Webware

My favorite app concept from the Facebook F8 Developers' Conference was Connected Weddings. Based on the fact that planning a wedding is a social affair (duh), it lets you connect with two different groups: the people coming to your event, and other people who are getting married. With the former, you can share stories and photos. With the latter, you can talk about your plans and get advice. But that's not the cool thing.

What I really like is that Connected Weddings will create seating charts for your wedding reception, based on the Facebook connections between your invitees. You can overrule the placements, but this concept is just cool. As anyone who's planned their own wedding knows, figuring out who to seat where is a difficult topology problem, and it's great to see the "social graph" applied to this real-world exam test.

The app's not out yet, unfortunately.

Somewhat related: Those trying to get to the wedding can use the Carpool app.

Mark Zuckerberg today officially rolled out Facebook Connect, a way for apps not on the Facebook Platform to leverage the Facebook social network. It's an extremely powerful idea, and the demos we saw at the F8 conference were much more impressive than the MySpace Data Availability project that rolled out yesterday.

Facebook Connect allows other Web sites and apps to have their users log in, or authenticate, to the Facebook system, and once logged in, their social network comes with them. The reason it's a bigger deal than Data Availability is that it's two-way. Not only does your Facebook data come to you on the external site, but things you do on the site can be reflected back to your Facebook profile and news feed. Two examples:

Digg: Users on Digg will be able to connect their accounts to the Facebook profiles, and then when they digg a new item, that information will get fed to their Facebook feed, and presumably will be seen by all their Facebook friends. This is one of the best examples of an app exercising the "virtuous circle" of content and community that Zuckerberg discussed in his keynote today.

Movable Type: Facebook Connect will allow commenters on MovableType blogs to log in via Facebook authentication. Comments they leave will get posted to their news feed, which is somewhat cool. What I really like is that when a user posts a comment on a blog, they'll see which of the other people commenting on the item are in their social network.

Other Facebook Connect partners include Amiando, CBS.com, CitySearch, CNET (which I had no idea about until today), CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.

I was disappointed that Facebook did not announce OpenID support, like MySpace did yesterday (although it only went half-way). Using Facebook as an authentication provider on any and all Web sites is an important development, but it's a shame that the system is proprietary.

More: Liveblog of Mark Zuckerberg's F8 Keynote.

There's been a lot of buzz over the iPhone optimized version of Facebook in the past couple of days, and with good reason--it rocks. It does nearly everything the full version of Facebook can do, sans apps from the Facebook apps platform, which I assume are on their way later this year. Everything is rolled up into a tight little package using a simplistic set of two rows of tabs to cover core navigation, and a sliding interface that mimics the iPhone's signature UI. To get there, just point your iPhone (or browser) to http://iPhone.facebook.com.

If your friend's listed their phone number, you'll be able to call them with the touch of a button.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like the full version of Facebook, the iPhone iteration centers around your profile, friends, messages, and the home tab, which contains the Facebook news feed, along with any upcoming events and notifications. You can browse profiles and check out your friend's links (which open up in new Safari windows). The real killer app though is the call option, which will pop up assuming your friend has made their phone number available. This works with e-mail addresses too, but the phone numbers basically turn Facebook into one big mobile phonebook for your friends.

There are a few things missing from the iPhone version of Facebook that I'd like to see added. The first is groups, which are mysteriously absent. Poking is also missing in action, which is unfortunate because poking on the mobile version of Facebook results in setting your friends on fire--a small but very amusing perk. There's also no way to edit your profile without logging into to the regular Web site. Lastly, the included photo galleries are really well done, but don't let you zoom in and out, nor save them to your device.

This app is a great example of what can be done to work around some of the limitations of the iPhone not having an SDK. If this were a bonafide app, things like notifications and an integrated mailbox would make great additions to the iPhone's current lineup of Web services turned apps. In the meantime, if you've got an iPhone and use Facebook, this is definitely worth bookmarking.

For a mobile app, the iPhone version of Facebook is very good looking. Seen here are photo galleries, and a list of friends who are active on the service. Everything you see here is very finger friendly, right down to the tabbed interface up top.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

When I wrote our Newbie's Guide for Facebook last week, there were several things worth including that just couldn't make the cut. These seven features aren't often advertised or well-known among most newbies, but can be quite helpful, and in some cases great time-wasters.

1. Feed tweaks: Dial it up. Did you know the Friends' feed you see on the Facebook home page doesn't contain every little piece of information about what people are doing on the network? While everyone can tweak what they want published to the news feed, you too have control of what you see others doing. To adjust the feed, there's a handy set of 10 sliders that control the frequency of each story type, and how often it shows up. There's also an option underneath the sliders to hand-pick which friends you want to see more or less of. You can access this control panel by clicking the Preferences link on the news feed.

Get rid of the mountain of links under profile pictures with the little x button.

2. Changing links under your picture. As you install more and more Facebook applications, you've probably just skipped ahead when the program asks whether or not it's OK to put one of those little blue links underneath your profile picture. What you end up with is a tower of blue links under your name, and on everyone's profile you visit. Feel like cutting down the clutter? Just hit the little "x" button that shows up when you mouse over the box. You can do this with all of the links except for the Edit My Profile link.

Need to get the links back? Just visit the Edit page under "Applications" and find the applications that have profile links disabled. Hit the Edit button, and you'll find the option that will turn the links back on.

3. Reverting to older profile pictures. Think your profile picture is lost every time you upload a new one? Guess again. Facebook keeps a running tab of all your old shots in the form of a special, hidden album. If you want to revert back to one, just choose the Make Profile Picture option on the list of links in the bottom right-hand corner. You can also get rid of any shots that now seem horribly outdated.

4. Applications: Minimize, don't remove. Like the links under your profile picture, things can get a little cluttered. If you have a few applications floating around your profile that you would prefer not to see, just minimize them by clicking the down-facing triangle. Your friends will still be able to see the application box on your profile, but if both of you have it installed, and you have opted not to see it, it will show up as minimized on your profile too. This works on applications you haven't installed--so if you run across one that drives you crazy, and that several of your friends have installed (such as one of the ones from our 5 absurd apps list), you won't be seeing it unless you want to.

5. Pull a Twitter (kinda). Twitter is fun, but long before Tweets lived the Facebook status message, a single sentence description of what you're up to for all to see. This information shows up on your profile, and on various news and mini-feeds, but did you know there's a page that lists the last 70+ status updates of all your friends? You can sign up to get mobile alerts, and, of course, update your very own status from your mobile phone using the Web portal, or by sending text messages to a special Facebook number. There's also a simple RSS feed you can grab to add to your favorite feed reader.

6. Birthday fever. One of my favorite features of Facebook is the birthday reminder. Short of plugging in all your friends' birthdates into an actual calendar, this thing is boss when it comes to a handy heads-up. The only hitch is that you get just a few days notice, which is hardly enough time to get your act together. There is an easier way; from the home page (once you're logged in), you can click the "See all" link inside the Birthdays box. This will take you to a page with everyone's birthdays, listed month by month. The only thing missing is a reminder tool.

You can find the Friends game in the drop-down menu in the Friends tab.

7. Friends quiz. Ever played that music quiz game on the iPod? The one that starts playing a track and gives you a handful of selections to choose from before time runs out? Well, there's a similar game tucked away in your Facebook Friends menu that lets you guess whose profile to which a snippet of text belongs. It could be anything--from a quote, to a favorite book or movie. As the timer runs out, incorrect friends will fade away, leaving a smaller pool from which to guess. While there's no scoreboard, this small application is almost a year old, and represents one of the only official games put out by Facebook. It's also the closest thing to some of the more recent applications that have come out of the f8 platform.

As an advanced tidbit, if you feel like tweaking what kinds of questions the game asks, just click on the Preferences link in the lower right-hand corner to adjust the sliders.

These are just a few of the features I've enjoyed discovering. If you've found any, feel free to list them in the TalkBack.

Just two months after the launch of Facebook's f8 developer platform, there are nearly 2,000 applications. While a good portion of them are useful and work well as social tools, there are also a handful that are simply absurd. In no apparent order, I've rounded up five of my favorites below.




• Vibrating Hamster. The vibrating hamster is a simple picture of a lovable rodent you can put on your profile. As the name suggests, every time you click the picture, the hamster vibrates violently while playing the Web meme-famous hamster dance song. To keep anonymous hamster vibrations at bay, the application will track who was the latest to click and display it prominently on your wall.

• God Save the Queen. Here's another picture viewer of sorts, although this one is slightly less humorous. For U.K. citizens, or those who feel the inclination to put Queen Elizabeth II on their profile, adding the God Save the Queen application will display a random picture of Queen Elizabeth along with a quote. At the moment there are only two pictures, although the application was added to the Facebook directory just a few days ago, so expect more in the near future. See also: the Facebook lolcats app.
  

• My Aquarium. This application is a fish tank simulator gone social. You start out with 250 coins to buy new fish, and earn an extra 100 every day. Each fish has a specific price and lifespan, with the more expensive and exotic creatures lasting longer than the cheapies. You can share fish with others, by sending them to your friend's tanks, and display them lovingly on your profile. The application will also publicly display a history of the fish you've sent and received. Unfortunately there's no animation or movement; the fish just sit there.
  
  
  

• Harry Potter virtual spells. Nerd cred aside, this is by far one of the most complex applications on this list. Virtual spells sets you up with a small credit account of Galleons, the wizard currency from the Harry Potter books, to spend on spells you can use on your Facebook buddies. Each spell has a price, and has positive or negative effect on your spell recipient's virtual bank account. Your Galleons are reset to 150 each day, so you can begin purchasing any of the 160 available spells all over again.
  
  
  

  No, this is not a cigar.

  (Credit: CNET Networks)

• Ploppy. Now when people see you're profile they'll know you're full of it. This application lets you announce to the world the wonderful specifics of your latest bowel movement. There are seven different types to choose from, and if you've got the guts, you can post it straight to your profile--complete with a painstakingly designed bit of clip art.

  
  Have any others you've come across? Feel free to post in the comments.

Operator11 is a free service for people who want to broadcast live over the Internet using their Webcams. Following similar livecasting offerings out there, it gives people a fairly simple one-stop solution to hook up their Webcam and get a live video broadcast going. Users can also simply upload video clips from their computers to share with others. One of its more interesting features, however, is the capability to have multiple people drop in and out of a live broadcast, which is controlled using a live studio that runs right in your Web browser.

Like Mogulus [review], which offers a similar feature, Operator11 gives whoever is controlling the show the option to see everything that's going on in one screen, and swap back and forth between Webcams or other content on the fly. And like BlogTV, which I looked at last week, hosts can also invite their viewers to join the fray at any time--it's a very open system.

Operator11 users can record, embed, and share their shows with others. Channel owners get about 40 minutes per show before the system will stop recording, which is very generous. Other users can then watch the clip, comment on it, and rate it using a five-star system. Operator11 also keeps track of who the director was, along with others who participated. This information is also kept track of in user profiles.

There are quite a few of these video broadcasting sites now, and I'm absolutely convinced one of the best uses for them is for the next big content creator who's looking for an easy way to broadcast and syndicate live content. Likewise, even for large media companies such as CNET, free services like this offer a relatively simple way to deliver live event broadcasts (which we tried at Facebook's F8 platform launch using Veodia).

Operator11 is currently in public alpha, so expect a few occasional kinks if you give it a go. For a shot of the user interface, click the "read more" link below.

... Read more

Throw me a sheep, darling.

Does "owning" a friend on Facebook sound more appealing than merely poking him?

Three new applications take the "poke" button on Facebook further.

Kathleen's wild 'n' crazy poking application lets users send a customized poke. The first step is identifying the "victim," followed by "method of attack" (impaled; nuzzled; duct-taped with, for example, a rusty spoon; chocolate-covered raisins, and so forth) and place of attack (eye, outer space, lung, teeth). This application works with Facebook but is separate from it--a big turnoff.

XMe lets its users change the default verb that appears under the photo on their profile. Elsewhere on their profile page, the XMe application allows friends to fill in their own verb to "X" the profile's owner.

Of the three new poking apps, SuperPoke has the best balance of features and design. It lets Facebook users "bite," "pinch," "own," "marry," "worship," or "throw a sheep at" friends. It doesn't have the flexibility of XMe. But it is a lot less aggressive about forcing itself on your friends when they use it to not-poke you.

Although Xme is the most popular poking application on Facebook, SuperPoke is the best of the bunch. It maintains the original vibe of the "poke" button, while adding just the right amount of creativity. It also integrates nicely into the Facebook platform and doesn't require that a person install the app on their own profile in order to Superpoke you from your profile. XMe, in contrast, won't let you use it to nudge someone whe has the app on their own profile unless you install it, too.

One of the newest and most popular Facebook apps making the rounds is Graffiti Wall, an application that does exactly what it says: it lets your friends tag your profile. Facebook has had its wall feature for years, allowing users to write personalized messages to one another for everyone to see. With Graffiti Wall, instead of words, you can break out your art skills and go to town on a 600-pixel wide canvas.

Once you've created your masterpiece, it will show up on your friends' Graffiti Wall, assuming they have it installed. If not, others will still be able to view it in your newsfeed.

There are a few quirks: there's no eraser, and there's not a text tool. In fact, many of the things that make simple doodling tools such as Microsoft Paint so great aren't there. There's also not an archive of your drawings, so if you hide a Graffiti Wall post it appears to be gone forever. What is there is a neat idea and has the potential for something that will spice up the Facebook's wall feature, assuming its developers are willing to keep adding new features.

Related: Drawball.

[via Digg]

Facebook's Graffiti Wall app is a veritable Pandora's box for computer art enthusiasts who feel limited by their computer's keyboard.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Regular Webware readers who have been playing around with Facebook's new platform will likely recognize many of the sites and services that are offering their own applications. At almost 90 apps (and growing), there are a lot to choose from. After spending the better part of a day experimenting with many of them, I've chosen five of my personal favorites that I think people are bound to use, and come back to in the long haul because they're useful, and that's ultimately what makes repeat users.

Note: The bold links below won't take you right to the application unless you're logged in to Facebook.

Picnik. This is one of my favorite Web-based photo editors, and the team working on it keeps adding more tools and features all the time. Picnik will sync up with your Facebook photo collection instantly. If you're already a Picnik user, you can login, which will give you access to your photos on other services like Flickr and Picasa Web albums. The best part is that you can grab these photos and send them to Facebook. Picnik has also done something really neat with its full-screen toggle, which lets you escape the confines of Facebook's limited width, and edit shots using your entire monitor without having to navigate away from Facebook.

SplashCast. Facebook's video player that was demoed yesterday is mysteriously missing, but you're probably better off using SplashCast's application. If you're unfamiliar with SplashCast [review], the service lets you combine all sorts of media into one player and publish it in various locations. SplashCast's Facebook player operates in the same manner, and you can showcase it big or small on your profile depending on where you want to place it. Unlike some video embeds, instead of having to remove any video you've posted when adding another, you can simply drop it into a playlist. You can also add photos, and video and audio podcasts.

The box.net widget lets you share files with friends. It also doubles as a media player.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Box.net is one of our Webware 100 nominees, and their file-sharing widget is now available for Facebook members to use. Once you add it to your profile, you can immediately begin dropping in files to share with others. This is great for any general users, but for the people who still actually use Facebook as a tool in school, it's a very simple way to actively host files to other people and not have to rely on e-mail. Like SplashCast, shared media files can be previewed right in the widget.

30 Boxes calendar. Up until now, the only loose scheduling system on Facebook was a small space on the home page that listed people's birthdays and events that had been set up in groups. 30 Boxes [review] provides an integrated, Web-based calendar that's skinned to match the rest of Facebook. You can plan events and invite your Facebook friends to share your plans with others on your profile. You can also take a "peek" at what your friends are up to on their calendars. For current 30 Boxes users, you can sync up your current account, and if you're already using a calendar service, you can slurp your schedule in as a ICS or CSV file using 30 Boxes' importer.

Yackpack Tag gives you instantaneous chat with others right on your profile. It's a sister application to Yackpack's walkie-talkie widget and provides nearly identical results. Users need simply activate the widget, and then push the big talk button to communicate using their computer's microphones. The Yackpack team is working on adding built-in voice mail, which they say is coming soon. It will then have a similar functionality to Jaxtr's voice widget, which also lets people make calls to your telephone, and is incidentally also available as a Facebook application. Yackpack's CEO BJ Fogg, who teaches at Stanford, uses this widget as a tool for his office hours so students can get in touch with him. For other tech-savvy professors, this functionality could make this widget very useful at colleges.

If there's one thing I've already begun to enjoy about Facebook's approach compared to third-party tools in MySpace, it's not having to go in and hand-code my profile to make adjustments. It's a pain many people have put up with out of necessity, and given Facebook's implementation, I don't think I could go back.

Have you been playing around with the new Facebook applications and found any particularly useful? Let us know in the TalkBack.