Planting veggies on Farmville and tickling the grey matter on Brain Buddies have become standard pastimes for many users of social networks. But these days, there are also social networking utilities with a bit more substance, too. All you have to do is be willing to try them out.
Facebook is supplemented by a seemingly endless supply of apps, as are many other similar social networking sites. Most of these little programs are games, though. “Helpful applications for social network users are more rare,” says Dominik Hoferer from Chip magazine. “Polls and calendar functions are much more common,” he says.
Facebook users in particular have to look around a bit before they’ll find much that’s practical. Among the hidden treasures are apps that spare them the installation of additional programs. Picnik, for example, allows for online photo editing, including simple color correction, cropping, or red eye correction.
“Fileshare is an application that allows users to swap files,” says Hoferer. Another utility, Files, creates a virtual hard drive capable of holding up to one gigabyte of data. Roomster is designed to help apartment seekers find people with space to rent — and learn a little about each other. Zimride helps match rideshare partners and lets them check for compatibility in advance.
The social networks rely on open source: in theory anyone can create apps. But commercial companies, too, have also seen the potential. “The success of an app is much less dependent on a big budget than a good idea,” says Jens Doka from lokalisten.de. One current example is the “Langenscheidt Audio Language Course in English,” a Facebook app that delivers an audio course every other day, including vocabulary.
Users should know which apps use their personal data. A recent examination of social networks for their security policies found that every single social network offered insufficient…