
Thanks for developing your Facebook application. We've disabled your account. - tomh
http://www.idealog.us/2007/06/thanks_for_deve.html
======
willarson
People developing applications on Facebook are gambling. Early adoption of
technology is always risky, and sometimes it pays of very well--often it
doesn't.

I think its good that these issues are happening earlier than later, its
important for Facebook developers to remember that they are investing their
time and effort into a closed system that is controlled by individuals whose
interests are not necessarily aligned with theirs.

At this point I am concerned about Facebook's development practices, and would
be wary of investing my time. These frequent failures suggest that they are
not using best practices (their test cases are insufficient), and its closed
so you can't clean up their mistakes. Scary.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
_its important for Facebook developers to remember that they are investing
their time and effort into a closed system that is controlled by individuals
whose interests are not necessarily aligned with theirs._

That is a great point, and one which is being overlooked in all the excitement
about the API.

~~~
ashu
Like all things, Facebook is not a solution for everything. Look at it as a
marketing and exposure medium at best, and anything else you gain (users) is
just a bonus.

------
natrius
So you tried to spam people with messages advertising your application, and
they disabled your account for it. I don't see the problem.

~~~
akkartik
My reaction as well. Building the application is orthogonal to publicizing it.
Their objection was about how he did the latter.

But there is a reasonable complaint here: that fb is not communicating well
with developers about precisely what is and is not kosher. It's one thing to
simply give the _rules_ in the ToS (nobody reads them, and they're phrased to
give the website broad discretionary powers of interpretation), but another to
proactively _educate_ developers.

But fb has really good support in my experience. This might just be a
transient glitch while they catch up with demand.

\---

The (arguably misleading) title reminded me of an experience of mine:
<http://programming.reddit.com/info/qy9l/comments>

There too documentation was incomplete, and I was ignorant about what they
considered ok. But the way the company dealt with my ignorance was _much_ more
unfriendly.

(I don't mean to badmouth anybody, these guys might well have improved since.
I keep thinking about how the way startups interact with users, and how it is
a key differentiator. This story is just part of that thought process.)

------
ivan
Many people will cry in the next several months in connection with Face book
:)

~~~
nickb
They already are. Look at iLike's numbers and the HUGE drop in their hits to
the website.

------
budu3
Sour grapes.

