Aug2007 01

{mosimage}Having spent the last couple of weeks focused on developing apps for Facebook, I've come to the conclusion -- it's not worth the hassle.



Not only do they have restrictive code, they use FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that won't allow certain HTML or any Javascript calls, however it's the way their system works, which is what I have a problem with.


Apps on Facebook aren't dynamic. Facebook caches your first call and won't change that, unless you give another call to refresh the content. When you do that, you can use what's called an "Infinite Session key", in order to refresh all the other users of your app.


As you can see, if I don't refresh the content, then user's will be left with profiles with old content. All my apps are ones that need to be refreshed daily, meaning I need to visit Facebook daily and need to click on each app to update. Personally, I think they've done that deliberately to drive up their pageviews / site traffic.


Another issue I have is, Facebook is rolling in cash, yet developers get no help from the company itself. Developers have to help each other with Discussion Boards and Wikis, that may or may not have the right information. I've heard of User-generated content, but User-generated support ? That's a new one on me.



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