Suddenly, Facebook Shuts Down Apps Left And Right

Facebook has started shutting down apps with tens of thousands of active users left and right, AllFacebook writes.

The reason is Facebook didn't really police these "small" apps before and now has rolled out an algorithm that automatically shuts them down if they post too often to users' walls, etc. The problem is that Facebook didn't tell app makers it was going to do this, so these just woke up Friday and saw their app had been shut down, and very understandably freaked out.

This isn't too big a deal -- most app makers will simply tweak their app to get them back in compliance and move on -- but it shows how miscommunication can turn a routine adjustement into a big freakout.

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Suddenly, Facebook Shuts Down Apps Left And Right

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Power.com Shuts Down, Domain Name Up For Sale

A tipster informs us that Power.com is no more and that the domain name will be sold through an auction that ends on August 17, 2011. Interested parties can pre-register on the hideous, superlative-laden website in order to receive detailed instructions for the auction in May 2011. Power.com originally made its debut in November 2008 as a site that aggregated data from a variety of social networking sites in a single, Web-based interface.

Power.com Shuts Down, Domain Name Up For Sale

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Twitter Shuts Down Yet Another App

Yesterday TwapperKeeper, an app that lets people archive and export tweets, is going to shut down a number of key features to stay in compliance with Twitter's terms of service, ReadWriteWeb says.

The rule at issue here is that Twitter lets developers do what they want with tweets as long as it's online, but when you're creating exportable databases, that's no longer kosher.

Unlike Twitter's war with UberMedia, Bill Gross' rollup of Twitter apps which will control around 20% of tweets once it completes its acquisition of TweetDeck, this doesn't seem to be motivated by a pure business sense. But it's still unfortunate timing.

It seems that Twitter is doing two things simultaneously, each of which would be a big deal but that will create big problems together: a) doing more "housekeeping" on their platform and seriously enforcing rules that were enforced in a relaxed way up till now; b) asserting more control over their platform to control more of the user experience and build a serious business. The TwapperKeeper event comes under category a, the simmering UberMedia conflict under category b.

Twitter does need to enforce rules on its platform and build a business. The question is, can they do so without depressing investment in their platform and angering developers.

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• Kim Kardashian: Here's Why I Am Quitting Twitter Tomorrow
• First look: Lazyscope Mixes Twitter and RSS Together For Better Reading Experience
• Startup Idea: Twitter Job Board

Twitter Shuts Down Yet Another App

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As LimeWire Shuts Its Doors, Other P2P Clients See a Surge in Usage

Less than a week since LimeWire was ordered to shut down its operations, almost all other major file-sharing applications are reporting a massive increase in downloads, arguably from those displaced LimeWire users.

A New York district judge last Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order, demanding that LimeWire immediately close its doors. And while LimeWire has said it has plans to institute a redesigned service, based on legal and licensed music subscriptions, it seems like many of the site's users may have gone elsewhere for their torrents, rather than waiting for a revised version of what was once the most popular file-sharing app.

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TorrentFreak reports that it has spoken with a number of developers from P2P services, all of whom have seen a "huge boost in download numbers following Tuesday's verdict." No developers were willing to go on the record and give TorrentFreak the raw data - for fear, no doubt, of incurring the same wrath of the courts that LimeWire has received.

The exception is BearShare. Much like LimeWire, BearShare was once a Gnutella-based application. But in May 2006, BearShare was ordered to pay $30 million in settlement with the RIAA. Following that decision, BearShare altered its offerings via the Gnutella framework, limiting file-sharing. And its current iteration is, as the site proclaims "100% legal."

Despite these restrictions, BearShare has seen a 780% increase in US downloads since Tuesday. And it reports its daily US downloads went up from 8000 to 62,400. The company does not say, however, whether or not these new sers are actually paying for their downloads. (That is, I believe, what the RIAA believes will save all those poor suffering record labels.)

Even though the LimeWire alternatives have seen an influx of traffic over the past week, the fallout from last week's decision - and the still-to-come decision regarding the dollar figure attached to the judgement - remains to be seen as to how it will impact file-sharing services and users.

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