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Via TechCrunch comes news of the next step in the emergence of Facebook: a VC fund offering seed investments only in companies developing Facebook apps.

Valley VC Bay Partners has launched a new program called AppFactory, targeting developers of Facebook apps.  The investments will be small – typically in the $50k - $250k range, according to Bay partner Salil Deshpande, and is designed as a "fast-track" program with few investment hurdles.  Interested parties can find out all the details on the AppFactory FAQ.

While some will question the idea of betting on a platform that’s less than two months old, the concept has merit in my opinion.  By leveraging the Facebook platform, the time (and cost) to get to market is minimized.  And while it’s possible that Facebook is a fad, more and more serious players in the industry see it as the new dominant social media platform. 

The Facebook apps that have been launched to-date are little more than eye candy, allowing users to share their preferences (whether music, movies or political causes).  Of course, as Marc Andreesen points out in his “Five f__ weeks” post, the Facebook platform has been out for less than two months.  That’s not a lot of time to conceive and launch meaningful software.  He predicts that by September, when students go back to school and business people finish vacations, we’ll see strong adoption of a compelling group of Facebook apps.  Betting against Marc in the past has not been a rewarding endeavor, so I’m going along with him on this call.