Facebook Takes Another Page From Twitter Playbook

One of the biggest stories in social media this week was Facebook’s plan to roll out @Mentions in status updates over the next few weeks.  This is another update from Facebook that appears to be a page from the Twitter playbook of success.  Nevertheless it will be very interesting to see how Facebook users adopt this new feature.

I have talked with many Facebook users that are not Twitter users.  They seemed to be a little confused on exactly what the @Mention allows you to do and how it will benefit them.  Will many Facebook users even care about this update?  Let’s not forget how users have reacted in the past anytime Facebook makes a change.  While this update will be nothing as drastic as a new design, the initial reaction to Facebook changes have historically been  negative.  At first glance, the same group of people who think Twitter is for stalkers are likely to think now Facebook is even further supporting Twitter’s stalker habits.  Now not only can I tell you that I am have coffee with someone else – I can link directly to his/her profile from my status update.

My guess is that it will take awhile for native Facebook users to being adopting this new functionality.  But once people within your network begin to use @Mentions as a part of their status updates on a regular basis, their friends will likely follow.  The hope is that this will allow Facebook users to continue to connect to others within their network to share more meaningful information.  Let’s see if this holds true.

I do think this will go a long way in helping the business brands on Facebook.  It is now going to be much easier to share that you are going to eat @(restaurant) and link directly to their fan page.  This will also encourage more incentives to be offered for customers as sharing becomes easier.  I will continue to update my blog as this is rolled out to analyze the trends.

But in the meantime, what is your take on it?

Below is the breakdown on exactly how it will work from Facebook engineer Tom Occhino:

Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you’ll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.

Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post. They also will have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts. We hope that tagging your status updates and others posts from the Publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way, and connect with even more people. We’re rolling this feature out over the course of the next few weeks, so you may not see the new feature just yet.