Iwipa is a popular Facebook landing page application, with over 80 000 users that have shaped their strategies around this free app. A few days ago, thousands of Facebook users clicked on their business pages, only to discover their app was disabled, and their content was missing! What happened?
Courtesy of crunchbase.com
The Iwipa Debacle, Not Solved
Iwipa is pleading with Facebook for help. Some time a couple days ago, Facebook decided to disable the application – for reasons as yet unknown. Iwipa is wildly popular, so this move has mystified the Facebook community. If you’re looking for answers, then you’ll need to join the ranks of thousands of other business owners.
You’re all in the dark – not because Iwipa has put you there, but because Facebook made a decision, and decided not tell anyone about it. That decision affected so many people, it’s mind blowing. Do they care? We’re not so sure.
A tweet went out to Facebook 3 hours after the app was disabled. “@Facebook We have no idea why you disabled our application, it serves 80K users. This happened 3 hours ago, please help.” The most disturbing news is that user content is gone too. Is Facebook starting to remove free applications that allow fans to host content there?
Some say yes. If this happens, it’s going to cost business owners a lot of money. You’ll have to pay for SSL certificates and specific domains. One thing is for certain – Facebook is making a lot of changes. First there was the image SSL certificate debacle, which forced businesses to find certified hosts for their page images.
Now, it appears as though Facebook is moving against applications, the question is WHY? We’d love to know their master plan. Perhaps they’re consolidating, and figuring out new ways to earn money by shutting out the little guy. Who knows!
But be wary – Facebook pages are changing – and we’re all going to have to adjust.
The Other Little Hiccups
Remember when Facebook removed page email functionality? You can’t directly email your fans anymore – you can only contact personal friends that way. That was another major disappointment, and brought many perfectly functioning Facebook strategies to a grinding halt. Is Facebook ruining the appeal of their business pages?
They better be careful now that Google+ is out there, nipping at their heels. In the meantime Iwipa issued an announcement to their users. You can download a temp app from a new page they’ve created, which will bring back all of your content.
Get your Iwipa content back here.
Its times like these that we’re reminded of Facebook’s power. With one click they can ruin the hard work and effort of thousands of business people. Let’s just hope that whatever prompted Facebook to disable Iwipa, goes away.
If they strike a deal, we have some semblance of hope for the future. If they don’t…we might all have to move over to Google+.
In the meantime learn how to use other Facebook features here.
What do you think of the Iwipa debacle?
My company helps businesses to save money while improving their business performance and cybersecurity. That being said, I have observed over the years that business owners and CEOs almost never take a threat like Facebook poses to their business seriously until it is just too late.
I know, I know, they face threats to their businesses constantly, so this is just another threat. Wrong thinking!
What they always seem to miss is the fact that a little preparation will save them in the long run.
In this case, they should begin to diversify their connections to their customers and prospective customers today. Right now!
They should be setting up Google+ and other alternatives today. If Facebook shuts down their communication to their contacts how will they restore these contacts without Facebook? It is not Facebook’s problem it is the business owner’s.
Please business owners and CEOs make this priority one for at least the next two staff meetings. It is worth it.
Urgently yours,
David C. Brown, PMP, CISSP, CEH
@David – much agreement there, we must be responsible for our own profiles. Back everything up, and maintain a multi platform marketing strategy. Great insight here, thanks!
I’m only speculating, but the “Why?” may be related to the recent FTC/privacy issues, and specifically third party involvement.
That, or it’s because Facebook is heading away from FBML – and according to the developer roadmap, it will no longer function on January 1st, 2012.
From: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fbml/
“We are deprecating FBML. On Jan 1, 2012: FBML will no longer be supported on Platform. June 1, 2012: FBML apps will no longer work. All FBML endpoints are removed. If you are building a new application on Facebook.com, please implement your application using HTML, JavaScript and CSS. You can use our JavaScript SDK and Social Plugins to embedded many of the same social features available in FBML.”
If this app uses FBML (which it looks like it has elements of), that’s 80,000 users who will eventually have a broken site anyway – in less than a month.
@Brian – Maybe so, it will become clearer soon. Hopefully Iwipa will release a statement once the problem is sorted out.