Facebook "is" updating status messages

Filed under: Business, Developer, Social Software

Facebook "is" updating status messages

by Chris Gilmer Nov 20th 2007

Quick, name the most annoying thing about your Facebook profile? The status message!

Trying to contort your status to fit the "is" from updates using the proper English language often proves extremely challenging. How many times have you ignored the "is" altogether and just inserted whatever you wanted, whether it made sense or not? Fear not, Facebook has listened to their users. Over 164,000 members in a Facebook group lobbied to get rid of the clunky "is" verb and succeeded. Currently the developer platform is the only code that has been updated with the change.

However, there's no word on when you'll see the "is" disappear from your user accounts.

Tags: facebook, is, message, social-network, status

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eric said 4:26PM on 11-20-2007

MySpace removed "is" from their status updates a few weeks ago... I still hate figuring out how to work around it on Facebook.

Todd said 5:04PM on 11-20-2007

Chris Gilmer IS: struggling with simple grammar.

kojo87 said 8:09PM on 11-20-2007

while i dislike the "is" i also feel that now we are going to see a lot of random status messages that aren't exactly status related. oh well.

xevia said 9:03PM on 11-20-2007

I have not used facebook yet, is it a lot better than myspace? Do you get less spam or random invites?

http://www.starkicking.com

http://www.inetnerd.com

burnblue said 9:22PM on 11-20-2007

I thought it made sense. It's a status. Sure, if it prevents you from saying random cool things that you might set as your message in an IM client, but it's a ..status. I think there should be another spot to put cool messages

Jeff said 10:47PM on 11-20-2007

Now if we can just get them to get rid of all the JUNK they added when they added all those 3rd party apps...

Lochlan said 10:47PM on 11-20-2007

My "is" disappeared yesterday. Awesome!

Sujoy said 11:17PM on 11-20-2007

The "is" is back again. See for yourself in my post.

http://techkeyla.blogspot.com/2007/11/facebook-is-in-status-message-removed.html

Lochlan said 1:31AM on 11-21-2007

Yeah, I just checked and my "is" is back too. I'm sure it'll all be rolled out eventually.

lroeder said 6:46PM on 11-21-2007

Mine's still there. I couldn't really care either way, but maybe I'll start updating it now.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters