Developers complained — and Facebook listened.

Late last month, Facebook enacted a new spam control system to cut down on the rampant spam on the company’s application platform. But the company quickly came under fire when the new controls apparently cut out a number of legitimate applications. Disgruntled developers quickly took to Facebook’s message boards and the press to complain about the company’s lack of communication prior to the shut-downs.

It looks like Facebook heard those complaints loud and clear. On Thursday the company announced several changes to its application developer tools and its app spam control policy to give developers more insight into how their apps are being received by the larger community — before those complaints prompt spam control action. Facebook is now rolling out a “news feed” tab in its developer dashboard that shows the positive and negative feedback apps have received in an easy-to-read graph form.

In addition, Facebook said it has softened the way it responds to app complaints. Now, when Facebook receives excessive negative feedback on an app, it will first disable only the aspect of the app that is receiving the majority of complaints, rather than deleting the app entirely. For instance, Facebook engineer Mike Vernal wrote in a blog post announcing the changes: “If an app is generating a lot of negative feedback via chat messages, we will take action only on that app’s ability to publish to chat but otherwise leave the app intact.”

Facebook also says it will now disable, rather than delete, apps that receive negative feedback across multiple channels. Users will not be able to access an app in disabled mode, but developers will still be able to access, test, and edit it. Developers will be able to appeal when their apps are disabled entirely or in a granular fashion.

All in all, these are very smart moves for Facebook to make. The swift response to last month’s criticism shows that it is taking its developers seriously; as does Facebook’s willingness to be more transparent about how they are regulating the apps. After all, developer trust is key to any API strategy.

Here is a look at the new dashboard “news feed” feature:

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

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Are extended car warranties a waste of your own time and money? Extended warranties on objects like televisions and home stereos (are they even called that anymore?) generally are, because nothing typically goes wrong with these. That’s really not how it is with a car full of moving components and burning heated fuel though. Have a look at it this way – would you get used cars that came with no warranty? If the idea makes you uncomfortable, there’s your answer to why a warranty on used cars is a great idea. Just as medical insurance protects you in the event something happens, there always is something possible with a car, particularly used cars. Folks buying on eBay Motors know that – buyers will always pay extra for a car that’s under warranty. The warranty makes people comfortable for a good reason – a car is really an insanely advanced mechanical machine and there are any variety of things that can go wrong with it every so often.

Some people do have a legitimate point when they say that extended car warranties are not useful. These are usually people who have bought their warranties without researching their options – from spam usually. Your extended warranty is just as good as the company that offers it.

If you’re buying from an agency that just might go under really quickly, you will have nothing to show for your money. Folks without a car that’s reliable don’t get an interview, and don’t get a job. Just give it some thought – in case the transmission drops out, it can quickly set you back a lot more than a couple thousand dollars. All accounted for, there are more reasons to get extended car warranties than there are not to.

But there are things you need to take into account. Your first point here is that your extended warranty has to come from a reputable company. If one company appears much more affordable than another, in the event you want to go with the cut-rate price, try to look at your options in financing the better more expensive warranty. Typically, you need to get 0% financing. If you bought an extended warranty from a car dealer, they’d usually add it to the purchase price of your vehicle and finance it with your 14% APR car loan.

In the event you feel that there is nothing you could do about your car now since your car’s very old, think again. Agencies like Warranty Direct have products for cars which are well over 100,000 miles. They cover big-ticket items like transmission and engine, and offer you 24×7 emergency roadside assistance. That should make you feel like you’re really driving a Mercedes, now shouldn’t it?

The future of the Zune as a standalone media player is still a little in doubt, but its future of being able to send crucially important e-mails and, in return, get a boatload of spam is now fully assured. A free e-mail app has been added to the Zune Marketplace supporting Gmail, Windows Live Mail, and of course good ‘ol POP3 accounts. Unfortunately all we have to gaze upon is that tiny screenshot over on the right, but it certainly looks familiar enough to fit right into the Zune ecosphere without making any waves. Just make sure you don’t go looking for your Steely Dan collection inside the unread folder.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Zune HD finally gets an e-mail application, still waiting on a future originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here in the small but intense world of writing for tech blogs, trolling and spam are a daily nuisance. In fact, on a highly commented-upon blog such as Engadget, dealing with them (i.e., deleting comments, banning spammers, and responding to irrational people) can sometimes feel like a full-time job. I know this firsthand, as I have, possibly more than most of the other editors here over the past few years, made it one of my primary daily tasks (along with our three amazing interns). By engaging with our commenters, I’ve made a few friends. Mostly though, it’s a thankless task, an unending, uphill battle for Engadget, which ranges between 10 and 20,000 comments per day. The low quality of many comments is largely caused by anonymity on the internet, and the fact that anyone can sign up for as many Disqus accounts as they wish. Sure, people can log in using Twitter or Facebook, and while the number of people who choose to do so has risen drastically, nearly half our our commenters still use the Disqus option, which is the most anonymous. I’d venture to guess that 100 percent of our spammers and trolls do so. It’s a major headache, and one which we’ve spent an incredible amount of time combating and discussing, and occasionally, just giving up on.

Continue reading Editorial: Facebook, single identities, and the right to be anonymous

Editorial: Facebook, single identities, and the right to be anonymous originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s recent attempt to weed low-quality sites out of top search spots seems to have created some collateral damage. Google says its engineers are hard at work, but there’s no easy fix.

Wired Top Stories

Demand Media may have announced a successful IPO, but that didn’t quite dispel the air of controversy surrounding the company. After all, Demand has never been profitable as a business. The company and its content farm brethren are blamed for diluting search results, and its content is damned as being filler produced at near-slave wages. But the controversy is overstated: Demand’s business model may be a little shaky, but it’s worth monitoring for lessons in creating content efficiently and targeting content, as well as for potential partnership opportunities.

Demand produces low-cost content to order based on its analysis of search trends, advertising rates, competitive content and the content’s long-term value in terms of ad sales. It suggests topics based on that algorithmic analysis to a network of 13,000 freelancers. Those freelancers then write articles or make videos that Demand shows on its own highly search-optimized sites — eHow, Answerbag, Livestrong.com and Trails.com — or syndicates to partners like the San Francisco Chronicle and the NFL.

The content is at least mildly useful to the masses. Otherwise, Demand wouldn’t be generating CPC revenues or enough clicks and links to influence Google results. Demand’s revenue per thousand page views on its own sites is showing modest growth, indicating the company is starting to move beyond low-CPM text ads into higher-value advertising.

This cheap, clinical approach to content creation inevitably offends journalists, and produces a lot of how-to articles of varying quality. But there are several ways Demand may be able to evolve its content farm:

• Verticals. Some Demand properties align celebrity brands with topics (Lance Armstrong-health, Tyra Banks-beauty), but the company hasn’t invested much in higher-quality content in other verticals like technology or food, or for older audiences that could command premium advertising.
• Sponsored Content. With just a little polishing, Demand could apply its model to advertorial-like sponsored content and combine that with the social media tools it acquired via Pluck for advertisers.
• Q&A and Content. Blending community-answered questions a la Quora with a content farm seems a natural fit – Mahalo may be steering this direction with video already.

Currently Demand’s dependence on Google for revenue is a little worrying, and the company will need to examine that if it is going to evolve its business model. I discuss that relationship, along with other strategies, in my weekly update at GigaOM Pro.

Image source: flickr user Klearchos Kapoutsis

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