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Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

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121–130 of 169 posts

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#121
post #69

This introduces a new way to get kicked out of a walled garden: become too successful. I hate to be cynical, but of course it's always been that way. The only way to get punished in a walled garden scenario is to embarrass the garden owner or bring too much attention to yourself.

Well, let's see if FB really meant to kick the app out. If it's just a matter of unintended behavior from automated filters, it's more an example of "the way to get kicked off of Facebook is to deviate from the norms they expect." As Zuckerberg says, the system looks for 'outlying' behavior. "If you behave like an average user you should never trigger the algorithms that will get you kicked off." http://www.talesfrom…

Maybe he should try to be an average 26-year-old instead of such an "outlier."

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On credit applications our business bank specifically asks if more than 25% of your revenue came from one source in the past calendar year. If you think about it, a typical brick and mortar gets its money from hundreds if not thousands of customers every year (restaurant/cafe, auto mechanic, etc).

Your restaurant/cafe may have lots of customers, but they may be coming to you b/c you're across the street from the movies or a mall. If a primary store in the mall closes (or as in my hometown, a stabbing in the mall scares away customers), your business is pretty dead.

That's why the smart thing to do is open several locations, which is what restaurateurs generally aspire to, for that very reason. Sometimes it backfires, usually it doesn't if the restaurateur knows what they're doing.

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if facebook just "borrows" the idea and implements it on their own. They would have a significant advantage due to the lack of API restrictions.

I think FB would get some bad press if they offered a feature like this directly. Not for screwing over a developer (nobody but other developers care about that), but for the privacy violation/stalking feel the whole thing has.

You say that as if bad press or privacy concerns have had any impact on Facebook thus far.

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, zero notice. It was basically "Poof!" and then the app wouldn't work. Doubly annoying since I was sleeping when it was deactivated (4am PST).

"Zero notice" seems to be a common thing at Facebook. Same happened with my personal account, just gone one day. To be fair, I guess it was because I didn't have my real name on it but it was the name my blog readers know me by. Several thousands of friends - gone, without a warning.

I currently have about 15 different Facebook accounts, each under false names. So far none of them have been shut down, or even questioned. Maybe it was because you got to such a high amount of friends that they took notice, mine are rather low, around 50 - 100 friends on each account...

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#125
post #104
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with little experience with monetization, which ad networks do you usually use on a site with - at the time - no traction? Yoggrt, Fusion Ads and Deck Network come to mind, but you can't use nor apply for them, so what does that leave you?

Sites like The Deck aren't really ad networks, they're more like vanity projects for hipster web designers. AdSense would not work well either with no text content. However CPM banners like Doubleclick combined with affiliate links to dating sites could do very well indeed.

Do you have any article or vendour links I could take a look at? I've struggled to find good banner ads.

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#126
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Zero notice" seems to be a common thing at Facebook. Same happened with my personal account, just gone one day. To be fair, I guess it was because I didn't have my real name on it but it was the name my blog readers know me by. Several thousands of friends - gone, without a warning.

I currently have about 15 different Facebook accounts, each under false names. So far none of them have been shut down, or even questioned. Maybe it was because you got to such a high amount of friends that they took notice, mine are rather low, around 50 - 100 friends on each account...

Probably. Or your 'false names' are not as 'flashy' as mine! I still thought it was quite harsh to just delete the account without any warning or notice at all.

And I've got a lot of friends who aren't using their real names either and are getting away with it, no idea how they are tracking you down.

Insisting on real names is a big part of what makes Facebook so uncool and corporate to me. I want the Myspace days back, seriously. They didn't care at all.

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#127
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the above. Activists have been dealing with these kinds of issues for a long time. Facebook's processes are haphazard, they make arbitrary decisions without notifying people, their automated filters are prone to misjudgment, and they usually don't react until an issue starts to get significant attention.

That sounds exactly like the major complaints about PayPal.

Yeah really. What a coincidence! Do you think they might have investors in common?

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably a bit overstated. Many, many companies are completely dependent on the Microsoft framework or the Oracle/Sun framework, yet there is not an issue with that. The bigger issue is they are dependent on frameworks that are still evolving at very high rates. Rapid changes brings a lot of chaos into the equation, which is dangerous from an investment perspective, but that same chaos can lead to unexpectedly…

But the difference is they're not dependent on the Microsoft presence. If Microsoft ceased to exist tomorrow (localised meteor strike, let's say), the code running on .NET, Windows, etc. will still work. If Facebook is down, so are you.

[deleted]

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#129
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently have about 15 different Facebook accounts, each under false names. So far none of them have been shut down, or even questioned. Maybe it was because you got to such a high amount of friends that they took notice, mine are rather low, around 50 - 100 friends on each account...

Probably. Or your 'false names' are not as 'flashy' as mine! I still thought it was quite harsh to just delete the account without any warning or notice at all. And I've got a lot of friends who aren't using their real names either and are getting away with it, no idea how they are tracking you down. Insisting on real names is a big part of what makes Facebook so uncool and corporate to me. I want the Myspace days ba…

A lot of people on my list have completely preposterous names that are clearly not real. I've changed mine many times to many stupid things and never had a problem.

Re: Breakup Notifier Shut Down By Facebook

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, that is the surest indicator of a bubble-like market. I think some of the recent valuations for companies with many users but no profit nor any obvious business model are dubious at best. However, I think the valuations for companies that depend exclusively on one framework/inftrastructure base provided by another mega-valued company are downright crazy. Companies like Facebook have come and gone before, and w…

That's probably a bit overstated. Many, many companies are completely dependent on the Microsoft framework or the Oracle/Sun framework, yet there is not an issue with that. The bigger issue is they are dependent on frameworks that are still evolving at very high rates. Rapid changes brings a lot of chaos into the equation, which is dangerous from an investment perspective, but that same chaos can lead to unexpectedly…

> Many, many companies are completely dependent on the Microsoft framework or the Oracle/Sun framework, yet there is not an issue with that.

The difference is that if Microsoft of Oracle/Sun disappear, the framework does not.

There is another rather unhealthy (IMHO) trend in the market today for DRM to be applied to everything. That can mean that products consumers have paid good money for can effectively just be switched off arbitrarily, and that's why I don't personally buy things that are DRM'd in such a way.

Developing for mobile platforms can be similarly risky. For example, my startup has no current plans to build an iPhone app, even though our users might appreciate it. We simply don't trust that Apple will not just arbitrarily squish us and not even notice/care based on their track record to date, and we would rather invest our money in safe platforms like the web. Apple aren't going to stop shipping a browser that can view modern web sites, it would kill their products.

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