The solution to the Facebook application spam problem

There are a lot of cool ideas floating around about Facebook app development here at Community Next, which jump-started my brain juices and got me thinking about that annoying line between “viral” and “spam” when it comes to messaging app users.

My colleague Teresa recently wrote about how App requests are starting to feel like spam. As we quickly found out, she is not alone.

My solution has been to ignore app requests. There’s a big list in my sidebar of apps that I haven’t bothered to reject because it takes more effort than it’s worth.

So Facebook should expire them. Think about it. Here’s the process:

1. Your friend Gertrude sends you an app request
2. You log into Facebook. The clock begins ticking
3. You see the app request. It looks lame. You leave it alone.
4. Four days after you logged in, the request expires

In this process you do not:

1. Get an e-mail
2. Have to click buttons
3. Accidentally vote for Ralph Nader

How much simpler can it get? How about it, Facebook. Sound like a good feature?

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