Facebook facing "app fatigue"

Now that third-party companies and developers can create custom applications for Facebook members to add to their profiles, via Facebook Platform, building "Facebook apps" has become a top priority for many web companies - particularly smaller ones looking to make it big by capitalising on Facebook's large and loyal user base.

At Wednesday night's Facebook Developer Meetup in New York, the mood could be summed up by the appearance of a clean-cut young entrepreneur who had written "I NEED AN APP" in thick black marker on his name tag.

His web endeavor hadn't even gone live yet but he knew he wanted - even needed - to be able to build an application for it using Facebook Platform, the set of tools the popular social-networking site released last month.

Nathan Freitas, creator of Cruxy, a set of tools that help musicians and filmmakers share and sell their digital content, said: "It's an amazing platform. It's fantastic. They really thought of so many things and it's a pleasure to develop for, honestly."

Less than a month after its debut, however, Facebook Platform may be closing in on a saturation point. Dave Morin, Facebook's director of platform, told the Developer Meetup audience via videoconference that more than 40,000 developers have requested to be part of the project, around 1,500 applications have been produced so far and some of the most popular went from zero to 850,000 users in three days.

Morin said to the developers: "This is unprecedented in the history of the internet."

Amit Gupta, who hosted the developer event on Wednesday night, said: "I definitely think that people are initially going to run into 'app fatigue'." Gupta has created a Facebook Platform application for his photography tips newsletter, Photojojo. He added: "I think I've started to see that already with some of the people in my circle."

But Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who dropped in unexpectedly at the event, said though some users might find the third-party applications distracting or disruptive, they're central to Facebook's overall philosophy of letting users build the site from the ground up.

Caroline McCarthy writes for CNET News.com