There’s a first for everything, and today I launched my first Facebook application. It’s an interesting idea, and the premise is simple: Strendr takes the keywords from your status message and displays them in a cloud format (think tag clouds for blogs). The execution was on a “good-enough” level; the entire thing took about 60 hrs of work, including all the research. I wasn’t surprised by the wealth of documentation and information available for the developers – it explains why there are so many applications out there.
Next steps for my application include refactoring and cleanup. Working on the eve of Jesus’ birthday doesn’t promote good coding standards. I will also look into user experience and documentation. My UI has been made to be as friendly and uncluttered as possible, but I believe that the content could be worded better and with more consistency. Of course, there’s also a social-viral component of the app that must be nurtured. There is a “Trends” page that tracks the usage of keywords amongst all users of Strendr, and it will need to be presented in a way so that users will want to send app invites.
If you have time, check out my Facebook app, Strendr!