You enjoyed the Trail, now, want a date?
October 28th, 2008
Section: Gaming, Games, Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites
I’ve seen and heard all kinds of things happen on the internet. This one by Facebook and SpeedDate.com definitely ranks up there as one of the oddest internet business deals I’ve heard of. If you are a Facebook user that plays the game Oregon Trail, you had better be prepared because your application is no longer going to be the one you know and love. It’s going to be one that is trying to sell you on love. Or find you love . . . or something.
The Oregon Trail Facebook application was recently acquired by the SpeedDate.com application. It plans to take all data entered into the Oregon Trail app, transfer it over to the SpeedDate site, and just flip users automatically. SpeedDate at least had the decency to warn users by sending them notification that said, “Next week, Oregon Trail’s name and functionality will be changed to SpeedDate. Data entered into the original app won’t be used anymore. Soon you’ll be able to try SpeedDate, the fastest way to meet new people, so stay tuned! P.S. If you want to opt out of this app, instructions can be found here.”
Talk about aggressive dating tactics. And this isn’t the first time SpeedDate pulled such a move. Tech Crunch had reported back in September that SpeedDate did this before with three other applications (at once) on Facebook. At least these apps were social apps, not a play-out-in-the-frontier old 80s game. Users were not happy. I’m amazed that Facebook is letting SpeedDate get away with this and that it isn’t a direct violation of Facebook’s terms of service.
The thing is, SpeedDate already has a Facebook app–a very popular Facebook app. So, why the hijacking of this barely used game? According to reports, Oregon Trail has only about 12,000 monthly users. SpeedDate’s Facebook app has 650,000, which is more than the actual SpeedDate.com site gets. It is ranked in the top 100 Facebook apps. Yet, it still hijacks other apps. And, no, these moves don’t seem to be helping. When SpeedDate did it back in September, there was a brief surge in use on the app, but it was quickly followed by a big drop-off. Apparently, people did not appreciate the tactics.
I think I’d also be ticked off with Facebook for continuing to allow such shady practices. But, oh! Apparently, Oregon Trail users get to look forward to some of the original app’s features being integrated into the SpeedDate application. I don’t think I want to even guess which ones they might be.
Via [sitepoint]
Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
