Inside Facebook

Two weeks after Facebook announced the winners of its first fbFund grants, Facebook kicked off a new $2 million fbFund competition today aimed at fueling the creation of high quality apps for the Facebook Platform.

The fbFund program awards grants to developers (not an investment for equity), with the stipulation that fbFund partners Accel and Founders Fund get a right of first refusal for any future investment rounds.

The new competition has 2 rounds: 25 round 1 winners will receive US $25,000 grants, and 5 round 2 winner will receive US $250,000 grants.

Facebook is looking for “applications that best embody our guiding principles for social applications and have the potential to become Great Apps.” Further criteria:

• Originality of Concept: Does the application introduce a great idea in a new and unexplored area?
• Market: Is this application targeted to key audiences or meet compelling market needs?
• Social/Useful: Does the application enable people to interact with each other? Does it deliver real value to users (including entertainment)?
• Expressive: Does the application allow people to share more information?
• Intuitive: Is the application compelling and easy to use? Does it have a well-thought-out user experience?
• Potential: Can it be a real business someday?
• Team: Do you believe this team can execute and is driven to succeed?

Applications are due August 29, 2008 - in less than a month!

Here’s a promo video for the new fbFund competition:

Originality from Matthew Choi on Vimeo.