Facebook to use @ in Status Updates and Posts

Facebook has Twitter envy. No doubt about it. Facebook is about to roll out the ability to “tag” your friends in your status updates with the “@”, which until now, has been used only by Twitter Tweeple.

Although the concept is a direct copy, Facebook engineer Tom Occhino explains that the @replies do come with some extra level of usability: auto suggestions.

Basically, in the world of Twitter, an @ in front of a name (example: @lavalilly let’s grab lunch) posts the update to your public feed AND alerts the person (LavaLilly) in her feed. This allows you to essentially “tag” someone in your update. You use this function to say something to someone publicly (example: @lavalilly awesome blog post on how to use linked in http://tinyurl.com/nekg68) or to include a link to their profile in your tweet.

Now, when you are writing a status update in Facebook and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand.  A drop-down menu will appear as you type, allowing 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. Unlike Twitter, in Facebook, the “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.

Facebook hopes “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.”

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