Facebook’s quest for a more real-time, Twitter-like future is taking a toll on some of its more popular apps, like Causes. Monthly usage of many of the site’s top apps have dropped 15-25 percent, according to Nick O’Neill, who writes the AllFacebook blog. And yet if you look at just the Top 50 apps, the impact of the redesign is insignificant — as O’Neill notes, “[T]he total number of monthly active users among the top 50 applications has risen from 317.4 million to 322 million over the past 30 days.”
Still, many app developers believe the new redesign leaves little room for the exposure of their apps. As I’ve said before, when betting on a platform, app developers run the risk of becoming mere puppets in the hands of the platform owner. Most Facebook app developers I’ve spoken to over the past few weeks firmly believe the platform is no longer a priority for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social network, that Facebook wants to focus all of its energies on Facebook Connect instead.
Within 18mths, major socialnetworks will have Twitter-like feature, including live video sreaming from smartphones.
Additionally, the redesign has allowed some spammy apps to proliferate. Specifically, “what type of” quizzes have taken over my newsfeed, and there is no way to globally block them. You have to block each quiz individually since it is considered a unique app. In my opinion, until Facebook gets this under control, they have really botched the redesign.
I still see zero value proposition for easily 99.9% of applications on Facebook. All they do is clutter the newsfeeds and hose up the UI and generate endless emails that interrupt you. Show me 10 applications on Facebook that give the user value for their time.
I can still remember when Facebook used to integrate with university class rosters directly making it easy to get to know people in your classes on campus. Then one month FB killed their version to allow 3rd party apps to do the same thing and all it did was fracture those communities and deliver a poorer experience to the users.
Anyways, enough of my ranting for now.
The vast majority of applications are terrible. They’re the worst part of Facebook, and I’ll be glad to be rid of them. I do agree with the new Quiz applications though…they seem to spam your status feeds and you have to block every quiz individually. Blah.
I’m happy with the new layout. It keeps irrelevant and irritating apps out of my sight. 🙂 Anyway apps popularity will die down eventually anyway once the users get bored of it. Esp when most apps are really nonsense.
“Most Facebook app developers I’ve spoken to over the past few weeks firmly believe the platform is no longer a priority for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social network, that Facebook wants to focus all of its energies on Facebook Connect instead.”
Correct! The proof is that Dave Morin is now heading up FB Connect instead of Platform. They used developers to gain traffic, then dropped them like they were chumps.
With so many APIs out there, it’s hard to keep leapfrogging what’s hot. MySpace > Facebook > Twitter > iPhone > Android > ???
I actually use facebook and outlook for emailing. Outlook is better because of Outlook Track-It. It’s an addon (free download on the site) that lets you follow up to emails, with reminders.