Maarten Decat

Chuck Norris jokes are awesome. And I think there are many out there who agree to that.

Last year, I started a collection of these jokes in a local database, now it contains over 400 of them. A couple of weeks ago, I got the idea to set up a Facebook application using this database. Wouldn’t it be cool to show a random Chuck Norris joke on your profile? And wouldn’t it be even cooler to show that joke, starring you instead of Chuck Norris? I thought so too.

So, I began developing this little app. The database would be addressable as a web service and the Facebook app would just use the user’s name to address this service. The app itself was finished in one day, but then I began to search on how to add the app to your Facebook profile. After a week of browsing through Facebook developer docs, forums and blog posts, I began wondering how something that simple could be so hard? Millions of apps have done this in the past, no?

But now I’ve found the answer. In a small blog post to it’s users, Facebook states “boxes on profiles and Pages [...] will be going away.” It’s as simple as that, profile boxes aren’t supported any more. Personally, I can’t understand this decision. Customizing your profile was one of the neatest features of Facebook, in my opinion. And how can small applications gain publicity without profile boxes? Profile tabs? Yeah right…

Ah well, at least I can share a joke here: Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.