For those of you who use Facebook's applications, why do you use them?

I used to sign up in a flurry with all my friends, play with them for a week, then delete them. In my experience the fun wears off rather quickly. Now, I ignore them unless they have some sort of real purpose…not just biting zombies for hours on end.

I don’t.

I don’t either. I’m just beginning to understand how to use FB. I guess it’s just me, but I find their website to be confusing enough without adding apps!

For those of you who DO use Facebook’s applications…

There’s some great applications out there, like the Vimeo application for example, but they get buried under a whole heap of dribble.

When Facebook realised how dribbly the majority of applications were, they made a special place for them on the profile; the ‘boxes’ tab. (You know, the very last one.) This essentially pushed all applications off the profile, and made the idea of putting your activity on other websites on your profile through the use of applications redundant.

It’s a sad state of affairs, IMO. On the other hand, I love core Facebook.

I do and it can be fun to send the quizzes to friends and see “Who were you in another life?” or “What do you know about jelly beans?” I added quite a bit when I first joined. I have all the DD drinks I could ever want, and don’t need another piece of candy, so will just delete those apps.

At the moment I have 204 requests to check out. It can get daunting to try and keep up and even FIND your applications, but it’s just a diversion from real life. Let’s face it, I’m never going to have a Lamborghini in real life, but I have at least TWO on FB! My favorites are the flair and bumper stickers.

All in all, I guess it’s just a bunch of silly stuff. I like to go and see new pictures people put up, what videos they want me to check out, or to just comment on their status.

I think the apps are ways to gather information about you for marketing purposes. You essentially are giving access to your information when you add an app. I like playing scrabble online but even that gets old.

I love the pass your drink, the pillow fight, the food fling, the super poke, and some of the gift giving stuff, the reason I love them is it is a way to keep in contact with my computer friends and have fun with them and yes to learn a little about them and them me if you think about….in real life I don’t drink that much in real life, I have never had a pillow fight, and the thought of really throwing food instead of eating it would kill me lol. The reason I love giving gifts is, it’s nice and it’s free…would I do it in real life….for some of them that I think is real nice but see you can give great gifts with a little note with it and you made someone’s day.

I just got on FB, and a couple people started sending me flowers and whatnot. When I tried to accept them, and had to go through a huge questionnaire ending with the question about whether I gave permission to give FB access to my data, I freaked out, and refused.

I agree with Alfreda that it’s marketing. I agree with Autumn that it’s just a silly social thing. I hate being sold stuff that I’m not interested in, and I don’t do silly very well at all. So I just ignore these things.

for fun, i use buper sticker the most, it helps show friends youre thinking about them :)

I use wordscraper and prolific to play games with my friends, but that’s about it.

I was a big fan of using the graffiti wall before it got shafted to its own tab. I like it when people draw me messages instead of writing.

I use Pieces of Flair because a close friend told me that I should. But I don’t spam people with it, and I’m pretty picky about which flair I use.

I use Tumblelog and Twitter because they offer integration with other services. But Tumblelog is perpetually broken, or so it seems.

I use Where I’ve Been because people are always asking me to list the ~30 countries I’ve visited or lived in.

I use the StrengthsFinder app because my school is really big on StrengthsFinder. All that one does is list one’s top five strengths according to the test.

I used to use My Heroes Ability because it was a fun game (at least in concept), but it got worse and worse until the devs finally abandoned it. And now the show sucks, too, so… yeah.

I never spam people, no matter the incentive offered by the app in question.

i use the Lil Green patch, but thats about it, and the reason i use it is because me and my friends are battling to the end of time to see who saves more rainforest.

I like the Currently Reading app. It’s fun to see what everyone else has read/is reading.
As silly as it is, I really enjoy sending bumperstickers to people as well. There’s some crazy ones!

Thanks y’all. That does help me understand. Maybe I’ll try out the bumper stickers and Currently Reading.

@Richardhenry, lurve to you for the use of that wonderful word: dribbly.

Thank you, everyone! I had no idea some of these suggestions were even there. Now if I can find them, I will try some.

The only one I really use is Bumper Sticker. My friends and I are addicted to them.

I am thinking they are marketing ‘ploys’ also, it seems since I started FB recently I am getting a lot more ‘spam’ in my regular email account now. I also find FB very confusing and can’t figure out how to delete the apps. I don’t want to continue to get.

I also agree that the apps on there do get real old real quick as they are asking for you too take ‘surveys,buy something, or some other thing’ just too ‘play the game’. I don’t need that hassle myself!

[dust off an old answer for a new question]

Ooh, thanks for pointing that out. I just added Friend Wheel and Scramble. Awesome.

I added the ‘Friend Wheel’ too. Neato!

hey I dont really use facebook applications but my friends are HOOKED on stuff like farmville and mobwars…. I guess it keeps a little variety in facebook and online socializing…. I currently dont have the time for those apps but understand how people can get hooked I guess its sorta like playing an online mass multiplayer game but alot easier :)