Chapter 18. Finding Fun Games and Applications

Mafia Wars. FarmVille. LivingSocial. FamilyLink.

You’ve seen them. Possibly you’ve played them or used them. Maybe you’ve even been annoyed by them—or rather, by posts about them from your friends. But what are they?

Mafia Wars, FarmVille, LivingSocial, et al are Facebook applications. That is, they’re games and little utility programs that run on the Facebook site. And they’re very, very popular.

Understanding Facebook Applications

A Facebook application is simply a program or game that runs on the Facebook site. These applications are accessed from their own Facebook pages, and you use them while you’re signed into Facebook.

Now, these aren’t big fancy applications like Microsoft Office or Quicken. ...

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