In an effort to make Birthdays more memorable, Facebook has allowed its users to record videos so that they can intimately greet their friends who are celebrating their special events. Now, friends will be able to record a video clip that will be posted directly on their friends' timelines.
Back in the not so old days, people used to write letters and make cards and sing birthday songs for the celebrator. Now, in the age of the Internet, a greeting means a simple tweet, Instagram caption or a Facebook wall post. And it used to be that a greeting over the phone did not count as personal, because decades ago, they are thought not to have the intricacy of a handwritten letter.
Well, what will the grands think of one-liner posts and text messages then? Since that personal touch seems to have been obscured, Facebook wants to address this. A few users of the social networking site have noticed that they record videos to serve as birthday greetings to their friends. The feature has first been reported by Ben Woods of The Next Web. By clicking on Birthdays, which gives users a list of people celebrating their birthdays on that day, an icon that looks like a traditional camera appears below the "Say happy birthday" box.
The video is reported to be 20 seconds long, according to Tech Frag. The feature has been observed in the iOS version of the Facebook app, and it is not clear whether it will be rolling out to more users and platforms as a permanent feature in the future.
"We're testing a way for people to make their birthday wishes more personal by giving them the option to record a video for friends' birthdays that can be posted directly to their Timelines," Facebook spokesperson explained. The company is known to roll out features occasionally as they are being tested. This is to gauge audience response and the feature's functions before officially introducing it.
Recently, the social networking site has been confirmed to roll out Reaction buttons in some countries, which include six buttons: like, love, haha, yay, wow, sad and angry. Facebook has previously tested the dislike button, which many said may have adverse effects for the social networking site. The Reaction buttons will roll out to Spain and Ireland users soon.
