Here’s a quick look at the Facebook applications I’ve tried on my profile, the ones I’ve kept and the ones I’ve disabled.

Applications

• Facebook Basics
  • Friends
  • Groups
  • Ads and Pages
  • I am a Fan of (like groups for pages)
  • Mini-Feed
  • Information
  • Education
  • The Wall
• Information I provide
  • Notes – miniblog items and imports of this information stream
  • Posted Items – links that I want to highlight
  • Flickr Badge – photos I post on Flickr rather than Facebook
  • Wordbook – import of the branch news
  • Where I’ve Been – not used very much
• Information I find that might be of interest to others
  • Feed Friend RSS – primarily AAUW related RSS feeds; has changed in the last month to put info in my mini-feed
  • del.icio.us – primarily items tagged aauwtech
  • SlideShare (for slide shows written by others; I tend to post my own slides elsewhere)
• Fundraising applications
  • Change.org – campaign based. Useful for linking nonprofits to a “change” to educate the change supporters about the mission and capacities of the nonprofit.
  • Changing the Present – campaigns linked to a specific nonprofit. Good for micro-payments to honor a friend or for a group to collaborate to raise a specific (usually not very large) sum. Seems well matched as a substitute for secret Santa gatherings — at least for groups that are just too serious for such frivolity as Dollar Store gifts.
  • Causes – campaigns linked to specific nonprofit. There’s no AAUW presence, and it’s not clear the volunteers are empowered to create one.
• Social Networking applications
  • Introductions – allows me to introduce one friend to another
  • Top Groups – provides quick links to my most used groups (but has even less information about recent updates than the standard Groups application)
  • Interactive Friends Graph – works with Introductions to visualize friends who don’t yet connect
  • Entourage – panel of friends’ pictures, can be easier to find them there
  • Circle of friends – public or private “circles”. Allows for messaging groups of friends in an ad hoc way (i.e without setting up a group). Compare address lists you keep in your address book vs. e-mail lists hosted on the server.
  • Bumper sticker – allows for sharing “badges.” The app, though, has some serious problems and is too flakey for a general recommendation.
  • My links – links to me on other social networking sites

Concerns

• Very few apps work on pages. How to find good ones there is a challenge. In particular would like to use the notes feature, particularly if enabled to import a blog.
• A simple training app like Flashcards would be helpful

Disabled

• Virtual bookshelf — may reactivate once I have time to read
• Word-A-Day, Zoho Online Office, – just didn’t use
• Questions — would more likely use this on LinkedIn, not Facebook (?)
• Flashcards and FC Test – developer seems to be off on other things, and until there’s a search function it seems minimally useful