Facebook: Beyond the notifications

12:00 PM on 03.03.2010   |   Brad Nicholson

22 comments

_{As social games become more and more accepted, and the base continues to grow and grow, I decided it was time to start asking some Facebook developers about the platform. This is the first article in a weeklong series that examines multiple angles: the division between social and hardcore, big publisher invasion, the necessity of notifications, and social games' future. This article is about notifications. In my question, I called that tactic "invasive." The responses react to that word.}

Just like that, the notifications stopped. On March 1st, 10AM Pacific Time, Facebook removed the ability for application developers to send notifications to its users, ending the virtual logjam in that respective inbox.

The clot has not been removed. Rather, it's been thrust off the social platform to another location: users' e-mail. Developers must now send messages to personal digital mail. Most apps are asking for that address now, others will no doubt require it in the near future.

Social games are often knocked for their ceaseless updates. But there is a reason developers used, and sometimes abused, notifications.

Why? Notifications are part of the culture of Facebook. And some people liked the barrage -- it kept them connected and learning about new wares.

Word-of-mouth, critical reception, and marketing doesn't have the pull on Facebook like it does in our little slice of the world.

"People have the option to publish their status or not and we like to leave it to players to decide," Bill Mooney, VP and GM, FarmVille at Zynga Games tells me via e-mail, the next target of possible FarmVille messaging.

"That said," he continues, "messages between users and networks are a huge part of the Facebook model and many people appreciate the level of communication offered.

"Eventually, I think Facebook will become more personalized -- publishing feeds only to people who may or may not be interested in a certain topic. There is a dichotomy -- many game users love the messages, which people who don’t play want to see fewer game communications. We’re also moving to provide more communication in-game."

At least one developer did see standard notifications as a problem -- a bad mark on a platform that is still learning what it can do with its 350 million members. In a sense, the spam was evidence of its immaturity.

"Much of the current intrusiveness of these games shouldn't be necessary if the game experience is at its core fun and socially engaging," PopCap Games Bejeweled Blitz co-designers John Vechey and Jon "JD" David tell me via e-mail.

"We try to err on the side of minimalism in this respect; Bejeweled Blitz does very, very little in the way of automatically generated messages among players. Almost all such communications are opt-in choices made by the player, and we believe that if the game in question is good enough, players will want to share parts of that game experience often enough that the game can both grow organically and be non-intrusive in the eyes of all but the most curmudgeonly social network users."

When the switch is flipped two things seem possible: we'll get less notifications, and some developers will hurt for it.

"Some games," 3G Studios James Kosta tells me, "and here's where I ding Zynga, have taken intrusiveness to a whole other level. Facebook will have to implement new features and policies and every developer will suffer. In order to make money, apps need to be as intrusive as the user is comfortable with it.

I interviewed these three developers before it was widely known that Facebook was set to turn off notifications. And it looks like what Kosta supposed came true: this is certainly a policy switch.

But is it a fruitful one for everyone?

Source 1 [Facebook]

Source 2 [Mashable] [image]