What Happened to the Facebook App Directory?

The Facebook App Directory is gone, today I went to Apps in my Page Editor to search for an app, but the Browse More Applications link had vanished!

What happened to the Facebook App Directory? Facebook has removed the App Directory since current studies point to few people were using it and most apps were being  found through the Facebook search. The link and the directory disappeared officially yesterday.

I guess the only people who were using it were folks like me writing tutorials and folks like you following tutorials. You can now skip going to Apps in the Page Editor and the Browse More Applications link in tutorial instructions and just enter the app name in the Search Box at the top of your Page.

Michael Robellard of American Greetings Interactive take on how the change affects users and developers from an interview in WebProNews:

If you know exactly what app you are looking for, this works great, otherwise not so well. The old app directory didn’t work well, either, so I am OK with it going away. If the search box is a way that users try to find good meaningful apps to use, then I would love to see it improved, to give more relevant results.If the search box is not used much more than the App Directory was used, then we should try and come up with other ways to connect users to our apps.

Since I don’t always know what app I’m looking for, I hope Facebook comes up with a new and improved Facebook Apps Directory soon!