Facebook is algorithmically deleting applications that are amongst the fastest growing regardless of whether they abuse policy. How does a legitimate application developer with high legitimate growth avoid getting shut down?
If you provide examples of algorithmically deleted applications that doesn't abuse policy, it will be easier to answer this question (or follow up with incorrect deletions).
6 Answers
Anon User
20 votes by Ming Yeow Ng, Anon User, Anon User, (more)Loading...
I am a Facebook developer and can definitely speak to this issue.
One very recent development was the rise of applications that allowed users to add emoticons (emoji) to their status messages. A user would go to the application and post a status that would have moving figures, or colorful letters.
Even a big-time developer, like 6 waves got in on this phenomenon and developed an app. Here is a short list of apps that developed this feature:
Facade: http://www.facebook.com/a
Status Emotions & Animations: http://www.appdata.com/ap
Emoji Status (the 6 wave app): http://www.appdata.com/ap
If you read the comments for the Facade application, you'll notice that around August 26, users were unable to use Facade's core functionality.
The same goes for Status Emotions --- they even have a note on Aug. 26 stating that they can't provide their services anymore. If you look at their app data figures, you see that this was a FAST GROWING application with 400k daily users! And then what happened? Its functionality got shut down.
In terms of Emoji Status, look at its quick fall of daily users from 24k to 7k. 6 waves was barely getting into the mix.
I, as a developer, saw an opportunity to develop a similar application. I developed essentially a clone that had 50K+ users within a day, and 100K+ users right after -- this is PER DAY! Although this was a fast-growing application, I was not spamming anyone. It's just a naturally viral application because it's tied to one's status message. It's not magic people.
Anyhow, my application was shut down with no warning whatsoever from Facebook within a few days. When I told them that the application had disappeared, they said that they had no idea how it occurred and that it was our fault. I won't go through the entire communication channel, but my application remains -- and will likely remain -- vanished.
The interesting thing to note is that this type of application doesn't go against Facebook's developer terms and policies (I know them pretty well). If it did, Facebook could easily reference a section and end of story. But Facebook never mentioned anything about this. Communications pretty much stopped on their end.
In terms of the applications I mentioned, all their functionality to post a "live" status message is dead.
I have my ideas of why applications such as these are either being deleted or practically being deleted. But that's beyond the scope of this question.
Needless to say, building on the Facebook platform has additional stress now. The notion of one's fast-growing (not spammy) application being deleted overnight is actually a reasonable concern.
One very recent development was the rise of applications that allowed users to add emoticons (emoji) to their status messages. A user would go to the application and post a status that would have moving figures, or colorful letters.
Even a big-time developer, like 6 waves got in on this phenomenon and developed an app. Here is a short list of apps that developed this feature:
Facade: http://www.facebook.com/a
Status Emotions & Animations: http://www.appdata.com/ap
Emoji Status (the 6 wave app): http://www.appdata.com/ap
If you read the comments for the Facade application, you'll notice that around August 26, users were unable to use Facade's core functionality.
The same goes for Status Emotions --- they even have a note on Aug. 26 stating that they can't provide their services anymore. If you look at their app data figures, you see that this was a FAST GROWING application with 400k daily users! And then what happened? Its functionality got shut down.
In terms of Emoji Status, look at its quick fall of daily users from 24k to 7k. 6 waves was barely getting into the mix.
I, as a developer, saw an opportunity to develop a similar application. I developed essentially a clone that had 50K+ users within a day, and 100K+ users right after -- this is PER DAY! Although this was a fast-growing application, I was not spamming anyone. It's just a naturally viral application because it's tied to one's status message. It's not magic people.
Anyhow, my application was shut down with no warning whatsoever from Facebook within a few days. When I told them that the application had disappeared, they said that they had no idea how it occurred and that it was our fault. I won't go through the entire communication channel, but my application remains -- and will likely remain -- vanished.
The interesting thing to note is that this type of application doesn't go against Facebook's developer terms and policies (I know them pretty well). If it did, Facebook could easily reference a section and end of story. But Facebook never mentioned anything about this. Communications pretty much stopped on their end.
In terms of the applications I mentioned, all their functionality to post a "live" status message is dead.
I have my ideas of why applications such as these are either being deleted or practically being deleted. But that's beyond the scope of this question.
Needless to say, building on the Facebook platform has additional stress now. The notion of one's fast-growing (not spammy) application being deleted overnight is actually a reasonable concern.
John Kuo, Director, Technical Product Managemen...
7 votes by Pedro Ferreira, Anon User, Anon User, (more)Pedro Ferreira, Anon User, Anon User, Jüri Kaljundi, Jarred Cohen, Phil Wolff, and Anon User
Alex Himel, Engineering Manager
8 votes by Jeffrey Spehar, Carl Sjogreen, Ray C. He, (more)Jeffrey Spehar, Carl Sjogreen, Ray C. He, Joshua March, Arjun Banker, Mike Vernal, Brent Goldman, and Majumdar Ananth
Juan Cristobal
7 votes by Anon User, Anon User, Anon User, (more)Anon User, Anon User, Anon User, Matic Peric, Jüri Kaljundi, Anon User, and Jarred Cohen
Anon User
7 votes by Anon User, Anon User, Anon User, (more)Anon User, Anon User, Anon User, Jüri Kaljundi, Pedro Ferreira, Majumdar Ananth, and Edward S. Baker
Question Stats
- Latest activity Oct 20, 2010.
- This question has been viewed 1673 times; it has 2 monitors with 102436 topic followers and 0 aliases exist.
- 71 people are following this question.
