Bookmarks: Developers’ New Imperative
As we reported yesterday, Facebook has released a new Applications menu that significantly improves applications’ overall visibility in the new design. While the direct links in the shortcut bar and the menu itself have received much acclaim, the “Add bookmark” icon could prove to have the greatest material impact on developers.
Bookmarking an application is a relatively new behavior for users on Facebook, as previously the application sidebar was populated by links that were added during the initial installation process. Before the introduction of the application menu, some developers (and users alike) complained that the bookmarking process was too unclear. Now, the “add bookmark” icon is readily available to users, thus those complaints should largely disappear.
Gone from the prior Applications menu implementation (which used to be in the new design’s top nav) is the “Recently used” section, which used to sit above a user’s bookmarked applications. Now, the Applications menu exclusively features bookmarked applications. This change is subtle, but the impact could be substantial. For example, if a user were to “allow” a new application, she would need to bookmark it during her first session or possibly have no easy means of rediscovery in the future (other than recall). In most cases, that user is effectively lost as a potential repeat visitor if she didn’t click “add bookmark” during her first visit.
If developers were able to integrate the “add bookmark” functionality directly into their canvas page experiences this problem could largely be mitigated, though this implementation would lack the elegance and consistency of the icon in the menu bar. Alternatively, the “Recently Used” section could resurface either when the full Applications list is opened or in place of the application bookmarks in the homepage’s right column, which is essentially equivalent to the new menu bar.
While that is largely speculation, and the currently menu bar is likely to change, the issue is indicative of the reality of Platform: developers and companies can be seriously impacted by even the smallest of Facebook’s changes.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Facebooks changes killed a lot of the viral effects that helped spread applications, This new addition is hardly going to change anything because the visibility is only for your own applications, you can’t see what your friends have on their profile unless you click the boxes tab.
I welcome this as it now gives you a quick link to navigate to your favorites. I had stopped visiting facebook groups because they had made them so hard to get to.
The other question is how many developers are actually going to spend the time changing their apps to fit the new profile when there is no incentive to do this because the viral effects have been killed?
I wrote a blog post about this earlier today
http://www.iandavidchapman.com/are-you-getting-the-most-out-of-your-facebook-applications/
September 12th, 2008 at 11:53 am
[...] For the thousands of Facebook developers who had their businesses wiped out overnight this might come as some consolation so long as users become educated about using this new function. They still suffer from the fact that they no longer get exposure on profile pages so the viral potentials are drastically restricted. How many will bother to update their old applications to conform to the new profile is still debatable. Inside Facebook writer Adam Lovallo wrote about some of these issues in a recent article about this new bookmarking facilty [...]
January 6th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Facebook booted me from their service days after creating a group which was intended to be a watchdog against antisemitic facebook groups. Does Facebook support antisemitism & racism? They would not give me any reason for booting me, and have not yet responded to my requests to be reinstated. I have noticed quite a lot of racist, antisemitic and pro terrorist groups posted on Facebook, it seems odd that Facebook would boot me shortly after creating a group to defend civil liberties and safeguard a public service. Can anyone give me advice on what I can do to get them to reinstate me?