"The *only* thing Facebook is good at is being viral."

- Julian Bond, commenting on gapingvoid

"...the bulls--t that ensued verified my initial assessment: that maintaining Facebook would quickly constitute another job. Of which I already have several."

- Tycho, Penny Arcade

This morning Facebook informed me that a friend had sent me some "hotness points". Well, I thought, I can certainly get on board with that. I clicked the link to learn more, and I got a screen telling me that I had to add the "Send Hotness" app to my profile.

Fine. Whatever.

I added the app. I immediately got a screen urging me to invite other people to add the app. I declined.

That was it. As far as I could tell, "Send Hotness" only exists to propagate itself through invitations. I removed the app.

I like Facebook apps, really. Many of them are very clever and/or fun. But lately it seems like every thing I want to do on the site, every second piece of information I want to access, and every third interaction I have with another user, requires the Facebook equivalent of a new software installation.

Right, right, the great thing about Facebook is that it's a platform rather than an all-in-one service. It gains its functionality through third-party applications. I understand that part. And maybe I'm generationally challenged, imprisoned by a hard-drive mentality that thinks the performance of whatever I'm using is degraded the more stuff I pile onto it.

But when you have to add an app to get a LinkedIn badge on your profile, it starts to feel like a bit much.