Announced in November, the Verified Applications program charges third-party developers $375 to have Facebook review their creative apps, and if it fits Facebook's rigorous security and quality standards, it gets the Verified Application stamp of approval.
Verified apps will come with a graphic badge announcing their status and also rank higher in Facebook's app directory, which now contains over 50,000 third-party apps.
Facebook's Jerry Cain wrote on the developers blog: "Ensuring that applications are trustworthy, meaningful (whether for entertainment or utility value), and easy to find is paramount to developer success, user engagement, and helping the ecosystem as a whole to thrive."
The trustworthy aspect is significant, as Facebook has been embroilied in a number of security failures and phishing scams in the last month.
Apple's App Store has been an undeniable success, recently passing the one billion download mark, partly due to is strict acceptance policy and quality control.
.jpg)
.jpg)