Facebook hides 'Poke' button ahead of rumored redesign
The social network's most curious and confusing feature has quietly been given a much lower profile on your friends' profiles.
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
For those of you who engage in the pinnacle of silliness and double entendre that is a Facebook "poke" war, a time of reckoning has come. The Poke button has been quietly hidden by the powers-that-be in Palo Alto, Calif.
Of course, it's still possible to poke--the feature's just been hidden away in a drop-down under that little gear icon in the upper right corner of your friends' profile pages.
So how much does poking mean to you? Is that inane tradition of poking your old college buddy every time the Broncos score a touchdown worth the extra click?
The banishment comes amid some big changes at Facebook. In recent weeks, the social network has rolled out subscriptions and smart lists, and there are reports that later this week, a complete overhaul to profiles will be unveiled at the f8 developers conference.
So it could be that pokes are getting hidden to make way for new functions, but aren't we all surprised that a feature that tends to be used primarily as a tool for irony and/or harassment has even lasted this long? Let's just hope it isn't being relocated to make room for a new "spank" feature.