In a relatively significant change for developers, Facebook announced yesterday that the company “will automatically bookmark applications for users when they visit an application that has not been bookmarked.” The result is that the bookmarks displayed in the sidebar will now function more like the “recently used” sidebar of the past. As Jared Morgenstern of Facebook wrote, “If a user hasn’t clicked a bookmark within the past 30 days, it will move below the fold.”Facebook continues to make adjustments to the bookmarks and the way application developers can interact with Facebook users. While this isn’t a massive change, bookmarks in the sidebar were one of the primary remaining reengagement channels for developers. Based on the feedback in the developer forum, most developers appear to be extremely supportive of this new functionality.
Overall, this shift toward automating the interface based on user interaction is something that could substantially improve the Platform. The reason is that developers used to optimize their application through “reengagement tricks” that would drive users back, rather than Facebook providing a natural discovery mechanism. This automated model should result in an overall improvement, and hopefully additional reengagement channels will become available in the near future.
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