There's a whole lot more to Facebook than poking people, sharing your status and commenting on photos.
Applications make Facebook into a wider social site where you can play games, enjoy common interests, and share gifts.
Most applications are provided by third parties who have developed them according to Facebook's guidelines. As with applications that you run on your computer, you need to ensure that they're trustworthy before giving them access to your information.
You can find new apps to install in the Application Directory. You'll find Facebook recommendations, plus information on which of your friends use each application. Use the search bar to look for apps by name, or browse through the categories in the left-hand column.
You may also receive invitations from friends to start using particular applications, but check them out before accepting by visiting the app's profile page. Applications have profile pages similar to your own, which give information about the application and show other users' reviews. Select the app from the Directory to see its profile, and go to the Info tab to read the information provided by the developer.
If you also want to find out what other users think about this application, click the Reviews tab. If you're happy with what you see, return to the application's wall and click "Go to Application". Click Allow, to permit the application to access your data, and it will now appear in your list of applications on your profile. Select the application to go to it.
Bookmark your favourites
You can add as many apps as you like, although not all will appear on your profile page. If you want to ensure an application appears in the left-hand column simply bookmark it – in the top right-hand corner of the page, click Account > Application Settings. Pick the app to bookmark in the list and choose Edit Settings. Click the bookmark tab and select bookmark.
If you subsequently decide you don't want to continue using an application, you can remove it. Go to the Account drop-down menu in the top-right of the page and choose Application Settings. Find the application that you want to remove and click the X to its right, then click OK to confirm it.
You can also make a dedicated tab for a particular application if you like it, by clicking the + icon to the right of your existing tabs on your profile. Select the application you want to add from the list, or search for more options.
1. Lexulous
Lexulous is a fun word game that follows very similar rules to Scrabble. You can play against friends or challenge random strangers to beat your word power. You're given seven random letters and you need to create words that fit into the growing grid.
Click and drag the letters from your hand onto the board, and you'll score more for double and triple letter or word scores. It's currently one of the best-loved applications on Facebook and can be a huge time-sink because it's so addictive.
2. Picnik
Given Facebook's aptitude for sharing photos with friends, it makes sense to also have a photo-editing tool available on hand for quick image fixes. Picnik provides you with access to its online photo-editing directly within Facebook.
You can crop, rotate, resize and colour-balance your photos, or remove red-eye. It's ideal to use on pictures that you've emailed in or sent from a mobile, where you wouldn't normally have editing features. Picnik also enables you to browse and edit any photo you're tagged in.
3. Flixster
Flixster is designed for movie-lovers to discuss films they've seen with Facebook friends and fellow cinema-goers. The application helps you keep up with the latest releases in cinemas and on DVD, and you can rate the movies you've already seen.
Plus you can flag films you want to see, so you can arrange to watch them with other friends using the application. Flixster also includes thousands of movie trivia quizzes that you can complete, and challenge friends to beat your score.
4. Trip Advisor: Cities I've visited
Share your travel experiences with your friends and help them decide where to go and what to do when they venture out in the world with TripAdvisor.
There's an element of travel-boasting involved, where you mark which cities on a map of the world that you've visited, but you can also note those that you know well enough to advise others on. More importantly, you can fl ag places that you'd like to visit, and benefit from the wisdom and experience of your other friends who've already been there.
5. Where I've Been
Similar to Trip Advisor's application, Where I've Been extends beyond the list of your frequently visited cities and enables you to note down everywhere you've been in the world.
You can post reviews of places for the benefit of the whole community, or become an expert on a particular place if you'd like to advise others. Where I've Been comes well-tipped by members of the travel industry, and so it goes beyond simply flaunting your travel experience to become a research tool in itself.
6. Twitter
Link your Twitter account to your Facebook profile and get two social networks for the price of one. You can use the Twitter app to find and follow those of your Facebook friends that also use Twitter. You can also set the application to automatically post your tweets to update your Facebook status.
It will ignore @replies and direct messages, however, to prevent your status getting clogged up with Twitter conversations. Use the application to encourage Facebook friends to find and follow you on Twitter.
7. PuzzleBee
PuzzleBee suits jigsaw lovers everywhere. Use it to create new jigsaws from your own Facebook photos, or compete against other users to finish the "jigsaw of the day" puzzle in the shortest time.
Unlike other online puzzles, you can rotate pieces as well as move them around, and you can change the number of pieces in each puzzle to alter the level of difficulty. As you complete different puzzles you move up the hierarchy, in a quest to progress from Baby Bee to Queen PuzzleBee.
8. DivShare
The DivShare application links your Facebook account to its online storage service, so you can use it to share documents, photos, music and videos with your friends. It enables you to link your files with your profile, or post them on friends' walls.
You can even share them in your news feed. Files can be up to 200MB in size and you can have unlimited storage space on the DivShare servers. You can host anything that meets the terms of service for free, as long as your account lasts, and you don't have to register.
9. Web Sudoku
Web Sudoku provides you with a new Sudoku puzzle to play within Facebook every day. Enter numbers one to nine in the blank squares, without repeating any in a row, column or block.
The puzzles come from Web Sudoku, which is the most popular Sudoku site on the internet. You can change the level of difficulty as you improve – puzzles come in easy, medium, hard or evil levels. When you complete a puzzle you can compare your time with your friends, or see how you rank against all Web Sudoku players.
10. Market Place
Why sell your second-hand items to strangers using eBay? Instead you can advertise them to people who you know and trust within your group of Facebook friends, using Market Place.
You can use it to advertise stuff you want to give away for free, or set up a classified-style listing for items that are worth money. You can also use it to find articles for sale within a specified distance of your location, and sift through listings to find tickets to events, housing, cars and even jobs advertised.
11. My Flickr
My Flickr enables you to display your Flickr photos and photo sets to your Facebook friends without them leaving Facebook. It's a third-party application, not officially supported by Flickr, and you need to authorise the app in your Flickr account settings.
The application respects your Flickr privacy settings, so only photos you've marked as public will be shown on Facebook. You can also pick shots to showcase your photography on your profi le. You can select these from a simple search.
12. Birthday Calendar
Facebook can remind you about friends' upcoming birthdays if they've shared their dates of birth with you, but the Birthday Calendar app is designed to help you plan ahead; it shows you all the upcoming birthdays in your Friends network, displayed in calendar format.
Handily, you can also add friends and family who don't use Facebook, to make it your main point of reference for all your birthdays. You can then set up email alerts or SMS text messages, to remind you of those in the coming weeks.
13. Weekly Schedule
Weekly Schedule enables you to view your calendar and share it with friends, making it simple to work out free and busy times and arrange suitable times to meet up. You can set up side-byside schedules for easy comparison, or search through your friends' calendars to find times when they're free.
This works best when you and your friends all use the app. To maintain privacy you can block specified friends from seeing your information. It's also easy to set up recurring events.
14. Task Master
Having sorted out your appointments and compared them with friends, it would really help to have a tasks list to manage all the items you need to get done. Enter Task Master, which enables you to manage your to-do list within Facebook.
You can set up different tasks under a variety of categories, and also set different priorities for each one. Extra functions can set due dates for time-sensitive tasks, and send timely reminders when you have deadlines for tasks.
15. Zoho
Zoho provides a complete online office suite that you can use alongside Facebook. You can sign in via Facebook and link your Zoho account to your Facebook one. The free version provides you with 1GB storage, which you can extend if you subscribe.
You'll get online document management, spreadsheet, word processor and presentation applications, plus mail, calendar and the ability to set up collaborative projects with others. You can store your documents in folders and share them with other users.
16. Networked Blogs
Networked Blogs enables you to monitor your favourite blogs using Facebook and see new posts appearing in your news stream. You can also use it to promote your own blog to other interested Facebook users, and discover new blogs that your friends enjoy or those that other people with similar interests to yours recommend.
When you start using the application you need to subscribe to at least five blogs, then you can start finding new ones or promoting your own.
17. Docs
Docs comes from Microsoft's Future Social Experiences labs and enables you to view, create and share Microsoft Offi ce documents within Facebook. It's powered by Microsoft Web Apps and provides a simple search utility to help you fi nd templates and documents that might be of use.
You can also use your Facebook information to create documents such as CVs based on a collaborative template. A very handy feature also enables you to produce an automatic presentation from your Facebook photos.
18. Bejeweled Blitz
Bejeweled Blitz is a Facebook version of the very popular PopCap game Bejeweled, where you need to swap pairs of jewels to match three or more of the same colour, creating cascades and scoring points. This version enables you to challenge your friends or even work alongside them to earn prizes.
There are a few surprises in this version of the game, including bonuses for completing levels at speed and multiplier gems to add new challenges. You can try some practice games before getting launched into the competition.
19. Files
Facebook Files provides you with a virtual thumb drive where you can store handy files online. It uses a Box.net account and retrieve them wherever you're able to sign in. As with other online storage services, you can set sharing permissions on your files to make them available to friends and family.
A basic Box.net account provides you with 1GB online storage space for free, but if you want more you can subscribe to the service. Subscribing also then enables you to collaborate on files in specified folders.
20. Visual Bookshelf
Where Flixster enables you to share with your friends the movies you've seen and what you'd like to see, Visual Bookshelf does much the same with your reading tastes. You can catalogue the books you own and those you've read, and then contribute reviews and ratings.
These in turn help you to find others in your circle of friends who like similar books and help generate discussion about the literature. You can then share recommendations or even arrange to lend and borrow books from each other.
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