Marketing Ninja

There is a new problem on the horizon for budding Facebook Application Developers like myself: the average Facebook user hates us and wants us to cease and desist.
In a previous article on Facebook Application Monetization I mentioned that one of the challenges facing monetized Facebook applications is the phenomenon of “Facebook Application Fatigue.” To recap:

Facebook users want a limited number of apps visible on their profile page. This means that your application will not only be competing with applications within similar domains, but your application will also be competing for precious real-estate space on every individual user’s Facebook profile page.

What is Facebook Application Fatigue?

Short Version: Most Facebook applications are useless clutter developed by people who have no idea what Facebook is about. The users themselves recognize this and have grown to resent having to dig through a mess of visual diarrhea just to find their friends’ walls.

Long Version: 99% of Facebook applications have one or more of the following attributes:

• Aesthetically unpleasing
• Useless gimmick
• Provides content totally unrelated to Facebook’s purpose as a communication tool
• Does not work as intended
• Difficult or awkward to use
• Profoundly stupid
• Identical to another, already popular application

You can come to the conclusion that given that there are 3000 facebook applications out there then it has become a bit tiresome for Facebook users to find decent applications in the midst of so many bad ones.

Facebook Application Fatigue is not “fatigue” in the sense that Facebook users are exhausted by the saturation of Facebook applications; they aren’t tired of using Facebook applications at all!

Facebook Application Fatigue is a prejudicial reluctance against trying new applications, because users are protective of their profile real-estate and their time.

To summarize, due to the large amount of Facebook Applications (I’d almost call it saturation), users are now demonstrating and increased amount of selectiveness when it comes to choosing which applications occupy their precious profile space.

Many of the hardcore Facebook users played around with several applications shortly after the onset of the F8 platform release. That was at the end of May; here in August we must acknowledge that those users have grown accustomed to a small subset of applications available to all users, and the exploratory period has come to an end.

Most long-time Facebook users are not going to just poke around the application directory and simply add new applications for the sake of adding them anymore; that time has come and gone. Facebook is all about communicating an image of yourself to your peers, and unless someone creates a truly captivating, innovative, or better F8 application, no one is going to adopt it on a whim.
The Causes of Facebook Application Fatigue

• Chicken and the Egg Problem – In economics a networked service is defined as
  

  any service which increases in value with each additional consumer or user of the network.

  Any networked service is going to suffer from the initial chicken and the egg problem: if we establish the network, how in the hell are we going to get enough users to use it to make it valuable to most users? If you can come up with an easy answer to that question then you’re going to be a wealthy person one day. How does this relate to Facebook applications? In my previous post on monetizing Facebook applications I broke down all successful Facebook applications into three categories: peer-to-peer communication services, interest publication services, and peer-to-peer relationship services.

  • Peer to Peer Communication Applications – This class of applications suffers the most from the chicken and the egg problem; for instance, in order to use the Graffiti application to draw on someone else’s wall, both you and that person need to have the application installed. Competing with a well-established application in this area is very difficult; almost 7 million users have Graffiti installed, and thus that application is significantly more valuable than any other applications that allow you to draw on someone else’s wall, even if those other applications are better or easier to use.
  • Peer to Peer Relationship Applications – These applications still suffer from the Chicken and the Egg problem but not in all instances; for instance, the application Top Friends does not require that your peers use it, because Top Friends establishes a relationship via the expression of user preferences as to which friends appear first on the user’s profile; it does not require two-party consent. However, the Likeness application, which compares how similar you are to other users of the application, very much suffers from the C&E problem as both the comparer and the compared are required to have the application installed. Bottom Line: If both parties have to have to application installed, you have a C&E problem.
  • Interest Publication Services – Since these applications are merely a publishing service for making readers of your Facebook profile explicitly aware of your preferences in regard to books, movies, interests, music, or activities they by definition do not require multiple users in order to have value. However, if you developed an application in which you compared users with similiar interests, you would then run into the C&E problem. The bottom line holds true.

  So how does the C&E problem rear its head for Facebook users? If the application requires two parties to use it in order for it to achieve something of value, then users will naturally gravitate towards the service that most of their friends use. This makes it very challenging for new entrants into the domains covered by services that suffer from the C&E problem.

• Profile Clutter Problem – If every user went and added hundreds of applications like how they did on Mashable it would be an utter disaster for Facebook. The profiles would be so bloated and visually offensive that no one would be able to read it and discern any useful information about his or her Facebook friends. Although the Mashable example is extreme the concept holds true: users do not want their profiles completely overloaded with obnoxious amounts of garbage. Thus Facebook users are going to exercise cautious discretion as to what applications do or do not get added to their profile real-estate; many users have already made those decisions and are satisfied with their current handful of applications.
• Over-Exposed Application Invitation Problem – Invitations to try out new applications are incredibly over-exposed; rather than being viewed as an attempt to experiment with some brand-new state of the art technology, they are viewed as annoying intrusions into the average user’s Facebook experience. I have yet to accept an invitation to try a new application, because if I tried all of the invitations I have ever received, I wouldn’t be able to do anything on Facebook other than try out new applications!
• Weary of Fads and Gimmicks – Applications such as Pirates, Ninjas, and other similar ilk are viewed cautiously by some socially savvy users and professionals as they do not want to have a paper trail to link them to specific fads that may be viewed skeptically by some of their friends. If you think this is true, go ahead and sign up for Pirates and try inviting any of your Professors to the application; I guarantee you the vast majority of them, even the most active Professors on Facebook, will not add them for sake of not being taken by their peers seriously. Facebook can be used as a powerful professional tool, and many applications such as Pirates diminish Facebook’s value as a tool, thus many users who might even find the Pirates vs. Ninjas fad amusing will not install them. Many application designers neglect the fact their applications are a direct reflection of the users who install them.
• Protective of Facebook Time – Many Facebook users are guilty in their own eyes of spending “too much” time poking around on Facebook; this is especially true of college and high school students. Facebook users are aware of their wasted time and some of them are loath to try new applications simply because they view it as another time sink, but this time it’s an opt-out time sink. Many users will simply choose not to install an application simply because they do not want to spend any more time on Facebook than they feel they have to already.

In the near future I will be starting some discussion ways to design application that work around Facebook Application Fatigue. In the mean time, please share your throughts!

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