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Facebook apps: this month's must-have

Wild West
But even Zuckerberg's caution wouldn't seem to dissuade developers' enthusiasm. Starry-eyed entrepreneurs at the gathering talked about how they'd heard of companies that had experienced soaring traffic after creating popular applications, like iLike's music discovery tool, when they achieved heavy viral buzz. A few mentioned potential investors have added "Are you working on a Facebook Platform application?" to the questions posed to start-ups seeking funding.

"As soon as I heard that [Zuckerberg] was thinking of opening it up to other applications, I thought it was definitely important," said Rachel Sterne, founder and chief executive of the citizen journalism start-up GroundReport, who is working on creating an application. "We can't be the last one on the block."

There are now applications that tie into massive social media sites like Flickr, Digg and Last.fm; as well as smaller companies like TravelPod, Flixster and PicksPal. There are also standalone applications that don't connect to any external site and simply serve to spice up the user experience (for better or worse): like the SuperPoke application that allows users to virtually karate-chop and pinch each other; the Graffiti Wall, which lets members draw in the manner of Microsoft Paint in a box embedded on profiles; and Bunny Picture, which does exactly what it says on the tin.

It's nothing short of a gold rush. "There's a land grab, because [lots of] space has not been claimed," Freitas explained. "There's definitely a rush, and I think there's going to be a saturation point."

It's similar, Freitas said, to his earlier experiences developing an email application called ThinAir for the Palm 7 platform several years ago. "It was the same deal," he said. "Apps coming out left and right, every app got a lot of traffic, and at a certain point it was too much. What's good is that it settles down."

Even when the dust eventually settles, it's unclear whether Facebook members might be nostalgic for the old blue-and-white site. "I've already seen people saying Facebook's getting too cluttered and I think people are already feeling a little overwhelmed," Sterne said. "One of Facebook's biggest advantages used to be that it was the anti-MySpace. It was simple and clean."

MySpace, which dwarfs Facebook in membership numbers and global reach, has always allowed members to heavily customise their profiles with audio, video and embeddable code -- sometimes to the point of nausea, depending on who you ask. But ultimately, Facebook developers think adding their work to Facebook's mix will be worth it to the young company.

"It's the Wild West. I love it," Freitas said. "They're not trying to be overprotective, which I think is ultimately a good thing, but there's a lot of risk in that strategy and I admire them for taking a gamble."