One of my favourite stories this week has to be Facebook's curbing of the Burger King Whopper app. The clever creation was effectively simple; just add the app, use it to remove ten of your friends, and hey presto! A free Burger King Whopper voucher. Nearly a quarter of a million friends were removed in less than a week (equating to roughly 25,000 free burgers)...
But before you go hungrily opening up your Facebook account you should know that the app was this week oddly pulled by the network, for reasons that were slightly flimsy to say the least.
The core point was supposedly over issues of privacy - whereby FB cited the fact that the app notifies the removed users that they have been 'sacrificed' as the main problem. Facebook's terms of use state that users should be able to remove people from their friends list without the person in question being aware of the fact. Ergo, the Burger King app violates this principle and so can/should be removed.
The problem is that all the app did was send out a message notifying the sacrificed user that they have been removed - along with obviously also a reason and explanation of the mechanisms of the app. As the Techcrunch post on the issue notes, the app would be far less effective without this viral aspect. Moreoever the nature of the removal and notification clearly weakens the case for FB's harsh action.
After all, the removal notification is obviously indicative of that fact that the action is just a bit of harmless fun, and literally a means to a rather silly end. Who is going to feel hurt or offended because their hungry student mate has briefly removed them as a friend for the sake of a free burger? The Facebook principle regarding 'silent' removal is certainly a considerate and useful one, but perhaps here it has been slightly overly stringently enforced.
One can only suspect that the issue was one of establishing a precedent, whereby FB felt that anything other than a black and white interpretation of the rule would open up the door to future problems. Undoubtedly however the message it sends to the development community is a slightly restrictive and negative one.
Understandably Burger King are unlikely to happy with the returns from such a short stint from this clever marketing promotion; a few blog headlines aside, the app's impact could have been a good deal greater. It remains to be seen now whether a new altered version of the app will soon be re-introduced, or if the idea will be abandoned. Watch this space...
Dejan Levi
Given that facebook’s business model relies on people making and maintaining firendships I don’t think it’s all that surprising they pulled this app. The fact that it lasted so long is more surprising to me.