Facebook kill custom landing pages for small page owners [Updated!]

Facebook Welcome Mat

Update: Facebook appear to be backing down and have restored original settings of setting landing tabs for pages. Cue saving face while they figure out how to assess to situation?

News filtered out this morning that Facebook had withdrawn the rights of some Facebook Page owners to create default landing tabs for their pages, so that those affected pages were effectively demoted in style, fit and branding.

What this means is that if you have a small business or project that has a Facebook Page with less than 10,000 fans you will have to stump up and pay something in the region of $25k in advertising to engage with an account representation or somehow gain enough fans to pass the ceiling of 10k fans. Chicken and egg much?

Landing pages are one of the most effective ways to generate and sustain an identity on Facebook where the sameness of blue and white pages sometimes breeds attention fatigue.

In effect, Facebook are attempting to take more control of the economics of the platform. One wonders if a Facebook Page owner and Page Developer revolt will make a blind bit of difference. Users have been revolting against recent changes in privacy settings. Application development houses like Zynga revolting against being forced to play ball with Facebook on sharing their jewels. Could there be blood on the landing page?

Facebook are not only raising the ire of page owners but also page developers.  By changing custom landing pages to be features for the gentry of Facebook pages, Facebook have effectively killed the livelihoods of cottage-industry Facebook developers that work mostly for small businesses. Owners with deep pockets probably won’t go to single developers. They are far more likely to engage with established development houses to develop landing pages, applications and ancillary widgets. Development houses that are probably part of the Facebook Preferred Developer Program. Are you seeing the link here?

Funny that this announcement should happen after F8 too, as developers would have a chance to meet peers there and possibly vocalise their opposition to the move.

My question is, if you are a small operation with meagre sums allocated to tart up your Facebook Page – a place where the first 10 seconds are the most important – where do you turn?

May 20th, 2010 at 12:16 pm • Filed in Geekery



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