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The Best Facebook Apps
Published on 04/03/07
by willpate
In ony six months Facebook has quickly matured their Facebook Platform to 1.0 status. Developers are responding by creating a catalog of dozens and dozens of neat add on applications for Facebook. The Facebook Platform allows them to create their applications and remix data about profiles, friendship connections, photos and events.
Here are the best of the breed of the earliest Facebook applications. Only web-based apps are included here, no desktop apps. You will need to be logged into facebook to use all of these. Kudos to all the developers that made these apps!
Birthdays
Facebook Birthday Calendar Generator - Generate a birthday calendar of your Facebook friends and import it into Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal, etc.
Blogging
Facebook Photos plugin for WordPress - photos you upload to Facebook will be visible in a “Photos” tab in the WordPress blog post composition window.
Google Gadgets
Facebook Google Gadget - A little dashboard for your Facebook account that can sit on your Google personalized homepage, or your desktop if you have Google Desktop. Would be nice if it updated when you got new messages/pokes, etc
Hotness
Your Hottest Friend - Ratings of your friends plus a leader board. Oh boy, let the games begin.
Maps
Friend mapper - See a map of where your friends are from. You might be surpised at how far people live from their hometowns these days.
Photos
FBTF - Takes pictures you upload to Facebook and copies them to Flickr. Now, if only there was a way to do it the other way around…
Update: flickurbook allows you to copy sets of photos from Flickr to Facebook.
Product Recommendations
favrats - What are your friends watching, listening and reading? Not the prettiest, but fast and handy.
Politics
Your True Self - See how your friends map across the political spectrum. Very interesting to see how your network of friends skews toward a certain type of political thought.
If you want to find out more about how to get started developing applications for Facebook, check out Facebook Developers.
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technorati tags:facebook, development, api, apps, internet, technology, software, programming
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Comments on The Best Facebook Apps
20 Responses
Stephanie Booth
05/03/07
You’re definitely not alone in wanting a reverse FTFB! Both have APIs, it should be possible, shouldn’t it?
Clay
05/03/07
Nice list - I love the Friend Game personally because it causes so much internal conflict. On one hand, it’s a lot of fun to find out how well you know your friends, on the other, it’s really depressing when you find out you really don’t know that much. Maybe that’s just me.
Brian
06/03/07
What a great list! I came across your site by accident after earlier discovering Google’s Webmaster Tools, which listed that you had a link to my site (http://www.willpate.org/archives/2005/05/15/skype-me.php). Apparently, that post is gone but I found this post as a result.
I will say that it isn’t too far into the future when all of the information displayed in apps such as Your True Self app will be aggregated into some sort of “super recommendation feed.” Maybe it exists now but imagine our friend’s recommendations on Facebook combined with other recommendations from Netflix and iTunes, etc. etc. This data is floating around in various formats and standards. Someone much smarter than I will come up with a way to gather and display all of this information in layman’s terms.
Sameer Vasta
12/03/07
You know what would be a fantastic app? Something that took my entire friend list, downloaded all the contact info as vCards, and then imported it all into my Address Book. Now that would be the killer app for me.
Will Pate
12/03/07
Oh, good call Sameer - that would be a killer Facebook app. You should request it!
Keebler
14/03/07
I just wrote a Flickr2Facebook bookmarklet to grab photos right from Flickr into your Facebook album! Check it out @ http://www.keebler.net/flickr2facebook/
Hope you guys like it! Make sure to drop me any suggestions on my blog (keebler.net)
Will Pate
14/03/07
Keebler, awesome man! I will test it out and add it to the list!
AdamSchwabe.com » Facebook apps
19/03/07
[...] That hasn’t stopped other developers from running with the API though and building lots of handy and interesting applications. Will Pate has put together a list of some of the best Facebook apps out there. Among my favourites are the Facebook Birthday Calendar Generator, an app that exports your friends’ birthdays in an import-compatible format, and Your True Self, which visually plots your friends across the political spectrum. Around 60% of mine being liberal to very liberal sounds about right. [...]
Things I found interesting today… at Life or Something Close…
20/03/07
[...] The Best Facebook Apps at Will Pate (tags: facebook socialnetworking cool) [...]
Luke
21/03/07
Will, awesome list! Thanks!
Keebler, I tested out the bookmarklet and I’m loving it! Good job!
Nikk Folts
22/03/07
Redesigned favrats! Hopefully now you wouldn’t feel it is “not the prettiest”… I’m not the best artiest, but I try… Also, I rewrote the code so it should work 5 times faster. I appreciate making your bests list, and the traffic it has created!
Sameer Vasta
23/03/07
Somebody apparently listened to me. Introducing Facebook Sync: http://www.fsbsoftware.com/
Of course, using this MAY violate the Facebook ToS, but it’s there if you need it.
Andy Geers
10/05/07
As an alternative approach to solving the Flickr to Facebook import issue, I’ve put together a little site at http://www.feedmyface.net/ that reads Atom feeds from Flickr and automatically uploads tagged photos to Facebook for you. Makes it a bit more automated than the Flickurbook approach.
Facebook is utterly glorious. | wibbler.com
25/05/07
[...] I’ve never been a big fan of social networking websites. They all seem geared too much to one particular field (LinkedIn for business, Flickr for photos etc). Facebook on the other hand really rocks my boat. I don’t know what it is - maybe that it’s like FriendsReunited on steroids - I’ve found so many old school and college friends on there, and even some long lost family relatives. Maybe it’s because it’s so easy to tell everyone what you’re doing, and therefore easy to find out what everyone else is doing. Maybe it’s because it’s not owned by a big monstrous company (yet). Maybe it’s because anything it’s missing is made up for by the 3rd party applications that are built around it - you can import your Flickr photos (and sync them), you can show the photos and status on your website (there’s a load of the other best extensions here). The site was offered $1 billion to be bought out last year, but they said no - and since then have grown and grown, the clever beggars. Whatever the pull is, I’m there with bells on. Try it, gwan gwan. Powered by Gregarious (42) Share This If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! [...]
Cyn
02/07/07
Anyone have any success with flickurbook?
EK420
16/10/07
man someone should make an online version of dopewars on facebook. I think that would be pretty cool. The other day I was trying to find such an application to kill time while in class. Would be awesome if you could compete with friends - you know, to prove who’s the best dope dealer.
Paul
19/10/07
Things to do app
http://apps.facebook.com/things-to-do
Near you and your friends
Andrew Arnott
28/10/07
I think our app would be a contender for the Political catigory.
Check it out at http://apps.facebook.com/socialvote/
You can learn about the candidates, and then vote for your favorite.
Phil
22/11/07
Wow, reading this now is a crazy trip. Being a Facebook app developer full time (http://www.lonelyceo.com), it’s hard to believe that this was platform.
Still, way to be ahead of the curve, huh?
Raj Lalwani
14/02/08
SocialCalendar is a fun, fresh, and easy way of tracking birthdays, anniversaries, parties and other important dates.
- Invite friends to add their birthdays to your SocialCalendar and vice versa.
- Share, discuss, and plan events with your friends.
- Leave and receive personal messages on a birthday wall and enjoy them for years to come.
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