A hot topic in the Facebook Developer Community right now has to do with the idea that Facebook will soon start charging a $375 application verification fee annually to developers who develop applications for the Facebook platform. In exchange, the developers applications will be awarded an official facebook stamp of approval badge and priority listing above other applications. I want to go on record as saying that I am personally in favor of this, I think that it will reduce the number of spammy applications that are out there as well as life the bar in terms of what goes live.
If a developer has to have his application approved, and he actually has a small investment in the application, it’s more likely that his application will function that much better upon it’s release, not that any existing applications mis-function, but I think that it goes without saying that quality is always a good thing. I also think that with developers paying a verification fee that they will likely build more useful applications that could potentially yield something that most social networks are missing right now and that is a profit model and a game plan. One of my biggest complaints all while watching the social landscape grow and grow is that there really isn’t anyone outside of the social network itself that is profiting, and of course the networks don’t profit directly from their vast user base, instead their income comes from the very intelligent, targeted ad solutions that they have running.
Facebook Irks Developers With Application Verification Fee
Posted on: Wednesday, 19 November 2008, 11:24 CST
Facebook’s recently announced plan to charge a fee in order to verify applications built for its social network has many developers up in arms.
In order to verify each application developed for the site, Facebook said it will charge developers $375 annually. The verification fee is optional and is reduced to $175 for students and nonprofits.
Platform program manager Sandra Liu Huang said Tuesday that Facebook opened the Application Verification Program to developers on Monday.
Developers who pay the fee and register their application for Facebook verification will earn a special badge that will put their application in a more prominent place among the 48,000 already available for Facebook users.
The fee will cover costs on Facebook’s end related to reviewing the applications, and it will recur each year along with a fresh application review, Huang said, adding that she expects that several hundred will become verified initially.
Some developers are not thrilled about the new verification concept.
Mike Knoop, 19, who developed an application that lets Facebook users request phone numbers from their friends, is not opposed to paying a fee to participate but doesn’t like the idea of paying each year.
“Because its recurring every 12 months, I think that’s going to shut out a lot of the smaller developers that don’t have the initial capital to invest in Facebook applications,” he said.
Huang said if Facebook eventually finds that the costs of reviewing the applications declines, it would be open to lowering the reverification fee.
“I think that the $375 verification fee can be justified if it were a one-time fee. But recurring every 12 months? This will be the big wedge between those apps which get verified and those which don’t even apply. I’m very curious to see what percentage of apps get verified,” another developer wrote on the official Facebook discussion forum.
Another developer said the verification process would also ass a notion of distrust among users.
“Users already distrust applications on Facebook platform. Now they will distrust unverified applications even more. This seems unfair. My application is already ‘well designed,’ ‘trustworthy’ and ‘meaningful’ to thousands of users. Why should I pay $375 a year just because Facebook allowed so many useless, spammy applications in the first place?”
Meanwhile, rival social network MySpace in a statement said: “MySpace led the way in creating policies that promote a healthy ecosystem, which includes treating all developers, large or small, equally. We already review every app before it goes live, and the cost is nominal so we have no plans to charge developers.”
Facebook Irks Developers With Application Verification Fee – Technology – redOrbit
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