According to Facebook's Developer Blog, big changes are coming to the application directory, which will affect both developers and everyday users. With over 52,000 apps now available, the Facebook team, they're looking at new ways to highlight the best apps and help users discover the ones most relevant to them. This should deliver a much-needed image boost for Facebook, and help combat the impression that Facebook apps are all cheap pirates-vs-ninjas spam.

The plan includes verified apps, which developers can have vetted by Facebook for a fee. The ones that meet Facebook's standards will be bumped to the top of search results in the app directory. This looks like a win-win, where Facebook gets money, developers get more exposure, and users get better apps.

Also, users will now see an activity feed on the app directory page, showing which apps their friends have used lately, hopefully leading to more relevant results. The application categories are also getting their first reboot since '07, making finding the best apps that much easier.

If you don't want to wait for these changes to start finding the most useful apps on Facebook, you can always check out my top 10 list on Download Squad.

[via Webware]