Non-Profit Tech Blog

Every so often I read in the nptech blogosphere articles that I consider to be problematic. I just read one today that stated that the Convio Facebook App is better than the Causes App on Facebook. Apparently, the major claim to fame is that people within a Convio Facebook App can now directly sign-in to an organization’s CRM. Another added bonus is that content from a Convio-powered Web site can be integrated with a Facebook App. Unfortunately, you can only run one Facebook app at a time using the Convio tool.

There are multiple problems associated with the statement and here’s the list:

1. Convio doesn’t have an industry-standard SLA. This may not be such a huge problem for those nonprofits that are combining an existing web site with Convio content but this is a huge problem when it comes to handling a Facebook App. Previous blog entries on this site detailing the infrastructure for Causes show that most nonprofits (even the larger ones) will not have a big enough IT staff to handle their own Facebook App if it takes off. Do we know whether or not Convio could handle the server load if multiple Convio Facebook applications take off?

2. Where’s the fun stuff? Are you seriously giving Facebook users the wonderful opportunity to sign into your registration system? What happens after that? There are no set-asides for other interactive widgets such as forums, etc. Oh wait, most people don’t have that on their regular Web site. So the problem here is that you will end up with an app that’s basically the equivalent of Web 1.0 brochureware.

3. The best Facebook Apps increase interactivity between and among users themselves. Most nonprofits are not set up for this kind of interactive strategy. They’re still in broadcast-only mode. This isn’t just a tactical issue but a strategic one. I can think of all sorts of great Facebook activities that would be fun to do for supporters of a nonprofit but I can picture a lot of cringing too on the part of nonprofit management staff. Are you strategically ready to live with the idea that your users will talk about you? In light of the controversy surrounding even Web site stat transparency around here, I seriously doubt a lot of nonprofits will be comfortable with this strategy. If you’re the kind of person that likes to filter information about your organization to the public, this strategy is dead in the water for you.
4. Convio’s API is ultimately your limiting factor. The lack of multiple user retrieval and the lack of pass-through SQL will pretty much condemn your app to interacting with only one user at a time. Even if you did an end-around on the Convio SLA issue by putting your App on Amazon’s EC2 and outsourcing your programmers, you’ll still have to run one data call for every user. Imagine doing a hall of fame with your App or some other function like the total amount of dollars raised! That’s pretty much a death knell for an application that needs to scale over thousands of users.

Wait for Convio to get its act together. I understand that Convio will be making changes to its API soon in response to my earlier post. It may be that they’ll implement some of my recommendations and maybe even create a rider that discusses a special SLA for a Convio Facebook App.