Facebook has decided to take legal action against a handful of developers who were using some code that allows people to update their status remotely ??? without visiting the site and viewing those money-making ads.
Circle Six Design, makers of MoodBlast, one of the programs in question, has said that the next version of MoodBlast will drop Facebook support ???until they actually support it in their crappy API.???
The code in question was written by Christian Flickinger and it took advantage of Facebook???s mobile service to provide a way to remotely update your status. Facebook offers an RSS feed to export status updates, but, unlike Twitter and others, it fails to provide a way to import status updates.
Flickinger???s code addressed the shortcoming and provided an elegant solution, but Facebook didn???t like it and slapped threatened him with a lawsuit legal action.
As we???ve been repeating over an over again, Facebook doesn???t have an API. Flickr has an API, del.icio.us has an API, but Facebook doesn???t and that they would take legal action against code that allows what any self-respecting API is designed to do ??? import and export data ??? further demonstrates that Facebook just doesn???t get it.
Given such hostile treatment of people trying to improve on Facebook???s shortcomings, it???s hard to see what would make developers want to continue to support the site, in fact, Circle Six doesn???t plan to. Circle Six writes on their blog: ???I know I???ll lose a lot of interest when I drop Facebook, but they make it harder for us every day and now they???re threatening us. Oh well.???
