AllFacebook - Latest Comments in Facebook Applications Hit Saturation Point

Re: Facebook Applications Hit Saturation Point

Sam — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:16:22 -0000

Yeah--I definitely agree with the web directory analogy. I don't think they've done a good enough job of giving users the tools to find applications. Facebook should be able to make recommendations based on what you've added so far (in the same way that Google Sidebar recommends gadgets) or a list of the applications most popular among your friends. Right now, for example, having 30 straight applications for hockey team news makes it difficult to really get to what new applications have just been launched. The "Recently Popular" doesn't really work very well either, I don't think.

Re: Facebook Applications Hit Saturation Point

Nick O'Neill — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:18:52 -0000

Yeah I'm getting hammered on this one. I guess my train of thought was more along the lines that there is a saturation of crappy applications. Initially people were adding just about anything they could find but that rapidly ended.

I think that the web directory analogy is a good one and that's ultimately what i'm experiencing. There are so many bad applications that it's getting more difficult to filter out the bad ones.

Maybe I'm just having application directory overload.

Re: Facebook Applications Hit Saturation Point

Sam — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:38:26 -0000

I'm going to disagree. For example, today a PayPal application was launched, which is pretty revolutionary. The combined reputation and security of PayPal and Facebook could really take non-shopping online payment mainstream. I think more and more it's the established companies that are going to take the time (and have the expertise) to build great application. Another example would be Yahoo!'s new music videos application, which is incredibly well done. It's going to be hard for non-corporations to compete with this kind of quality. If this is a good or bad thing is up for debate, but I don't thinik we've hit a saturation point as it will take more time for well thought out applications to be launched.

Re: Facebook Applications Hit Saturation Point

Michael Fagan — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:33:04 -0000

I don't think a saturation point has been reached at all. Facebook apps are in reality, websites. Have we reached the saturation point for websites?

To me this just feels like 1999 with tons of useless sites on Geocities. Within the crowd, though, some have real value ( http://apps.facebook.com/ca... ) and I think that over time this will sort itself out.

The directory itself will probably be useless in not too long, just as web directories like Yahoo and DMOZ are essentially unused now, in favour of search engines.