Utility

Online productivity suite, Zoho has announced the launch of their Facebook application. The Zoho suite allows users to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I’m not quite sure how this will pan out given that most people are not using Facebook as their startpage yet. This is a pretty big step, giving them a boost against their competition (primarily Google’s office suite). If you would like to view what the application looks like, go check out the Zoho App screenshot. A few weeks back I discussed the possibility of a Zoho application suite and questioned whether or not Facebook could ultimately be used as a complete productivity suite. The rumor of a Zoho suite came true, now all that remains to be seen is whether or not users will take advantage of such services as Facebook slowly becomes a startpage. If you are looking to add-on more productivity features to your Facebook profile, go grab the Zoho Facebook application.

I recently received an email from one of my blog readers notifying me that I hadn’t covered any of the wall applications on Facebook. I didn’t cover them because I personally didn’t find them to be that useful. Apparently though, there are over 1 million people that think their wall feature set is not big enough. To whoever wrote me that email, hopefully this post will suffice. I have to be honest though, I am perfectly satisfied with my existing wall and will not be adding any of these applications.

• Wall Brawl – This one is one of the only walls that I’ve seen with a pretty cool feature set. Wall Brawl enables users to promote the music that they listen to. Additionally there is an hourly chart that displays the top artists being promoted across Facebook. With only 80 users of this application, I have a feeling that the chart is not very long. If this application grows its user base, it could be a pretty slick app. If you want to give this wall a shot go grab Wall Brawl.
• Advanced Wall – Advanced wall is unique in that it gives users the same feature set as a typical forum. I’m guessing that this is simply a version of TinyMCE, but maybe I’m wrong. As of now over 12,000 users are enjoying the features of Advanced Wall. If you would like to place html on people’s profile (and try to mess it up), go grab the Advanced Wall application.
• Friend Wall – Are you such a big MySpace fan that you are trying to bring the same beautiful interface to Facebook? Wait no longer because now you can add a similar Friend Wall as you have on your MySpace account to your Facebook profile. Dylan Spencer James worked until the early hours to let you bring the beauty of MySpace to Facebook. If you are a big MySpace fan then go grab the Friend Wall.
• Emotion Wall – Emotion wall is pretty simple. Thanks to Csaba Márton of Hungary you can now place emoticons on your Emotion wall as well as post private messages to your friends’ emotion walls. I’ll leave it at that because I’m getting a little teary-eyed. If you like to get emotional go grab the Emotion Wall.
• Classic Wall – Apparently your friends used to be able to edit and vandalize your wall, according to Dan Tilden the developer of Classic Wall. I don’t remember those days but thanks to Dan we are bringing them back. Classic wall is a wikified version of a wall. Anyone can come along and edit it. The revisions are also tracked by the wall. Want to make your wall wikified? Go grab the Classic Wall.
• Super Wall – I guess I’m saving the best for last, or at least that’s what close to 1 million people would probably argue. Super wall allows you to attach photos and videos to your wall. I have to be honest, this is pretty slick. This is another one of RockYou’s applications. Looks like they are doing pretty well. If you want to allow people to post videos and pictures to your profile, go grab the Super Wall.

Do you use iGoogle as your startpage? If so, there is a great application (developed by Jeffery Ravenhorst) so that you can view Facebook without having to go to the site. My good friend Frank Gruber pointed out the application to me a couple of weeks ago, but it just recently got added to the directory. The application allows you to view all of your Facebook information from one widget. I feel like the existence of this application is somewhat of an oxymoron given that it seems as though Facebook would like to be your startpage. If you use iGoogle as your browser startpage, this application is for you. Go grab the Google Gadget application to get started!

For those of you who don’t know about Greasemonkey yet you are in for a fantastic surprise. Greasemonkey is an add-on for Firefox which lets you do all sorts of hacky little things. Get Greasemonkey here.

I got sick of having to log in to Facebook all the time, so I hunted for a Greasemonkey script to fix it for me.

While I was hunting I found some really cool Facebook hacks:

• The Facebook Auto-Login Script is the most useful.
• There’s a script to add Facebook events to your Google calendar.
• Facebookpedia shows Wikipedia info for interests when you hover over them.
• Facebook AIM status icon shows you when your facebook friends are using AIM.

There are SO many great Facebook-Greasemonkey scripts. If you want to check them out yourself, userscripts.org has a full collection of Greasemonkey-Facebook hacks . Check them out!

This has to be the coolest application that I have seen yet. The TouchGraph application allows you to visualize your friends that are connected to at least one other person in your network besides yourself. Ultimately this ends up displaying your closest friends through an amazing interface. Zoom in and view the pictures of your friends, drag networks and people around, and see which friends are the most connected to your other friends. This is hands down one of the sweetest applications I have seen yet. You can also visualize which of your friends overlap your various networks. If you are part of a lot of networks (and connected to those networks on Facebook) this application will surely keep you entertained for a while. So if you want to visualize your Facebook relationships, go grab the TouchGraph application. A demo video is posted below.

This application is definitely one of the more slick ones that I have come across. The Invites application allows you to send invitations to your friends for various events. It is built on the SaKi platform and has an extremely user friendly flash based interface. After accepting an invitiation it is displayed on your profile. Ultimately this is a complete substitute for Evite except that it is on Facebook. The only feature that is missing is the ability to invite people that aren’t within Facebook. If you want a simple way to handle invites for your next event go grab the Invites application.

The now deceased Google Answers has been resurrected by Tom Tenaglia under a new name on Facebook, fbAsk. Just like Google Answers did, fbAsk pays experts to answer questions. Users that want to ask a question place the bid amount, an amount they are willing to pay for an answer, and then an expert stumbles across the question and writes up an answer. Payments on the system are made through Paypal. While the application is a bare minimum version currently, by expanding their feature set and improving the design a little this application could be pretty useful. Ultimately it is a copycat of Google Answers. Try it out! If you have questions and want answers, go grab the fbAsk application.

When I was at Podcamp NYC back in April, Podcast Pickle was present, and advertising heavily. At the time I wasn’t quite aware of what services they provide. To be honest, I’m still not quite sure what they do except that I know they are a community of some sorts. Regardless, it seems as though they have launched the first podcast application on Facebook that I am aware of. The application enables the owner to add their own personal podcast or their favorite podcast to their profile so that others may listen to it. For those that are podcast enthusiasts, I can see this being an extremely useful application. Unfortunately, I am not a podcast enthusiast myself but I’m sure there are plenty of people that will put this app to good use. If you are big on podcasting then go grab the Podcast Pickle application.

Want to view the demographic breakdown of your friends? Thanks to Gordy French you can. The Zeitgeist application enables users to view a basic overview of their friends demographics. While I covered another demographic application, Platypus, this one has more information about your friends. It features sex, political views, relationship status, top 5 networks, top 5 hometowns, top 5 activities, top 5 interests, top 5 music interests, top 5 movies, top 5 tv shows, and top 5 books. Apparently “The Alchemist” is a pretty popular book among my friends. I actually have it added as one of my favorite books as well. While it is a pretty simple application, it is kind of fun to see your friend’s demographics. Many people that have commented on the application say that they add the application and then immediately remove it because “their friends don’t change.” I’m guessing those people are a little bit younger. The only suggestion I would make about this application is it needs better looking graphs. Aside from that it’s good for a quick form of entertainment. If you want to see your friend’s demographics go check out the Zeitgeist application.

Sami Fouad has made a pretty slick application. With “Network Map” you can view all of the Facebook networks organized on a Google map with a count of their network size. I was surprised to find that Washington, DC had more people on Facebook than Los Angeles, California. Also four of the top ten cities were in Canada. Here are the top ten cities with their Facebook population size:

1. Toronto, ON (643,951)
2. London (589,485)
3. Vancouver, BC (283,726)
4. Norway (267,079)
5. New York, NY (249,960)
6. Chicago, IL (229,974)
7. Washington, DC (194,503)
8. Calgary, AB (164,713)
9. Boston, MA (159,571)
10. Ottawa, ON (147,994)

If you want to see the demographics of Facebook combined with a Google maps overlay, go check out the Network Map application.