Here are top choice for the best and brightest of what Facebook’s virtual shelves have to offer, so you can spend just as much time being resourceful as — you know — not. Additionally, check out our handpicked selection of the best Facebook games, along with our guides on how to use Facebook and how to set Facebook privacy settings if you’re still figuring out the social media.
This article has been updated since it was originally published to reflect changes in the Facebook app space. Brandon Widder and Francis Bea contributed to this article.
Categories:
- Utilities
- Productivity
- Entertainment
- Games
Best Facebook Utilities
Buffer: the media sharing app that lets you post using multiple social media accounts and simultaneously target a specific audience. The app allows you to automatically stagger posts, whether posting articles or images, so you can add content to a queue and disperse posts throughout the day or week. Moreover, you can share posts via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and App,net, and even add new updates through email and accompanying mobile apps.
Up until Pipe, sending 1GB files was next to impossible through Facebook. However, the industrious app now allows you to securely send robust files such as feature-length films, lossless audio files, and RAW images with ease. Once the person you wish to send a file to is online, simply drag and drop said file into the pipe and it will automatically pop up on your friend’s computer. Additionally, each friend receives the app when you send them their first file, and files can even be stored for up to three days when users are offline.
Your YouTube profile says a good deal about you, possibly more than your Facebook profile ever could. Thankfully, the streamlined YouTube Tab allows you to embed a customized YouTube tab on your Facebook page, allowing you to broadcast your entire library of YouTube videos for all your Facebook friends to see. It also sports a bevy of features, including 720p HD playback, thumbnail navigation, a hashtag search, and the ability for others to comment and Like posts akin to a standard status.
Though not exclusively a Facebook app, UPS My Choice app allows you to manage home deliveries directly from your Facebook account or mobile smartphone. The handy app provides proactive delivery alerts and informs you if a package is delayed or on-time, while offering you price quotes and rescheduling options on your assorted shipping packages. Unfortunately, the app only currently services domestic shipments traveling within the United States.
Need a ride? Wanna carpool? Waze is all about letting you finding and culling rides from your Facebook friend list. The app syncs with your friend list and gives you an interactive map of your friend’s location in relation to your current position, and more imporantly, Waze lets you know where they’re headed with an ETA and live streaming. Furthermore, it informs you of potential toll routes, provides options for private messaging, and allows you to set a pin marking you exact parking location.
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Best Productivity Apps for Facebook
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For most of us, landing that dream job means honing in on professional connections outside of LinkedIn. That said, Glassdoor can certainly lead to some opportunities. Working in accordance with the site the Webby Awards deemed the best employment site of 2012, the convenient app allows potential job seekers to look up salaries, company reviews, photos, interview strategies, and job listings for nearly company in existence. More importantly, the app links you up with your Facebook friends list, providing you with a host of inside connection for a job whenever available.
Fittingly, MapMyRun does exactly what the name suggests (pun intended). The app uses your smartphone’s built-in, GPS technology to track your and calculate various exercise components such as speed, elevation, duration, distance, and pace before automatically incorporating them alongside an interactive map on Facebook. Afterward, you can view your route, workout data, and overall history to see where you stack up against your set exercise goals. Behavioral studies confirm, you’re more likely to stick to a commitment when you post to Facebook. Why? Well, because everyone is watching
The only prerequisite for Causes is passion and the will to make a difference. Yes, there are countless games and fitness apps in the App Center, but Facebook has proven to be an instrumental component in many pivotal campaigns for social change. Causes offers a platform to advocate for political, social, or moral issues as well as being a medium for information about specific causes. Besides offering a platform to speak out, you can allow friends to donate — and it works. To date, users have donated more than $20 million through the organization.
Chances are, there are a good deal of apps catered toward helping you manage your Facebook profile or kill time, but what if you have an idea for an app that hasn’t made its way into the App Center? Application Builder is designed to help even the most inexperienced app maker create a basic Facebook app, providing a barebones means of creating lengthy quizzes and polls, fan pages, and gifts. It’s not overly robust, nor will it likely help you create the next Mafia Wars, but it’s a start.
HugeCity bills itself as a “global neighborhood event guide.” Despite that somewhat contradictory statement, HugeCity is a straightforward app for looking up events relevant to your location. The app syncs to your Facebook page and takes advantage to your Facebook friends and Likes, displaying a map of local events that are currently happening around your city at any given time. The app touts more than 5,000,000 events in circulation, so find a few worthwhile happenings in your region shouldn’t be too tough.
Is it possible to keep up with the inundation of information your friends publish on a daily basis? You’d have to be sitting at your computer 24-7 without breaks to monitor all of your friends’ conversations. Or you could just use Pixable, which is a photo inbox that collects and displays all of your friend’s important messages from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And if you want you can also view the trending conversations posted by social network users, like news outlets and celebrities that are outside of your circle of friends.
Next Page: The best Facebook apps for entertainment
Best Entertainment Apps for Facebook
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If you’re sick of Spotify and Pandora, Frogtoon is a Facebook-only music app that pulls YouTube videos and those from similar video sites into playlists you’re guaranteed to enjoy using the musicians you’ve liked on Facebook. However, you’re not only limited to music from just artist you’ve like on the social network. The capable app also recommends tunes from various genres, countries, eras, and more than 100 different music categories that span more than 600,00 artist listings. Moreover, you can also immediately share the tracks you’re listening to on Facebook, and view which artists your friends have liked.
There will always be a time and a place for a good mixtape, even if the cassette is neatly dead and gone. Songza assembles a digital mixtape based off your mood, acting as knowledgeable concierge tailored toward specific situations. Whereas Pandora acts allows you to build a playlist based on a particular song or artist, Songza showcases an assortment of popular scenarios based on the day of the week and time of day. For instance, a Monday evening playlist might offer a selection of songs fit for cooking, commuting, and working out. Plus, you can browse a diverse selection of categories if you can’t make up your mind.
One of this most popular apps for any platform, Tinder seamlessly links to your Facebook account, circulating your information and matching you with prospective romantic partners in your area. Once installed, you can anonymously select other Tinder users in your area you’d like to date. If someone happens to like you back, then the app will notify you of the mutual interest and allow you to message the individual. It’s more comfortable than other local dating platforms given the sheer level of privacy, but like any dating app reliant on Facebook, you should be careful what you put in your profile.
It’s not People magazine, but Lookbook.nu pro allows gawk at the latest styles and fashion directly through its Facebook app. The app uses user-generated galleries to showcase DIY fashion from people around the globe, providing a look at street-style fashion directly curated by the Facebook community. You can also share and “hype” the photos you love in addition to merely viewing them, and even look up the brand and items displayed in the photos for purchasing purposes. Hell, you can even filter images based on your desired sex.
Smartphone plans are essential, but they’re not exactly cheap. Fortunately, Viber is a freemium solution specifically designed for making calls and sending texts, photos, emoticons, and video messages over 3G or your local Wi-Fi network. You can even participate in groups of up 100 people, download stickers, and enable push notifications so you’ll never miss a message of call even when Viber is turned off. It’s available on Android and iOS platforms, with additional support available for both Windows and Mac OS X.
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Best Facebook Games
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What was once, and still is, an addictive dive-bar staple has now found its way onto everyone’s favorite social media platform. The shooter throws players into an assortment of differing environments ranging from the Pacific Northwest to the plains of Central Africa, encouraging them to gun down more than 100 varieties of big game as they upgrade their arsenal with a wealth of customized barrels, scopes, magazines, and stocks. Moreover, the game is even equipped with a slew of achievements and users can participate in competitive online leaderboards — all without having to pay $10 in quarters.
Halfbrick Studios once again outdid itself after its smashing success (quite literally) with Fruit Ninja. With the affable Jetpack Joyride, players done the role of Barry Streakfries, a downtrodden business men who’s hellbent on breaking out of an experimental laboratory with his stolen machine gun jetpack in hand. The levels are seemingly endless, fraught with dangerous obstacles and dappled with coins used to purchase cheeky upgrades, but also incredibly challenging. It’s a fun alternative from the humdrum of Farmville-style games that populate Facebook.
With Tetris Battle, an age-old classic is reborn. The title revels in the same block-laden gameplay that’s been the series’ hallmark since the mid-’80s, except this time with a greater emphasis on multiplayer components and an exhaustive selection of pre-populated maps. The matchmaking remains difficult yet satisfying, pairing friends and strangers against one another in a competitive time attack with the sole goal of clearing 40 lines of blocks. Other familiar game modes, such as marathon and sprint, offer a refined twist on the classic game without taking away from the well-known, core gameplay.
Diamond Dash is little more than a Bejeweled wannabe, except you can share your fortune with all your Facebook friends. Like Bejeweled, players have a mere 60 seconds to match as many colorful diamonds as they can to rack up their score and level up. Additional power-ups include bombs and multipliers, and players can even compete in online leaderboards and one-on-one competition if they prefer to challenge their friends rather than aid them. Although you’ve likely played the title in one form or another, but the fast-paced gameplay and glitzy graphics still make it one of the best offerings of its kind.
SongPop
Ready to wrack your musical brain? SongPop is the perfect companion for the musical know-it-all who wants to show off his or her skills against online friends. It works like a standard trivia game; players listen to a song clip and then try to choose the correct answer among a few multiple choice options. The game isn’t particularly enthralling, but serves as a great way to challenge your friends, rediscover lost hits, and open your mind to new musical genres. Believe us, you’ll be surprised what you actually know.
What do you think of our top choices for the best Facebook apps? Do you have another suggestion not on our list? Let us know in the comments below.
