"Facebook has promised some serious quality apps on New Apps Store!"

The Facebook AP store. 

Facebook, the world’s number one social networking site with nearly 900 million active users, announced on Wednesday that it would be launching it’s own app store. The move,

which comes just days ahead of the company’s IPO listing, is a significant one since it appears that Facebook is now trying to clearly strategise its monetary potential. The App store, which will also include paid apps is a clear move in this direction.

Facebook has reported an increasing number of mobile users, who are logging in via apps, smartphones. The move to launch an app store within Facebook is also directed towards many of those users. The app store is in beta ( developing) mode for now and will be available soon worldwide.

So what should users expect in the new app store? For starters, Facebook has promised some serious quality apps. It has sent out clear guidelines to app developers, who want to showcase their apps on the site.

According to CNET the following apps will be considered:

An app on Facebook.com in a canvas page

A mobile app built for the web, iOS or Android that uses Facebook Login

A website that uses Facebook Login and has an immediately logged-in, personalized experience

The interesting bit to note here. Not only is Facebook telling app developers, there’s no entry if you’re not good enough, developers also need to ensure that the app has both iOS and Android versions. Facebook is clearly reaching out to its mobile phone users and iPhone and Android users are the top priority for now it seems.

Quality apps seems to be the key for the company. Will quality alone be enough to ensure the success of the apps? That will only be revealed with time.

Facebook’s app store will also be re-defining how users discover apps. According to allAllThingsD

Developers can’t rely entirely on social discovery for their apps to grow. Sure, you’ll get the occasional breakout successes like SocialCam, Viddy or Pinterest through organic growth, but users still need a home page to browse through apps.

The idea is, you’ll find the apps that are most relevant because they’re the ones your friends use. They’ll surface in your newsfeed, and you’ll pick the ones you like while ignoring the ones you don’t care about.

Facebook is not only re-organising how users can discover apps on the site, but soon newsfeeds of users on the site are going will highlight app activities of their friends. For those who aren’t big fans of this, prepare to be flooded with a lot more app requests.

So how will Android/iOS download an app on their phone? ReadWriteWeb points out:

If an app in App Center requires a download, the download link on the app’s detail page will bring the user to the appropriate app repository, either Apple’s App Store or Android’s Google Play.

The app store is being seen by most a smart move on part of the company as it will help streamline apps on the site. Paid apps will also mean more revenues for the site. In addition, activities on the site are set to go up with users trying to discover new apps. This will only mean more revenues for the social networking giant.

With its IPO coming up, the company will probably have to do a lot more to show that it won’t be part of another tech-bubble.