When friends spam you - should Facebook charge, close, or moderate its developer program?

One thing that made Facebook very popular is its developer program. This allowed users like you and me who are creative in developing our very own application and share it in the social network for users to try out.

However, since late last year, there were so much abuses committed against this program. This includes:

• Applications that creates a photo and tag friends, appearing on notifications and not on your Facebook wall. (SIMs, Who's Viewing Your Album?, Who's Viewing Your Profile?)
  
• Applications that imitates Facebook's "like" feature. (calling itself "like", "likes", "lika")

What is most common in these spam programs is that they are created in several variants using the same engine or re-uploaded several time using different user profiles. Some are also classified as a virus already.

To counter this, Facebook has now stopped applications from sending us notices. This is an issue especially for users who have authorized specific applications to update them such as NetworkedBlogs. I think what Facebook should prevent from sending spam notifications are those that were not authorized in the first place.

What is the worst thing that can happen to Facebook with these applications?

• People will get fed up with all the spam and leave.
• Facebook will face a huge attack that it can't protect itself from - sooner or later.

What can Facebook do?

• Perhaps it is about time for Facebook to have a fee entry for its developer program, rather than be a free for all. This way, any abuser can be caught, properly identified, and be made accountable for their actions. They can implement a similar approach to developers selling apps in an iTunes store.
• Moderating application is another option but that may be too many to manage. However, I believe the above, the entry fee, will make abusers think twice if they will join.

We always say that social networking in 2010 will be bigger than ever. If it is all about Facebook, then all I can think about is that the 1st quarter is all about users defending itself from various form of spam attacking the network.

Google Buzz: is it really buzzing?

Like many Gmail users, such us Mike Abundo, I got excited when the news about Google Buzz came out and had my first taste of it. What I like about it includes:

• Having instant followers / following right away.


• Integrate your various social networking profiles.


• Receive notification at your inbox whenever someone response.


• Easy integration of photos and videos.

However, as soon as I started using and configuring it, felt its disadvantage especially if you are already an active social network application user. This includes:

• It can be spammy especially if the people you add are so active in applications like Twitter. Most of the time, I end up unfollowing them.


• Redundant content. If you are an active social network user, chances are, you will see the same content getting posted. If the people you follow don't post original content that much, you will also feel a sense of silence in your buzz community (which is my situation now with FriendFeed).
  
• Content duplication also happens where a feed appears twice (upper and lower part of your Buzz page).
  
• Also have instances where I muteed a post then it suddenly appears again.


• When using Internet Explorer, the view window does not adjust. An example here would be viewing a YouTube video like in this image.
  

It will be interesting though if Buzz will allow me to do the following:

• embed Google Docs forms and files for sharing / editing with friends.
• integrate Google Wave like features into Buzz.

How about you? What do you think of Google Buzz?

Drupal Camp Manila: Crossing the Tech Side (again)

Yesterday, I was at Drupal Camp Manila at G2iX to give full support to DigitalFilipino Club member Rachel Jaro.

The nice thing I enjoyed about this event is the opportunity of meeting new people especially on the tech side.

I admire the work that Rick Bahague does in CP-Union where they develop and teach Drupal to non-profits. Discovered Open Atrium as well and included this in my must try experiment soon.

Impressed also on how Jeffrey Ocaya used sites like Picasa Web album to store and publish photo streams in his site. Managing photos is one of the concerns I have with Drupal.

Easy Drupal installation techniques and tools suggestion by Marc Caballero were more than helpful. Will tinker on Mobify and the top 40 Drupal modules.

I've been thinking about Drupal for quite sometime now as a possible platform for DigitalFilipino.com's future site. However, I had my share of hesitation for the work that needs to be done that includes url redirect, SEO friendliness, site structure, among others. However, Daniel Honrade Jr.'s Devavrata theme for Drupal is something that I am eager to tinker and see if it can be used for the site.

Jan Pabellon talked about workflow automation matching with that of John Ross Castaño about forms API just made me realize about a solution being asked of me on workflow.

One session that also got me thinking about opportunities is that of Globe Labs' Greg Igaya.

Look forward joining Drupal Camp again next year.