Dear Facebook,
Every time you release an update or tweak to your iPhone client, it becomes an even larger piece of shit while simultaneously not actually adding any worthwhile features from the standard site. From what I hear, you don’t even have a native iPad app yet. I can’t speak to your Android app, but knowing your iOS development cycle, I doubt it is any better. Frankly, this is pathetic. For a company that has it’s finger on the pulse of social networking more than any other, you seem to be neglecting an increasingly apparent future in mobile platforms. If you don’t want to get bitch-slapped by the likes of Google+ and Twitter, both of which embrace mobile usage at their very core, it might be time to pump some much-needed development in to native mobile applications. Your iOS and Android apps should mirror the features of today’s and tomorrow’s Facebook, not the Facebook of 2-3 years ago as it currently does. Until that happens, you’re just about begging something like Google+ to usurp your throne.
Sincerely,
Someone who likes your service, but will jump ship if you keep acting like you’re the only game in town.
Good news, everyone!
I don’t know exact numbers, but it is probably a safe assumption that the Facebook app for the iPhone is likely one of the all-time most used 3rd party apps. That being the case, why does Facebook continually expand and improve upon its web-based features, while all but completely ignoring its mobile iPhone platform? Sure, they integrated the “Places” feature pretty rapidly after it was introduced, but it has so far been a flop (Does anyone know anyone who actually checks in somewhere other than their own house using Facebook Places?). Aside from that, they’ve largely left the application completely alone except for minor bug fixes here and there. I’m not proposing anything huge here, but I’ve got some ideas for features I’d love to see integrated in to Facebook’s iPhone app.
- Liking Comments
This feature has been integrated in to Facebook for a while now. Would it really be so hard to update the app so I can swipe a comment to like/unlike it? - Properly Attaching Links & Videos
There are three main status updating options: Text, Photos, Links, Videos. Is there some reason that the latter two on that list don’t make the cut for the iPhone? Last I checked, the newer iPhones handle video quite nicely and can easily copy/paste a link from Safari in Facebook. - Tagging Friends/Pages
This is one of the changes they’ve made lately that really made sense to me. Why this handy little feature hasn’t made its way over to the iPhone is beyond me. - Ignoring Applications
Everyone’s got at least one Facebook friend who uses every quiz, game, etc, that spams their Facebook wall every single time they beat a level or take a quiz. PLEASE let me ignore whatever new annoying application they’ve found from my phone, so I don’t have to remember to look back and find it next time I’m using the web interface.
That’s it for now. Maybe whatever monkey they’ve got programming their iPhone app will see this and take note. Anything else you’d like to see that I missed? Please comment and let the world know.
Not too long ago, Facebook announced the Open Graph protocol. For those of you unaware of what this is, here’s a brief description in their own words:
The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph. For instance, this is used on Facebook to enable any web page to have the same functionality as a Facebook Page.
While many different technologies and schemas exist and could be combined together, there isn’t a single technology which provides enough information to richly represent any web page within the social graph. The Open Graph protocol builds on these existing technologies and gives developers one thing to implement. Developer simplicity is a key goal of the Open Graph protocol which has informed many of the technical design decisions.
Put simply, that little “like” button that you now see all over the Internet lets Facebook know what pages are more popular than others and when you search for something on Facebook, that plays a large role in to the rankings of the search results. While this is a great system for businesses to help drive more traffic to their site or promote their brand, it will, as Facebook’s open graph continues to grow, be a very bad thing for bad news.
Say, for example, that a terrible earthquake occurs and you read a terrific article about the aftermath of the earthquake and the destruction that it caused. Are you inclined to “like” the devastation of an earthquake? Probably not. Therefore, information that could potentially be critical to the recovery of the earthquake, news about where is safe, aftershocks, and who knows what else will likely never get a “like” click and will suffer in Facebook’s search rankings. See where I’m going with this? Although it is a fantastic new way to interconnect the social web, some thought clearly needs to be put in to the logistics of using a term such as “Like”. In Facebook’s credit, you can already change the button to instead say “Recommend”, but perhaps something like that should be the default, not the second option that few sites use.
In light of recent Facebook privacy policy changes, one search has been becoming more and more popular on Google.

There is quite a large selection of Facebook pages with over one million members (Fans? Likers? I can’t keep track of the correct terminology). The following page is the absolute worst one out there. It’s so offensive, I almost don’t even want to link directly to it, this wouldn’t be the World Wide Web without links, so here it is:
When the FBI is searching for whack-jobs who are actually trying to assassinate a public figure such as the President, they need to closely examine all 1,165,602 (as of this posting) of the douche-nozzles that “like” that page.
Today is a big day here at TAV! We just passed a small yet, to us, significant milestone on our Facebook Fan Page: 100 fans. Thank you to everyone who has become a fan so far. We hope to continue to grow and will continue to bring you the latest in everything Apple.
If you aren’t a fan of ours on Facebook yet, or weren’t aware we were on Facebook, you can follow us any time by clicking the Facebook link towards the top right of any page here.
If you are already a fan, please suggest us to anyone you might know who uses and loves Apple products as much as we do.
Thanks Again!
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