The ‘"is" at the beginning of Facebook’s status updates (as in, "Joe Bloggs is at work") has long been the social network’s equivalent of Apple’s one-button mouse: A nagging design feature that makes sense to a small group of devotees but infuriates nearly everyone else.

Facebook originally conceived of the status update as a way for users to relay timely messages like "Sally is at the gym" or "Billy is heading to the concert," rather than more general statements like "Billy likes U2." Users never really saw it that way, though, and their efforts to circumvent the dreaded "is" resulted in a long list of grammatical and stylistic shenanigans.

As recently as six weeks ago, the unofficial word was that the "is" wasn’t going anywhere. But on Thursday, advocates for self-expression (and fans of the English language generally) woke up to an early Christmas present: The "is" is now optional.

Facebook’s decision to bow to users over the status update followed a retreat over the site’s controversial Beacon advertising system last week. Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, "is eager to show that Facebook takes user feedback seriously."

December 14th, 2007 in Uncategorised | Permalink