One of the most popular and less talked about app platform is Facebook. It was before the iPhone and android the very first massive web service to enable at scale the integration of 3rd party services. Mostly games became popular but not only.
facebook apps became popular because of the native inherent nature of social discovery. You join an app and your friends know it with a notification on your wall. you play a game, reach a level and you get a notification on your wall. This process is well thought out and companies like Zynga have fully leveraged it
but something is broken. really broken.
And it starts right after the you click this notification. you typicall see this
Then by clicking you land on that
What is missing? I don't want to "install" an app before having a chance to fully preview it.
> impossible to know what this app is about
> impossible to preview this app
> not very welcoming either: acccess requirement....not a great first contact..
Why does it matter? because the only way to know if i want an is to install it, figure out what it does and maybe keep it or uninstall it. A painful process specially if repeated often
Why can't Facebook streamline that and just include a 2 line description + a few screenshots. All app market places do that today and they are the very basic steps to create a full discovery chain.
It is the same thing if you access app directly from the app directory. An app would take you to their Facebook cluttered page. No way to know what the app looks like or really does. And then this authorization screen again.
Actually it is even very difficult to find the facebook app directory from Facebook home page
I am sure people at facebook are aware of that and that part of the new Web HTML5 app platform spartan will solve this issue on the mobile. They have too because this is how users are educated to find apps on the mobile.