14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is clearly an increasing part of many people's lives, but as your friends list grows along with the number of Facebook apps you may use, the built-in notifications system is getting swamped with messages many of which aren't that relevant to the user. One of the biggest issues is with app notifications as many developers chose them as a sure-fire way of promoting their work. Facebook has had enough though and is now moving to take the communications off-site by enabling apps to contact users directly through email, along with implementing a couple of other changes which make the notifications system less appealing to developers.
"As we work to make the site as simple and efficient as possible, we're giving you the opportunity to receive updates from applications in your email inbox, such as your MSN, Yahoo! or Gmail accounts, similar to how you may receive email notifications from Facebook when you're tagged in a photo or receive a message. Note that you will have to explicitly grant developers the right to email you; they will never receive your email address without your expressed consent," Facebook's Arun Vijayvergiya wrote.
That puts an obvious positive spin on the whole thing, but the biggest winner here is none other than Facebook. For the developers, this means a lost opportunity and the fact of the matter is most of them aren't going to like it or think it's a good trade off for having fewer ways of getting into a user's news feed. Sure, it opens up a new avenue previously unavailable, and a pretty valuable at that, but it takes away an even better one. They'll adapt to the new system, there's no doubt about that, but the days of huge user growth in a matter of weeks or even days are likely gone.
For the user, it seems like a good thing, less spammy messages cluttering your inbox is always a good thing, but it just takes the clutter from Facebook and moves it to your email inbox which, most likely, is already swamped as it is. Developers can implement the new email feature in two ways, they can either ask the users for their emails leaving them a choice or require that an email address be shared in which case, if the user declines, the app doesn't run. In the end, we'll just have to see if this solves any problems and how hard developers will be affected.