returncontrol

While rolling out new new profile pages to users today, Facebook also released a modified Apps toolbar — which no longer shows recently used applications.  Developers are not happy about this (myself included) as it makes it difficult for users to get back to applications they’ve used but haven’t yet formally bookmarked.  It’s a good bet that a lot of apps will show a dip in return visits beginning today.

To make matters worse, there seems to have been no advance warning of the change.  And as of this morning, the Facebook Beta site that is supposed to act as a preview sandbox for developers didn’t show the change either.

Facebook’s response?  A company rep posted this in the forums after developers complained: “We’re sorry about the confusion — we’re in the midst of finalizing the feature and what you see here is definitely not final!”  No word on what the final version will look like nor when it’ll show up.

As I was just saying, Facebook’s seemingly haphazard release process is harming its relationship with the developer community.  The more the company ignores the needs of developers who, in many cases, are building their businesses and livelihoods on Facebook’s platform, the less chance it has of sustaining the budding market its created.

Update: Facebook finally posted a note about the upcoming changes to the application menu on their Developer Blog at the end of the day.  I logged back into my Facebook account and noticed the menu in the lower left corner of my window, as the blog post notes.  However, I’m not sure I would’ve found it there without having read the post.  Hopefully they find a way to notify users of this change.