Facebook Blogged

The flood of applications has caused problems in Facebook right from the start. Facebook has repeatedly changed the rules, but always seems one step behind the creative moves by developers to spam their way into gaining new users. Most recently, limits were put in place that limit the number of invitations users could send out. More people who ignore requests from a particular application, the lower the limit for that app. Facebook is now a little tired of beating questionable developer tactics away with a stick. So now they will try the carrot approach as well - by rewarding developers who play by the rules and build useful, popular applications. The new program is being called the Preferred Application Program. It has different rules, like allowing application users to invite more than the normal number of friends per day. But there are an almost unlimited number of other ways that Facebook can promote preferred developers. Preferred apps can show up higher in search, for example. And Facebook can give them a badge or other sign of endorsement that they can add to their application pages. A more subtle, but possibly more powerful benefit, may be to change the rules on how and when user activities through these applications can show up in the News Feed. Finally, new Facebook users could be presented with a set of default third party applications to add when they create an account, perhaps tailored to their stated interests.