It’s the small things that seem to matter.

So I happened to be at my first Refresh DC event and someone was talking about Widget DevCamp that’s going on this weekend. Of course I’ll be attending this event, but what came across my mind is that while this event will hopefully result in people creating widgets and/or applications that people will use en masse and become famous for, the one thing that I’ve been thinking about is what happens to the small cosmetic details that are maybe overlooked?

What am I talking about? With most widgets, you can add an Advanced Wall, poll, integrate third-party applications onto your profile page, place videos, pictures, even audio. It definitely spruces up your site, but is there a widget or fix that can be put together that will allow you to create your own link to other sites (whether internal or external)? Now before you say “what about the “Posted Link” module?”, let’s think about the customization approach to it. While the architecture of Facebook seems to be rather constricted and uniform, there are some folks and businesses that use Facebook as a means to reach their constituents or fans, so why can’t there be some appropriate customization to allow more design autonomy. Now I’m not advocating allowing folks that much control over font or structure like you can in Myspace, but someone should allow for a little bit more flexibility when creating these pages.

Take a fan page like Under Armour or iStrategyLabs or even Washington, DC, there are probably needs that haven’t been met. Why can’t there be applications that will allow for you to link to other related pages in Facebook? Or, what about ad placements so you can promote your other stuff on your fan page? Maybe I’m overthinking this, but everyone seems to be coming out of the woodwork these days and producing new applications, but are thinking more about the long-term need, but not about the small differences that are probably quite often overlooked.