RSSAnother big change for viral app marketing on Facebook: Invitation limits now dynamic
February 13th, 2008
Following last week’s change to notification limits from a fixed to a fluctuating limit based on user spamminess ratings, Facebook announced tonight that invitations, a mainstay of viral growth for Facebook apps, will soon be following suit. Starting next week, applications will no longer be limited to 20 invitations per user per day, but instead the daily invitation limit will depend on a formula including the following factors:
- Your historical invitation acceptance rate
- Whether your application overrides the user’s choice to invite no friends, but instead forces users to invite friends
- Additional undisclosed factors that “reflect the affinity users show for the application as a whole”
Facebook Platform’s Tom Whitnah said, “Our hope is that requests will be better aligned with a user’s intention to share a good experience with an application and engage with friends in ways their friends will appreciate, not just with how frequently an application requests users invite friends.” Facebook will be adding invitation limits and metrics to developers’ app Insights pages, just as they did with notifications.
Earlier today, Facebook sent warning to developers whose apps forced users to invite friends in order to use the app, turning off invitations altogether for those apps until that behavior was corrected. This was a major user experience problem that now should exist no more.
In the long run, these viral channel rule changes should better align developer and Facebook goals. So far, there has not been much outcry from the developer community about the effects of last week’s changes to notification limits. Assuming Facebook’s invitation limits are not on average significantly lower than the current fixed limit of 20, I imagine developers of quality applications will accept these changes similarly. Ultimately, they should keep invitation conversion rates higher than if the invitation channel were to become increasingly dominated by spam.
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February 13th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
[...] least not in the long run. In most cases. Well… here’s a glimmer of hope anyway. Earlier today, Facebook sent warning to developers whose apps forced users to invite [...]
February 13th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
WOW. This is actually a really big deal. I think we’re seeing the signs of F8 going bye bye. Can you imagine what limiting growth of certain applications by say half is gonna do?
February 14th, 2008 at 12:42 am
[...] were forcing users to invite friends in order to use the app, Inside Facebook’s Justin Smith reports. Those apps will be disabled until they correct their [...]
February 14th, 2008 at 7:20 am
I applaud FB for these changes. The number of useless, spammy apps is out of control and turning users off to apps. I agree that in the long run, these changes will lead to more innovation and reward the apps that actually provide value.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:38 am
That´s cool news. I hate applications who are users forcing to invite friends and decided that my applications must be user-friendly …
February 14th, 2008 at 8:37 am
[...] zwany viral app marketing to coraz prężniej rozwijająca się branża. Pojawiły się już nawet pierwsze nadużycia i sposoby walki z [...]
February 14th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Are you a developer, John? This is not about saying bye bye to Facebook. This is about keeping USERS happier — I’m sick of being spammed to death with notifications and app invitations. Admittedly, most apps don’t force users to invite, but friends feel compelled to “spam”.
Application developers have access to a HUGE base of users on Facebook. If their app is actually any good, it will spread virally anyway, without the need to force invitations, which only alienates users.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
[...] Facebook preserves user experience By limiting the amount of invites an application can send to users, Facebook preserves the user experience and hopefully will prevent members from becoming inundated [...]
February 26th, 2008 at 1:52 am
[...] a spate of recent changes that have curtailed some developers’ Platform enthusiasm, Facebook this [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 2:19 am
[...] first reporting the change in app invitation limits, I said, “Assuming Facebook’s invitation limits are not [...]