The Where I’ve Been Facebook application is a pretty cool app. I installed it a while back and haven’t really updated it in a while, but I’m a fan of seeing data visually displayed in a smart way — and this app definitely does that.
What I was surprised to see today when I logged into facebook was that my feed/profile had an update from that app:
It states “Raanan just started using the new version of Where I’ve Been. Raanan has a shiny new Where I’ve Been map. View his map or create your own.”
What’s odd is that to the best of my knowledge I hadn’t clicked on any updates, hadn’t used the app in while, and never gave permission for this type of ‘spam update’. I looked through the various settings of the app but could not find any option to turn off this type of messaging in the future.
Raanan Bar-Cohen 
Facebook can and should do a better job giving users control of what’s displayed in news feeds. Since launching the application platform, my news feed has been loaded with what I’d consider spam from my friends’ 3rd-party Facebook apps. There is no option (that I can find) that allows you to filter out all news items from these 3rd-party apps.
Any time I add a Facebook application to my account, I un-check the “Publish stories in my News Feed and Mini-Feed” option. If everyone did this we’d have no problem, but it’s hardly a viable solution to what appears to be a growing issue. If I were on the Facebook team, I’d be concerned about the integrity of some of the apps that are being deployed on the platform. I’ve seen more than a few Facebook apps with prominent spammy links on their application page — who knows what those apps may start broadcasting without users’ knowledge?
@ MT —
totally agree with your comments.
Anecdotally though it appears that most people don’t seem to be bothered by this ‘spam’ – at least not yet. We may hit a tipping point soon or hopefully facebook will launch more granular settings to suppress some of this stuff.
Hi Raana.
After your ‘intro to wordpress’ at eg,
i am kicking off wordprocess. Thank you!
– NURI –