theregoesdave

There’s been a lot of backlash against Facebook’s redesign in the last few weeks. It could be the fact that they’re rolling it out to new users at a snail’s pace that is prolonging the screams of horror as users see their beloved Facebook profile change or the fact that it’s a huge difference in layout and navigation to virtually every part of the system.

In addition to concerns from users, Facebook developers are whining in the Developer Forum that ‘Facebook does it again, Screws Developers Again.’ Silicon Alley Insider dug deeper into the numbers to discover that pageviews do, in fact, seem to be off for Facebook Applications.

It’s very possible that the redesign has had a negative affect on Facebook application developers by relegating them to the ‘Boxes’ tab. However, I might argue that the applications deserved to be banished and that there’s another factor driving the drop in pageviews.

Simply put: Facebook applications are too focused on being viral and have become a completely obnoxious annoyance to users.

Now, I don’t necessarily have any statistical evidence to back up my claim, but I’ll use some anecdotal evidence to illustrate my point:

• Facebook needed a feature to ‘Ignore all requests from this application’
• They also found that they needed a feature to ‘Ignore all requests from this user’
• Most people have gone from having a profile littered with applications to just a few
• My favorite status message: “*expletive deleted*, don’t send me any more *expletive deleted* application requests! *expletive deleted*!”

The fact that the extra ‘Ignore’ features were added doesn’t mean that users demanded them, but without them I would have left the service or strangled a few people by now. And while this may not necessarily provide hard evidence, I think it sums up the mood of many Facebook users.

So my advice to Facebook developers is this: Less viral, more useful, much more respectful. The initial bubble might be over, but there’s still tons of opportunity to provide useful and engaging applications for the Facebook platform.

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