

A Warning: Facebook dating apps see massive user drop after FB policy change. - aresant
http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/facebook-dating-apps-see-massive-user-drop/

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thirdusername
Those Facebook notifications were being abused to send your friends
notifications that looked like normal Facebook notifications "You've been
tagged in a photo", then in the event they were clicked it would do the same
to their friends. I'm thrilled Facebook disabled them for applications.

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marciovm123
Shows you how vulnerable their platform is to spamming. Facebook managed to
keep the spam down while MySpace was becoming spam-city only before they
opened accounts to non-college students. Small is beautiful?

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char
We make Facebook apps for YouTube channels, and the removal of app
notifications definitely hasn't hurt us. In fact, it may have even helped, as
we are no longer getting lost in a pile of app spam. Our users actually want
to be notified when new videos are available! Over 50% of them sign up for
e-mail notifications, and slightly less than that get the notifications
directly in their Feed. We don't trick them into doing this, and it is easy to
opt out.

As long as you provide a service people actually want, I think you'll be safe
regardless of what changes Facebook makes to its policies.

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necubi
Developers were abusing notifications, and facebook decided to do right by
their users and disable them. It should be lauded for putting its users' needs
before those of its developers.

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adrianb
There's a spelling mistake in the last phrase. It should be:

This is why you don’t build companies that are completely dependent on spam.

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necrecious
The flip side is that you wouldn't have a company to begin with without
Facebook and you probably made some money in the initial gold rush.

Facebook is also partnering with Zynga for some dating thing. So the lesson
here is that you don't want to build on a platform that isn't making money and
can only make money by competing directly with platform adopters.

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jkincaid
FYI, that Zynga/FB dating thing was a joke ;-). I'm sure many of you frown on
April Fools day, but I enjoy getting the chance to show off my sense of humor
(or lack thereof) once in a while: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/facebook-
to-launch-relation...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/facebook-to-launch-
relationships-at-f8-teams-with-zynga-to-spur-romance-through-gaming/)

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benmathes
protip from someone that slogged through the trenches of the social app boom:
Don't spam your users. If the effectively-zero click-through-rate doesn't hurt
you, then the channel controller (facebook) will shut down the spam vector.

Or: Don't be a dick to your users. Make something of value and send messages
when you have real content.

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potatolicious
It's ok, they've found another spam vector: email notifications, which seem to
still be up.

An app I have't used in ages emailed me yesterday trying to sell me _calling
cards_ (this is not in any way related to the app at all).

Reported to facebook, hopefully that hole will be closed soon also.

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oceanician
I think the only _great_ dating app is okcupid, which is only really just
starting to touch upon using facebook.

Making it harder for apps to spam users, will actually benefit the fb platform
as a whole. I actually think they're mostly doing a good job, given most
project sponsor's initial thoughts around gaining users are to try and spam
all existing users as much as possible, and then try and import all their
contacts. There was quite a bit of this in the early fb days, but not so much
now. This is a good thing.

Now, how to write an effective dating app? How to get women using a dating
app. These are the real challenges. P.o.F. is an ok site that I've used in the
past, but always felt it could be better. Though I guess if you've got a
steady income stream, you're more worried about breaking it, and loosing an
income, than innovating. Have you thought of doing a sister site or two?

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OmarIsmail
Facebook + Location aware + Chatroulette-style ultra-fast and easy webcam
chats = great dating site.

Structure it to favour women, i.e. woman can see the man by default, but the
woman has to allow the man to see her. Then for men, you just have to let them
know when they're 'live' (that is on camera) and give them something to do
while they wait for a woman to say "ok, this guy can see me".

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marciovm123
Had that exact idea a few days ago...someone's going to try it, will be fun to
see =). I think Chatroulette made everyone remember, oh, everyone has a webcam
now.

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froo
From Markus' post

 _"This is why you don’t build companies that are completely dependent on the
whim of another company."_

Of course, an advertising supported dating site who's revenue comes primarily
from Adsense doesn't come under this sweeping generalisation does it...

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daleharvey
it could maybe be clearer, "another single company"

plentyoffish can change advertising networks, these people cant change social
networks if they want to be where people are.

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WALoeIII
This was particularly annoying as there is a replacement on the horizon, but
not yet available. There is theoretically going to be application -> inbox
which will be more useful in many cases, but its got this amorphous release
date that they won't pin down.

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HaloZero
the graph is a bit misleading, If you look at the daily count there is a
massive drop and then it stays fairly consistent afterwards.

