.jpg "Why Facebook borrowed $100 million for servers")
Valleywag
New accounts and activity on Facebook's developer forums are down dramatically since January, reports Adonomics founder Jesse Farmer. And as the above chart indicates, Facebook's users no longer add third-party Facebook applications as much as they did at the beginning of the year. Along with increased competition from social network Hi5 and consolidation into larger widgetmaking companies, Farmer blames the slowdown on Facebook for "instituting increasingly demanding and arbitrary rules on platform developers, which they then enforced selectively and for their own benefit." We agree the slowdown is likely the result of the new rules, but we don't so much blame Facebook as praise Facebook for them.
Building gimmicky widgets that serve no real use, third-party developers had too much success, too early, too easily, on Facebook's platform. For all his puffery, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is correct that useful applications could and should be built on the connections between people and their shared interests. Yet so far, I can't think of a Facebook application I've installed that I can't live without. So why should the developers who built so much junk continue to be successful? They shouldn't. And if Zuckerberg's new rules force these developers to dream as big as he does — sometimes awkwardly and in public — then good.
Comments
So much the better. The only setting it's missing now is "Block all application requests from all friends 100% of the time no exceptions."
Hey, a guy can dream...
I've been wagged! (Is that the right verb?)
Anyhow, thanks for the mention. I don't disagree that Facebook should be praised for their decision, but there's no doubt it changes the ecosystem. Back in May there was this idea that Facebook would be the "social operating system." If it wasn't clear then that this was absurd it should be now.
Maybe now Facebook can get back to their business of keeping people idly distracted and entertained rather than changing the face of media as we know it, or whatever the hell their plans for world domination are.
Facebook cleared the shark sometime last year, and is on course to go through a ring of fire in the next few months.
This article neglects to mention anything at all about MySpace's application platform and its impact on the social networking scene... which as HitWise's latest numbers also indicate is a big factor in this.
In the last 3 months, MySpace has increased their already heavy lead on Facebook even more and the numbers show many Facebook users returning to MySpace. The numbers from HitWise also show avg. time spent and number of users increasing exponentially on MySpace and decreasing on Facebook rather rapidly. MySpace is currently 74.7% of all social networking traffic in the North America with the least amount of downtime ([royal.pingdom.com]) and Facebook is currently sitting on a whopping 14%. And NONE of these numbers count any of the MANY international sites MySpace has.
Beggers the question... what's all the Facebook hub-bub about? You may not like MySpace... but the numbers indicate everyone else does. :)
Facebook = The Ultimate Silicon Valley Hype-machine
The numbers just don't support the press they get...
@corva: MySpace added this feature Friday to their application platform. You can kill ALL communications from apps or simply block a specific app.
i hate facebook more and more each day. going back to email. sorry.
@jfarmer: We generally prefer "stabbed" or "slammed," but yes, this was more of a "wagging." You're right that it's goofy when Zuck talks about bringing Israeli and Palestinian teens together through FB, but how long will it be before developers build something useful in the finance, travel, shopping verticals? Where is the Lotus Notes for this platform? Or even the Sim City? Or MARIO KART, FINE.
@Nicholas: I don't think it's going to happen, at least not in the near term.
People see Facebook as a nebulous collection of people and think, "What could I do with 60MM users?!" Ideas of finance, shopping, etc. all pop into their head.
But it's not just any group of 60MM users. There's are specific cultures and usage patterns on Facebook. It's insane to think the building something like travel planning apps will ever really catch hold -- it's just not how people use Facebook.
Until the Facebook culture changes the best we're going to see are little toy apps, a few apps that fix problems on Facebook (e.g., better walls, better birthday notifications, etc.), and lots of casual games.
The math geek in me wants to know why this is done as a percentage of the total app count rather than the straight up number.
You could see the same graph just by the number of new apps out-accelerating the number of new *good* apps.
@bmblack34:
Closed my MySpace about 2 years ago, and not turning back.
Facebook's next off my list though, if it keeps up the current trend.
@bmblack34: They might not have a "blogger outreach" program like Fadbook has.
What happened when companies started using AOL keywords in their ads...? People dropped their AOL accounts because times changed and the old sucked big time. Anyone who thought Fadbook would last long is going to get surprised soon... just don't say you saw it coming.
@corva: It's called the "cancel my account" widget. Works good.
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