Facebook's Top Ten Applications

According to Facebook.com, of the 350 million of their active accounts, 70% of that user population engage with Facebook platform Applications. From quizzes, games, photo-sharing and fan pages, Facebook currently has over 500,000 active Applications. Every day, users are invited by friends to play endless hours of Bejeweled Blitz, compare IQ scores or find out who is their celebrity crush. With this many options to click away the hours, it's no wonder many workplace supervisors are wary of Facebooking on company time.

At home and in the workplace, Facebook Applications are serious business to online media socialites. Facebakers.com--a website dedicated entirely to Facebook facts and stats--keeps daily, weekly and monthly tabs on popular platform Applications. According to the most recent published data, the top ten Facebook Applications are:

1) FarmVille, with a whopping 75, 374, 065 players sowing crops and tending land.

2) The Birthday Cards application, which allows users to send virtual greeting cards to friends and family on their special day.

3) Café World cooks up a respectable 30 million+ players who create tasty treats with the click of a mouse

.4) Happy Aquarium...for the inner marine biologist in all of us.

5) Facebook for iPhone Application. With over 25 million users, this is only in-house Application that made the top-ten.

6) FishVille, another cute and colorful collection of sea life to click away the hours.

7) Texas HoldEm Poker is a safe bet, casino-style game that is free to play... and fun against friends.

8)Causes Facebook.com describes Causes as a virtual tool for "equal opportunity activism," which is a blanket term for awareness, fundraising and support pages.

9)Mafia Wars encourages its 24.4 million gangsters to loot and plunder their way to the top of the crime syndicate. The virtual Godfather of Facebook Applications.

10) Pet Society rounds up the top-ten with nearly 19 million users who raise, train and play with virtual pets.

Zynga, the third-party creator of FarmVille, Café World, FishVille, Texas Holdem Poker, Mafia Wars and some fifteen other Facebook-friendly applications, has practically defined virtual gaming through social media. On Facebaker.com's top-ten Application list, Zynga has created five gaming platforms. And off the top-ten list, all but two Facebook Applications are games.

Without a doubt, browser-based gaming is the central hub of Facebook applications. But what is the purpose of caring for crops, collecting gangster debts and cooking up café delicacies? Publication Specialist Katherine Michaud explains, "It's a way to pass time. I used to do puzzles or cross stitch. Now I Facebook."

And, of course, no one can deny the competitive edge to Facebook Application gaming, whereby high scores hang as virtual trophies on the user's "Wall," to be flaunted to friends...until beaten by another's gaming skills. With a half-million Facebook Applications to choose from, which game will you play? You can open a virtual café, cull a bountiful harvest or build an empire in the Facebook underbelly--all from behind the computer screen.