Facebook Removing “Is” From Status Updates?
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 20th, 2007 10:45 AMWell it looks like it has finally happened. The dreaded “is” present in status updates that people have complained about for the past few months is now finally being removed. Well, it appears that it will become optional. According to Facebook’s platform status feed:
Starting with tonight’s push, any API calls that return information about users’ status messages, including FQL and users.getInfo, will be changing slightly. The return value will now start with a verb, so prepending “is ” is no longer required. So in order to construct a full status message it is now $name + ‘ ‘ + $message, instead of $name + ‘ is ‘ + $message. Additionally, users.setStatus will be able to avoid prepending the word “is ” by passing in an additional parameter: “status_includes_verb”. If you pass in true for that parameter, it signals to us that we should *not* prepend the word “is ” to the status you give us. In a few, we will delete that parameter and change the default behavior to be that you must include your own verb.
What does all this mean? Not much aside from the fact that you will soon be able to write more creative status updates. Instead of updates such as “Nick is back to work today,” you will be able to write things such as “Nick thinks that changes to the status updates are good for everyone.” The changes have not appeared to go live yet but I have received a few messages from people claiming that they can now backspace through the “is” in their status. I wasn’t able to do the same thing so perhaps Facebook is simply testing it out with a few users.
Are you an avid Facebook status user?
November 20th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I think that’s too bad. I always have fun trying to bend what I want say around the is - the more creative I have to be, the better. Just one more thing that dilutes the uniqueness of FB.
November 20th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
That’s true … I kind of enjoyed that as well. I like that it’s better integrated with Twitter though.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Why does it need to be a verb? It should be completely freeform.
November 20th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Haha, I kind of liked the quirky, non-grammatical things people came up with for status updates. A worthy change, though. I can still choose to add a nonsensical “is” on top of whatever I write, as a throwback.
November 20th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
[…] is changing, supposedly tonight, its status message tool so that you no longer have to use “is” (i.e. Jake is….). Or at least, thats what’s supposed to happen (maybe not?). […]
November 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Lol, making “is” a throwback. That’s great! We should get together 10 years from now and say “Remember when ‘is’ was in the status updates on facebook?” Those were the good days!
November 20th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
[…] case you didn’t spot the news here, here, here, or here, I’ll repeat: Facebook is updating their status feature so that you can backspace through the […]
November 20th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
[…] afternoon on the train home, I got this tweet mentioning that Facebook has dropped the “IS” from their status update box. I was […]
November 20th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
“It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.” –Bill Clinton, during his 1998 grand jury testimony on the Monica Lewinsky affair
November 20th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
[…] wired & allfacebook Tags: facebook, status updates, pet peeves Posted by arieanna | November 20, 2007 | Link to this […]
November 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am
[…] Users on Facebook are encouraged to write what they were doing in status messages just like Twitter. But every message had to start with “[your first name] is” and then a custom message. But no longer will that “is” be there according to Wired and AllFacebook. […]
November 21st, 2007 at 2:23 am
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November 21st, 2007 at 4:57 am
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November 21st, 2007 at 7:25 am
My is is stuck.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:36 am
[…] is here to stay, or if is is dead. All of facebook seems confident that it is on the way out (full article), and it’s a hot topic on Wired, TechMeme, and scores of other […]
November 21st, 2007 at 10:50 am
[…] am hoping that soon “is” will be a throwback as Mary Specht suggested in my comments yesterday. I was also speaking with Eric Eldon of Venturebeat about making […]
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:50 am
[…] Larry Dignan: Google: $900 price targets and the ‘most basic element of Internet life’ Allfacebook: Facebook Removing “Is” From Status Updates? […]
November 29th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
[…] week I pointed out that Facebook would soon be removing “Is” from their status updates. Well it appears as […]
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
oh comon man why remove the “is” thats terrible!!! let it be! lets have some grammatical error fun Facbook should not bend before grammatical rules! i am highly against it! Live n let live! thats what we need!!
December 13th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I miss the “is…” It was fun trying to come up with sentences to fit it. I was almost starting to begin all my sentences with is…