Is the redesign killing Facebook apps? Yes, say app developers | Hacker News Reader

Is the redesign killing Facebook apps? Yes, say app developers

alleyinsider.com

17 pointspakafka14 comments

The facebook redesign is indeed hurting many existing apps. But it's one of those things that hurts in the short term but will help in the long term. Or at least I think that's the intention.

Firstly, the type of app that is currently dominant, i.e. the "Joe bit you, CLICK HERE TO BITE HIM BACK" junk, does indeed need to die. I don't think Facebook initially intended for this type of thing to be the dominant form of facebook app, but the amount of distribution power they exposed was a new thing for app developers and users. So we've all installed the zombie app now. Whoopee. It's time to trade away some of the noise that comes from fad apps and instead promote some serious apps. Apps that might be useful to people even when sober.

That's why I'm pleased that, alongside the redesign, facebook is exposing more and more of the API you'd need to do serious things on facebook. For example, just a month or two ago they finally released an API call that can create facebook events. In case you hadn't noticed, facebook events are one of the most useful features in FB, and letting third-party apps connect more meaningfully with the built-in Events app will probably make them more useful. That's certainly going to be the case for an app I'm currently building (for a client) that helps you get from "I wanna see a movie next week" to specific plans with a guest list. One of the most common responses to this app is "wow, finally a facebook app that's actually intended to be useful". If zombies and its ilk continue to get prime billing, people will eventually assume that all apps are trivial and the whole platform will be written off by most users. Preventing that is the long-term benefit.

Finally, this article is just not credible. Suppose your app started to lose traffic around the time of the redesign. You'd have one of those sad-looking graphs and you'd feel shitty. Maybe you were just unlucky? Maybe August just happened to be the point when your fad started dying down? Why make your app better when you could just blame facebook!

That said, Facebook's platform doesn't come with any guarantees. Facebook Inc. can make or break you if they ever decide to care. AFAIK they've been more reasonable than, say, Apple+iPhone, but Facebook dependence is a big risk. This may actually be another thing they should try to solve in order to motivate more serious app development.

If I never saw another Facebook app I'd never even miss them.

you and me both.

I also question the so-called diligence of VCs who invested in fb app developers believing a viable and sustainable model existed. Why? Here are a few of my reasons: 1. social flight 2. arrogant leadership (i'm CEO bitch) 3. unstable platform in regard to design changes (fb is fb, it's not an OS).

Now, I certainly feel a few indies and bootstrappers can make a great salary... but 10:1 return is high-risk and an unlikely scenario, IMO. I dunno, maybe I'm bias because I've been a long time user of fb (having left both Friendster and MySpace) and absolutely can't stand 99% of the fb apps.

I think the app market is barely in its infancy.

F'rinstance, why hasn't Vue subclassed the FB Event app to create a cinema trip event that automagically books your ticket? Or Dominos to order pizza for my 'Night of Mayhem'? That's where the value will come from. These all seem so obvious to me...

Good point... but I'm in the boat of "I don't want a swiss-army knife, social website, thing-a-ma-jig"... I want facebook to be good at one thing, which it once was and is no longer. As such, I visit fb about three-quarters as much as I use to...

Similarly, this is why I feel AAPL has gained market share, while MS lags behind tripping over LEGACY support while attempting to please every need of their customer base. And another example is 37signals.

However, like I said... my opinion might be bias. It's hard for me to be objective about Facebook given my distaste for it's recent shifts, and having loved the former.

The apps I notice now are the ones that are actually useful. I've got a Projects app from the DivShare team, and that one comes up a lot because I'm active using it. I haven't found many other applications that actually provide me with value.

So you know what, Slide, with your Top Friends and your FunWall? Screw you. Maybe now we'll get developers who actually care about adding functionality to Facebook. (Incidentally, Top Friends functionality is now a part of Facebook, though nobody's mentioned that in the blogs. I'd like to see how many users start to rely on that instead, though it's less of a circlejerk and doesn't notify friends.)

Agreed. When Facebook introduced apps the signal-to-noise ratio went way up. It was to the point where I couldn't see what my friends were doing because I was getting pelted with app notifications.

Finally Facebook went back to their roots and brought the signal-to-noise ratio back to something I can keep up with.

Plus, didn't the app developers see this coming?

The games are fun.

Second that

OH yes the redesign is killing apps. But wasnt that the point?

how do you know that?

This highlights one of the biggest problems I have with web apps. The flip side of "you can instantly upgrade all users of your software" is "your users are all forced to use the latest version, whether they like it or not".

In the old days, if you didn't like the new version, you simply didn't upgrade. Nothing would stop you from running the old version. (I'm still using a 2001 version of an app which has had 3 major releases since then.)

With open-source, you had the option not only of sticking with the old version, but maintaining it.

Web apps, in this respect, are a step backwards: you can't even run the old version. If you're lucky, they might include an "Older version" link (GMail), but chances are they'll just remove features without even updating the docs (Google Maps). (But I'm not bitter.)

In the economic sense, you used to have to compete with not just your competitors, but with older versions of yourself. On the web, this self-competition is removed. Also, web apps tend to have strong network effects (who's the #2 Facebook or Twitter?), and make it very difficult to get your data out. Great for startups, bad for users.

Don't be a sharecropper. Never base your primary business on a platform that's not completely open because if you do, you will suffer and you will be governed by someone else's whims. Think of all these proprietary platforms as marketing venues or ways to monetize portions of your revenue. But never base your core around them.

It's terrible! The new layout is most certainly not conducive to my sheep-throwing.

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