chartier:

Facebook’s application experience is broken.

I get periodic requests from friends who want to add some sort of birthday calendar or notification service to their profile via an app called MyCalendar. Months ago when I noticed the first one, I clicked the app’s name to find out what it was. This brought me not to an app landing page with an explanation or information about the developer, but an “Allow Access?” page that prompts me to install MyCalendar with a warning that it will be able to access “your profile information, photos, your friends’ info, and other content that it requires to work.”

Setting aside questions about why on earth MyCalendar would ever need things like my friends’ photos or any profile information other than my birthday, I clicked on the name of the application in this warning box hoping to actually get to some kind of aforementioned app landing page.

What I saw months ago is what is still there now: no description of what the hell MyCalendar does, what information it pulls from my profile, or even who made it. Just a list of my other friends who have it installed, MyCalendar’s total number of users, and total fans.

Clicking the “Go to Application” button simply takes me back to the installation screen that got me into this mess.

I have no idea whether all these people have been duped or spammed into using this app, and the “Contact Developer” link at the bottom produces a Facebook-hosted e-mail form with absolutely no information on who or what I am contacting. No developer name, no company name—just a form pre-filled with my personal e-mail address and a notice that my message will be delivered to “the creator of MyCalendar,” whoever the hell that is.

Facebook’s application experience is utterly and depressingly broken.