Mac-using Facebook fans are going to be happy to learn about Facebook’s experimental Desktop Notifications app. Desktop Notifications sits in the menu bar, and pops up notifications (using Growl if you have it) when they occur. It also gives you quick access to your news feed, profile page, and quick ways to update your status or start a new Facebook email message.
(via TUAW)

Facebook is definitely “getting it” lately. Between the revamped fully awesome iPhone app and little efforts like this, they will definitely stay in the game for years to come. Web applications are great for some things, but giving users a heads-up display of the most used features of the web application will just always win over having to log in to a site and wait for it to load every time you want to check your news feed.

As always, I prefer the native apps over the web apps. No ads, no games, no sheep. This is why I use Tweetie for Mac and iPhone over the web app and now avoid logging into Facebook using the menu bar app and the iPhone app.

Conclusion: Mixing the web with native apps works great, but I remain unconvinced that web apps will take over any time soon. What do you think?