Facebook app allows users to discover 'first times' with friends

The Virgin Group has launched a Facebook application that lets users discover their “first times” with friends on the social networking site.

According to Mashable.com, the application enables each user and a friend to see the first time they were tagged in the same photo, as the first time you checked in to an event together.

The app reportedly takes advantage of new functionality offered by Facebook’s Timeline API to illustrate thie “firsts.” After submitting the name of a friend, a pop art-style graphic is created that users can post to their Facebook photo album. Friends will then be automatically tagged in the photo. Users can also create additional graphics with other friends, recount their first experience with Virgin, or use the app to explore the company’s own timeline.

The app is part of a 26-hour “social marathon” Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson is hosting to celebrate the company’s history on Wednesday. Virgin’s social media teams across its various divisions — from Virgin Atlantic to Virgin Wines — will be stationed at Facebook offices in Sydney, London and Los Angeles, giving hourly prizes to Facebook fans, including movie tickets and vacation packages. The marathon will culminate with a benefit concert for the Eve Branson Foundation and Virgin Unite in Los Angeles Wednesday night.

The app is perfectly engineered to spread widely and rapidly among Facebook’s population, helping users connect with their friends in new ways and bringing in existing users through Facebook’s most popular feature, the photo tag. It was built by London-based agency Gamaroff Digital on behalf of Virgin.