There appears to be evidence that Facebook users are beginning to suffer from app fatigue, and there is growing discontent about how applications are being distributed and about the amount of noise that the application platform has introduced into the Facebook ecosystem. As Mark Glaser writes on the PBS MediaShift blog, Facebook has a growing trust problem. Further, new numbers suggest that fed up users might have had enough of some of the most popular Facebook apps. This, however, could be a good thing for users and for the health of the platform in the long run.
Glaser talks about how he used to be excited when he received a notification of a new action on Facebook -- a poke, a wall post, a message -- but more recently, all that has changed. "Now, my reaction to getting the same kinds of notifications has changed, and I dread clicking through to see what kind of spam or scam is coming my way," he writes.
What happened? Well, for one, the Facebook platform happened. The Facebook platform allowed application developers to flood the site with applications, both useful and not (by many accounts, mostly not), and because of the way it is set up, app developers were able to encourage, and sometimes force or trick, users into sending out mass invites, notifications, or new feed announcements about often times trivial matters. This increased the noise on the Facebook network ten fold, and decreased the enjoyment of the social networks for some people.
Users, though, are beginning to push back. In just over a month, more than 65,000 people have joined the No, I will NOT invite 20 friends just to add your application! group, which has spun off an ancillary group that catalogues the applications that require users to invite friends before even using the app. And over 4,200 people have signed a petition calling on Facebook to step in and stop developers from using the "forced invite" tactic to grow their apps virally.
Further, blogger Alex Saunders points to recent statistics from Adonomics that indicate that the top Facebook apps have recently seen significant dips in the number of active users. "All of the top 10 leaderboard applications have seen substantial drops in daily users since peaking in November and December," writes Saunders. The chart below is from his site:
| Peak | Today | |
| Funwall | 5800 | 2500 |
| Superwall | 4800 | 1800 |
| Top Friends | 2900 | 2200 |
| Likeness | 821 | 181 |
| Super poke | 1500 | 500 |
| Movies | 814 | 500 |
| Compare People | 1000 | 471 |
| iLike | 941 | 372 |
| Causes | 469 | 110 |
| Superlatives | 320 | 110 |
| All figures in 1,000s |
It is important to note that not all (if any) of these applications employ forced invites or tricky user invite schemes. Nonetheless, the drop in active users is telling, and is perhaps indicative of a Facebook populace that is beginning to get fed up with application noise or is getting tired of applications in general. It is certainly possible that the novelty has begun to wear off, and users are no longer interested in trying every hot new app under the sun, and have grown weary of some of the apps they were once so fond of.
One of the most annoying apps on Facebook -- at least in my opinion -- "Pirates vs. Ninjas," is way down off its November peak as well, according to Adonomics. What would make an app slide from over 165,000 daily users to 24,000 in just a couple of months? It's hard to say, but perhaps users have begun to grow tired of noveltly apps that don't do much else except spam their friends with invites to join the application.
I wrote earlier that users suffering from app fatigue and pushing back against apps that employ sneaky invite schemes to grow is a good thing, and I think it probably is. Assuming Facebook steps in and imposes stricter invite rules -- which they should, applications will need to find different ways to spread virally. If people are simultaneously beginning to suffer from app fatigue (or app apathy -- appathy?), there is really only one sure fire way to get apps to spread virally: make better applications!
There are now 15,422 apps on the Facebook platform -- how many of them are truly useful? Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the novelty has worn off and users are finally starting to demand more of the applications they install. As Alex Saunders writes, "Developers of Facebook applications, however, have reached a watershed that demands a focus on delivering utility and value rather than thinly disguised advertising vehicles."
What do you think? Are you suffering from Facebook app fatigue? Do you think Facebook should step in and tighten invite rules for developers? Sound off in the comments below.
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No mission critical use case. Facebook us the leader in types of systems that make us look for an excuse to wretch and ratchet around with the system, but if Facebook disappeared overnight we would be none the poorer.
Of course, Facebook is not going anywhere; the recently added ability to deploy the platform apps onto generic web pages and blogs is a serious change in how the system justifies its existence.
But talk to real people who don't spend all day reading feeds and working on a computer - especially within the web / tech industry - they hardly have social networks on their radar, and barely read blogs on a regular basis.
Social Networks are changing the way we interact, but there have been darn few vertical industry solutions that are vying for the title of a 'compelling Social Platform that helps skilled workers get the job done better".
FB apps wearing out? No Kidding!
Posted by: Alan Wilensky | January 29, 2008 7:51 PMThere's no "mission critical use case" for the entire entertainment industry, either, but if it disappeared tomorrow, there would be significant repercussions for the economy.
It's easy to look at the stats for December and claim that the Facebook platform is over. But the stats for lots of web sites go down in the month of December. It's called "the holiday season". People tend to do things other than sit in front of computers during that time. It'll be much more useful when FB apps have been around for more than a year and we can start doing year-over-year analyses (comparing December 2008 to December 2007, for example).
Posted by: Jeffrey McManusIs this equating the era's most important social network with mere entertainment? This proves my point; one could also posit that the entertainment industry does serve a critical need - escape.
Well, there we go - social networks are good for escape. We have yet so see a compelling productivity enabling use case for the 'hard' trades. Although there must be many, many such application scenarios for technical product services.
Posted by: abmQuite the same does happen with every new development platform. First developers are shooting out more or less useless widgets just to play around with the new hot platform.
After some time people realize that those useless widgets are, well, useless and from now on you have to build real and useful apps to get traction ;-)
Same thing did happen with Flex and is now happening wit AIR.
Posted by: Alexander Marktl | January 30, 2008 12:12 AMi was checking something basic... what % of people at the college I go to (SUNY Binghamton) had their profiles viewable to the SUNY B community now...
in 2005/2006, it was virtually 95% (when user-ship required an "edu" e-mail address)...anyone who set to private was viewed as kind of paranoid...many students actually befriended (or more) THROUGH FaceBook...
TODAY, i ran a test...
through Blackboard of a class I'm in, i have a list of 50 names of people going to this class I'm in...i searched these people in FaceBook, and over 65% have set their profiles to private to Binghamton University...among the women, it's 80% private (and among those women with "hot" profile pics, virtually 100%)...
so the irony is that by "opening up FaceBook to the world", FaceBook has rather closed itself down, with MANY people limiting their profile to be viewed only by their circle of friends, and the "befriending and more" THROUGH Facebook a distant memory...
Posted by: Matt | January 30, 2008 3:51 PMAll apps I have seen are utterly banal, completely useless. Facebook OS is a joke. MSFT should buy them and use it as an office live platform.
Posted by: James Briggs | January 30, 2008 4:48 PMYes - re: Alexander Marktl's comment, it's pretty much common for any new development platform to surge with popularity before crashing down again after. Whether there is a level-off afterwards still remains to be seen.
As a developer of a *useful* Facebook app myself (ki work bounce) I'm hoping that the era for crappy apps is coming to an end and that useful applications can rise to the surface to realise the vast potential that social networks have.
It'll be interesting to see if Facebook ever tightens their restrictions as a way to control the influx. But since FB apps have turned into a multi-million dollar industry in a few years, why would they put the brakes on?
Posted by: jim wolff | January 31, 2008 4:07 AMThe problem is that Facebook changes the viral rules constantly. The crappy apps try to game the system, while there are some great apps that suffer. Facebook should reward the apps that add value to the experience, while limiting the apps that essentially worthless zombie/vampire/zombie/x-me/wall/poke clones.
Posted by: Jack | February 10, 2008 4:04 AM