Facebook’s application “About Pages” inferior to new Facebook Pages
Posted by Omri on May 15th, 2009Earlier this year one of the brands I work with spent the time to develop a Facebook application. The goal was to connect with the brand’s industry in a format superior to simply creating a Facebook Group. In short order our application started to take off and it began to serve as a competitive differentiator. That all changed when Facebook launched the new Facebook Pages.
The new Facebook Pages duplicated much of what we were attempting to create with our application, but went further, since Facebook Pages allow posting right to a fan’s stream when they are not connected to Facebook, and without prompting for permission.Â
For the last couple of months we have debated abandoning our application for a Facebook Page. The downside of doing so is having to start all over with users and fans. Not something we relished. But the upside of posting to the stream is compelling. Yesterday Facebook announced that they “are updating application About Pages to look like Profile Pages“. This is wonderful news and prevents us from having to start over.Â
Inside Facebook writes:
App About Pages Getting Streams
Second, application about pages are getting updated to look and feel like public profile pages. This means app developers can now send status updates and post other content to their app profile page stream that will show up in fans’ home page streams. It’s a new and interesting way for developers to keep their users engaged by posting interesting content.
Hopefully these changes will launch soon. How will application users and application fans be distinguished? Does posting status updates on the About Page post to the streams of both users and fans of the application? Looking at the settings on the Facebook beta site, it seems to only mention fans, but we’ll see if users are included as well.Â
Tags: Facebook, Facebook Apps, Facebook Pages
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