Oh, look. It's been over 48 hours since I was rude about Facebook. Time for another pop at it...
In my in-box this morning sat this:
Facebook social news? How exciting! Maybe a summary of activity amongst my friends? Uh, no. The sender is a dead give-away. It's e-mail from a Facebook app that I installed back when I went through my brief enthusiasm phase on the site.
What's really interesting to me is the way they try to encourage you to come and use the app:
Important, Your help is needed!Wow! Really? Better read on:
Six of your friends have pending dating requests:
Crickey! They need my help to date? Wow.
However, the list of six lovely women is rather suspect...
Sure, number one (let's call her BB) is newly-single, but I'm sure she doesn't need help finding dates. Number two is in Russia...and numbers 4 and 6 are married. So, unless there's something I don't know about their marriages...
Joking aside, this is clearly a ham-fisted attempt to enouage people to stop ignoring the growing waves of app-spam through some social engineering. I've had several request in recent weeks, all saying that my friend needs help to, say, get another $500 of virtual poker chips or more ranks at her court.
And to me, it reeks of desperation. The app developers can no longer rely on waves of friend-to-friend app spam to spread their wares, and so they have to try to make emotional connections to achieve the same thing. I don't think it's going to work unless they can make these appeals look like they come more directly from the friend - and that's moving into the realms of outright deception.
Perhaps the much-needed app shakedown is upon us.
February 5, 2008 3:49 AM | Reply
But how will I ever find a date now? I am doomed so eternal singletude now. Dooooooooomed!
February 5, 2008 3:51 AM | Reply
I love it that it calls me 'Google Account.'
February 5, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply
My bad. I briefly installed a "comment by Google Account" plugin - and discovered it really wasn't ready for prime time.
February 5, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply
Indeed, let's hope it's the beginning of the end for the hopeless apps which are strangling the life out of Facebook (for those of us who still use is).
I spent an hour at the weekend uninstalling a load of apps from my Facebook account (various advanced forms of walls, for example) and have started blocking applications which persist in inviting me to install them even though I've told them several times that I'm not interested.
More blocking on the part of users might encourage apps developers to re-think their strategies.