Upcoming Facebook Changes Could Significantly Harm the App Platform

Facebook's success and continued growth are the result of several factors. But a very important one has been its developer platform as Facebook apps are now an integral part of the experience. The social network has catered well to its developers but at the same time it can't forget about its users either and it has been walking a fine line between allowing devs to promote their apps and making sure that the users don't get swamped by useless messages coming from these apps. It now looks like it may be introducing some features that will really disrupt the tools app developers have at their disposal.

The social network is apparently experimenting with several changes, many of which could prove very harmful to app traffic and adoption. According to Venture Beat, the design tweaks that Facebook is considering aren't necessarily designed to affect developers but rather to clean up and cut down on the amount of information that is thrown out at the user. It's doubtful though that Facebook is unaware of the effect they may have on apps.

One change considered is moving the Notifications from the main page to another section of the site where they would be less visible. Many apps use notifications to keep users up to date on progress, for example in-game apps. Requests may also be removed from the homepage and merged into the Facebook Inbox. Another section that may get the axe is the Boxes tab in the Profile page.

However, several changes are also being tested that should improve the visibility of some apps, for example with a new Games tab that may be integrated into the sidebar. Facebook is also encouraging developers to use email more to communicate with the users rather than using the internal systems. This could backfire though so Facebook is really underlining the fact that the users are sharing their email addresses with a third-party company and not the social network itself.

But the biggest change that affects app developers has already been implemented with the redesigned homepage, which now features only the more popular stories in the News Feed rather than all of the entries in chronological order. This means that messages from apps are a lot less likely to show up in the default view. While Facebook may be doing all this to keep its users happy, it may also benefit from the increased revenue from ads, which may become much more appealing for developers as a means of promoting their apps. But this could backfire if the app platform dies down as a result from the diminished exposure. Still, there aren't any official details yet so it remains to be seen what changes, if any, Facebook is going to implement.