Faith Feed, one of the Facebook applications competing in the current fbFund round, does exactly what its name implies. A status updating tool geared towards Christians, Faith Feed is quite similar to Twitter though it resides in Facebook and enables you to communicate directly with your friends. Similar to Twitter, you can post “what you’re doing” on your spiritual journey. You can also follow friends, reply to their status updates, and see what’s going on with the entire Faith Feed community.
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Bottle Rocket is a Facebook application currently competing for the fbFund $1 million prize. It is a wine-rating application aiming to provide you with the information you need in order to select a wine that’s right for you. Based on your continued participation, the BottleRocket application will recommend wine that fits your pallet.
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RealGifts is a fun application that bridges the gap between virtual gifting and real world gifting. A competitor in the current fbFund round, RealGifts lets you send tangible presents to your friends, which are delivered in the mail. The good thing about using such a gifting program through Facebook is that you can send and receive gifts without knowing or revealing your physical address–Facebook already knows this information.
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LuckyCal is the business traveler’s guide to getting lucky. You know, for landing sales deals and stuff. At least that’s what it was designed to do. For those business travelers that need to make a trip to a far away city, what better use of time than to find others in the area that may be available for a meeting as well? More meetings, more sales, and more savings for which your manager can take the credit.

LuckyCal is the tool that lets you keep track of the proximity of your colleagues and friends. Similar to Dopplr and TripIt, you can share your travel plans with others so that you can schedule a time to meet up with those that are in the same town as you–at the same time. LuckyCal works by syncing with your Google calendar, iCal and Outlook, so that there’s little manual work you need to do within LuckyCal, outside of adding contacts.
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Even though lower gas prices may give your wallet a little more wiggle room, there’s still an outstanding need to pinch a few pennies here and there! With all the price comparison tools on the web, there’s certainly plenty of help available, but what about when you’re actually at the store? Pongr is one of the finalists in round 1 of the fbFund competition, and it lets you do your price comparisons while you’re out shopping. How? With bar codes.

I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t there existing apps that take photos of bar codes in order to give you more information on a product? There are, and they’ve been slower to adopt in the US versus countries like Japan, due to the lack of standardized and inclusively distributed software on mobile phones. But Pongr gets around such constrictions by offering a number of options for submitting information about a product. Instead of taking a photo of the bar code, you can provide the UPC number and send it to Pongr via text message or email.
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Everyone likes a free drink. But if you have to pay for a drink (especially pay for someone else’s drink), nothing beats the rock bottom price of $1.00. fbFund competitor BarTab has taken a popular gifting strategy and set a single, low price for drinks purchased through its application.

The drinks can hen be sent to friends, and they can redeem them at a local bar. In order for a friend to redeem a drink, they must provide their cell phone number in order to have their redemption coupon sent to their mobile device which can be shown to the bar tender.So far, BarTab is restricted to a handful of bars in Arizona, but the development team is currently working on expansion.
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I don’t know many high school students other than those in my immediate family, but the high school students I do know are often able to get a good idea about what college life is all about based on the photos shared by their college-age friends on Facebook.  But if this isn’t enough, the CheckMyCampus application could shed some light on what really goes down during those formidable college years.  A finalist in the fbFund competitive round, CheckMyCampus offers a media “viewing station” to provide first hand accounts of how awesome college life is across the nation. Facebook users can upload videos and images to show their own perspective of college life.  The ultimate goal of CheckMyCampus is to give high school students a realistic portrayal of life on a college campus.
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It’s true, Facebook makes it pretty easy to connect with friends online.  But what happens after you’ve mutually agreed to be friends with someone? The Facebook news feed does a good amount to inform you as to what’s going on with those in your friends list.  But beyond the Birthday reminders, there’s not a whole lot that Facebook does to help you manage your online relationships.  If you feel like your friends are falling through the cracks and you just can’t keep up with all the things you need to do for relationship maintenance, Socialfly is here to help.
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In our continuing coverage of the fbFund second round participants, we’re taking a look at the Social Arcade application. Developed by Rick Vanner and Dave Milton of The Game Creators LTD, the application contains a library of simple games that you can play as well as “gift” to other friends. I went ahead and tested out a few of the games which reminded me of the days of playing the simple TI-82 games back in middle and high school.

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Just a couple weeks ago we released news about the second round of fbFund winners. The second phase involved user voting in which users will be able to vote, via the fbFund voting application, from tomorrow until November 30th. The top 5 finalists will then be announced on December 8th. Users can return to the application to vote on a daily basis between now and the end of the voting period.

Each application in this round has its own page which describes the application and a contestant generated video about the application. Below are screenshots of each of the pages. This part of the contest is extremely important as the 5 finalists will be given $225,000 each in non-recourse grants. There are currently 25 applications that are being voted on including:

• BarTab - Send a drink to a friend, with Facebook! BarTab allows users to send real drinks to each other for only $1. Drinks are redeemed through the user’s cell phone at partnered bars and restaurants.
• Black Drumm -Black Drumm develops applications that helps users organize events with friends. Whether it is going to a local concert, or planning a trek on Kilimanjaro, the application seamlessly coordinates offline activities; no more chains of emails to sort through, or spreadsheets to maintain.
• Bottle Rocket - Bottle Rocket helps users pick the perfect bottle of wine. Users can compare wines with friends on Facebook or on the Bottle Rocket iPhone application. Bottle Rocket then analyzes the wines users have liked with ratings from their friends to make informed recommendations.
• Check My Campus - Check My Campus makes the college search process easier, better and more fun. The application allows current college students to share photos and videos about life on their campuses, giving high schoolers an inside look at what real life is like at these different schools.
• Daikon - Daikon enables users to build powerful applications on the Facebook platform without writing a single line of code. Daikon produces applications that focus on increasing the enjoyment and productivity of the Facebook experience.
• Faithfeed - FaithFeed is an application where users can share about their journey of faith with friends. Through the application, users can share praises, prayer requests, resolutions and the details of what God is teaching them. Users can also keep each other accountable and support each other throughout the week.
• Good Call Sports LLC - Good Call Football is an app developed by Good Call Sports that allows users to predict each offensive play during a televised football game, in real time, and compete nationwide based on the accuracy of their predictions.
• GroupCard - GroupCard lets users rally their friends to sign the same printable online card to celebrate any occassion. Each friend can add a message, upload photos or audio, and even make a gift contribution. GroupCard started at Stanford, and is already used by thousands of groups worldwide.
• HitGrab - MouseHunt, a HitGrab creation, is a game of epic proportions. Players are hunters, hired by the king to trap mice that infest his kingdom. For each mouse caught, users will find a reward, bringing them closer to being the best MouseHunter in the land.
• Kontagent - Kontagent is the leading viral analytics platform for social network application developers. Kontagent analytics provides deep social data visualization and analysis that delivers actionable insights delivered via a hosted, on-demand service.
• Koofers - Koofers helps students create and share information that helps with classes. Users can share old tests, quizzes, and study guides; view current and past grade breakdown and average GPA for every class and professor; review professors and read ratings before signing up for new classes, and get help from other students in the same class.
• Newsbrane - Newsbrane recommends news stories and other online content to users based on their interests. Vote items up and down and Newsbrane learns the stories a user wants to see.
• Party Buzz - Party Buzz is your source of information for what’s happening offline amongst your friends. Check out your friend’s events, discuss weekend plans, and find the best parties. Bonus feature: for each event check the median age, guy-to-girl ratio, number of singles, and more!
• Pongr - Pongr is a mobile price comparison service that lets you check prices online and at nearby stores. While shopping, users can share items with their Facebook friends. Pongr mobile apps, texting, and image recognition makes bargain shopping fun!
• ProfessionalProfile - Professional Profile leverages a user’s existing social connections into a professional network.
• RealGifts - RealGifts is a social gifting application that allows users to send their friends real, tangible gifts in the mail, without needing to know their friends’ delivery address.
• Socialfly - Be twice the friend in half the time! Socialfly lets users write their own notes about people, set reminders to talk to friends, and plan fun activities together. Socialfly will soon be available on both Facebook and the iPhone.
• Teach the People - Teach the People is an open educational platform. Teachers get the tools to share their expertise, allowing their knowledge to go viral, attract an audience, and be monetized effectively. Students get access to high quality, low cost education in Facebook’s social environment.
• The Game Creators - The Game Creators built Social Arcade, an application which users get creative and design their own game from shoot-’em-ups to platformers to racing games and more. Users can give friends the gift of a game and even personalize it.
• TrailBehind - TrailBehind helps users find great places to hike. Avid hikers can explore maps, plan trips, log their travels, and work together to build better maps of the outdoors.
• Twenty20 Cricket - Twenty20 Cricket was created for cricket fanatics around the world to connect and share their passion via an exciting online cricket manager game. Users compete to be the best team by training their players, and then challenging their friends and other team managers!
• vDream Racing - vDream would be Henry Ford’s favorite application on Facebook. vDream offers users access to real cars, real parts, real performance specs, and the ability to connect and compete with other car enthusiasts.
• WedSnap - WedSnap created Weddingbook, a social network on Facebook for those preparing for a wedding. Brides and grooms meet on Weddingbook to get advice, support, and inspiration during their engagement and wedding planning process.
• Wildfire - Wildfire enables consumers to discover, share and engage with interactive promotions like contests, sweepstakes and give-aways and enables companies to easily create their own attractive, branded promotions that are automatically integrated with Facebook’s social features.

To vote go install the fbFund voting application. Remember that you can check back daily to vote. Best of luck to the fbFund participants!