Why You Should Avoid Birthday Apps on Facebook

Facebook apps aren’t as popular as they used to be, because many seem to add more headache than enjoyment to the social network. One type of app seems to be the most “spammy” of them all, and probably the most pointless: Facebook Birthday apps.

Overkill
Because Facebook already has a birthday feature built into it, adding a birthday app is superfluous. Many users don’t realize that they can already view birthdays in Facebook by going into Events and then clicking on the Calendar tab. There you’ll see all of your friends’ birthdays in a calendar format.

User Warning
The spammy nature of some of these birthday apps prompted a “warning” to be passed around Facebook recently. The warning read:

REPOST: WARNING: URGENT! People are getting inquiries allegedly linked to a program called “my birthday calendar”. “My birthday calendar” is a malicious application to retrieve data from all profiles. It’s very aggressive, just a click makes it starts sending requests to all your friends/contacts. If a request comes from me just ignore it; NOTE please copy and warn your friends!

What should be noted here is that users allow apps to retrieve their data and post on their behalf, as permitted by Facebook. Many app users abuse the system, and there are a couple of birthday apps that certainly do this. This is one reason why so many games and apps have seen a decline on Facebook over the past couple years. Remember when Farmville posts plagued Facebook with relentless updates?

We’ve heard from a few users who have complained about these birthday apps. One user said that hundreds of contacts were added to his phone. Others have said the apps didn’t work or were difficult to uninstall. Some apps include birthdays of people you don’t know, while other birthday apps spam your friends relentlessly with requests.

Bottom Line
A birthday app is overkill when Facebook already has a calendar feature that will show you all of your friends’ birthdays. Further, most of the third-party birthday apps we’ve seen on Facebook were spammy, buggy, and offered nothing new.

Your Opinion
Have you used a birthday app on Facebook? Tell us your experience with it in the comments below!