Facebook redesign kills widgets dead

Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook (via ValleyWag) has a post up about how the new Facebook redesign is killing widget traffic by segregating them into their own boxes and off the main page:

Thanks to the redesign all the badges which were “cluttering” the profile have been moved to a “Boxes” tab which most people don’t visit apparently. When the new profile was first rolled out, the traffic to my application actually jumped a little but oddly enough on September 11th, things took a turn for the worse. I’m not sure what happened but my guess is that a lot of the profiles started to get shifted over.

Nick provides the traffic chart for his application:

Nick make an incredibly astute point about the nature of the widgets:

While my application was only build as a joke some applications were attracting hundreds of thousands of daily users. My application was completely a widget though and provided practically no interactive substance. Other applications which actually provide users with a valuable experience in addition to help them share information appear to have survived the shift over to the new design.

There is a real division between these widgets that offer a one-off novelty and full blown applications that give users a reason to continue their interactions after Facebook’s redesign and limiting of incentivizing viral growth.