Facebook users who don't play FrontierVille or other games won't have to endure game-related posts in their feeds.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Facebook is trying to limit updates about games, such as FarmVille, that some users find annoying
- According to Facebook, users either "love playing games or hate them"
- Apps will be automatically bookmarked and reordered based on actual usage
- Gaming-related notifications will now be less aggressive than before
(Mashable.com) -- John wants to share some level seven Energizing Lotion in FarmVille! How many times have you seen a similar sentence in your Facebook News Feed and either wondered what it means, or (if you're familiar with Farmville and other popular Facebook games) removed the message in disgust?
Facebook is aware of the problem. While some users -- 200 million of them, revealed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a Gaming Event in Palo Alto -- enjoy playing games on the service, others aren't interested.
According to Facebook, users either "love playing games or hate them," and the company so far didn't have "the right tools to enable developers to grow their games while at the same time providing a great user experience for non-gamers."
Thus, Facebook has devised a plan to make games less annoying to non-users, and more engaging to gamers at the same time. The first part is relatively easy: Facebook will simply be showing application stories only to users who are already engaging with the application, meaning that people who don't play Farmville won't have to endure Farmville-related posts in their feeds.
If Facebook decides you are interested in games, it will be displaying full game stories (instead of collapsed ones) in the News Feed, as well as adding prominent counts to those stories to highlight tasks that need to be completed within a game.
Bookmarks will get smarter -- apps will be automatically bookmarked and reordered based on actual usage. Finally, Facebook will start notifying users when their friends start playing a game (in addition to highlighting their activity within the game).
From the users' perspective, these are welcome changes, especially for non-gamers who won't be pestered by constant game-related notifications. From the game developers' end, it remains to be seen whether these improvements will alleviate the fact that gaming-related notifications will now be less aggressive than before.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/09/22/mashable.facebook.games/index.html?hpt=C2
If this is the beginning of the improvements introduced in Facebook, perhaps the way forward. But the step forward is certainly not off the server at a time when most visits FB.
ReplyDeleteAs regards the application and selection of applications, this part of the sentence "Facebook Decides If you are interested in the games" is scary. By what right? Selection of the non-gamers and gamers!
Generally, this is not too brilliant idea, at least in my opinion.
This is also scary:
ReplyDelete"Facebook will start notifying users when their friends start playing a game (in addition to highlighting their activity within the game)."
I don;t want all of my friends to be able to track my gaming activities. If they implement this, I'm out of Facebook altogether, there are other avenues for gaming, much less intrusive of our privacy.
Also, if 200 million users are gamers, then it means more than half of the Facebook user base is a gamer. Why cater for the few at the expense of the majority?
This is a stupid move altogether and complicated for nothing. Just don't display the games we are not playing in the news feed and that's it ! Of course there will be much less "free" exposure for the games developers but honestly, they already pester us enough with promos and invite your friends etc, so what if they lose that visibility? I'd rather not see the games I'm not plying in my newsfeed instead of having to block every CR'App I see spamming my News Feed...
I call this another step backward.