Facebook application invitation overload
Published by Blake Robinson January 8th, 2008 in Facebook, Facebook Applications, Facebook Trends.
Has anyone else experienced the persistent nuisance of application invites? In theory, rejecting an invitation should opt you out of further invites from that particular app. While that works some of the time, Facebook fails to block a large percentage of app invitations that have already been rejected.
The biggest example of this are the Zombie (which has since spawned Vampire and Werewolf derivatives) and Causes apps. I can’t begin to fathom the number invitations I’ve rejected to become a zombie or join a cause, it’s truly innumerable. At least Project Agape’s Causes app has some basic function, but the sole purpose behind the Zombie app is to propagate. As appropriate as that might be for anything zombie related, it’s essentially a voluntary virus.
My understanding is that upon the first rejection, all further invitations should be blocked, but there is some flaw afoot that lets invites slip through in large quantities. The best solution I can conceive is for Facebook to have a universal opt out feature for all app invites. This does, however, pose the the problem of limiting peoples’ exposure to apps, since locating new apps isn’t the easiest task. Therefore, I think the secondary part to this solution should be a more prominent apps page where users can browse the most popular options, see what their friends are using, etc.
As it stands now, I feel that these apps are bordering on some invasion of privacy. With privacy being one of the central components of Facebook’s appeal and success, it is swimming in volatile waters by allowing the apps to bombard its users invite spam.
My solution might not be the best of all options, but it’s a modest proposal. That said, if anyone has some better ideas, we’d all be glad to hear it.
Technorati Tags: facebook, facebook applications, vampires, zombies, werewolves, project agape, causes, privacy
8 Responses to “Facebook application invitation overload”
- 1 Pingback on Jan 21st, 2008 at 9:11 am
- 2 Pingback on Feb 6th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
- 3 Pingback on Mar 4th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I hear ya…
Just block the app, and you’re done
I too think there’s an invitation overload, but I do have a solution that works very well for me. Let’s say I get an invite from App X. Before I click deny I click on the link in that invite that’ll take me to the app’s description page (I open it in a new tab). From there I can block the app permanently. Then I go back to the original invite and deny. I haven’t seen a bit of vampire, werewolf, fun wall, or hotness nonsense for a long time. =)
I don’t know where you got the idea that rejecting an invitation blocked that app from further invites. Facebook never said that. None of their documentation ever said that.
In any case, as Josue and Andrew said, there is an easy solution. Just block the app. It can’t send you invites, AND it can’t access any of your information.
With the average user having over 100 friends in their network, if someone makes a nuisance of themselves by demonstrating how poorly they know me by sending me multiple invites to crappy apps, I simply delete them.
Why cut out the middle man when you can get right to the source of the problem?
On the off-chance someone notices I’m missing from their network I accept their invite again, wait a few days and then delete them again.
Very related, take a look at (and please support) one of the enhancement requests submitted by Luke, who is one of the more helpful developers on the Facebook forums.