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Facebook Kills Yandex’s Wonder App

Last week, Yandex launched Wonder, a new social search app aimed at the U.S. I don’t know that it would have had a big impact on the search market, but it didn’t even get a chance because ...
Facebook Kills Yandex’s Wonder App
Written by Chris Crum
  • Last week, Yandex launched Wonder, a new social search app aimed at the U.S. I don’t know that it would have had a big impact on the search market, but it didn’t even get a chance because it no longer has the Facebook API access it mostly relied on.

    As previously reported, Facebook had blocked its data from the app on grounds that it was a competing service, and the companies were said to be talking things out. Apparently the talks have resulted in Facebook standing its ground, as TechCrunch reports that Yandex has pulled the app from the App Store, and shares a statement from the company:

    “Wonder’s functioning, in its current state, as well as the quality of user experience it provides, largely depends on the access to Facebook’s Graph API. Since this access was revoked, we decided to put our application on hold for the time being. We will be considering partnership opportunities with other social networks and services to offer our users a richer internet experience via Wonder.”

    Wonder isn’t the only app that has been experiencing friction from Facebook, as Voxer and Twitter’s Vine have also had their troubles.

    Facebook addressed developers in a blog post last week, essentially saying that most of them can continue doing what they normally do, and re-emphasizing its terms about competing services and services that offer little value back to Facebook. These are the kinds of apps Facebook doesn’t want to play nice with.

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