Also remember, that even if they did make the site wider, an app could choose to make it narrower should it be deemed necessary.

If you move the apps to a menu at the top and increase the width to 1000px as you suggest…
1) you’re starting to approach the sprawling ugliness of MySpace’s “Home | Browse | Search | Invite | Film | Mail | …” link list, which is also more difficult to read (esp. for new users)
2) you’re increasing the number of clicks to get to an app by 1
3) just because people have a high res screen doesn’t mean they keep their browser windows that wide all the time (I personally don’t), as readability decreases when lines of text are more than about 60 characters. Lines wider than that seem to run on forever when you’re reading, and some designers will go so far as splitting a wide canvas into columns, as fb has already done.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s not so clear that the naive approach is as good as it seems.

1. Increasing the width by 200px will allow "applications" (or whatever it’s called) to fit just fine without it being overwhelming. I thought about that because I agree with you regarding usability.

2. How is it increasing the clicks by 1? I thought about this as well and don’t see the click increase.

3. true to some extent but not entirely accurate and more and more the standard is moving to the 1024 size. In addition, while in an app, you could resize the window as needed.

That’s a LOT of users! Why would they want to upset the 10%, when the majority of the other 90% are not developers, and don’t give a monkeys if they have a few more pixels or not :)

“Games, videos, photo albums, and all sorts of other material fill the pages with content; these skinny pages just aren’t holding up like they ’should’ be.”

I guess it comes down to a fundamental disagreement about what Facebook is. I’d say the purpose of Facebook was/is networking. I’ve always viewed people who install a hundred apps on their profiles as being entirely in opposition to the purpose of Facebook (and a direct result of the MySpace crowd migrating over). Increasing the width is just encouraging the practice.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the whole Facebook-as-development-platform-slash-application-portal thing is really the direction everyone wants it to go. If that’s the case, count me out. I liked it simple, functional, and polished. The moment Facebook is trying to suit every purpose, it isn’t suited for any purpose at all. The public opening of Facebook, followed by user-generated apps, is like a small-scale Eternal September.

Of course, those rushing into Facebook with a thousand apps at their side are probably perfectly happy, and would love the extra width, and are probably now a majority. And I’m probably just old and cynical and should just give up and leave Facebook to the kids.

To sum things up: I liked reading text. And this change would make things less readable, while endorsing what I’ve viewed as a negative trend. QED, albeit extremely subjective.

If you’re fretting about squeezing a Facebook-integrated photo editor into 800 pixels, you’re not understanding Facebook. The primary function of Facebook is networking, not photo editing. 800 pixels is not about archaic standards, it’s about readability.

I’d be really disappointed if Facebook increased the width. Probably just as disappointed with their decision to allow user-created apps, a move that turned Facebook into MySpace overnight.

We aren’t just reading text anymore — we are now being more interactive with applications. Games, videos, photo albums, and all sorts of other material fill the pages with content; these skinny pages just aren’t holding up like they “should” be.

I am all for the petition…I have already sent numerous suggestions to Facebook via the help page. Now, I just have to wait and hope they [Facebook] can create a better looking layout.

but the width to 1000 pixels i like!

Picnik is a Flash application so we have an out — a full screen button — but that’s not an option for most apps. Facebook, how about some room to breathe!

I’m generally a fan of thin websites for small businesses and the like, but in Facebook’s case I think they can use the luxury of the extra space given how crowded some people’s profiles are getting because of a thousand different apps.

I like the neat ajax drag & drop effect on the Apps menu on the left hand side, but I agree it fits in better on the menu bar up top.

I also agree that the apps would be made more useful if there was more room for developers to work with. If you drag some apps to the thinner column on your profile, they look really hideously smooshed together.