Facebook giveaways and applications

Lately I came across few remarks on the Internet that basically either claimed that Facebook giveaway/sweepstakes applications are only used to “steal” you data or that applications are only used to “show off”.

Nobody said anything about our Magnetic Summer app, but I still wanted to explain why we used application and will be using them in the future.

Facebook has really strict policy about any kind of games where there are prizes involved (monetary value in general). In essence – they allow them as long as you use application. Any other kind of giveaway is forbidden. So no tagging yourself on the photo, sharing status, uploading photo … Those of you that would like to read more can start here and then proceed by following all the links in the article … but beware that it’s nor light reading material nor short one. :D

We don’t want your data – we only use the most basic stuff to make app work and email address as Facebook does not allow to contact you through the private messages on their platform. That is it.

As for the show off part – I think it is kind of obvious that is not really our style. And since I’m “married” to computer programmer wizard it’s not like we paid hundreds of Eurs for the app.

Just to be clear – I have nothing against those that don’t use applications for their giveaways and I have no problem entering them myself.

But I’m one of those “by the book” kind of people + I have no wish to see our Facebook page deleted one day because of something I did or did not do (it’s never my fault philosophy ). And Facebook does close down pages regularly for not following their rules.

I think that is all I wanted to say. Any thoughts about Facebook applications in general? Hate them, love them, have a suggestion for us how to do our next one …