Redesigning Facebook

A new look changes the game for third-party developers.

As of Sunday evening, Facebook users can try out a new profile design. While part of the redesign seems aimed at cleaning up the site's interface, the changes also affect the third-party applications that run on Facebook, undercutting some of the techniques that application developers use to expand their audiences.

Apps on the side: As of Sunday night, Facebook users have the option of a new profile design, which changes the way that they interact with the site’s third-party applications. In particular, most applications have been moved from the profile’s main page to a "boxes" tab, circled in the image above. The redesign also lets users add further tabs for their favorite applications. Developers say that the changes will affect their ability to promote their applications. Credit: Facebook

Facebook opened up to third-party developers just over a year ago, with the launch of Facebook Platform in May 2007. Developers host their applications on their own servers but make them available through Facebook's interface. Facebook users can browse through lists of applications and add any that they find interesting to their profile pages. Users can grant applications permission to access some of the information in their profiles, to publish notices that appear on the profile pages, and to send notices to their friends. Developers raced to get access to Facebook's users, who the site claims now number more than 80 million.

Story continues below

However, the initial gold rush had its excesses. A user who installs a Facebook application is given the option of recommending it to his or her friends, but some developers made it difficult to skip that step. Facebook responded by forbidding applications from preselecting long lists of users' friends to receive notifications. The company also suspended a few high-profile applications that it said weren't respecting Facebook's privacy policy. The profile redesign continues the process of reining in third-party applications, while adding features that the company says will make for a better user experience. "Third-party applications are more tightly integrated into Facebook in order to make using applications simpler and more seamless," the company said on a Facebook page dedicated to the redesign. "Users will have the option to interact with an application before adding it, grant it access to their information, and decide where they want it placed, if at all, on their profiles."

Specifically, the profile redesign splits the existing profile into tabs, emphasizing the wall, where a user's friends leave him or her short, semipublic messages, and the news feed, which describes the user's activities on the site. Most important for third-party developers, it removes most of the applications that the user has installed from the main page of the profile, relegating them to a "boxes" tab instead. To compensate for the applications' reduced visibility, Facebook allows users to add tabs for their favorite applications, presenting the possibility that developers could design entire sections of a user's profile.