RockYou just sent out a press release announcing their new position as the leader of Facebook applications, surpassing Slide thanks to the rapid growth over the past week of their Super Wall application. RockYou’s announcement also quoted Alexa data, but as I have previously highlighted, Alexa data tends to be highly inaccurate. RockYou has also announced their new position as the largest advertising network on Facebook.

While RockYou has inched by Slide, both companies are the largest widget providers on the web. Others have criticized this space for catering to the childish desires of social network users. Those same individuals have suggested that the popular widgets currently being provided do not have sustainable business models. Aside from sustainability, Slide and RockYou have faced challenges in monetizing their widgets that are distributed across a vast array of social networks.

Both companies have instead opted to sell advertising space primarily on (if not completely limited to) their Facebook applications. The sustainability of this model has been questioned since the current inventory buyers are other application providers rather than brand advertisers. In a New York Times article, Michael Lazerow of Buddy Media equated this to the California gold rush when entrepreneurs began selling shovels to other gold diggers.

Regardless of sustainability, RockYou has further expanded their dominance in the widget space thanks to the new milestones. Just last week USA Today claimed that widgets are now “all the rage on the Web.” That would rank RockYou right below the hottest company in Silicon Valley: Facebook. Not a bad place to be!