Your Facebook App is Broken

It is.
Really.

That money you paid that social media ‘GURU” to “optimize” your Facebook Business Page really had no idea what they were doing.  They sounded like they did – but they didn’t.

They took your money and then built your App using a free service.

That free service gave them an empty box.  Whatever they put into that box created the App that shows on your page.

There’s nothing wrong with this until…

They went wrong when they placed content into that box that was not coming from a secure site.  That broke the secure chain.

When you sign into Facebook I hope you sign in securely.  You’ll know if you do by looking at the url.  Does it say https:// ?  That s is the key.  If it doesn’t go to this link right now and change that.  Why?  I’m writing this right now in a Panera that sits next to a Starbucks.  There’s actually three open wifi networks in range right now.  I can fire up a script on my laptop and see everyone who is logged into Facebook NON Secure and capture their info.  Even after they leave I can log in to their Facebook account and operate as them.

Back to your BAD App

More than half the people who use Facebook, do so securely.  When they do, everything in Facebook needs to be delivered to them in a secure fashion.  That’s not a problem for posts, events, pictures or even videos as Facebooks servers have that covered for you.  It’s a big problem with Apps.  Remember that EVERYTHING on the viewers screen needs to come from a secure place.

Here’s a partial list of things that are NOT secure on an App

• MLS Listings  - I haven’t found an MLS that provided a public feed of listings from a secure server.
• Images hosted on Flickr, Picasa or any other photo sharing site.
• YouTube Videos – it might be a bug but even if you use the https embed code, when the video starts to play it reverts to non secure.
• Most forms.  The html and css that creates your form may be secure but the script that runs it probably isn’t.

If you have any of these – your App is broken.  Depending on the viewer’s browser and the settings (everyone is different) the broken app may not load at all.  It may load but put up a very large warning.  How many people do you think blow past that?  None is probably right.

This is what your viewers see

Check your own Apps.  If you want me to build a proper one for you here’s your button…

I need a Facebook App

(for my Page)

Mike Mueller

Mike builds the custom Apps that create the Tabs that make Custom Facebook Pages special. He also builds WordPress Blogs. He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike and a motorcycle (a really fast one), loves strong beer and good red wine.

More Posts - Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn - Google Plus