2008 Woodie Awards
Applications flood students' Facebook pages
Mike O'Keefe
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: FUSE
Originally published: 2/28/08 at 3:30 PM EST
Last update: 2/28/08 at 3:28 PM EST
Remember the days when your Facebook experience was simple? You would sign in, see your photograph and personal information, and surf the site looking at other peoples' profiles?
Soon after this now archaic format came the News Feed and the Mini-feed, which allowed any friends of yours to be notified of changes to your profiles.
This included (but was not limited to) your photograph, contact information, wall posts and any new friends you may have gained.
Some saw these new additions as cool and innovative ways to find out more about their social group.
Others saw the change as creepy, useless add-ons to a perfect site - a commonly used Web site amongst college students, which allows them to keep in touch with people and meet new ones.
Since the creation of the site in February of 2004, it has gained millions of users, and has expanded its reach quite a bit. There are currently 66 million active users of Facebook, according to the site. The many changes that have occurred since its creation have had mixed reactions from traditional Facebook users.
Well, if the Mini-feed ruffled some feathers, applications must have caused a lot of commotion.
Facebook applications allow for a variety of things, and in themselves are quite hard to explain. In fact, they solicit no need for explanation, because most users have a new flood of application requests daily on the right-hand column on their home page screen.
The applications interact with the main site in varying ways, but are mainly created by third-party developers and help users to have a more focused (or in some cases, distracting) Facebook page.
They are usually offered in order to show a certain type of personality, if only virtually. The applications may reveal an unknown trait to a curious person who is surfing Facebook.
"It's useless besides a few exceptions," said Dorhani Avila, Plattsburgh State senior. "I just use the cute ones."
Some people use applications to support their favorite sports team. Many hockey, football and baseball teams are represented by either groups or applications.
Soon after this now archaic format came the News Feed and the Mini-feed, which allowed any friends of yours to be notified of changes to your profiles.
This included (but was not limited to) your photograph, contact information, wall posts and any new friends you may have gained.
Some saw these new additions as cool and innovative ways to find out more about their social group.
Others saw the change as creepy, useless add-ons to a perfect site - a commonly used Web site amongst college students, which allows them to keep in touch with people and meet new ones.
Since the creation of the site in February of 2004, it has gained millions of users, and has expanded its reach quite a bit. There are currently 66 million active users of Facebook, according to the site. The many changes that have occurred since its creation have had mixed reactions from traditional Facebook users.
Well, if the Mini-feed ruffled some feathers, applications must have caused a lot of commotion.
Facebook applications allow for a variety of things, and in themselves are quite hard to explain. In fact, they solicit no need for explanation, because most users have a new flood of application requests daily on the right-hand column on their home page screen.
The applications interact with the main site in varying ways, but are mainly created by third-party developers and help users to have a more focused (or in some cases, distracting) Facebook page.
They are usually offered in order to show a certain type of personality, if only virtually. The applications may reveal an unknown trait to a curious person who is surfing Facebook.
"It's useless besides a few exceptions," said Dorhani Avila, Plattsburgh State senior. "I just use the cute ones."
Some people use applications to support their favorite sports team. Many hockey, football and baseball teams are represented by either groups or applications.
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