I am pleased to be announce the first Web Community Forum Event, “Community Building in the Age of Facebook.” The event is to discuss and propose some tentative best practices for community building for business, political campaigns, marketing, and other professional efforts using Facebook and the Facebook platform.

As I mentioned this weekend, it is an exciting time for those involved with social networking. As a result this should be a memorable event. I am pleased to be a co-founder of the event with the rest of the Web Community Forum team. A big thanks to Steve Broback, Teresa Valdez Klein, Kim Larsen and Jason Preston for helping put this event together.

You can read more about the event over at the Web Community Forum website. If you are interested in attending go register for the event. It is taking place December 5 & 6 in Seattle, Washington at the Bell Harbor Conference Center. There is currently an early bird special for the first 25 individuals. After that you can use the discount code: FBCNON for a $50 discount.

We will be announcing speakers of the event over the coming weeks and months. This will definitely be a great event so sign up early! Feel free to get in contact if you or your company would like to speak at or sponsor the event. You can email Kim at kim [AT] parnassusventures [DOT] com.

This morning I had the fortune to be on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, the New York NPR affiliate. I spoke with Brian about the opportunities for companies as well as answered caller questions. Unfortunately the first phone I was using was not very kind to me so I fell of the interview twice which was interesting. If you are interested in listening to the segment you can use the player below.

Last month I wrote about the first Facebook app marketplace. This weekend, a new one launched which has duplicated the eBay auction platform technology called Appmrkt. As of now there are only 5 applications that are for sale but I have a feeling this will grow.

I find it particularly remarkable how the Facebook economy has rapidly become a self supporting ecosystem. From Facebook developers, to consultants, to development tools, to online auctions for applications and finally the risk seeking investors. This has truly become an incredible ecosystem that I am proud to be a part of. The Facebook economy is thriving and the launch of this marketplace is a symbol of the success.

If you want to buy or sell Facebook applications, go check out the Facebook AppMrkt.

According to Techcrunch, Dapper, an Israeli base startup, will be launching an new application on Tuesday that enables users to easily develop their own Facebook applications. Roi Carthy, the Techcrunch writer that reviewed it, sounded slightly disappointed by the feature set, stating that it required a little more development know-how on the Facebook side of things.

Whether or not the application worked, the release of this application shows how significant the launch of the Facebook platform is. Just as in the first phase of the web, when companies like GeoCities and Freewebs developed applications to make it simple for anyone to develop a basic website; now companies can make a presence on Facebook with the app development tools.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that we may have just gone full-circle with the web. Initially, AOL was a walled garden that controlled how users accessed the web. With the advent of companies like NetZero and eventually broadband, users could access the web through the browser of their choice. We are now moving back into a walled garden where anyone has the option to “plant their own flowers.” That analogy may have been a little weak but you’ll have to live with it! Just as AOL was eventually forced to pretty much open up, do you think Facebook will be forced to as well?

The past three months have been exciting. Entrepreneurs, developers, investors and Facebook users have all experienced the changing dynamic resulting from the launch of Facebook’s platform. Three days after the launch of the platform, this blog was born. There have been some amazing things that have come about. Facebook is now the leader in social networking and has everyone trying to catch up.

3,267 applications have launched so far. The majority of users have used at least one application. The top 46 applications have over 1 million users and the most popular application, Top Friends, has over 13 million users! This is only the beginning but it has been one hell of a ride. Many are trying to figure out if any useful applications will come about. When will the food fight end?

Many advertising networks have launched to cater to the developers as well as advertisers. Many of these companies are taking significant risks as they try to convince others that this form of advertising is effective. They aren’t the only people taking significant risks. Thousands of entrepreneurs have taken to this new opportunity and are running full speed ahead. It is truly an exciting time and I look forward to the future.

At lunch today I had a revelation. If Facebook expanded their privacy settings just a little bit, they could end LinkedIn’s success. Imagine if you were able to control all of your identities from one location. There would be three generic profile settings (or privacy categories): friends, professional and family. For each of those you can control which items users in that category could see.

Additionally, you could select what individuals could see, in the case that the general privacy settings did not fit them accurately. Once that occurred, Facebook would be capable of completely replacing all functionality that LinkedIn provides. What would take this one step further is the ability to control what applications each privacy category could access. I previously discussed this feature set and have thoroughly considered developing it within an application. Rather than investing the time and energy, I think Facebook should release this as an extended feature. Do you think this would be a useful feature?

RockYou, the social network widget development company, has had a significant presence on Facebook. RockYou has been extremely successful so far with their most popular application, Likeness, obtaining over 5 million users. I had the opportunity to speak with Jia Shen, the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Rock You.

What is your position at RockYou and what does your job consist of?

I’m the CTO / Co-founder. I make sure we’re doing all the right things as far as the product goes. I do a little bit of everything from product design, graphic design, programming, to IT / Operations. In a company this size, we kinda all do everything.

How involved have you been with the development of your Facebook applications?

I personally developed many of our apps. I still spend the majority of my day doing development.

What percentage of your company resources have been dedicated to Facebook application development?

About 70% of our development resources are on Facebook.

What do you think the most important components of an application are in order for them to be successful?

There are a variety of different types of applications, but the most successful ones are what we call “engagement” applications. These are apps that leverage social interactions between a user and their friends. They entice users to engage with one another and really spread virally very naturally.

What features have been most critical to your various applications’ success?

The most important functionality are those that properly leverage viral channels. The number one page on Facebook is the News Feed page, so anything that an application does to show up on that page is time well spent. Minifeed posts, Application invites, and notifications all bring applications to a users attention.

I’ve heard that RockYou is offering advertising services for application developers, is this true? Would it be possible to elaborate about what services you are providing exactly?

We’ve developed an advertising network that helps developers properly monitize their applications, and helps new developers grow their user base. These advertising services are unique in the way that they only appear at the end of a user experience. When an application has finished engaging with the user, they display our ad placements. They don’t really draw from the user experience like typical banner advertising. They also pay a lot better. Our publishers are seeing something like 40$ CPM on these pages. We’re seeing huge uptake on both the advertiser and publisher fronts. This has proved to be very successful for monetizing and user acquisition for our partner applications.

I’ve heard that you are currently charging application owners over $1.00 per application installation. Is this an accurate figure?

This is a system that’s constantly being tweaked, but we’ve seen numbers from .50 to above a dollar based on the day of the week and actual ad placement.

What future plans does RockYou have for Facebook applications?

With over 50% of Facebook users that have RockYou applications on their profiles, we’ll definitely keep cranking out Facebook applications. We are starting to focus more on initiatives to help the Facebook Developer community monetize.

Is there a specific number that Rock You has found to be critical mass of an application before it goes viral?

If an application is extremely viral, it should really just take off from no seeding at all. Applications like our Likeness took off without any seeding. It just flew off the shelves. There are a few key factors:

• Fundamental viral potential: How easy do users convert to adding the application. How likely are they to convert their friends.
• The pervasiveness of the target audience: Is the audience of the application all of Facebook, or is it targeted towards a smaller subset.

Do you know the demographics of users on your application? If so, what is the average age of your application users?

Depending on the application, the male to female ratio varies greatly, but the average age is around 21.

What has been the biggest challenge for RockYou in developing Facebook applications?

It’s definitely being able to maintain our focus. The Facebook platform is so flexible and still rapidly changing that the full product and business potential is mostly unrealized. We’ve had a hard time balancing the desire to develop many more applications with the need to refine our current ones.

Is there anything else you would like to have me mention with this interview?

We’ve got some cool ideas cooking, look out for them in the coming weeks and months for sure!

TravelPod.com has launched a number of Facebook applications but this one seems to top the rest. The Traveler IQ Challenge currently has close to 400,000 users and is growing rapidly. There is a reason for the viral growth. The Traveler IQ Challenge application provides users with an interactive way of testing their geographic knowledge.

Various cities and landmarks are displayed and the goal is to click as close as possible to where the place is on the map. The closer and quicker you are to the location, the higher the points. This game is fun and addictive. The best component is the ability to compare your scores to your friends. I am currently ranked 8th out of my 9 friends that have added the application which is pretty embarrassing.

This application should be used by all those intending to launch a game application. Everything about it is well thought out and executed. If you want to waste some time, go grab the Traveler IQ Challenge application. This is an addictive game though so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

PodTech has a short interview with Dustin Moskovitz, the co-founder of Facebook. While he doesn’t reveal much in this interview, Dustin states Facebook’s intention to continue operating as an independent company even five years down the road. Another interesting thing is the girl who seems to laugh about everything that Dustin says. Perhaps she is trying to laugh herself into some stock options?

A couple weeks ago I reviewed the Qloud application. At the time, the application was not ready for showtime. There were a lot of bugs that resulted in a number of features not working. After speaking with the Qloud team, they updated their app and now everything is working smoothly.

This time around they have done a great job. You can check out the most listened to artists as well as what your friends are listening to. You can also send a musical poke to your friends so that they can check out a song that you are interested in. When I first reviewed the application, I didn’t realize what the point of it was. I later found out that the real intention of the Qloud application is to enable users to listen to their music library from any computer no matter where their computer is or even if their computer with the song files is turned off. This is a great concept. While I think an iPod satisfies most of this need, the Qloud application grants you unlimited access to all of your songs.

Even though I ripped apart their application the first time, Qloud has come through with an excellent new version. They have resolved all the application timeouts and other issues. I highly recommend checking out the Qloud application, for listening to you and your friends’ musical libraries.