- nobody wants another Microsoft -- so anyone worth their salt will be designing their apps with the eventual death of Facebook in mind, so that the app itself will still be valuable even when Facebook is dead and gone. In other words, good developers will be on the look out for lock in, and avoid it like the plague.

Ironically, all of the articles you linked support the resistance to Facebook, and the problems Facebook is having. The Facebook requirement for Spotify has been widely panned by everyone and the work-around everyone is suggesting is to create a fake Facebook account and use it as a Spotify account. In theory that makes people more dependent on Facebook, but not by very much, and the value that sort of arrangement actually has to Facebook seems vanishingly small. The demands of employers to see your Facebook has spawned proposals for legislation to prohibit them from asking that, and in the meantime the threat of employers seeing what you post will have a deterrent effect on what people are willing to post, reducing Facebook usage. The Obama proposal for an internet ID is actually an existential threat to Facebook, because there is literally no chance that mandating Facebook itself would result in anything but a political firestorm, but mandating something other than Facebook would create an instant, huge Facebook "competitor" in the sense that from then on no one would ever have to use Facebook instead of the legally-mandated ID for user authentication, which would give network effects to all and sundry little services that no longer need to convince anyone to sign up for a separate "account" or use Facebook for authentication.

Re:They announce this now?

[rsborg]

Facebook is not an operating system.

By being a defacto-required identity provider, they are a very important platform - look at Dropbox or Skype for examples on how important and ubiquitous these tools are.

Operating systems, internet file systems, chat/presence, search engines... they are all platforms. Sure you can compete with Facebook quite successfully, but if you don't intend to, why do it? If your business/startup can benefit (or even profit) from Facebook ID (and social graph), and by outsourcing what's not critical, you can get a leg up on *your* competitors and benefit your customers who likely don't doesn't care about Facebook's dominance (or might even be happier since they can "share seamlessly").

As a user, I've benefited from a dropbox-enabled tool - 1Password, to manage my passwords across all my devices - because Dropbox makes it simple. 1Password does not (yet) compete with Dropbox, so it's a win for them as well.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anthony Mouse]

Operating systems, internet file systems, chat/presence, search engines... they are all platforms.

But they aren't the same kind of platform. An operating system provides a wide diversity of things to developers: Filesystem access, threads and locking primitives, networking support, a GUI framework, etc. Things that get ingrained deep down in the fine details of a piece of software. And Windows does all of those things using very different APIs than any other operating system.

Facebook doesn't have that level of breadth. User authentication is a single thing that can easily be cordoned off and made modular, so that you can support multiple authentication methods -- which is generally what your users will want anyway, because in many cases people don't want their "real name" associated with every single thing they do on the internet.

Notice that I'm not saying that Facebook is useless. You can use their APIs if they're useful (though again, you risk pissing off your users who don't want separate aspects of their lives correlated like that). But they're nothing special. The platform isn't what provides the value, it's the users. And the users can move to a different platform very quickly under the right circumstances.

There are really only two ways for Facebook to avoid this. The first is by being The Best Social Platform, permanently, and never letting anyone else offer anything they don't. Which is fine so long as they can keep it up, but it isn't really their strong suit; it took Google implementing circles to get them to do something similar even though the idea is totally obvious and incredibly useful. Which leaves the other alternative, going Full Evil and trying to be Microsoft, creating a bunch of proprietary standards that only work with Facebook, intentionally coding malformed implementations of open standards, etc. But I find it hard to believe that would work in the long term: Look at where it has gotten Microsoft. Still huge, but slowly dying and with everyone hating them and cheering their demise. And at the same time, because of Microsoft, everyone is now wary of New Microsofts and not having this happen to them by foolishly embracing non-standard proprietary technologies. More than that, it's questionable whether Facebook has enough market power to get away with it -- if they start locking everything down and pissing people off, I imagine Google+ would be happy for the new converts.

Re:They announce this now?

[DaveGod]

Buying listed shares isn't about fast growth for the majority of investors (which are institutional investors such as pensions and insurance).

Investing into listed shares is about the portfolio, not individual shareholdings. The objective for the portfolio is the specified combination of risk & return. People tend to say it's about maximising return for a given level of risk, but that's not really true because what they tend to actually be looking for is, say, coming out 10 years later with something approximating an 8% annual return - which is a lot more like minimising risk for a given level of return.

What a large part of it turns into, it isn't about the risk & reward associated with a specific shareholding. It's about what happens when you combine it into the entire portfolio. Exposure in a specific sector, and then betas. FB has some attraction even if it's just to hedge against your big Google holding.

If you're looking to sink a significant chunk into few companies for a big return, main markets generally aren't the way to go. You're going against players with vast amounts of money and resources. Consider instead looking at alternative investment markets where fledgling companies first go for some public cash. Much higher risk but also much more reward, and it helps that there's fewer other buyers - partly because the really big boys, the pensions etc, are often forbidden from investing.

Re:They announce this now?

[Anthony Mouse]

Buying listed shares isn't about fast growth for the majority of investors (which are institutional investors such as pensions and insurance).

Investing into listed shares is about the portfolio, not individual shareholdings. The objective for the portfolio is the specified combination of risk & return. People tend to say it's about maximising return for a given level of risk, but that's not really true because what they tend to actually be looking for is, say, coming out 10 years later with something approximating an 8% annual return - which is a lot more like minimising risk for a given level of return.

I understand that. What I'm saying is that Facebook is in a precarious position right now. They don't have a lot of growth potential, but they have a lot of risk e.g. if Google+ takes off, or Apple starts a social network, or some startup comes along and eats their lunch. They're in a market where fortunes change overnight. And with that level of risk, you would expect to at least have a high level of growth...but they're already big. So you end up with a stock which is high risk without high growth.

Of course, if you believe the efficient market hypothesis then it doesn't matter, because the market will value the shares consistent with their risk adjusted return. But the efficient market hypothesis only works if people disregard it... and more to the point, the amount of hype behind the Facebook IPO is epic, making it more likely that the company will be overvalued.

FB has some attraction even if it's just to hedge against your big Google holding.

Sort of... the trouble is that Google is fairly diversified (search, maps, docs/drive, gmail, YouTube, Android, Google+, etc.), so anything that seriously hurts them is likely to be a general industry-wide phenomenon that would hurt Facebook just as much if not more.

All that said, I'm not saying that Facebook is guaranteed to die off in short order. If they end up worth a few times as much in five years as they are now, I wouldn't be particularly surprised -- but if they're worth less than Myspace in five years, I wouldn't be particularly surprised either. The point is that there is a lot of risk, and not necessarily a lot of upside -- if they grow significantly it will have to be by entering new markets, and they haven't proven that they can execute on that.

Possibly the least useful thing I've ever heard of

[Anonymous Coward]

This is quite possibly the least useful "app" store of them all. Now from Facebook, HTML5 applications, and flash, but exclusively through us, so there's another layer of stupidity between you, and your software.

Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[johnny cashed]

Because I'm tired of manually blocking app requests. If I wanted to run apps, I wouldn't be on FB. I'd be on a general purpose computer. You know, the kind that runs applications.

Re:Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[X0563511]

The most annoying thing is, there's this ONE app that I want. Which means I can't just disable them.

Go figure, there's not a whitelist option. You can only block ALL apps, or specific ones.

I've started reporting every "activity report" an app puts up from other people as spam. I'm hoping other people will do so as well.

Re:Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[strength_of_10_men]

Go figure, there's not a whitelist option.

That sounds like a good idea for a FB app!

Re:Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[alexgieg]

Hmm... this is a good idea for a Greasemonkey script. Something to auto-report all automatic app requests as spam, auto-block them, auto-hide them, auto-set FB to not show app requests from that person, and then, finally, auto-hide FB's "there's something hidden here" left-over DIV so you don't even know there was something there to begin with. And it probably already exists.

Re:Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know how you access Facebook from a non-general purpose device.

Re:Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[KhabaLox]

I have a few FB friends who play some sort of Zynga building game. I don't (think I) see their spam updates on the standard web page interface, but they clog up my Blackberry App interface like nobodies business.

Re:Is there an app for blocking app requests?

[coolmadsi]

If you don't want to run apps, and don't want app requests, you can turn off apps (it might be called "turn off platform apps"), in one of the settings available (probably privacy). That turns off apps completely - you don't get any requests (at least I haven't), although things still appear in the news feeds (shame these can't all be blocked).

And as far as I can tell, apps your friends use can't access your information when they use them if you have apps turned off (otherwise they can see your name and try to interact with you somehow, I guess that would trigger a request).

However a poster further up on this page has said they they tried to turn Facebook apps off and were unsuccessful due to an error, so I don't know how well the functionality works at the moment.

One app to rule them all

[enjar]

And in the Facebook, block them

I can only hope ... rather than having to block every request for space chicken or karma wars or castle food growers or whatnot

Re:One app to rule them all

[Anonymous Coward]

Off-topic, but you just made me hungry for space chicken korma. (Or, barring that, regular chicken korma.)

So I'm not modded -1 I'll just add that, yes, I too hate facebook apps and hope this results in less notifications about them.

There's a Fapp for that...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

Is this real?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not reading a The Onion article?
People are actually paying for "apps" to use on a fucking website?

Idiocracy is looking more realistic by the day.

Re:Is this real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes people do pay small amounts of money for interactive entertainment, which i know is just stupid and crazy.

You sir must be a visionary to see such a fault in other people's ideas.

I am sure you must have numerous innovations in the works that will blow decimate the entire concept of modern entertainment away.

Re:Is this real?

[HornWumpus]

It's a good thing that they are all on one sight so they can be ignored as a group.

Facebook is the new AOL.

I suggest they merge with Microsoft, like AOL did with Time-Warner (MS isn't that stupid though). That's the kind of wealth redistribution I can support. The best was 'The Money Store', that was one, old money, New England family losing it's ass on MBA thinking.

Native apps are walled gardens.

[slasho81]

It blows my mind to think just how much wasteful effort has gone into making the same applications work on the iPhone, iPad, Android phones, Android tablets, and also for Chrome apps, regular webapps, now Facebook Apps, and next time it would be WinPhone apps.

Another freaking walled garden. Now we will have 3 major walled gardens (Apple's, Google's, and Facebook's) and soon Microsoft will join in as well. Is that what passes as "innovative" nowadays?

Apps are not the future. They are the past.

Webapps or just web pages, as we used to call them, are the future of software. You just enter an address or click a link and you get to the most up to date "app". No installation, no updates, no permissions, no specific OS or hardware or platform necessary. It works everywhere by everyone and all the time with no hassles.

The reason apps made a comeback is because you can charge for apps. An app is a defined thing and an installation is a chargeable privilege. So thank Apple and all the me-too followers for burdening us with software deployment and management just as we were about to escape those unnecessary activities.

Apps as platform is not driven by mobile OSes, browsers, social networking sites, or other modern technology. It is driven by capitalism.

So don't get sucked into yet another walled garden.

Apps are not the future. They are the past.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[HornWumpus]

Don't look, there are people charging and getting rich running web sights. Thank god for capitalism.

As to web sights being the one only true app type, you are on crack. Java isn't the only language ether. Right tool for the job.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[mirix]

I just love when I have no access to my files and programs when my wireless service is shitty.

(Never mind the speed and privacy issues).

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Webapps or just web pages, as we used to call them, are the future of software."

Thankfully, you couldn't be more wrong.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[Anonymous Coward]

> web sights

ok.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[xded]

Webapps or just web pages, as we used to call them, are the future of software. You just enter an address or click a link and you get to the most up to date "app". No installation, no updates, no permissions, no specific OS or hardware or platform necessary. It works everywhere by everyone and all the time with no hassles.

The more I think about it, the more I feel this all is just a World Wide Web Consortium fault. And it looks like nobody is giving them any blame for the lack of an "App standard". The fact that they were able to manage standardization on the Web for the past 30 years doesn't mean they will be able to do the same in the future or even now. The Web is already changing faster than any progress HTML5 is making.

I know this is not as simple as it sounds, since all of the major players want to drive this change. But I feel someone should just step up, develop a resonable architecture, provide a reference framework, and release it in the public domain. Yes, public domain, not GPL.

But since this is quite unlikely to happen since there's no money to make in doing it, I see no way out of this.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like PC's are the future and centralized storage, processing, and applications are dead...

That is going full circle.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[muon-catalyzed]

Exactly the opposite, the porting effort is easy, the important thing is that the developer is able to control and decide what appstore/device to deploy on. For example to strike an exclusive deal with a dedicated platform. Shared app spaces are dangerous things. Oh, remember those poor Java devs whose apps are deployed by Chinese without authorization because Java is so freaking copy prone, exploitable and portable. App owner has to be able to control the fate of his app not some 3rd party for him, the less portable the app is the better, more fragmentation and more appstores the better (less incentive for snake app pimps and aggregators to steal your app and redeploy elsewhere).

Also not everybody is happy to see his application choked inside some jackass browser environment.

As for the capitalism, it is not capitalism, but evolution, an app evolution that is fueled by some monetary incentive, but you can always go back and embrace the old, the not evolving, the boring and stagnant apt-get Linux free app delivery.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[LS]

You are right for the long term. But web tech isn't here yet. You still can't do anything media- or hardware-intensive in the browser at this point.

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[Anonymous Coward]

laser, or Eiffel?

Re:Native apps are walled gardens.

[stridebird]

...you are on crack....

Writing like that, and on crack? Chapeau!

Here it comes.

[Anonymous Coward]

The downward spiral of Facebook.
They are getting desperate to be everything for everyone.

Watch, when they finally DO go public, they will tank a few years later.
Then they'll blame Zuckerberg.

They never learn.

Cloud Computing;
With your head in the clouds, you'll never see where you are stepping.
And when you misstep and fall, whose fault will it be?

Re:Here it comes.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Here it comes. The downward spiral of Facebook."

Actually, the downward spiral of Facebook started on February 4th 2004.

Carly Fiorina writes an open letter to Zuckerberg

[Anonymous Coward]

It could have been much shorter:
Dear Mark,
Don't be me.
I hate that bitch.

This Just In:

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook becomes AOL; More at 11.

So why are apps so popular?

[csumpi]

I see your point. But then why are apps so popular? Why do people install a hundred different apps to access websites (e.g. wsj.com) instead of just using the browser to do the same?

Re:So why are apps so popular?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mobile devices are slow. Apps are tailored for specific purposes and optimized for them. I am myself posting through a
Smartphone and reached /. Through a res app because is quicker than using a browser. Nevertheless in a near
Future these problems will be overcome and everything will be html5

Re:So why are apps so popular?

[PeanutButterBreath]

Why do people install a hundred different apps to access websites (e.g. wsj.com) instead of just using the browser to do the same?

People think that paying 99 cents for something makes it more valuable than if they get it for free. Plus, all those apps totally prove that the money they spend on smart phones and data plans was necessary.

I never allow any apps to run on Facebook.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never have and never will allow or will buy any apps on my Facebook.

Facebook's plan

[c4tp]

1. Profit (take a cut from sale of paid apps)
2. Profit (take a cut from in-app purchases)
3. Profit (collect and sell usage data)
4. Profit (sell stock publicly with record setting IPO)
5. ???
6. Profit!

Facebook is a social OS

[Anonymous Coward]

So yeah. Apps. Color me surprised.

DOS and Unix were ways to (give access to programs in order to) compute, produce and manage personal data.
Facebook is a way to (give access to apps in order to) compute, produce and manage social data.

I wouldn't compare FB to any other online service. I'd compare it to any OS.
End of the story.

This is why

[arcite]

I'll never use facebook.

not on iOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

this would be against apple's silly rules that all purchases go through apple (see: amazon kindle). is that why they show a browser, an android phone, and not an iOS device?

banned from appstore

[ZombieBraintrust]

If they work on your mobile devices Apple and Google will ban Facebook from their appstores.

It's come full circle

[SCHecklerX]

So now facebook is AOL? I guess for many people, if it isn't on facebook, it just doesn't exist.

I love facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

It keeps the newbs and other idiots out of my internetz.
Killing facebook would mean to open the doors of a neuropathic hospital letting the masses out into the real world.
Have you any idea how long it would take to get all those people back into quarantine?!