What Apps - Reviews and profiles of social applications for Facebook, MySpace, and more.

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Countdown by Paperade is an application that inserts pretty flash animated countdown timers into your Facebook profile.

Creating one is easy. Select the type of count down, enter the date and select create.

After creating an event, you’re returned to a listing of all your timers.

And publishes a realtime timer to your profile that looks like this..

But I think this default counter looks ugly, so I decided to change the skin. This is easily accomplished by clicking on the link "Change Skin" link.

There are presently about 9 skins to choose from. My favorite is the Digital theme. In addition to adding your own countdowns, you can insert countdowns that other people have created.

Overall, I found the application meets it’s description and provides stylish enough skins that I’ll leave it on my profile.

Installed

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So the latest app to hit my Facebook News Feed is The Brain Game by Fendoo, Ltd. At the rapid pace of these news feeds I’m quickly learning which of my friends are right brained and which are left brained. The Brain Game promises to tell you which side of the brain you use the most by playing this “simple and amazing” game. It also takes the liberty of informing all of your friends of your results.

Brain Surgery

The Brain Game is able to determine this using a completely non-invasive method that is as “simple” as advertised. Without spoiling too much of the fun, the basic premise is that you stare at an animation of a spinning dancer’s silhouette.

Based on the direction she appears to be spinning to you, clockwise or “anti-clockwise” (counter-clockwise), The Brain Game will determine if you are right brained or left brained. It says I am right brained.

The Result

The Brain Game works exactly as advertised. It’s incredibly simple. It only took me 2 minutes from install to results. That includes the bonus brain teaser game they throw in after you get your test results.

Unfortunately for me though the “amazing” part is lacking, mostly because I’ve already seen this optical illusion elsewhere on the Internet. I am also able to change the direction of the dancer at will simply depending on what part of the screen I am looking at. While it is possible that I am whole brained as other test have shown in the past, it is more likely that the science behind this test isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

If you are like me though and enjoy brain teasers you will probably get a couple minutes of fun out of The Brain Game and more fun seeing the results from your friends. You probably won’t keep it installed though since it doesn’t provide any continued value or service.

Uninstalled

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Dolumar is currently in alpha (early development), which means it’s incomplete and may have bugs — which is and does.

Dolumar is definately in the early stages, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking at.

In this game you build a kingdom. You build resources and recruit your army (which of course requires more resources).

Dolumar has a great interface. I really like the graphics and the dragable map, though the game is not without it’s faults.

Dolumar is very slow paced — a little too slow.  Ok, paaaaaaiiiiinfully slow. Building a single resource can take up to 3 hours. So click and come back after dinner.

Sending your army out to attack will take 36 hours (yes real life hours, not game hours). But don’t worry, after they attack, it only takes them 18 hours to come back home (if they survive).

What you can build is also pretty limited.  You can build resources (wood, grain, iron, etc.) and recruit infantry, that’s it.

Even though it’s excruciatingly slow, I still enjoy this game. I make my one move a day (which usually takes me less than a minute), then check back tomorrow.

It’s very clear that Dolumar is in alpha, but it’s also clear this game has a lot potential. I’d keep an eye on this one…

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Hangouts by Yelp, is kind of like the eVite of what I’m doing tonight. It’s not for event planning, just for letting your friends know where they can find you, or perhaps where you may find them. You list all your favorite places and record where you’ll be. It’s currently restricted to the US. So far, I’m kind of liking the idea.

After signing in, it puts me in Los Angeles. That’s nice, since Local Picks dropped me off in Boston. I click the button, “Stayin’ Home.” and it posts the following to my profile:

Ok, so now I want to see what my friends are doing. I click on the Friends tabs… and wait a sec. There’s no friends tab. In fact, I can’t even figure out how to determine what my friends are doing without going to my friends profiles or perhaps reading my mini feed.

These aren’t my friends. I don’t know them. I do have a friend or two with the application installed. I’d rather get updated about their status than some random socialites.

Next, I click on one of the hangout spots, “the grove”. I like this place…

Again… no one I know.

Hangouts is not interesting to me. It’s only about meeting people who might like a place that I like, but doesn’t even clearly indicate if they’re going to be there or just like the hangout. It doesn’t make it easier for me to find out what my friends are up to. It seems that just about the only thing remotely useful it does, is to post a story to my mini feed about where I’ll be going, but for that, I’ll just use my Facebook status message.

Some of my minimum expectations for this sort of app:

• I would expect to see a tab of my friends and where they are going.
• I would expect to see a list of my friends favorite places.
• I would expect to be able to invite my friends to go out tonight.
• I would expect to see a history of where my friends have been lately.

Uninstalled

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You remember the old HOTorNOT.com right?  Well if you don’t, you must have been hiding under a rock.

Back in 1999, HOT or NOT was an extremely popular website.  It featured pictures of women and men with a rating scale above their pic — one (not) through ten (hot).

The HOT or NOT App is the same thing but for Facebook users.

You set your preferences (men, women or both) and you’re instantly ready to start dishing out those 1’s and 10’s.

Some things that are neat about this app…

You can see which friends have this app installed (normal) and their rating.

There is a section for the people you rated 10.  You can upload multiple photos.  The app will also tell you which friends of yours rated you.  And you can browse the hotties near to you.  (quite a lot of 9.9’s in Orange County)

In addition to your overall score, this app will also give you a nice graphical breakdown of how many people thought you were HOT and how many people thought you were NOT.

The way their “meet” feature works is pretty neat.  You mark “yes” on them, your picture will show up in their queue and if they mark “yes” on you, you will both be notified.

Some ways this app annoys me…

Every 10 or so pictures you see you will be prompted to invite more friends.  Inviting more friends will get you more votes.  You must also vote to get votes.

You can only meet people through their “meet” system.  They show you pictures, but don’t link to their Facebook profile.  Privacy?  Though smart users stalkers can easily figure out how to contact them as HOT or NOT still exposes their Facebook ID.

My summary

If you’re procrastinating doing those TPS reports, this is a great way to waste a lot of time and possibly meet some hot people.

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What is Crime and Who Commits it?

When I came across this new Facebook application with the daunting name of Crime it immediately caught my attention. Crime by developer Kate Setterfield allows Facebook users to commit acts of virtual crime within Facebook and allow their friends to react to it. Here’s how Kate describes it in the Crime about page.

Ever felt like being a little bit naughty? Or just think that your friends need a bit of punishment?

Crime allows you to use your judgement: deal out what’s appropriate – from stealing your friend’s pencil to hooking up with their mom.

Of course, just trying to commit a crime doesn’t mean it will be successful and your victims will still have the chance to fight you off with pepper spray or to scream for help…

If the idea of stealing virtual possessions of your friends doesn’t make you giddy, maybe the psychology of it all will. I’m sold, time to install!

Wow — so this is the life of crime! The intent is there, now time to choose a victim. Alternatively Crime gives you the option to choose a crime before you choose the victim. If you choose a victim first like I did, then you are given an array of crimes to commit against them. My options were trespass on the property of, forge signature of, kidnap, plastic wrap the toilet of, graffiti the car of, give a wedgie to, or unlock new crimes. As a first time criminal I chose to go with a classic and grafitti my friend’s car. He is going to be soo pissed!

Just before you commit crime gives you a few more options, like adding a comment (pre-meditated) , and a last conscious decision to rethink what you are about to do. But it’s not enough to stop the morally ambiguous, time to start tagging!

That was too easy! But I’m not free yet, Crime not only lets the user commit crime, but also allows the victim to respond. But I’m innocent until proven guilty — right?

Like any good victim hopefully he will just let this crime slide and I will continue my clean record to go on and commit more crimes! At least until someone catches me. After all it’s just a cry for attention — right?

The Result

I don’t care who, I don’t care how, I just need to be bad! Crime lets me do this in a relatively harmless way that turns out to be a lot of good fun. Overall Crime is fun, simple to use, interactive between you and your friends, and keeps you coming back for more. The further you progress the more crimes you can unlock and hopefully avoid a stint in the big house.

Installed — But don’t steal my stuff!