“Is” Changes Get Delayed

Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 29th, 2007 1:56 PM

Last week I pointed out that Facebook would soon be removing “Is” from their status updates. Well it appears as though that change has been a more significant undertaking then expected. Ari Steinberg, lead developer on the Facebook platform, posted a comment in Facebook’s bug system, “yeah, sorry about the confusion, this plan got kind of messed up and so currently the functionality isn’t enabled. we’ll post to the dev feed when it’s back up.”

The changes still haven’t been made and I have had a number of developers emailing me about issues they have had with their application’s access to the Facebook status. One of the developers has since updated the Facebook developer wiki. Is this really that big of an undertaking? I guess the real challenge for Facebook is making the “is” option rather than removing it completely.

I asked if “is” would soon become a throwback but the response was varied. Is “is” really news? Probably not but I definitely enjoy talking about it. Mike Arrington seems to agree that this isn’t news. Are you eager for Facebook to ditch the “is”?

Posted in News

6 Responses to ““Is” Changes Get Delayed”

  1. Lonely CEO Media - Facebook Ap Says:

    Is is Still Under Debate… Just Like Everything Else…

    Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook digs for, and finds, the status of status.
    Is there a bigger meaning behind this?
    If anything, debates like these illustrate the perils of being the most buzzed about social site. Community users have always been able …

  2. Chris Hota Says:

    Of course this is news. My friends and I have been talking about the removal of “is” for weeks now! Thanks for the status update. I was thinking that maybe it was just applications that could do it with the API, but I guess it was there in the UI for a minute before it got yanked…

    Oh well.

  3. Joey Tyson Says:

    Since I is an officer in one of the anti-is groups, I is definitely eager to see it disappear. And while dropping “is” is not really news, I is thinking that the discussion it is generating shows how important Facebook is for many people (and how much they use the status feature).

  4. Lonely CEO Media - Facebook Application Development and Consulting Says:

    Is is Still Under Debate… Just Like Everything Else…

    Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook digs for, and finds, the status of status.
    Is there a bigger meaning behind this?
    If anything, debates like these illustrate the perils of being the most buzzed about social site. Community users have always been able …

  5. Chris Hota Says:

    Of course this is news. My friends and I have been talking about the removal of “is” for weeks now! Thanks for the status update. I was thinking that maybe it was just applications that could do it with the API, but I guess it was there in the UI for a minute before it got yanked…

    Oh well.

  6. Joey Tyson Says:

    Since I is an officer in one of the anti-is groups, I is definitely eager to see it disappear. And while dropping “is” is not really news, I is thinking that the discussion it is generating shows how important Facebook is for many people (and how much they use the status feature).

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