Thanks for developing your Facebook application. We've disabled your account. | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for developing your Facebook application. We've disabled your account.

idealog.us

13 pointstomh8 comments

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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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.)

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

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

Sour grapes.

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