I had been an avid Facebook user for over an year, but I’ve been reconsidering after the launch of Facebook Apps. The days when all Facebook offered was Photos, Groups, Events, Notes, and Posted Items were simple times. Today we’ve got over 450+ photo, 400+ music , 450+ video, 1000+ gaming, and 1000+ sports applications. And that’s nothing, as of now, Facebook is less than 200 short of reaching 10,000 pointless applications! Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of useful apps, but for the most part the majority of these tools are useless. Having to deal with hundreds of application invitations every time I login has become quite painful. For example, why on earth would anyone need a Top Friends list or a Super Wall when Facebook already has a fully functioning friends list and wall? Facebook seriously needs to implement an option to allow users to opt-out or block some of these applications.

The next most horrendous part is how long it’s starting to take to load some people’s profiles and how lengthy they have become. Just to give everyone an glimpse of how bad Facebook can get, take a look at four images provided above. I created temporary Facebook Profile and added the first 20 pages of the most popular Apps. The page was in fact so long that I couldn’t even generate a single screen shot. Fortunately I haven’t run into anyone’s profile that was this bad, but it is definitely going in that direction. Facebook should maybe consider placing a limit on the amount of applications a user can have active at a time. Hopefully the folks over at Facebook will spend time fixing up the mess they made by launching Facebook Applications instead of wasting resources on other projects like Facebook Ads.

Links: Facebook.com | Skatter Tech Fan Page

Yesterday LG Electronics announced the availability of their new phone titled “Rumor” for Sprint customers. The LG Rumor sports a full QWERTY keyboard, email access, and instant messaging services (AIM, MSN, & Yahoo!). The phone also boasts access to social news websites such as Facebook. The unit is available in white with silver or black with blue.

“We are excited to introduce Rumor by LG because it is great-looking, easy-to-use and very affordable,” said Danny Bowman, Sprint VP of Product Development

The LG Rumor will also support Sprint’s new messaging services which allows sending texts to landlines phones. (recipient hears the text in audio) Other neat features include a built-in fully functioning GPS navigation system with on screen turn-by-turn directions. As for now standard features it includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, microSD (4GB), MP3 player, and access to Sprint’s music store.

The Rumor by LG will be available later this month for $79.99 after a 2-year-contract and a $50 mail-in rebate. It’s going to be interesting to see how this stands up to LG’s enV which we reviewed last year. LG is also releasing an iPhone competitor, the Voyager, which is being launched on Verizon’s network and will be easily over double the price of the Rumor. We’ll try to get a hold of one of these so check back!

Links: LG Rumor FactSheet | Sprint.com
Related: Sprint LG Muziq (Review)

This morning, Digg’s founder Kevin Rose announced a few new features that digg will soon be getting. The fist implementation, which will be pushed out tonight, will revamp digg’s user profile system by making it more “social”. Registered diggers will now have the ability to send each other quick messages called “shouts”. When the recipient logs in, a notification will be visible in the headers as well as his or her profile page. With the new “share” feature, users can also send other users links to digg stories. Previously the only method to share a story would have been to send an actual email. Digg’s new favorites feature seems to be replacing the “My #1″ feature. Once a story is dugg the option to add to favorites will become available. As for the profile page, it now displays larger profile pictures, full name, location, member since date, about section, personal photos, recently dugg/comments, favorites, and contact information. (50 new additions!) And just like Facebook, diggers will have privacy settings to choose whether or not to display each component. Only time will tell whether this feature will be accepted or ridiculed by the digg community.

Also, due to popular demand, digg will soon be implementing a pictures section next month. In addition they will also be fixing the problems with the slow comment loading system, offering email alerts, and automatic suggestions based off your digging history! Check back tomorrow to see the what’s changed and if you are in a hurry, a video demonstration is available on Digg’s Blog.

Links: digg.com | digg blog | my profile

Since the digg started, they have had a large issue combating spammers. This eventually lead to an amazing large list of banned sites. About six months ago this site, Skatter Tech, was for some reason added to that list. We had sent digg a few emails requesting the reason it had been blocked, but we received no response. We expected the ban to be lifted, but it never was until now! Digg has apparently lifted the blacklist on thousands of domains and has implemented a new algorithm for submissions to prevent spam from entering the main page. Hopefully the new code will do the trick and lifting the banned sites will not cause an inflation in spam.

Anyways, for our readers, this means the “digg” link found besides the del.icio.us on our permalink pages will now function properly. (No more submission error messages) Finally, if you find any of our articles “digg worthy” you are welcome to submit them.

(P.S. The digg logo in the image atop can be downloaded from DevianArt.)

Links: digg.com | digg blog
Related: Digg Search Widget