Facebook to release new 'greetings' feature in the coming days

Facebook users will soon be able to send a variety of 'greetings to interact with their friends in a unique way. Apart from 'Poke', a feature that has existed for more than a decade, users will now be able to send greetings like a wink, a high-five, a hug and a wave.

According to a report in The Nation, the options are under trial in markets like Britain, Thailand, Australia, Canada, Columbia, and France. Interestingly, the new Facebook feature has been released in line with the tenth anniversary of the poke. And yes it's been there for that long.

So basically, under the 'Hello' button on your friend's profile, the new options can be seen by just holding the button. On a desktop, a simple hover over the 'Hello' button will show the alternatives.

These work in a similar way the 'Reactions' on a photo or status work. Facebook introduced the 'Hello' button in June and placed it at the top of people's profiles. The new greetings also have an undo button for an accidental send and this should be pretty useful.

However, these new greetings seem to be more defined and they seem to have some purpose as compared to the "Poke" feature which no one knew exactly what it was for. Even, Facebook itself had acknowledged that 'poke' had no defined purpose at all.

Besides we are assuming that Facebook might have thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose and further people could interpret the poke in many different ways. Meanwhile, on its help page, Facebook has just stated, "People can poke their friends or friends of friends on Facebook. When you poke someone, they'll get a notification."

Source: IANS