Ever since Facebook opened up their system to outside development, there have been all kinds of apps being developed and spread all over the place. Many of them (dare I say “most?”) are frivolous at best and irritating at worst. Some, however, are pretty cool. LibGuides and LibraryThing have got their own apps right in Facebook. There’s a music app that will actually show your iTunes library and allow you share your library with a friend and even send them a musical “poke!”

But one of my favorites is Scrabulous! It’s an online Scrabble game that you can play with friends or even random strangers in Facebook. Most of the games take a while to play, since people don’t always check their Facebook stuff that often. That can lead to a game with only a few moves a day. Fortunately, you can have multiple games going at one time. And if you’re looking for a pickup game, you can find someone else who’s online right now and wants to play a faster-paced game right now.

All the normal rules of Scrabble apply and there is a built-in dictionary and even a handy 2-letter word list. You’ve got a button for a popup tile distribution list when you need it and a complete list of the moves so far in the game. And since it’s an online interactive type of medium, of course there’s also a chat box, which is saved throughout the game, so you never lose the communication even when you don’t make a move for a couple of days.

Afterwards, you can see your record and even bring up past games, viewing the move lists, chat archives, etc. Pretty sweet!

(If you’re a Facebook user and enjoy Scrabble, add the Scrabulous app and invite me to a game.)