Early yesterday, a number of you began contacting us with questions about where the MailChimp Facebook app has gone. If you had it installed, you’ll notice that there’s no longer an “Email Signup” tab on your fan page.
It looks like the MailChimp signup form application is back and fully functional. But as of this time, we still haven’t gotten a response or explanation from Facebook’s support team so we’re so we’re unable to provide any explanation about what happened. Sorry for the inconvenience, but things are now working again.
—
Essentially what has happened is that Facebook has pulled the MailChimp signup form application without any notice or explanation. Unfortunately this is also currently affecting our other Facebook integrations, including the Like button and Facebook comments. Our developers have reached out to Facebook’s support team outlining the fact that we were given no notice for the change or explanation for what’s going on, and Facebook’s automated response has assured us they’ll respond to our inquiry within a week.
While it’s possible for us to simply set up a new signup form application, this isn’t really a desireable solution. Literally every user would have to reinstall and reconfigure the app. Then even if and when the original app becomes reinstated, we wouldn’t be able to use that setup any longer.
As you can imagine, this puts us in a bit of a bind and we apologize for the inconvenience to our users. I’ll be updating this post as soon as we have additional information from Facebook, but if you have any concerns or questions in the mean time, feel free to post them in the comments or get in touch with our support team.
It looks like the MailChimp signup form application is back and fully functional. But as of this time, we still haven’t gotten a response or explanation from Facebook’s support team so we’re so we’re unable to provide any explanation about what happened. Sorry for the inconvenience, but things are now working again.
—
It’s ok, MailChimp. We still love you.:)
I was looking to add the app for the first time, but then realized it wasn’t working…..Hope this gets fixed soon!
Not your fault :)
OK, let me get this straight… Mailchimp gets pulled but FARMVILLE IS STILL RUNNING?
LOL A valid point, good sir ;)
Boy, you aren’t kidding!
Thanks for the post and the good job at keeping us informed!
I know your pain – Facebook tends to do that all the time. I’ve had several apps break after FB does one of its “updates.”
I Love you MailChimp don’t worry…have a cheese toasty!
Perhaps we’ll learn more after their announcement.
And these guys want us to trust them with our email? This is exactly the kind of ruthless disregard and mischief that will prevent me from using whatever it is they’re going to be announcing.
Facebook has proved time and time again, even though they are a social media giant, they have a record of screwing up over and over again. No regard for the little guys like us and no regard for their partners like Mailchimp. Mailchimp is rather upset about this and I totally understand their grievance! Not AT ALL Mailchimp’s breach of conduct or contract!
That’ll be Facebook spreading the love, as always. A whole week just to find out why they took your app down without notice is a pretty bad joke…
I wonder if this has anything to do with the upcoming Facebook Mail :P
… or with the deprecation of FBML…
Did they mixed up Gmail and MailChimp ?
Looks like everything email gets pretty touchy at FB :-D
delete from facebook_apps where name like ‘%mail%’;
insert into facebook_apps values (“facebook mail”,….);
Figures. I just installed the app in time for a big Facebook launch party tonight for a client of mine. I hope she gets sign ups from her site at least.
This is why I tell all of my clients to own their own pice of internet real estate. Companies like Facebook and Twitter make abrupt changes far too often.
Not your fault. I hope there’s a solution soon.
Facebook gets (and deserves) a lot of flak for happily pocketing billions of dollars in revenue while refusing to spend anything on supporting their users/customers when these issues arise. “It’s a free service” doesn’t really fly.
This is an inconvenience. I’m terribly put out. But there is a solution. Please send me a mail chimp t-shirt immediately. It’s the ONLY fix for this! Truth be told I’m never fast enough on the draw when they come out, so I’m leveraging my only angle!
Jon
PS – we still heart MC. Facebook not so much.
could be to do with the new Facebook email announcement coming out today?
Hey, for what it’s worth. I just went in to update a Welcome Tab on one of our client’s Facebook pages. I definitely noticed that the Email Signup tab wasn’t there when I got to the page. However, after I went in and edited their Welcome Tab, it seems to be back. Could be my browser caching but I don’t believe it is.
Check http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shanes-Rib-Shack-Franklin-TN/325474929137 and let me know if you see the email signup tab. Looks there to me.
I guess timing is everything huh.
Sounds about … Horrid Customer Service! but, I still like ya and will continue to use your services
Mailchimp, although it is not your fault, your customers shouldn’t be forced to find out whose fault it is hours after the problem happened.
I would suggest you take preventive steps and have an automated test running which detects this kind of problems before your customers do.
Some of you customer actually use your service for serious work, where a faulty communication can hurt the relationship to their clients or client’s clients badly. In your communication to me so far about this subject you don’t seem to be aware of this and speak about an ‘inconvenience’.
It is worse than that. It is a bug you should pro-actively detect, communicate and fix in the future.
Thanks
Hey, I can understand your displeasure in this, but I believe that what you are asking/hoping for here can’t really happen. It’s one thing if you have an email campaign scheduled and it doesn’t go out for some reason. It’s another thing to expect MailChimp to monitor an app in Facebook that basically does an iframe of an opt-in form. If Facebook pulls their app, there’s not a thing they can do unless Facebook has some sort of monitoring capability built in to their API.
Do they have this?
Jarrod, I didn’t think I have to do the technical investigation for you.
Maybe a periodically running campaign on your end checking whether the merge variable is still deciphered correctly is the solution, you know better.
I honestly don’t care. You are the expert. But if you are telling me that your normal procedure is to have your customers experience those problems before you do, I’d suggest you rethink what you can offer.
Sorry for the sarcastic tone, but ‘displeasure’ is less than mildly put what would have happened if we hadn’t tested it before our clients’ clients had received the emails.
Thanks for thinking about a solution at least.
Uwe, from the tone of your reply, it sounds like you think Jarrod is an employee of MailChimp. Sorry for the confusion, but he’s simply another MailChimp user, expressing his opinion here on the blog. Just making sure you realize that. Jarrod, thank you for the response. We *do* monitor mission critical aspects of our app closely, but the Facebook integration is not what I’d classify as mission critical. Uwe, I’m certainly not trying to downplay your frustration. We were equally frustrated, because we have a *lot* of users on the Facebook app, and we were unable to provide any explanation to them about what was going on. Our confidence was shaken too. This is the risk of interconnected APIs. Fortunately, with risk and innovation comes reward.
Mine is working fine…it disappeared for a second…I just had to go back in and link it again and there it was!
Same thing happened to me: created a perfectly legitimate app that as enjoyed by 60,000 people and they just pulled it overnight with no notice. No response from them at all: at the very least they should say what’s prompted the app to be pulled because otherwise it’s just guesswork. In the absence of any response, we’re giving it another go tomorrow having checked that every last line complies with policy (unlike many applications out there)
No one has the right to blame Mailchimp. This issue is a Facebook problem. It’s not the only app to fall off the ledge. But people don’t consider this. Pointing fingers doesn’t solve the problem. Mailchimp responded quickly and fervently.
Besides, you can add a Facebook button into your email until things are back to par. I did, I noticed it last night. I still sent it out. Not a big deal. Find a 15×15 icon and use the picture location.
Just add a link from the icon/Facebook button to your Facebook page!
Yah, it’s inconvenient, but life is full of inconveniences, it’s how you deal with them that matter.
Thank you thank you.
Just checked and apparently all is well with my ‘Email Sign-up’ tab. Musta been a rogue wave. :-)
I think part of your issue (Mailchimp) is the fact that Facebook discontinued tabs on profiles. We have the same issue with our Facebook apps. They now only support tabs on fan pages.
From the Facebook developer Blog on Aug 19th:
“Finally, due to low usage rates, we will remove application tabs from user profiles in the next couple months. Application tabs will continue to be supported on Facebook Pages.”
http://developers.facebook.com/post/402
Thanks Clint. We knew about that, but this was a different issue entirely. Even on fan pages, the tab/app was gone. All seems to be back to normal now.
it only seems to be back normal now….at least for me. I can’t install the application from scratch. After allowing the application access, I’ll be shown an Iframe with the normal mailchimp backend – no sight of the signup form configuration :-/
Well, as we all know, they have this big thing rolling out…email slash social connection and you may be stepping on a toe or two!
Heh. I love conspiracy theories, but I highly doubt this is related at all. Or *do* I?
:-)
This is really unfortunate, that app is sooo useful. I may have to go back to constant contact :(
Just found this app, and disappointed its not working. Yet, this guys seems to be working as he blogged earlier. Does this mean its working now? I would like to add it and get it going for our restaurant http://www.ilnido.ca? If you can let me know it would be appreciated as i am not too savoy with all this stuff.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shanes-Rib-Shack-Franklin-TN/325474929137
Ahhhh communication from Facebook…what a concept!
Keep pluggin’ away Mailchimp – We know you’re on top of it!!!
I have been trying to add Mailchimp sign up form to my group page and i have followed your guys how to steps and it will not give me the option to pick my list it just keeps sending my to your log in page within facebook. I have deleted the application cleared my cookies and such but still will not work. Does anyone have any suggestions.
Groups, group pages and personal profiles aren’t supported by the application.
I wish Mailchimp Facebook App would allow us to customize custom sign up form for facebook to make that sign up page more attractive.
If I understand correctly, you wish there was a way to create another signup form design, specific for facebook? Will add that to the wishlist. FWIW, I’ve seen some 3rd parties popping up that let you build email signup forms for facebook that also integrate into MailChimp.
That explains a lot. I also noticed Facebook makes their own changes and their Help Center doesn’t keep up with them. One example, the Fan pages default is set on Publish before it even gets built. I had to unpublish the darn thing in “Manage Permissions” before I could even build it.
Maybe bribe Facebook with ripe bananas to get the integration going? That reminds me, integrating with Fan pages on Facebook was a struggle as MailChimp integrated with Personal Account page. Hope there’s an easier workaround in future.
Is it still not working? Is there a way to push it through a “form” “post” and have the “target” point to the MailChimp URL? Hmmm, I’m going to try and see if it works. Let me know if anyone else has had success.
Seems to be working fine. If you’re having issues, please contact our support team: http://blog.mailchimp.com/support/
Ben, thanks! Implemented the app on Facebook for my client and it works perfectly w/out any fb coding!!!! Hey, you guys deserve a boatload of bananas on this one!!! Kudos!
Tough break you guys but you’re onto it so it’s ok. Sorry about the headaches, I imagine it’s not pleasant. Chin up!
Have to say MailChimp …. both I and all of my clients still love you … and we all hate facebook … well not really but we don’t like them for this. :)
This is banana’s I tell you!
Time for Mail Monkey to throw some insults at Facebook’s way for their poor custom service and neglect. I’m thinking a YouTube video pointing to “Lisa Simpson meeting Mark Zuckerberg”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMMkDrOg0Oc