Will Large Corporations Build Facebook Apps Without Built-In Tech Support?

When we’re designing a blog for a corporate client, we often see concerns about using open source software. Many corporations are wary of investing a bunch of time and money in working with software that has not been designed by a commercial company with a formal tech support infrastructure.

The same issue may rear its head for Facebook. Our speaker Nick O’Neill has been posting a great deal about how his clients need some reassurance that Facebook will work with them if there are problems with their applications. Of course, hiring a good Facebook consultant will preclude you from concerns about having your application removed due to Terms of Service violations. But there is still the issue of unpredictable future changes to the platform’s capabilities undermining key functionality of your application.

Honestly, I understand the corporate concerns. But obsolescence is a problem with any technology you roll out and any product you build. Changing consumer demands and technological capabilities will always force companies to change their products. No industry is immune to change. No product is immune from being made irrelevant by changes in the wider world. That’s a risk you assume any time you go into any business, but it’s especially true in the tech world.

For companies that want to use the platform as a marketing tool, this might seem like an unacceptably high barrier to entry. After all, marketers are used to predictable budgets for ad buys and PR pushes. The idea that you can spend $10,000 building a killer app and have to spend another chunk of cash six months later to bring it in line with Facebook’s newest changes to the API and the FBML and FQL languages is daunting. Especially when you’re trying to build a marketing budget.

But marketers are going to have to get used to the unpredictability of the technology world at large. Marketers are all going to have to become “geek marketers” or “relationship technologists.” And that means becoming comfortable with the realities of change and obsolescence.

That doesn’t mean you need to throw all caution to the winds, just a little of it. The key is to stay very, very on top of all the changes to the API. Or better yet, hire a Facebook consultant who will include notifying you of any API changes that might affect your application in her deliverables.

Also, make sure to ask your consultant how much you should budget for application changes this year. He or she should be familiar enough with your app, the API, the climate and the coming changes to give you a ballpark figure.

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