Social networks are all about making connections with people from all over the world, but they can also be good for bragging rights. It seems all the rage these days is showing off how smart you are (what with Who’s Got The Biggest Brain and all). One of the fun things when it comes to Facebook is that all your cerebral glory is documented for all your friends to see. 
If you are like quizzes in general or you like IQ Quiz type of games then you will find Qizr an enjoyable way to spend your time on Facebook. The main idea of this application is for people to upload various images and create a quiz around those images. You can also offer more and more tips and hits on what the answer would be. Users can add hints based on other people’s guesses in real time. This is a really cool concept which I have not seen used this way. I like the fact that people can create their own questions to try and stump their friends.
Another interesting aspect of the Qizr application is regarding the competition between its visitors. Each person can post three guesses until one finally gives the right answer to the question. This way, you can see the answers that the other people gave and compare their answers to yours.
When it comes to posting the quizzes you create on Qizr, you can either allow the access to answer only to some specific groups of friends on Facebook or you can allow anyone to see your question and try to give the correct answer. The answers people provide are posted in real time and so is the correct one so you will have a nice feeling when you will be the first to give the correct answer to a question that you found on Qizr. The diversity of the domains for the questions is unlimited and since questions are constantly uploaded so you will keep on getting an endless stream of questions.
That’s a question every one of us always asks. After Einstein that title has been floating around out there with many people owning claim. However, until your last name becomes synonymous with the word genius you can’t really say you have the biggest brain. That is unless you try one of my favorite applications in recent memory is called Who Has the Biggest Brain, from Playfish Studios. Then you may able to call yourself a genius…on Facebook at least.
The application is simply fantastic it is extremely well built and provides for a highly stimulating visual and auditory experience. This is what we have come to expect from Playfish, but in essence this is the game the put them on the map. The goal of the game is to get the most points for solving four types of puzzles, each puzzle type is supposed to test different areas of your cognitive and analytic abilities. I don’t how scientifically accurate that claim is but needless to say the puzzles are still very entertaining, and I know that Quizzes and Puzzles are all the rage these days. 
Of course it wouldn’t be much of challenge if you weren’t timed for each puzzle (1 minute per section). As you do better the questions become harder and harder. Once all four puzzles are completed, the scores are totaled and you get your final score. Playfish always does a good job on the rankings and of course they made no exception here. You can see how you fare up to your friends as well as the rest of world. In addition there are different avatars for various scores. You can also challenge your friends to see if you can brag about how smarter you are.
You can also unlock additional features of the application by ‘going pro’. This enables such options as performance graphs, exclusive taunts and no adverts, of course you have to pay $9.99 to do it. But if you are really into this application it would be well worth it. In another bid to monetize the application Playfish have launched an iPhone/iTouch version which can be downloaded from iTunes. Surprisingly enough Playfish’s business model seems to work much better than others such as Zynga. If you still haven’t added it to your profile, now is the time to do it. Who knows, maybe you have the biggest brain.
I feel that some applications should come with warnings such as ‘Highly Addictive’, one such application is Wordy from 6Q. If you like competition and think your lexicon is up to par then you’ll want to give Wordy a try but be careful, once you try it once, you’ll want to try it again. This application is actually composed of several mini-games that are in some way related to word play. The application itself is very built with an easy to navigate Flash interface. It includes a single player option or multiplayer (against your friends). You have three choices of games when it comes to playing against others and four different games if you go for single player. All of them can be categorized in two types of games. There are some vocabulary games where you have to link the letters to create as many words as possible and others where you have to arrange the given letters to produce many words before the time runs out. 
All the Wordy games have a time pressure that you will have to deal with. This will only increase the challenge, especially when you go for the multiplayer mode. Even if at first you may find it hard to keep up with the games’ speed you will eventually improve your skills and discover the hidden words faster.
There is also a high scores section for multiplayer. Wordy includes some statistics where you can see how many points you scored. You will also get to see the top players with the best scores. The scores also take into account the single player options and the multiplayer options, rating you according to the games you played.
Wordy has 50k monthly active users so far and the number is continuously increasing. One of the reasons for that is that you have to invite your friends in order to have access to some of this application’s features. The other reason is that these word games are simply too addictive to be able to resist them. Plus, the competition is very important as users get to play with other people in real time. Check your skills when it comes to your vocabulary and play Wordy with your friends.
One of the newer applications that can be found and used on Facebook is Sam’s Fish Bowl, a game that allows you to create a virtual pet fish and take care of it. Let’s take a deeper look inside this game and see what it has to offer. My 8 year old nephew simply loves this game so I decided it warranted a review on the site.
Sam’s Fish Bowl was created by the producers of Sam’s Interactive Reader software, Storybook Anytime. While this is software meant for children between three and nine years, Sam’s Fish Bowl has a wider audience on Facebook. Once you make your account, you will be able to create your own fish in any unique way, from its color to its personality. By using the customizing function, you will be able to search through a variety of options when it comes to the bowl décor as well as to the fish itself. It can have diverse fun colors and its own temperament as well as favorite types of food and an unique abilities. From aspect, you can enjoy choosing between an expert ninja fish, a sumo wrestler, as well as a fish with telekinetic abilities or one that has x-ray vision.
Sams Fish Bowl
Regarding feeding the fish, you will only get to give him food once a day. However, the game allows you to involve your friends in raising the fish as well as they can help you feeding yours. You only have to invite your friends and they will also feed your fish daily. Your fish’s health is reduced by five percent everyday unless you feed it but each of your friends that feed it too will provide the fish with an extra two percent growth of health.
In what concerns the points or Super Feeder Points, as the creators call them, you can check the leader board. Here you will be able to see who the top players in the game are and how many points they have. You will also be able to see your own ranking. Plus, if you have an account for your child on the Sam’s Interactive Reader, then you will share your feeder points with his or her Super Reader Points and you will both have fun and help each other in earning more points.
From January to February the number of the active users that Sam’s Fish Bowl application has increased from around 2000 to approximately 4000. Use this game together with your children and friends as well and enjoy a nice time by taking care of your unique fish.
Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, a stock market is actually going up, unlike here on Earth, w
here the stock market has been on a downward spiral. A new application on Facebook aims to change the way people invest their money. The application is called Stock Wars from Black Swan Games. It is a virtual market simulation and portfolio management with a highly addictive social element. Here is how the game works. The goal of the game is to be the top investor on Facebook. The application gathers actual market data and integrates it into the application. When you join Stock Wars you are given $100,000 in virtual cash. You can then use that virtual cash to purchase exchange trade stocks like Google (ticker symbol GOOG) or any other traded company. For example Google is currently trading at about $300 on the NASDAQ, so you can use some or all of your virtual cash balance to buy Google shares and then hopefully sell them at a higher price. As your portfolio increase or decrease your profile is given a designation such as a ‘hedge fund manager’ or ‘day trader’. What I found interesting in the application is the fact that it teaches you how to invest without actually putting any real money into the market.
If there is a stock that you have been looking at you can buy it on Stock Wars and then track its progress without spending a penny. Another feature of the application is the challenge option. You can challenge your friends to see if you can invest better than them. The challenge work when each player agrees to a specific wager (up to $5,000 in virtual dollars) and a pre-defined period of time. The winner is determined by the player who has the largest portfolio gain. For example I wagered $1,000 with my friend Andrew, that my portfolio will increase more (in %) in the next month. If I win I get Andrew’s $1,000 added to my overall balance for me to invest in more stocks. Gordon Gecko would be proud! You can also add to your cash balance by trying out some offers the app developers include in the application. For example clicking on an offer will increase your virtual cash balance by $1,000. You can then use that cash to buy more stocks. The game itself is very educational, although I wish the developers include a detailed tutorial for less knowledgeable users, after all investing in stocks can be tricky. Overall, I think this application is fantastic, although still in the embryonic stages of growth, I believe it has tremendous potential. Look out for this one to be a big hit on Facebook. In fact, I liked this application so much, I put it in our featured application section.
UPDATE: I have spoken with the developers at Black Swan Games and was informed that they are launching a tutorial section sometime this week. They also mentioned that there will be a slew of new features being deployed this month, although they did not go into specific details. I will update the post once I get a chance to see what they are.
PathWords
Games are always a fun feature on Facebook and a great way to kill some time while at work. One fun and educational word game is Pathwords from Zynga. The game has a monthly active user base of approximatly 600k users. PathWords is set up in an octagon sort of shape with random letters. The object is to string letters together in order to make words, the longer the word the more points are earned. It is a fun and addicting game, but can also be challenging when attempting to make larger words. The game can be played solo or with other people. In order to play with other people, your friends need to be online, you can join a game hosted by another random user, or you can host your own game. Playing solo is the easiest and fastest way to get into a game right away, since then you don’t have to wait for anyone to come join you. Of course, you can always challenge your friends in the ladder mode. The ladder mode allows you to challenge friends, because it ranks the scores of all your friends, the highest scorer being at the top of the ladder. This provides a further challenge because you are now competing for the top spot. Pathwords is also a great game to help improve your vocabulary. Even if you don’t do well when you first play, with time you will begin looking for longer words and skipping over the three or four letter ones. It’s a fun way to challenge your friends while doing something for yourself, putting all those English classes to good use.