Comments on: Forced Invites are Officially Dead on Facebook!

By: Jeremy Chone

Jeremy Chone — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:24:17 +0000

Definitely a great move from Facebook.

By: mariorz

mariorz — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:54:41 +0000

I think you´re wrong on this one Rodney… FB didn´t blind sight anyone and force invites are not new… I would even say the invite tool provided by FB (which was released about 3 months after platform launch) was developed to prevent users from doing this kind of thing specifically… This people knew what they were doing was not the intended use for the tool… I have 0 sympathy

By: Invites Violation - No More 20 Force Invite in Facebook Apps : Hisamudin.com - Re-engineering Life

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:28:55 +0000

[…] only me, there’s a few people blogged about it here, here, here and […]

By: Jukka

Jukka — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:04:19 +0000

This new change only creates apps that provide output/results/usability after invites have been sent. Hence, no real change.

The developers of the apps probably get advertising money every time someone even takes a peek at the app. So the apps don’t have to be popular. It’s enough that they get people to take a look at them (before blocking them). Very few people will take a second look at “What [add any word] are you?”-type of app a second time in any case.

I think the invite feature should be completely separated from the app itself so that invites are sent through a channel not in contact with the app. Hence, the app cannot know whether or not the user has recommended it to someone. This would make the recommendations credible.

By: Facebook calls forced invites a “violation”

Facebook calls forced invites a “violation” — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:56:42 +0000

[…] should jump over to his post for the whole e-mail, but the gist of it is that you’d better get your ship in line or their […]

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:21:27 +0000

I guess this means the developers of Send Hotness, etc. are going to have to focus on making apps with rich content that drives viratily, rather than a use-flow that forces it. Sounds exciting ^^

By: Victoria

Victoria — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:56:32 +0000

Personally I don’t think this “blind-sides” anyone. The wording is very specific. It doesn’t target apps that prompt people to invite their friends once … only the ones that nag people to invite their friends over and over again even when they’ve hit the skip button once already. Many users falter at that stage and don’t even notice there is a skip button, so apps still have quite a good chance of getting their invites sent out.

To be honest, if application developers don’t recognise themselves that prompting a user to invite their friends over and over again even when the user has already clicked “skip” is some kind of application-sharp-practice then they need to get a clue and wise up to the fact that they will only build successful apps if they produce something users genuinely want - not by coercion or with some bizarre idea that they are “owed” invites because anything less is a failure to “support” them.

By: black cat

black cat — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:09:53 +0000

so forced invites are no more? well if that’s true then someone should tell the application developers.
just now i tried the application “what’s your biggest turn on?” and after filling out questions they refused to show me the results.
the message I got was

“TO VIEW YOUR RESULTS, YOU MUST INVITE AT LEAST 20 FRIENDS.”

so i deleted and blocked that application.

By: Facebook apps rant | Defy the Stars

Facebook apps rant | Defy the Stars — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:53:21 +0000

[…] applications are now banned from forcing users to invite friends to install them. This means next time you have to hit Ignore on […]

By: Ash

Ash — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:56:38 +0000

Does this apply to quiz apps that require the user to invite friends to see results? One way around this would be to allow them to skip the invite page (thus complying with FB rules), however still force users to invite 20 friends to see quiz results.

I’m sure we will see some creative responses from deevlopers to keep some form of the forced invite alive within FB’s rules.