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Facebook Developers See 20-50% Drop From URL Change

Posted on October 5, 2008 by jessestay

Facebook developers are reporting 20-50% drops in their Application traffic due to an unannounced deprecation of the old apps.new.facebook.com URL by Facebook. Over the weekend, Facebook appears to have deprecated the apps.new.facebook.com domain, but some developers are reporting that users aren’t recognizing the new domain, apps.facebook.com, causing the drop in traffic.

The apps.facebook.com domain is the central location for all applications on Facebook. Developers are given a unique suffix to the apps.facebook.com domain, giving apps.facebook.com/appname a unique location for every application on the Facebook platform. Facebook created the domain, apps.new.facebook.com to accommodate apps trying to test in the new design as it was in the process of being released. Now that all users should be transitioned to the new design, it appears that Facebook has decided that the two URLs are no longer necessary.

Facebook (perhaps not as often as Twitter) is known for changes like this. While it’s been awhile, the early days of the Facebook Platform were prone to frequent changes by Facebook with little notification by the company. For this reason, Facebook implemented a beta testing ground before pushing changes so bugs like this would be revealed, but it appears Facebook is not using this testing ground in all cases. As one developer put it, “I was planning to go on a sailing trip today, but when I noticed all the problems had to cancel that to fix all the absolute urls I had.” Unannounced changes like this, with little testing, are bound to cause developer frustration and angst as we’re seeing now.

Facebook has put in place a Status Feed to announce such things, and just last week announced that over the weekend the new “api.new.facebook.com” would point to the same place as “api.facebook.com”. Being a backend process, Facebook mentioned nothing about a deprecation of the apps.new.facebook.com domain. Also, any user that previously had an apps.new.facebook.com domain bookmarked will now be sent to a 404 not found page.

We have yet to hear an announcement by Facebook on this matter.

UPDATE: For some reason the link to the forums above has been removed and the post is gone. The text of the main link is below (written by crimson), followed by a long list of other developers seeing the same thing:

I’ve been doing some testing with the recent DNS errors and it seems that for most users, apps.new.facebook is broken. It’s sporadic though, and only affects certain user accounts at random times. I haven’t heard any complaints about apps.facebook.com being broken though, so I would suggest putting a message on your about pages asking users to go to apps.facebook.com instead of apps.new.facebook.com. If you have any absolute links to apps.new especially in notifications, newsfeeds, or notifications, you should also get rid of those immediately since it will cause your users to end up on the new domain, which will rewrite all urls from apps.facebook.com to apps.new.facebook.com, and can lead to further problems.

It’s so annoying that Facebook decided to do this over the weekend, which means we have to work also on the weekends. I was planning to go on a sailing trip today, but when I noticed all the problems had to cancel that to fix all the absolute urls I had. I found I’m losing anywhere from 20-50% of new users simply because of this issue. It also seems that at times only apps.new.facebook is broken, and not www.new.facebook. Hmm, talk about double-standards.

UPDATE 2: Facebook appears to have fixed the problem – when I checked today, apps.new.facebook.com was again correctly redirecting to apps.facebook.com

UPDATE 3: It appears other developers are still seeing the issue, still no word from Facebook: http://staynalive.com/articles/2008/10/06/facebook-dns-blunders-take-down-obama-app/

Erick Schonfeld Misses the Point – It’s About Quality, Not Quantity!

Posted on October 1, 2008 by jessestay

Last week Erick Shonfeld, a writer for TechCrunch, posted a rather uninspiring article after Technorati released their “State of the Blogosphere” stating that “The More [bloggers] Post, the Higher [they] Rank”. In it, he argued that because a majority of the Top 100 blogs tracked by Technorati post more than 5 times a day, and 43 percent of those post more than 10 times a day, that the quantity of those posts is the reason for those blogs entering the top 100 of Technorati. While perhaps true for some, I argue it may be the means, but definitely not the reason the top 100 are where they are.

On Technorati, Quality Trumps Quantity

Let’s face it – every site in the top 100 in Technorati is there because they have put time into their posts. Sites like TechCrunch and Mashable and ReadWriteWeb employ bloggers to professionally blog for them, giving those bloggers the time and motivation to put effort into the posts they write. They have editors which look over the posts each author writes and those editors add an additional level of quality to the posts that they write. They all started small and have grown to the level they are, enabling them to keep the spots they are at.

Because more time is spent on each post, and these sites are able to crank out many of those quality posts, yes, they get more links in a short amount of time. More people are interested in them. They get the breaking news first because startups and other PR firms know that they generate traffic and buzz. This keeps them interesting.

Quantity Plays a Very Small Part

However, I argue that quantity is not the reason most of these people are in the top 100. The problem with quantity is people get bored of you. When you’re cranking out so many posts a day that people can’t keep up they begin to tune out. Sure, they may still subscribe to your feeds, but they start to reduce your importance in their minds. You get links only because you’re cranking out so many posts in a short amount of time. In fact, I suggest this isn’t healthy for the blogosphere. The blogosphere thrives on being personal and unique, not robotic.

Therefore these blogs may have gotten to where they are because of quality, but that does not mean they are invincible. Posts like Erick’s seem to imply that they are and that the little guy has no way of getting “into the blogging elite”.

It is Possible to Get in the Top 100 and Not Post Every Day!

I was reminded of this point when Chris Brogan very humbly made mention on his blog that he had broken the top 100 blogs on Technorati. While Chris does post almost every day and sometimes more than once, he also skips days at times, and I can tell you that blogging is by far his top priority! Chris writes quality, well-thought out posts that make you think and teach you things. He’s not a news breaker, unless he thinks you can learn from it. People like this, so they link to him. He has become more than just a “blogger”, but a “thought-leader” and example.

Seth Godin is another example. Currently Seth is number 17 on the top 100 of Technorati. He’ll never let you know that, by the way. Seth posts short, thoughtful posts, once a day, which make you think. You feel inspired after reading just the short paragraph or two that he writes. Seth too is considered a thought leader because of this. He could care less about quantity. His quality is what has made his blog.

Robert Scoble is another example. There are days and even weeks he goes without blogging, but when he speaks, he speaks with passion. He tries to inspire, and show you by his actions what the upcoming technologies are. Because of this, lots of people link to him.

Then there’s Guy Kawasaki. Guy’s last post was 2 days ago. He blogs because it’s fun. He blogs because he has something to share, not because of a duty to blog. Guy got in the top 100 naturally, not because of an army of bloggers working for him.

You Can Do it Too!

I’ll be first to admit that I’m not there. True, it would be cool to be there, but frankly, it’s not important. What’s important is that you stop focusing on the robotic nature of blogging just to blog, and blog because you care. Blog because you have something to say, and blog because it makes sense.

It doesn’t matter if you blog 5 times a day, once a day, or even once a week. If you write quality posts, lead in your thoughts and actions, and show that in your writing, others will link to you. Despite what Erick Shonfeld says, don’t listen to him – quality trumps quantity any day, especially with Technorati.

(Image courtesy http://manonl.edublogs.org/2008/04/22/blogging-away/)

Facebook Applications See Success On the New Platform

Posted on September 25, 2008 by jessestay

Regardless of any complaints from developers surrounding the new Facebook platform redesign, many developers are seeing success. Looking at various statistics from sites such as Adonomics and the Facebook Developers Forum, it appears that those apps that are truly integrating the new Integration points that the Facebook Platform provides are truly seeing success with it. Those apps that remain stagnant will see a decline in behavior.

Apps That are Seeing a Decline

Reviewing the apps complaining of the new design and showing declines in their numbers, it appears that many of them aren’t integrating into the new design where they are supposed to. I’ll use my own app as an example. “We’re Catholic!”, one of the religious apps I wrote and run (I also run “We’re Baptist”, “We’re Protestant”, and wrote the app, “The LDS App”) at one point was getting up to 1,000 visits per day (DAU’s, or Daily Active Users) as it was taking off (it is still currently the largest single group of organized Catholics on Facebook). Users began to get used to the Facebook platform, and that leveled it off to about 2-300 DAU’s per day. At launch of the new design, that number has gone down 1-200 DAU’s per day. What’s not being told in this picture is that I have done absolutely nothing to integrate it with the new design due to lack of time. I have no doubt that with a little integration into the user’s profile with a tab, and maybe info section, along with some Feed Forms to give users the option for larger stories to share with their friends from the app, I could very well see my app stats increase to even more than they were before.

Pieces of Flair

This seems to be the issue with some of the apps developers are complaining about. One example pointed out in the Facebook developer forums is the Pieces of Flair app, by RockYou. Looking at Adonomics statistics, it appears on September 4, the week the new design was put in place, Pieces of Flair took a dramatic turn from near 660,000 Daily Active Users down to around 350,000 DAU’s in just a matter of a day. They were stuck there until September 16, where their DAU’s went up to 570,000 in just a day, still far short from the 660,000 DAU’s they used to have. Then, on Sept 18, the DAU’s went back down to around 400,000. Looking at this statistic, it would appear that Pieces of Flair isn’t doing very well, and that the new Facebook Platform redesign is to blame. To know for sure though, you have to look at the timeline of events related to the App.

Facebook Platform Timeline

September 4th, 2008 – New design launches to all

Looking at the history of the new design rollout, the new Facebook redesign was rolled out right on the week of September 4th, which would make the sharp downturn very understandable. At that point users were getting used to the new design and learning where things were.

September 10th, 2008 – Applications link moves

Right around September 10th or 11th it seems Facebook moved the “Applications” menu from the top down to the lower-left panel on Facebook. In addition, users could “bookmark” their favorite apps. Could Pieces of Flair have been one of those users were bookmarking? Other apps were bound to have seen a decrease because of this change.

September 16th, 2008 – Pieces of Flair makes changes

September 16th took some research to figure out. Looking at the forums on the Pieces of Flair About Page, several users started commenting about how it was now possible to add the app’s profile box to their “wall tab”. It’s unclear if they added a specific application tab at that point or not, but there was definitely an increase at that point, and it looks like it may be because of a change put in place to adapt to the new design by Pieces of Flair.

September 17, 2008 – One-line feed stories consolidated

On September 17, Facebook consolidated one-line feed stories that happened frequently for a single user in a day into one item in a user’s news feed. This would have reduced the visibility of some apps that updated frequently, perhaps explaining the slight decrease on the 18th.

Is it a Facebook Problem?

So, analyzing by date, it would appear that the biggest drops for Pieces of Flair may just be that Pieces of Flair wasn’t yet built for the new design when it was rolled out to members. Perhaps the new design isn’t to blame, but rather unpreparedness by developers of apps that are to blame for the decrease in traffic. Facebook announced the new design back in May, and developers have had since then to prepare – it would seem that this is a developer, not Facebook problem.

Apps Seeing an Increase

Regardless of the complaints, there are apps seeing an increase. While names weren’t mentioned, several developers in the Facebook developer forums posted stats that show such. Even Pieces of Flair we see is starting to show a gradual increase since feed stories were implemented.

We’re Related

Some have shown significant increase though. One of the most significant is We’re Related, which went from 180,000 DAU’s to 460,000 DAU’s when the Applications menu was moved, an all-time high for them. It seems the only decrease they ever saw was right after the redesign was launched. Some developers are claiming they’re spammy, but based on the stats in association with the time-line it appears regardless of spammy measures or not, they’re increasing because users like them and are bookmarking them as a favorite – they shot up more than any other on the date Facebook implemented bookmarking. (disclaimer: they were a client of mine and I trained some of their developers and helped design their initial release, so there is some bias there, but the stats do coincide with what I’m saying. I hold no equity in the company.)

Texas HoldEm Poker

Also of note is the Texas HoldEm Poker game. One of the most popular apps on Facebook, it would seem they too have never seen much of a decrease in usage. They too saw a slight drop after the redesign, but, while not as significant as We’re Related, they are definitely higher in DAU’s than ever before.

WaterCooler, Inc. and (lil) Green Patch

Some other Apps to look at are WaterCooler, Inc. (a conglomeration of many smaller apps), and (lil) Green Patch, all which have continued to show an increase, even after the new design. Of course, Facebook’s native apps have also shown significant increase after the new design, but they may be the exception in the fact that they get special promotion by Facebook in areas developers do not have access to, and are default for many people on Facebook.

Reasons for the Increase

As “DesignerMichael” put it in the Developer Forums, “The golden days will return in about a month though by my estimate. Users will finally start getting used to the new platform again by around then… So all is well. smile Just no more ridiculous changes please… Changing the location of bookmarks once a week is not good for apps. lol…”. It appears, based on the common drop amongst all the apps, that the major issue for developers is that users just haven’t gotten used to the new design yet. Assuming Facebook does not put any more changes in place, things will get back to normal.

In a communication via e-mail with Facebook, I was given the following message about the current state of the platform:

“We’ve seen a number of areas with greater engagement and sharing across the site, both on our own applications and on Facebook Platform. Daily and weekly active usage for applications have been on a healthy growth track for the past six months. Since the cut over began, aggregate Platform usage has continued to increase. The apps that have made the greatest effort to take advantage of the new integration opportunities are starting to see the results.”

Facebook is monitoring this. Without their developers, Facebook is not nearly as powerful as they are now. Currently developers are doing the marketing for Facebook and I’m sure Facebook recognizes that. However, it appears that in the end, as we see with the success of those apps that are seeing an increase, that it involves some work on behalf of the developer to happen. Some areas Facebook suggests are bringing more traffic to apps, or have the potential to do so are:

Deeper integration into the profile

Greater distribution through feeds

Easier for users to discover new apps

More meaningful user engagement

Customized application tabs

For developers of apps, you can bring your application to even higher Daily Active Users than before by simply finding new ways to integrate with the different points mentioned above. It is very possible to be successful on the new design, and now is the opportunity for new developers to come forth. We’re in a new race for popularity, and those apps that embrace the new features most will see the most success.

In FBML Essentials (O’Reilly), I cover some of the points of the Facebook platform new design components. You can purchase and review it here on Amazon.

Louis Gray Tops Robert Scoble in Web Presence

Posted on September 24, 2008 by jessestay

As many are aware, it’s hard to avoid personalities like Louis Gray and Robert Scoble on the internet these days. Chances are that if you belong to a social network, and have friended them, they have interacted with your updates on the particular networks you belong to in one way or another. Louis and Robert seem to have a particular “omnipresence” to them, and both have an amazing knack for tracking the latest news and updates, and most importantly staying up with the actual people they follow. If you mention one of their names anywhere on the internet, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll know and respond in some fashion or another.

Louis Gray is relatively new to this however. Scoble has touted him as being “the next Scoble“, but in reality he has only become popular in just the last year or so. Scoble has been pretty popular for several years now, and a lot of his ability to be in so many networks at a time comes from experience. I’ve witnessed both of their abilities to multi-task and share and follow activities of others they follow first-hand, and it’s quite amazing to watch! Both are just as good at actually listening to most of the people they follow on each network they belong to.

A great example of this is in a panel at BlogWorld Expo last week, Stowe Boyd (aka StoBo) said something which Drew Olanoff re-tweeted. Scoble just so happened to be driving back home, but next thing we know, Robert was joining the conversation through FriendFeed and Twitter, all from the wheel of his car! We hope that Maryame was the one driving. Both of their abilities to know what is being said that is important at any given time is amazing.

In doing some research today though, it appears that Louis Gray may have surpassed Robert Scoble in the number of networks he belongs to. Doing some research on the recently announced usernamecheck.com, the username, “scobleizer” is on 26 of the listed networks. I am unaware of any other username that Robert Scoble uses around the internet, so we have to assume this is all for him. “louisgray”, the main username for Louis Gray, is on 18 networks. However, if we take the username, “louismg”, another username he uses (taken from his FriendFeed shares), we get 15 more networks he belongs to. Add to that the username, “asypta”, which Louis uses on stumbleupon and delicious, we get 5 more. That would, assuming these are all his usernames, make Louis Gray involved in a total of 38 networks. This is why Louis Gray has been so successful over the last year. I believe Louis Gray has just become “omnipresent”.

Any other names you can think of that rival Louis Gray or Robert Scoble in network involvement? I believe these two are tops in my book.

A Little More Information Regarding Beacon…

Posted on September 18, 2008 by jessestay

After posting my article yesterday, the beacon controversy seems to have come back with a vengence, with articles by Mashable, TechCrunch, and even Valleywag (I’m actually not much of a Fantasy Football Enthusiast, but they can certainly call me one), to name a few. Today I received communication from Facebook clarifying where Facebook stands on the matter, and I thought I’d share so all are clear.

Let’s start with what Beacon is – I believe all, even I, have been unclear as to what it is, since only a few partners were brought on when it launched. Per an e-mail I received from Facebook, “We don’t charge developers, users or sites for Beacon or Connect use. Neither product is at all associated with advertising — no participating sites pay nor are they required to be advertisers.”

I mentioned that Facebook never took down their text about how to sign up for Beacon. Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook.com further clarified this by stating that Fandango and Kongregate and others were still using Beacon, even after people stopped blogging about it. ComputerWorld also has a great article mentioning that fact. Facebook has clarified this with the following statement:

“Since late 2007, Beacon has been available on dozens of participating sites after we made a series of improvements to ensure that users have control over what information is shared to their friends on Facebook. We are not accepting new developers into the program, and this is not using Facebook Connect.”

So just to be clear, Beacon, according to Facebook, is considered part of the developer Platform, not their advertising program. In addition to that, as of this moment, no new developers are being accepted into the program. Facebook has still neglected to remove the option to request to be part of Beacon on their advertisers page however, so I am still a little unclear as to their future intentions for this. In a further communication from them to me they did mention they have no further plans to expand at the time being. Facebook also mentioned they have about 30 developers as part of their original program started in 2007, and that they have “continued to make improvements in the UI since then.”

As I mentioned, I still welcome the new options Beacon seems to be giving users. I’m now empowered as a user to decide if I want Beacon to send things to my Mini Feed on Facebook or not. It will be interesting to see if Facebook continues the program, or if it gets phased out as Facebook Connect emerges.

5 Features Developers Will Like in the New Facebook Design

Posted on September 16, 2008 by jessestay

I recently covered 5 general features most people may like in the new Facebook redesign being rolled out to all last week and this week. One of the biggest complaints of the new design is that it is bad for developers, reduces traffic to apps, and discourages users from using apps they have installed. While this is true for apps that haven’t adapted, there are still some very good features introduced by the new design, that, in my opinion, bring even more integration points to developers, and allow for more creativity to developers while still maintaining the user experience. I’d like to cover 5 of my favorites.

1. Your Application Now Gets an Entire Tab on the User’s profile

While profile boxes still remain, developers now have an additional option to create an entire tab devoted to your app on a user’s profile page. While you can’t advertise on this tab or monetize it in any way, the user profile page is the most traffic’d page on Facebook, and if you can grab a user’s attention by offering a little more information about your application and about the user themselves, other users are much more likely to engage and use the parts of your application you can monetize. More space to do this is a good thing, and the tab appearing on a user’s profile makes it appear as though your app is actually a part of their profile page. Consider this one giant advertisement for your application.

2. You can now allow users to share additional information about themselves via your application

Some of the most successful applications on Facebook are those that allow users to express themselves in certain ways. Applications that can allow a user to share more about themselves tend to be more engaging, and have a much more likely chance of a user sharing that application with their friends. Let’s face it – the days of an app spreading itself due to the new nature of the Facebook platform are long gone. Now, it is the developer’s responsibility to employ traditional marketing techniques to get the users to share these applications with their friends themselves.

The “info” tab is one way they can do this. Your application can give users an option to click on a simple button that allows them to add additional information to their “info” tab, provided by your application. Again, the profile is the most traffic’d place on Facebook, and this is an excellent way to get your app in front of a lot more people.

3. The new design is more organized, therefore giving your app more potential to be “one of few”

With the new design, most applications get organized into a “Boxes” tab on the user’s profile. This requires an additional click to learn about a user’s applications that they use. However, for applications that enable it, a user can optionally add any of those application boxes to their “wall” tab, putting it among just a few of their favorite applications for their friends to see and use.

If you can create an application that users will like, use, and want to share with their friends, the chances of your app appearing among those few are greater. I don’t have any numbers, but I really think there are only a few applications utilizing this feature right now, upping your chances even further of being one of those users like to feature on their “wall” tab. To me, this actually makes the potential for your app being successful even greater.

4. There are now 3 types of News/Mini Feed items your application can post

While your application can’t necessarily force news feed items to Facebook without the user’s explicate permission any more, you can utilize “feed forms” to allow the user to share one line posts to their mini feed, small summaries to their mini feed, or an entire story to their mini feed. If you can make your app useful enough to encourage the users to share the larger feeds (which were not available before), your app has a far greater chance of getting in the face of your users’ friends, encouraging even further virality. Not only that, but good marketing shows that when a user actually wants to share something, their friends are more likely to listen and participate. Giving your users choice is a very good thing, and will result in a much more devoted audience in the future.

5. With the new design, you can now deploy FBML, right in an iFrame

A new feature established in Facebook Connect enables any website to utilize the Facebook Javascript Client Library to allow a developer with an app set up to parse and load FBML on any page on the web. This means that you can now load FBML right in your iFrame’d pages.

Why use FBML? FBML will guarantee, as Facebook changes their look and feel, that you don’t have to change your look and feel with them. It all happens automatically. Before this, Facebook required all FBML to be loaded and parsed on their servers. Now you can load it directly on your own servers, which means greater flexibility with Javascript, more options when integrating with other platforms like OpenSocial, and less coding overall since Facebook takes care of the details for you. Best of all, you can implement this on any website, even outside of Facebook, and with Facebook Connect, you can even authenticate and retrieve data from Facebook for users, right on your own website! You can learn more about FBML via my book, FBML Essentials (shameless plug).

While I understand the frustration of developers with the new design, and especially the fact that applications aren’t quite as in-your-face as they used to and can’t do things as easily on behalf of users, overall I think this is a good thing for the overall Facebook experience. Now Facebook has provided more integration points for developers than ever before, while at the same time making the experience better for users, making users want to continue coming back to the network. Users coming back is always a good thing for your application on Facebook.

What are your favorite features, as a developer, within the new design?

i.TV Announces TV & Movies App for the iPhone

Posted on September 10, 2008 by jessestay

Today my new employer, i.TV, an up-and-coming startup with headquarters in Palo Alto, announced our first release of the “TV & Movies” App for the iPhone. The TV & Movies App we feel will change the way you watch TV and Movies. We intend to revolutionize entertainment so that you see what you want to see on TV and in the Movies, and that starts with your iPhone.

When you open up the TV & Movies App for the iPhone it starts by asking you your location, and, based on GPS coordinates, it finds your location, and recommends your local TV providers in the area (I’m using Louis Gray’s screenshots for this – he did such a great job on them!). It then downloads listings from your area, right to your iPhone, along with Movie Theater listings around your area.

From the TV listings, you can click through, choose your favorites, rate each TV show, view actors and upcoming episodes, choose star ratings for each, along with post reviews about each show and see what others have shared. You can rate reviews even and share how helpful they were to you.

Beyond just TV listings, we let you look up what movies are playing in your area. We’ll display the theaters closest to you and let you choose from the list and see all movies showing from those theaters at given times. From each movie listing you can do the same things you can do from TV shows – write reviews, rate your favorite movies, and more!

Within each movie or TV show you have the capability to also view pictures from the show, from movies you can watch the preview for the movie right on your iPhone (something that will keep you surfing for quite awhile!). You can also recommend movies and TV shows to your friends via e-mail.

There is an entire section devoted to search. So, for instance, I can type in “football” and see everything playing related to football at a given time. Or I can type in “computers”, or “fishing”, or you name it and find out what’s playing related to that term at the given time. You can also add any show or movie to your favorites (when you give it a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, it also adds it to your “My Media” page.

What attracted me to this company is what is coming soon after our launch though. Above each listing is a button that says, “watch”. In the near future you’ll soon be able to save to a Tivo, stream your favorite episodes, and more, all right on your iPhone!

I have been hired onto i.TV as their Chief Community Officer – my responsibilities include Social Product Strategies for the company, and I’m currently working on a social application that I think will blow your socks off if you’re a TV or Movie junkie like myself. Stay tuned to our blog for much more news to come – this is only the beginning of Media, My Way.

We are simply awaiting iTunes to post the App to the iTunes store (we were expecting it to appear today, but due to the iTunes 8 launch it may be in the next day or two). We will update you via our blog and Twitter (we’ll update Twitter first!) when it’s available. You can read the official announcement here: http://mediamyway.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/itv-not-in-app-store-yetcoming-soon/. Check out our video here (YouTube Channel coming soon!): http://i.tv.