Top 5 new Facebook applications: Sketch Me, Simpsons avatars, Nike+ and more...

Have you had a Facebook Spring Clean yet? It's when you realise you've signed up to so many applications and groups on Facebook, that your head spins whenever you log in, so you spend an hour or so dumping the ones you don't want.

I reached that point last week, probably as a legacy of our 101 Best Facebook Applications post a few weeks back. And it's important to keep your profile manageable, not least because there's always some cool new apps to add. Which brings me neatly onto this week's five newies...

1. Sketch Me (pictured). A wonderful yet simple idea, this app turns your profile picture into a pencil sketch, to make you look all arty. Hopefully the next-gen version will let your friends colour you in with virtual felt-tips, or turn your picture into a dot-to-dot puzzle. GET IT

2. What I'm Listening To. I've written before about Facebook apps that dig into your Last.fm history and display your songs in your profile, but this is a live app based on Last.fm's Audioscrobbler tool, so that people visiting your profile see what you're listening to right now. Cool. GET IT

3. The Simpsons Avatar Creator. There's already a website letting you turn yourself into a Simpsons character, but now there's an unofficial Facebook application too. It's already got more than 83,000 users too. GET IT

4. Photo Mosaic. It's quite an arty collection of applications this week, innit. This one lets you turn your Facebook photos into mosaics, for your friends to admire. GET IT

5. Nike+ Runs. If you've heard of Nike+, you'll know it's an application that ties in with your iPod to track your running sessions, so you know how far you've run and at what speed. Well, this Facebook app puts info from your last five runs on your profile, so you can be smug about your fitness in front of your internetweb-surfing desk-potato friends. GET IT

Previous roundups
13th August: Buffy, Beer Diary, Heat...
17th July: Track Of The Day, Lego Man, Pokedex...
10th July: Friends Organiser, Fantasy Cricket, Tetris Tournament...
2nd July – Poker, Carpool, Hot or Not...
27th June - Beers, Tarot, Pope Quotes...
18th June - Sudoku, Big Brother, Russian Roulette...
8th June - Chizzat, Dogbook, Top Friends...
29th May - Flixter, Games, Your Hottest Friend...