Facebook Developers

Montoya wrote:

Let me put it this way: I'm not sure why Facebook thinks they need to "fix" the apps platform. Users like apps. They have a good perception of whether an app is good or not. They know when an app is trying to be spammy, and in some cases, they don't mind, but usually they will support the apps that follow the rules. Did I mention that users like apps?

The users that like apps won't say aloud, but the ones that hate them will do anything they can to make sure others know.  So to Facebook it just seems like people hate apps.

Remember, someone is more likely to say they hate something than saying they like it.

mvernal wrote:

In terms of adding more places to solicit reviews, I heard two suggestions -- one, some kind of call to action after the user uses an application for a while and, two, the ability to review an app in the footer.  Those both seem pretty reasonable and seem like something we can investigate further.

A FBML tag that developers can put anywhere in their application that pops a review dialog.

mvernal wrote:

Greetings --

In terms of adding more places to solicit reviews, I heard two suggestions -- one, some kind of call to action after the user uses an application for a while and, two, the ability to review an app in the footer.  Those both seem pretty reasonable and seem like something we can investigate further.

A number of folks mentioned that the "review on remove" feature should be limited to users that had used the application for an extended period of time.  While I appreciate that viewpoint, the problem is that there are lots of really valuable opinions that can be formed quickly.  For example, if the application was clearly untrustworthy or sketchy in some way, this is a useful way for users to let other users know about their experiences.  So restricting this to people that had used the app for weeks would filter out that valuable feedback.

Thanks,
-mike

Mike, as long as the review-on-remove goes, this approach is wrong. You cannot ask ALL users who remove an app to review it, just like you can't ask ALL users who use it to review it. Make the review-on-remove step optional at least, like, add a link 'You have now removed CrapApp, do you want to help other users by reviewing it as well?' ; now that may be an semi-balanced sampled group.


P.S. If you plan to change something, please make it quick. You are already ruining our review sections

Last edited by zerostar07 (2009-04-04 12:01:15)

JohnMitch wrote:

mvernal wrote:

In terms of adding more places to solicit reviews, I heard two suggestions -- one, some kind of call to action after the user uses an application for a while and, two, the ability to review an app in the footer.  Those both seem pretty reasonable and seem like something we can investigate further.

A FBML tag that developers can put anywhere in their application that pops a review dialog.

^^

Donkzilla wrote:

JohnMitch wrote:

A FBML tag that developers can put anywhere in their application that pops a review dialog.

Not just a brilliant idea, an idea so obvious that one has to wonder why the tag is missing.

So obvious? I've never thought of it and one cannot assume everyone else thinks the same.

JohnMitch wrote:

mvernal wrote:

In terms of adding more places to solicit reviews, I heard two suggestions -- one, some kind of call to action after the user uses an application for a while and, two, the ability to review an app in the footer.  Those both seem pretty reasonable and seem like something we can investigate further.

A FBML tag that developers can put anywhere in their application that pops a review dialog.

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/04/face … l-reviews/

Congrats on being quoted on your idea.

I 'm going to use Causes [i'm not related to them at all] again as an example. If i were the guy running that app i would be stumped: http://www.facebook.com/reviews/see_all … 2318966938
Can you tell me how this helps me as a user to decide whether i should use the app? The ratings are apparently random. Someone said 'h', another one said 'ugh' and someone else said 'ITS FOR DOUCHEBAGS'.

OK, that girl on the second page looks cute and she gave 5 stars, should I add the app or not? The more time passes, the more idiotic this system looks. We can do better ourselves by removing the reviews app and asking users to leave a comment in the discussion section instead. That will be more useful to everyone.

Last edited by zerostar07 (2009-04-06 04:08:45)

I think I'm going to have to slightly agree with Donkzilla on this one.

Lots of these 1-star ratings are very well deserved.  The only difference is that these 1-star reviews wouldn't actually have occurred via normal happenstance because no one cares enough to try to navigate to the about page to leave a comment.  They'd rather just remove it and get the hell away.

Making these reviews more accessible is great, I just agree that there should be some kind of counter, another place to entice reviews that isn't only upon application removal.  And/or requiring some text when leaving a rating.

herky wrote:

I think I'm going to have to slightly agree with Donkzilla on this one.

Lots of these 1-star ratings are very well deserved.  The only difference is that these 1-star reviews wouldn't actually have occurred via normal happenstance because no one cares enough to try to navigate to the about page to leave a comment.  They'd rather just remove it and get the hell away.

Making these reviews more accessible is great, I just agree that there should be some kind of counter, another place to entice reviews that isn't only upon application removal.  And/or requiring some text when leaving a rating.

show me a bad app that has 5 star ratings. But don't include those apps with the 'Add me' reviews ; these are indeed wrong, but facebook can easily fix it by not displaying the reviews directly on page (just show the review stars, and maybe on a secondary page, the whole review so that people cannot use the reviews app as a message board). Go ahead, if you find a spammy app that gets 4-5 stars, they i 'll shut up.

while we can CONVINCE a small number of people to give a review (most probably positive) of our apps, everyone who removes the app is FORCED to give a review, which is mostly random. I even bet most of these users uninstalled the apps right after install (for apps that require adding). It's normal to uninstall an app when you find out it's not what you were looking for, but it's not normal to ask the user to rate it (if he has barely used it).  I 've gone through the review ratings of a number of apps,  they're just random ratings that don't really make sense.

Anyone care to create a facebook group for this matter?? I would redirect users to that group to let us know what they think

cyMall wrote:

I don't think they are forced... I just tried it when it first came out I didn't have to provide a review and it allowed me to remove.

My bad ; in my corner of the planet i haven't still got the review-on-remove feature. Anyway, certainly users get confused and post irrelevant reviews. Here's what a user wrote:

Facebook Platform Team wrote:

Hello,

Thanks for all this feedback. We're taking it in and iterating with it, but for now we wanted to let you know that the goal here is to increase the number of inputs users have towards creating reviews. We are working on a number of ways to boost reviews visibility and placement, and these include points of contact that will most likely skew positively in sampling.

I'm a student 1st year computer programing and even I know that this is the most stupid form of receiving feedback you could ever come it with!
It would be just as smart as forcing them to rate the app before they install it!

Don't you think that if you set up a random survey that offer 1 favor point for completing the feedback after they have logged into the app 10 times & used the app at least 100 turn/shots
    until then really are you qualified to rate it?
I'm sure Facebook can afford to bulk buy favor points from the app owners!

Well theirs my 2 cents worth!
Noel

Such a terrible setup.

The two bad reviewers added the app and never clicked a -single- button, so they had absolutely no idea on what the game is about. Are you joking facebook? How did you ever think this was a good idea?

If your thought is to help punish apps that do things like notify all your friends or attempt to spam - that's your job! You should be removing these apps, not letting them get a few 1 star reviews. I am absolutely amazed.

This app just made it to the directory two days ago,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37189613@N04/3423301171/

Last edited by savageguy123 (2009-04-08 06:43:55)