Facebook is secretly trying to bring back one of its worst features
The INSIDER Summary:
- Facebook's Poke feature was never all that cool or useful.
- But on Friday, Facebook repackaged the Poke and rolled out a new "Hello" button for users in the UK.
- Instead of just messaging your friend and starting a conversation, you can now take an extra step and force them to say hello to you, first.
- Thanks, Zuckerberg.
Remember how much you used to love getting poked by your friends on Facebook?
Yeah, me neither.
In terms of cultural relevance, Facebook's Poke died years ago, and with it, the initially amusing but ultimately annoying phenomenon of being stuck in a meaningless back-and-forth poke war. The feature's novelty didn't last long: Why Poke someone when you could just, you know, message them?
But Facebook seems determined to give users another roundabout way to say hello to their friends. On Friday, people in the UK began to see a "Hello" button on their friends' Timelines, as first reported by Matt Navarra of The Next Web.
The "Hello" button works exactly like a Poke. Once a friend says hello to you, you get a notification with a waving hand and a burst of confetti, asking you to say hello back.
"Saying hello is one of the most universal things people do, so we're testing a feature that makes it easier to say hi on Facebook," a Facebook representative told Mashable.
However, the Poke never technically died - it still exists, hidden in a drop-down menu labeled "..." at the top of everyone's Timeline - so the addition of a "Hello" button seems redundant at best. I'll be surprised if the "Hello" feature survives any longer than the Poke did once its novelty wears off and people stop using it ironically.
But if you long for the days when the Poke reigned supreme, you may soon be able to bug your friends in a kind-of-but-not-really new way.