After only a few weeks, Facebook’s new platform  shows 40 dating applications. Most are enhanced ways to poke, match up or meet new people, only a few are based on actual dating sites.

Here are a few I came across that piqued my interest.

fbDating
Connections
Verbdate
Kathleen’s Wild and Crazy Poking Application
Poke Pro
Date Rate

Two useful apps I found, out of hundreds:

Facebook iPhoto Exporter
Facebook Toolbar for Firefox

Man, there are is so much stuff on there, will take a few days to sort out the good stuff from the junk running on someone’s dorm room server – Facebook has Authentic applications as well as a Wild West of just-about-anything-goes.

Looks like at least one application, fbDating, has a paid version.

One problem I have already, and one that I am surprise that FaceBook didn’t address, is the fact that now I am creating dating profiles on multiple dating sites within Facebook, each with it’s own custom fields.

I’ve worked with startups like like Opinity to create a meta-profile which would push out changes to multiple social networking sites. Given all the time various companies have spent on the concept, I thought Facebook would have something in place for the platform rollout. I was wrong.

Imagine how long it will take to sign up for 40 different dating sites on Facebook. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Someone has to come up with a single profile which can be shared across dating and other applications on Facebook. They already get access to your regular profile, how difficult is it to standardize on the FOAF protocol or some other “friendly” datastore that can be edited locally and have changes propogate out to all the applications you’re signed up for?

Here’s the Facebook Platform Wiki and the developer site. I am waiting for  a major top-10 dating site to integrate with Facebook, so get moving.

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I can’t believe that the Facebook Platform is three weeks old and I’m just getting to it. Busy with clients, moving and life in general, plus the usual summertime blogging malaise has set in. I really need to get a Treo so I can blog on the run, as I can’t seem to make the time to keep up with my usual blogging schedule.

Mark Andresson, creator of the Netscape web browser, has done an overview and analysis of the FaceBook platform. Sometimes it’s better to link to other people’s opinions if you agree with them.

ADD version: The web has knocked down various walled gardens in the past, and Facebook continues the tradition by launching the Facebook API, which enables outside web developers to inject new features and content into the Facebook environment. Think Myspace widgets on steroids.

I heard that Bunchball, recently featured on Eons, is now the second most popular application on Facebook

Mashable on Facebook apps.

I have been pushing the open API agenda with dating sites for years. Match won’t touch it, too scared to loose control. Yahoo kind-of-sort-of has something in the works, and everyone else is sitting back as usual waiting for a big service to take the first step. There have been some upstarts that have attempted aggregating dating site profiles, or doing stuff with them via Greasemonkey and other client-side hacks, but nothing with the blessing of the dating site itself.

Microsoft’s Cardspace is going to provide a whole new paradigm for sharing profiles. Whoever creates a dating site based on Cardspace profiles is going to do very well for themselves. For now, pay close attention to FaceBook, because that is the future of shared social spaces and profiles.

iLike says about launching on FaceBook:

In our first 20 hours of opening doors we had 50,000 users sign up, and it is only accelerating. (10,000 users joined in the first 12 hrs. 10,000 more users in the next 3 hrs. 30,000 more users in the next 5 hrs.

Three million users in three weeks, 300k new users a day. This makes online dating growth appear glacial by comparison.

If you want to launch a dating site and have a few million dollars, you should strongly consider doing it on FaceBook. If you do, you better have 250 servers (unless you are Markus) and a strong development and CTO team.

Andreessen goes on to say:

When you develop a new Facebook application, you submit it to the directory and someone at Facebook Inc. approves it — or not.

If your application is not approved for any reason — or if it’s just taking too long — you apparently have the option of letting your application go out “underground”.

This means that you need to start your application’s proliferation some other way than listing it in the directory — by promoting it somewhere else on the web, or getting your friends to use it.

Underground dating apps on FaceBook, this is going to be interesting.

That reminds me, I need to get “Creating a dating site version 4″ up soon.

Finally, from the Grey Lady, the New York Times on the social operating system for the Internet.

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