Tech & Biz

Pizza Hut Facebook App: With Extra Spam

by Jordan Yerman | October 15, 2008 at 05:23 am

251 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment

This is how not to develop a Facebook application:

1. Add no new functionality to the tool on which your app is based;
2. Include no interaction tools;
3. Generate targeted ads to the user's friends;
4. Repeat.

While I've never understood how ordering a pizza online was faster or easier than doing so over the phone, the practice is really popular, so it was only a matter of time before the online-ordering system crept into social media sites, since everyone wants to build an app, even if for no other reason than simply to have on. Pizza Hut followed the instructions above to the letter, producing an application that sounds screen-smashingly annoying.

The worst part of Pizza Hut's app, however, is not the fact that it offers nothing new in terms of functionality, it's that it spams all of your friends with advertisements. When testing out the application for this post, I went through the process of ordering a pizza, to see how it works. Pizza Hut then felt the need to inform my friends, through a notification, that, "Harrison Hoffman has just logged on to order from Pizza Hut!!!" This notification does not provide anything to interact with. There is no link to Pizza Hut's Facebook app,

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politisite

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:44 on October 15th, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. I am getting a bit tired of folks sending me apps for some survey or friend linking etc. I don't have time to get hit with all the extra stuff as my time is limited and I hate email that is useless. I delete anyone who likes to SPAMALOT. I do like the apps like the one for NP as I can keep my friends up on what I am writing or posting about. I get comments that they liked this article or that article they found on facebook.