Change is Coming.
At Facebook we're focused on making Facebook Platform a better experience for both developers and users. To that end, we're working on some changes that we're planning to roll out within the coming weeks that we wanted to be sure you know about beforehand.
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook Platform launched in May 2007 and drew rapid attention from developers; a three-week assessment of the new platform captured how quickly the ecosystem was forming. Facebook is signaling that growth will be paired with rules intended to improve the experience for users and developers.
The changes arrive alongside Facebook’s push toward profile-based advertising, making application behavior more consequential to the quality and trustworthiness of the broader service.
First-order effects
- Facebook application developers face forthcoming platform-rule changes, with coverage framing the effort as rewarding well-behaved applications and curbing user abuse.
- Users gain a clearer platform-level response to applications that degrade their experience, rather than having quality control left solely to individual developers.
Second-order effects
- Developers whose products depend on intrusive or abusive tactics face a weaker position, while developers aligned with Facebook’s quality expectations gain a relative advantage.
- Facebook can protect the user environment around its targeted-advertising effort by making application conduct part of platform governance.
Third-order effects
- If Facebook continues to make access conditional on application behavior, third-party development shifts from an open distribution opportunity toward a governed ecosystem where trust is platform infrastructure.
- The move points to platform operators using policy enforcement, not just technical interfaces, to determine which complementary products can scale.
The trend: Social platforms are pairing rapid developer-platform expansion with governance rules that protect user trust and the platform’s commercial model.