Archive for June 28th, 2009

Facebook Causes App

Facebook Causes Now Available

Summary

Facebook and any other web 2.0 site has one thing about it that really sets it apart from all of the other sites on the internet. That thing, quite simply put, is the ability to bring people together like never before. You can live in Canada and South Africa can be in your bedroom because of your ability to communicate with people around the world through Facebook. Any application that takes advantage of this unique ability is one that definitely deserves to be highlighted. Causes is an example of such an application and it could very well change the world forever.

User Interaction

Interacting with Causes is very easy to do. All you have to do is scroll around and click on buttons that represent various actions. This is the prototypical Facebook app because all of the controls on this app are controls you would find in other areas around Facebook. Therefore, the average Facebook user will have no problems adjusting to the set of controls available in Causes.

User Interface

The Causes user interface operates under the same deal as the Causes user interaction. This app is basically built into Facebook and you use it however you wish within your Facebook account. For that reason, the user interface is the Facebook user interface. Any person that has had any kind of experience working inside Facebook should not be surprised by anything that they see in Causes.

Utility and Productivity

Causes is not just a great software package in the technical sense, it is a great package in the social sense. The people that created Causes understand exactly the power of Facebook and they have leveraged that power in order to get people to organize into different social activism projects. It is not only a powerful application for the tens of millions of people that now use it, but there is every chance that it could change the world through the power of the social activism project.

It is important to remember that the best social activism projects are the ones that are well organized and therefore able to keep their members interested. The same is true for the Causes app on Facebook, as only the projects on there that have high levels of organization are able to retain members. In the world of Causes, a successful cause is not one that actually raises a lot of money, but rather one that maintains a high list of membership and spreads the word about whatever social action it is backing. With viewers given the maximum choice as to what they want to create and back, Causes has started something that could easily sweep through the rest of the web 2.0 websites.

Rating

At the end of the day, Causes is not a flashy application. Nevertheless, it is an extremely important one that people can get so much out of if they are willing to put in the time necessary to cultivate those relationships. Because of the great potential this app has, we have marked it 8.5 out of 10.

Facebook’s Visual Bookshelf App

Facebook’s Visual Bookshelf App Brings People Together

Summary

The Visual Bookshelf is a Facebook Verified App. That essentially means that people from Facebook have looked it over and said that it is fine as far as trustworthiness and security is concerned. That is a great thing, because Visual Bookshelf is quickly becoming one of the most popular apps on Facebook.

User Interaction

The two main actions that are involved with Visual Bookshelf are adding books to your own shelf and then browsing through the shelves of other Facebook users.

When you are adding books to your own shelf, all you are doing is filling out the information on a form and then clicking the submit button in order to add that book to your shelf. There is a lot of information contained within your shelf and therefore you can actually take the extra time and actions to browse through your own bookshelf in order to make sure that all of the books are there and catalogued correctly.

Similarly, you can look through the bookshelves of other people. The great thing is that you have maximum choice when it comes to how you would like to browse. For example, you can simply browse through shelves by clicking on profiles and navigating to the shelves, or you can take a look at people that have the same books in their shelf as you. The choice is endless and this is a great way to meet people that share your interests.

User Interface

User interface issues on Visual Bookshelf are non-existent. Essentially, this is an app that runs inside Facebook and steals the Facebook interface to use for its own program as well. The graphics are unique and the way in which the text is spread out across the shelf is also unique. However, the overall design of the graphical user interface still includes Facebook in it to a very large degree.

Utility and Productivity

One of the main purposes of the Facebook service is to allow people to connect with other people. Because this is one of the main purposes, any application that helps that purpose along is definitely one that gets a high utility score. The Visual Bookshelf app is one of these because you can tell a lot about a person based on what they read and more importantly what books they like. You can also judge how well two people will get along based on how similar their tastes actually are. Combine both of these together and you have Facebook’s Virtual Bookshelf.

The productivity on this software is high for the same reason. You can meet people with similar tastes in a fraction of the time it would take you to meet them in the real world. At the end of the day, that is a very important point that is most definitely worth emphasizing.

Rating

Visual Bookshelf is easily one of the best apps on Facebook for the reasons mentioned above. As a way of recognizing that, we have awarded Visual Bookshelf a score of 9.0 out of 10.

Pool and Pinball Facebook App

Pool and Pinball Facebook App  in one with Facebook Bumper Stars

Summary

The tag line for Bumper Stars is “Pinball, Pool, Beavers and Fruit”, although there is a whole lot of fun involved in this program beyond those things as well. Actually, that might not be entirely fair since all four of those things are a large part of why this particular Facebook game is as fun as it happens to be.

User Interaction

Another reason that Bumper Stars is so popular is that it is very easy to control. If you have ever played one of the online pool games or one of the many pinball games available online or on your cell phone, you know how easy those two types of games are to control. The same is true for Bumper Stars, which allows you to go right ahead and become one of the greatest Pinball and Pool Sharks around.

User Interface

The interface is essentially the interface of a Pinball table. You are playing Pinball, but you are also playing Pool. The interface is really not that complicated either actually, since you have an online game that is surrounded by the typical Facebook interface. It is actually quite remarkable for that reason and the easy to learn user interface is definitely something that increases the fun value of this particular game.

Utility and Productivity

Utility and productivity really come out of nowhere for this particular game. In fact, it is really only utility that is worth discussing with this game, because like most Facebook games the productivity is non-existent. It might actually be fairer to state that the productivity rating of Bumper Stars is a negative, but only because of how good the game is. Bumper Stars is so good as a game that you will become addicted to playing it and that of course will lower your productivity rating elsewhere.

As for the utility, you will find Bumper Stars to be both easy and fun. In addition to the ease of use mentioned above, Bumper Stars is easy on your system resources. It essentially does not take that much more than Facebook and even allows you to run other programs in the background quite easily while you are playing this game. When you put all of these things together, the end result is a very easy to operate game that at the same time allows you to play endlessly without having to worry about what it will do to your computer.

Rating

There are other sites that refuse to give games a mark above a certain amount because of the fact that they are essentially non-productive software packages. This is ridiculous however since it is perfectly possible for games to be designed well enough to warrant a much higher rating. We have no problems awarding games high marks and this one is designed well enough to be particularly deserving of such an honor. For that reason, we have awarded this game a mark of 8.5 out of 10. The productivity is still marked off within that particular overall marking scheme.