Everybody's Building a Facebook App

At one point during the interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at Web 2.0, John Battelle asked the audience how many were developing Facebook apps -- a la the kind of stuff Slide is doing. (Put a slide show on your Facebook page -- woo-hoo!) An astounding number of hands went up -- like 20% or more of the audience.

But as a few tech veterans I talked to afterwards said, it's a stretch to think any of these Facebook apps will ever generate much revenue. Facebook itself doesn't yet have much of a money-making model. One of the few Facebook apps that has put itself in a good position is iLike, which uses its popularity on Facebook to drive people to buy music and concert tickets, with iLike getting a cut.

At one point I was chatting with old friend Valerie Buckingham of Nokia, and we decided that the perfect Facebook app would be a cloaking device for unfriending someone. So if you click "Remove Friend," the former friend can never tell. Perhaps if he clicks on your profile he forever sees a static old version, taking months or years before he realizes he's not seeing any of your updates.

Now, if someone develops that and it takes off, Val and I want a piece of the action, k?

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