Facebook is offering grants to developers making applications for the social networking site - entries must be in by 29 August.

A total of $10m is available in grants of $25,000 or $250,000. Round 1 will give 25 applicants grants of $25,000. Round 2, contested by the winners of Round 1, will give grants of $250,000 to the top five chosen apps.

Developer teams must not have more than $500,000 in formal VC funding and have at least one developer based in the US. Entries will be judged on seven criteria: Originality of concept, saleability, social usefulness, expressiveness, intuitiveness, potential and the strength of the team involved.

Ten applications have already received money from the fbFund.

The company opened up the source code for its platform in May to encourage more developers to get involved. ®

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