Ladies and Gentleman welcome to the world of Social networking!!
Gone are the good old days where you used to travel 100 of miles to visit a friend in a neighboring city or spend Saturday afternoon will your kids playing baseball or take your girlfriend/wife out for a dinner.
You could now virtually do almost everything online spend time and share things with your friends, find a Date , or play games with your kids. You could even be a mafia don if you liked or own a virtual farm or pet and harvest virtual crops. You could also use real money to buy virtual goods for your farm or pet if you liked. World is at your fingers tips or on click of your mouse.
Although there are many social networking site on the web. Facebook has advantage above others in terms of being user friendly and popularity.
Just in past six months their user base has almost doubled reaching 400 million users worldwide compare that to Yahoo’s 500 million users. Yahoo has been around forever while Facebook has just turned five.
Two most prominent reasons of Facebook growing popularity are
- It’s simple and user friendly User Interface.
- Launch of Facebook platform in 2007.
Facebook launched the “Facebook Platform” on May 24, 2007, providing a framework for software developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features.Thus giving unprecedented powers to developers and also creating a greater sense of community and encouraging developers to actively participate in the sites upward mobility.There is also a crucial viral component to it as well when a friend adds an application, it is noted in their news stream on their profile. Clicking on the item brings you to the app, where you can add and/or interact with it yourself.
The payoff is two ways not only do developers get deep access to Facebook’s 400 million users, but Facebook also becomes a rich platform for third party applications.
Thus Facebook left making it site rich full of features on 3rd party developers while it concentrated on the providing the basic functionality and building the strong platform for developers. This has done wonder’s for overall economy as well since it has created new ecosystem of companies thriving and doing business by building applications on top of Facebook.One of the company which I liked to mention here is Zynga.com.Zynga is online gaming company which started in 2007 just within two years of its existence, Zynga.com already employees 750 people and already turned profitable last year.
Some of its applications like Yoville and Farmville are immensely popular and have touched by 75 million users.
I like to warn you that some of these games are very addictive; I had a friend who left a party just because she wanted to go home and harvest virtual crops on Farmville.
Without Facebook platform to support it, existence of companies like Zynga.com would have not been possible.
Here is list of few useful applications I find on facebook.
1)iLike – iLike lets you add music, playlists, and videos to your profile, dedicate songs to your friends, and see who’s going to what concerts.
2)LivingSocial is a social discovery and cataloging network that allows people to review and share their favorite movies, books, games, music and restaurants As the most comprehensive interest-based online community,
3) Marketplace lets you sell, give away, buy, ask, or search for anything you want. You can also support charities by selling for a cause.
Marketplace makes it easy to see what your friends have posted and what is available in your area.
4) SocialCalendar helps users to remember birthdays, holidays, get-togethers and other social occasions.
It lets users import, organize and receive reminders about important events.
Users can also share dates, plan events and coordinate with friends and family.
5) Training The Training application is an easy to use and powerful tool for setting and keeping track of your workout goals with friends. You can invite friends to join your training crew and help each other stay motivated.
6) Roomster is app for especially for those looking for a place to rent.
It allows users to search for apartments, roommates and sublets in the US and Canada.
7) NetworkedblogsThis application helps you Promote your blog on Facebook and to discover new blogs. NetworkedBlogs is a community of bloggers and blog lovers. You could add your blog, and connect with others who read and write about subjects you like.
Circle of Moms Where moms connect and address the challenges of motherhood together.Share stories and celebrate your children’s milestones with friends and family in a safe, private environment.
9)Testimonials is place to gather your personal, professional and academic references in one place from your teachers, friends, and co-workers.
10)Promotions for Fan Pages as name suggests is application for companies & agencies to run branded interactive promotions on Facebook Fan Pages.
Promotion formats include: sweepstakes, contests, coupon giveaways, and more…
11) Pet society For those of who are fond of pets or like have pets but don’t have one you can now virtually create and raise a happy pet in Pet Society!
Raise your pet and enjoy many activities together – racing, fishing, gardening, and cooking!
Make your pet happy by earning coins to shop and buy stylish clothing and cool furniture.
12) Stock Quotes Add stock prices and a look-up box to your Profile page. Check for news, financial blogs and podcasts. Then see if your friends are tracking the same stocks. Great for investment clubs
13) Collage lets you create collage of your friends on facebook.
All in all there is an Application to suit everyone needs on Facebook, There are some things which you can’t do online but for everything else there is a Facebook App !!
Hi Ashish! Thanks for the post! Another useful app I found recently is from Rent Jungle. It lets you share your apartment findings with your friends without ever leaving Facebook. Here’s the link if you want to check it out:
http://www.rentjungle.com/facebook/
Val